Call me ignorant, but I never understood the difference between summer gasoline and winter gasoline before. If you are as ignorant as I am, you might want to read this article by Robert Rapier over at the Oil Drum.
I found this cool little illusion once. I don’t remember where, but I stumbled across it again in my bookmarks. It’s basically like an origami figure that appears to turn it’s head to watch you as you move throughout the room. It looks cool in the video, but it’s even cooler to see in person. Click Here to continue reading.
Before I got my job at Acme, if you had asked me what sort of interest I had in manufacturing I would have told you that I thought it would be cool to see how raw materials got transformed into finished products. I still think that’s cool and I wish I could spend time watching Click Here to continue reading.
One site that I’ve found to be very useful is bugmenot.com. This site helps you get around the free registration that is required on so many sites. There a good number of reasons why you’d want to do this. Registration is a pain, and takes time. Registration unfailingly requires you to provide them with your Click Here to continue reading.
This video reminded me of something I would have liked to have made. In a one sense, it’s nothing special, but on the other hand, it’s pretty funny what two kids with enough time on their hands can come up with. The special effects are fairly simple, yet oddly fitting.
Hat tip: Ministry Of Manipulation
I think that a lot of people who read Michael Yon have the idea that they are getting the real truth as opposed to the “lies” that they get from the mainstream media. In reality, what Michael Yon provides is the perspective of the front lines grunts. History has shown that perspective can be as misleading as any other perspective.
Nonetheless, the perspective that Yon provides is important. If nothing else, it will give you an appreciation of the stresses that the frontline soldiers are facing…..
A prime example of how good Yon can be at portraying what it is like to be in a battle can be found in his essay calledGates of Fire. It writing like this that has made him popular. Here is a brief excerpt…..
Kurilla was running when he was shot, but he didn’t seem to miss a stride; he did a crazy judo roll and came up shooting.
BamBamBamBam! Bullets were hitting all around Kurilla. The young 2nd lieutenant and specialist were the only two soldiers near. Neither had real combat experience.
Seconds count.
Kurilla, though down and unable to move, was fighting and firing, yelling at the two young soldiers to get in there; but they hesitated.
As a side note: Kurilla has since become commander of 2nd Ranger Battalion.
Wretchard at The Belmont Club asks “Why does Google Earth’s resolution suddenly improve in certain areas of the Pakistani-Afghan border?” He then provides a link to this Wired article that argues that this is because the Military has been paying independent companies to provided detailed views of the area. According to Wired, Google then gets those views about a year latter.
I wonder if this is true. I would have thought that the US has enough satellite assets that it did not need to buy feed from private companies.
Today I got introduced to the process we have to go through to for international shipments. If you got through my previous long post on the shipping process, I won’t deliver another and equally tedious description. Suffice to say that all that business about the difference between shipments, packages, invoices, orders, and so forth–well, all Click Here to continue reading.
Felix Salmon is one of those people who do not think that the busting of real estate bubble is going to amount to anything. In this post he rips into a New York Times article that suggests that a crisis looms in the market for mortgages. Most of Felix’s gripe against the New York Time’s Click Here to continue reading.
In the comments to a post in Calculated Risk, I found a link to this chart at OC Register. It purports to show the subprime’s regional share of home-buying mortgages. I say purports because it is drawn from a database that only holds 50 percent of all subprime loans and 80 percent of traditional mortgages Click Here to continue reading.