Tag Archives: history

Gatorade

May 11th, 2010

Getting the plane up and down was not the only challenge. Staying airborne — and alert — for countless hours, looking at nothing but sky, was another. I learned the hard way, for example, that you can get diaper rash from Gatorade. The things you learn. From an interview with a retired U-2 pilot.

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Surprising stories behind 20 Muppet characters

February 11th, 2009

Despite being word-challenged, he manages to do a pretty convincing Little Richard impression and, surprisingly, had mad beatbox skills. Things you didn’t know about Beaker, from Surprising stories behind 20 Muppet characters. Bonus fact, Gonzo’s original name was “Snarl the Cigar Box Frackle”.

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Galileo Galilei

March 17th, 2008

Galileo Galilei

Italian astronomer and physicist. Galileo discovered the importance of acceleration, and established the law of parabolic motion. He invented the refracting telescope and used it to make astronomical observations. He saw the mountains on the moon and observed that the Milky Way was made up of stars. He was condemned by the Inquisition for his belief in the Copernican system of planetary movement which states that the planets, including the Earth, move around the sun, rather than believing the Earth to be the fixed centre of the universe. In the statue Galileo holds two lenses, one in each hand. Caen stone statue by Alexander Munro.

- Oxford University Museum of Natural History

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The Flickr Commons project

January 16th, 2008

Flickr have just announced a fantastic new project called <a href=“The Commons. The idea behind which is to harness the collective power of the Flickr community by allowing us to tag reference collections of images from institutions around the world.

The Commons kicks off with a pilot scheme involving the U.S. Library of Congress. From their photo catalogue of over a million photos the Library team has chosen around 1,500 photos each from two of their more popular collections, 1930s-40s in Color and News in the 1910s.

As well as being a historical treasure trove for us to pour over, absorb and catalogue, these images are also under a “no known copyright restrictions” license. It doesn’t mean they’re Public Domain, but it should allow for all sorts of interesting re-use possibilities.

It’s very addictive once you get involved and reminds me a lot of Galaxy Zoo in a way. There’s an aspect of “…just one more picture…” to it, which is bad for me as you really don’t want to know how many hours I’ve lost to Galaxy Zoo.

For more commentary on the project, pop over to Adactio where Jeremy Keith has posted some thoughtful insight.

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Efficiency

August 15th, 2007

In practical terms, this was probably the least efficient form of locomotion ever invented…

Fun though. Efficiency isn’t everything.

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