Odd Lots
- Stonehenge may be the largest neolithic monument in its immediate area, but it is not alone: New research shows that dozens of smaller monuments exist around it and may be related to it.
- Here’s a beefy, detailed description of how the B-2 stealth bomber could have been something else entirely, if Lockheed’s Skunk Works had won the day.
- That piece led to this one, about the deep roots of the F-117 Nighthawk.
- Iceland’s Holuhraun eruption is throwing off a growing cloud of sulfur dioxide that has reached 1 ppm in eastern Iceland, and has been detected all the way across the Atlantic in Norway and Scotland. Please let this not be another Laki.
- Reports like that make me wonder if this won’t be a buttwhumping winter in the Northern Hemisphere. We had our first snow of the season yesterday, which is earlier than I’ve seen since we moved to Colorado Springs in 2003. Last winter was brutal.
- Most people outside the US do not refrigerate eggs. Here’s why. (Thanks to Tony Kyle for the link.)
- As I’ve said several times, Carol and I no longer refrigerate butter. A stick lasts us about five days (used to be a week before I started eating two eggs fried in butter every morning) and that’s nowhere near long enough for butter to go bad. Part of the reason is the salt. I find it intriguing that not one of ten or twelve sites I read about butter spoilage would quote a time limit of how long butter can sit “out” without refrigeration. This suggests that the answer is “so long that we would lose face for admitting it, so we won’t.”
- From the Words-I-Didn’t-Know-Until-Yesterday Department: Orthorexia, an eating disorder characterized by obsession with “righteous eating;” that is, making yourself sick over whether or not you’re “eating healthy.” (Thanks to Pete Albrecht for bringing this to my attention.)
- Cell phone location data is imprecise, to put it mildly. (I’d use stronger terms if I were in a worse mood.)
- A lousy article about apples. Plus a good one.
- I may have posted links to one or more of these DRB collections before. I don’t care. You just can’t have too many pictures of screwy little tiny cars, plus a little tank and other minuscule laughable things having wheels.
- Or screws.
Posted in: Odd Lots.
Tagged: aerospace · cars · food · geology · health · weather
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One day I was walking down Main St. (Walla Walla, USA) and looked up to see a B-2 emerging from the clouds at about 1,000 ft. Needless to say, it is one of my favorite aircraft sightings.
Later I heard that airfields up and down the coast were socked in so they came up and did touch and goes and at our WWII airbase with it’s long, long runway.
I grew up within 15 miles of the old SAC Larson Air Force Base in Moses Lake, WA. Sadly, I don’t have a single memory of a B-52 overhead.
One of my regular commutes takes me over a 400′ hill. A couple of times a year an A6E from Whidbey Island Naval Air Station will come over at about 200′ just as I top the hill. They are on their way to a bombing range near Boardman, OR. Every time they do it I duck, just about wet my pants and then say “Do it again!”.
Your number 5 item may be all I need to go buy the backup generator I have always wanted!
We lived in base housing at Mather AFB near Sacramento when I was growing up. It was during the Vietnam era, and B-52s were taking off in long strings. My Mom used to put folded towels on the counters and kitchen table so plates and cups wouldn’t walk off onto the floor.
“How often to the planes take off?”
“So often you’ll never notice.”
A few years back I was headed through Oklahoma on I-40. Near OKC the freeway runs through Tinker AFB. Traffic was stopped, gates were open, and a B-52 was crossing the interstate. I guess a lot of people were annoyed, but it was nice to see a BUFF again.
B-52’s and AWACS were common sites out of Oklahoma City through the 90’s. We would see them as they did circuits around the city, probably coming in for landing or doing touch ‘n go manuvers.
Never knew they closed I-40 though for aircraft to cross over because I thought I-40 went under all those locations. Learn something new.
Jeff, BBC America’s Top Gear, for the last 3 weeks, has been doing the People’s Car bit with James May and some of these cars were reviewed and driven.
You may find it interesting.
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CB4QtwIwAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bbcamerica.com%2Ftop-gear%2Fvideos%2Fcars-of-the-people-episode-1-first-look%2F&ei=pMcWVOGXIIfaoASsmYH4Bg&usg=AFQjCNGesA5SuD7MDOSwAxyRlj3YAu-JtA&bvm=bv.75097201,d.cGU&cad=rjt
Back in the day, I was stationed on Tan Son Nhut Air Base in Viet Nam. We had no bombers, but when a fighter took off, you had to hold conversation for a moment.
The short cut from our headquarter to the Group headquarters took one between the end of the runway and the base perimeter. It is an awesome experience to see a jet fighter coming right at you at near ground level! Also a deafening.