Well, it’s not late, because it’s still Tuesday. It’s later on Tuesday. Wednesday would make it late. English is damned fussy, sometimes. Anyway, let’s clean out our browser bookmarks together. Here’s a roundup of stuff I meant to read, but didn’t, but had to to make this list, so I guess I did after all. Man, procrastination is damned fussy sometimes.
Middle-Aged Man Trading Cards Go Viral in Rural Japan Town
While kids in most parts of Japan are obsessed with Pokémon cards — or perhaps the franchise’s latest smartphone game, Pokémon TCG Pocket — the children of Kawara are clutching to something a little closer to home. They are playing a trading card game (TCG) where the stars aren’t fantasy creatures, anime heroes or even famous baseball players, but ojisan (middle-aged or older men) from the local community of Saidosho.
Article is strangely reticent about whether you get a stick of that awful dusty gum in the package. Loved that stuff.
The narrowest escalator in New York
Have you ever wondered where the skinniest escalator is in NYC? An escalator that literally has no room to pass on either side? An escalator that is only able to accommodate a single-file line of passengers? Wouldn’t you love to see and ride one just like this?
No.
The Greatest Motorcycle Photo Ever
The key to setting the record for Free was cutting down on wind resistance. So when the 47-year-old accelerated his Vincent HRD Black Shadow, he positioned his body to be as horizontal as it could. Also, he wore only swim trunks as he whipped across the hard pack of the Bonneville Salt Flats. His plan worked to perfection, setting a record of 150.313 miles per hour.
It’s a swell picture and all, but I have to respectfully disagree. As long as this snapshot is out there, there can be only one, and the motorcycle is barely in it:
“Final Usonian home” by Frank Lloyd Wright completed in Ohio
“The quest was to build Frank Lloyd Wright’s final design true to his plan, its intent and spirit, while also ensuring that the home would meet current building regulations.”
It’s one or the other, honey. Frank never played nice with the building inspector.
Mass Grave of 150 Roman Soldiers Found Under Vienna Sports Field
“Since cremations were common in the European parts of the Roman Empire around 100 AD [CE], inhumations are an absolute exception. Finds of Roman skeletons from this period are therefore extremely rare,” said Kristina Adler-Wölfl, head of the Vienna City Archaeology Department.
Inhumations is a cool word. Other than that, I got nothing.
Data centers contain 90% crap data
We need to talk about the data. Crap data. We’re destroying our environment to create and store trillions of blurred images, half-baked videos, rip-off AI ‘songs’, rip-off AI animations, videos and images, emails with mega attachments, never-to-be-watched-again presentations, never-to-be-read-again reports, files and drawings from cancelled projects, drafts of drafts of drafts, out of date, inaccurate and plain wrong information, and gigabytes and gigabytes of poorly written, meandering content.
I see this fellow has been reading my blog.
Hyundai to buy ‘tens of thousands’ of Boston Dynamics robots
“Boston Dynamics and robotics AI will play a crucial role in achieving the group’s goal,” stated Jaehoon Chang, vice chair of Hyundai Motor Group. “Physical AI and humanoid robots will transform our business landscape to the next level. Through our collaboration, we will expedite the process to achieve leadership in the robotics industry.”
I’m pretty sure Hyundai bought Boston Dynamics a few years ago. So they’re buying robots from themselves. Now if they use AI algorithms to buy robots from themselves, their Tech Buzzword Bingo Card will be complete.
The Decline of the U.S. Machine-Tool Industry and Prospects for Recovery
The machine-tool industry is a small but vital sector of U.S. manufacturing. Machine tools—which cut and form metal—are essential for reproducing the technologies required in an industrial economy. Because machine-tool makers worldwide typically sell their newest products close to home, a weak domestic machine-tool industry means that U.S. manufacturers risk losing access to the latest manufacturing technologies. In addition, the industry helps foster innovation in manufacturing processes and plays a key role in defense production.
Uh, that article is a Rand think tank report from 1994. And they were worried that the US had fallen behind Japan, Germany, and Italy. You know, they say you can see the Great Wall from space. But apparently Rand can’t see China from 1994.
Why I Maintain a 17 Year Old Thinkpad
One of the main reasons that old Thinkpads stand out is their design philosophy. They are made with swappable components with the intention of user upgradeability. The battery, RAM, storage drive, keyboard, and even the CPU can be easily replaced. I can open the bottom of my T400 with a regular screwdriver and clean the fan. A battery swap is trivial thanks to a removable pack. No single failure is catastrophic because there’s a straightforward path to replacement or repair.
Well, young feller, I’m wearing clothes that are older than that.
Free and liberated ebooks, carefully produced for the true book lover.
Ebook projects like Project Gutenberg transcribe ebooks and make them available for the widest number of reading devices. Standard Ebooks takes ebooks from sources like Project Gutenberg, formats and typesets them using a carefully designed and professional-grade style manual, fully proofreads and corrects them, and then builds them to create a new edition that takes advantage of state-of-the-art ereader and browser technology.
Neato, but I must protest. The “true book lover” doesn’t read ebooks. He asks you to help him move four thousand pounds of hardcovers every two years. BTW, does anyone have any extra boxes?
[Update: Many thanks to Bob D, and somebody named Somebody, for their generous contributions to our tip jar. It helps keep this place going]
11 Responses
Oh, jeepers so much to look at here. If I may:
Motorcycle non-picture (or maybe, non-motorcycle picture):
Why is there a lion in the sidecar? Enquiring (or just nosy) minds want to know.
