Apr 08, 2006 09:08
- I put a lot of work into my 10" Newtonian telescope, but I'm an absolute piker next to a chap who spent twenty years of his spare time building this 22" scope. I am in awe, and if I were wearing a hat I would take it off. Wow.
- I can't imagine that anybody with two hands and a restless imagintion doesn't scan it regularly, but definitely put the Make Blog on your shortcut bar. This is a blog devoted to interesting (in any of several senses) "roll your own" technology, courtesy O'Reilly's Make Magazine. My favorite on the current scan (look quick before it scrolls off the bottom) is the bathtub-sized Tomato Soup Battery. (So tomato soup is good for something besides making me gag!) Engineering is by no means dead, nor does it lack imagination.
- There were plenty of hoaxes floating around this April Fools' Day, but I humbly submit this as the best (or at least the most cerebral) of the ones I saw.
- I am nowhere near hip enough to live in San Francisco, but I do think that the Frisco culture site Laughing Squid deserves some sort of award for Best Logo. Also, scroll down toward the bottom to see a map of the city implemented with little multicolored Jello cubes.
- Pete Albrecht sent me a pointer to a 1945 Russell W. Porter illustration of one of the Japanese fugo balloon firebombs that I mentioned in my April 7, 2006 entry. Porter is legendary among telescope freaks for his finely-rendered Art Deco drawings of telescope equipment, including the 200" scope at Palomar. Drawing Japanese weapons was something of a deparure for him, but his style is unmistakable.
- Finally, in one of the "Your Health" pages in a local magazine, we found the little bit of wisdom below. I'm sure you all remember when the air was 40% oxygen, right?
telescopes,
stupidity,
culture,
history,
hacking