FLW House finally “completed”:
Well, except for the foundation cracks that need repair. Or the roof that leaks. Or just the general fact that you can never, ever, rearrange more than half the furniture.
Machine tool industry:
China has never innovated anything in the past 3,000 years. But they’re really good at turning out 5×10^6 of any piece of junk you want for cheap. Slave labor helps.
17-year-old thinkpad:
Hmmm…you might want to take a look at my 1983-vintage HP 11C. Tactile-feel buttons, RPN (the way the gods intended calculators to work and easily twice as fast at complex calculations as a TI). Still running fine, though batteries can be a little hard to find.
E-books for true book lovers:
One of the reasons for buying this house was that in our old 1,100 square foot palace we had long ago run out of wall space for shelves…including the spaces over the door frames. My wife put her foot down when I started eyeing the space in those un-used hallways. A book is meant to be printed…on paper, with a good light over your shoulder (the fireplace and happy dog laying at your feet are optional). Somebody has NO idea what a “true book lover” actually is. Part of the major expense of moving from Minnesnowta to NW Wyoming was the four thousand pounds of books you noted…but they’re finally all shelved!
Hiya Blackwing- Always a pleasure.
A pretty good explanation: Lions and Riders and the Wall of Death.
When I was a little kid, I actually saw a wall of death motorcycle rider. Alas, he didn’t have a lion on board.
I’m thankful for the link to Standard Ebooks. Various issues combine to make it difficult for me to read printed books – a pity, but a fact of life for me. Just doing a quick browse, I see several worthy candidates, which you might argue I should’ve already read, at my age.
BTW, thoroughly enjoyed the travelogue.
Hi Jed- Glad you liked our hejira notes. Being in a new place is great ammo for writing.
the Standard eBook people are doing a good job. Even the covers are more attractive than what you’ll generally see on the Great Orinoco & Pacific Trading Company.
The lion riding on the wall of death made my day. Do you know if you take a balloon and put a penny inside and then blow it up, you can rotate the balloon and the penny will start rotating around inside, and it’s oddly entertaining. The centrifugal force keeps it rolling inside the balloon, and it makes an interesting and relaxing sound.
I swear from the look on the lion’s face, he’s enjoying it. He’s like a giant dog with his head out the car window.
Since you had a posting on Mexican music, and I added stuff to it about Mexican narco/drug biz music, I thought the following might be of interest, as it shows that Mexican music is of current events interest here in the Yew Ess uv AAAA….
Mexican Corrido Band Has Visas Revoked After Displaying Images of Ultra-Violent Cartel Leader.
The Mexican band, Los Alegres del Barranco, replied with a classic “I’m sorry you were offended” spiel.
They deeply regret it because it got their US visas revoked. Actually, glorifying the drug bizness is a big part of what Los Alegres del Barranco is about. At that concert in Guadalajara they played
El Dueño De Palenque (The Owner of the Arena), which glorifies another Mexican drug lord. The link has video, Spanish lyrics, and English lyrics. Mero, mero.. (I would add that its translation is much better than another translation I perused.)
Well, I don’t know about you, but I’ll sleep easier knowing a dangerous Mariachi band has been deported.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to watch The Godfather, The Godfather Part 2 , Goodfellas, Peaky Blinders, Scarface, the Scarface remake, Blow, Bonnie and Clyde, Casino, The Irishman, American Gangster, Narcos, Breaking Bad, The Wire, The Godfather of Harlem, Legend, Layer Cake, Leon the Professional, John Wick, and several hundred similar entertainments. In between, I like to listen to Johnny Cash, Coolio, Bob Marley, Lloyd Price, Marty Robbins, Jay-Z, Isaac Hayes, Marvin Gaye, and the Stones doing Sympathy for the Devil.
Yes, there are a lot of USA songs and movies about criminals. I am not going to go through your list–movie by movie, or song by song. But it appears to me, in general, that in USA movies or songs, the ultimate theme is “crime doesn’t pay”—criminals end up dead or in prison. Such as Bonnie and Clyde, such as Scarface, such as Blow, Goodfellas (leaves the criminal life), Leon the Professional (Leon is killed, Mathilda leaves the life, but as she gets an allowance, could be in the “crime pays” genre)
Godfather movies—some glorification, some costs. Godfasther of Harlem- because it is a TV series, the capo isn’t going to get killed off. Generally in “crime pays” genre.”
The lyrics of Dueño del Palenque are most definitely in the “crime pays” genre.
Hi Gringo- Always a pleasure.
I understand narcocorridos pretty well. People are fascinated by gangsters. Mexicans are people.
Anyone who’s spent any time on Federal Hill, or in South Boston, or many parts of New York, has met many people who are at worst ambivalent about gangsters, or sometimes enthusiastic about them. They will tell you that regular criminals take a holiday when organized criminals are around. “No one locks their car doors on Federal Hill” has been said to me numerous times, for instance, although the sentiment might be out of date nowadays.
I’m pretty sure that band performs in the US because the money’s better, and that song, and songs like it, are banned in Mexico.
I don’t know all that much about rap music, but I get the impression that it glorifies various criminal acts, so rap would be in the “crime pays” column. Coincidentally, the son of a childhood friend of mine wrote a book about a rapper who died an early death.