“Someone asked AI to make a sign language manual, in case you’re worried that we’ll all be out of a job soon.”
Category: True Stories
Baba Yaga
Martin Luther King, Jr. (15 January 1929 – 4 April 1968)
“And so I say to you today that I still stand by nonviolence. And I am still convinced that it is the most potent weapon available to the Negro in his struggle for justice in this country. And the other thing is that I am concerned about a better world. I’m concerned about justice. I’m concerned about brotherhood. I’m concerned about truth. And when one is concerned about these, he can never advocate violence. For through violence you may murder a murderer but you can’t murder. Through violence you may murder a liar but you can’t establish truth. Through violence you may murder a hater, but you can’t murder hate. Darkness cannot put out darkness. Only light can do that.”
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Southern Christian Leadership Conference
Atlanta, Georgia
16 August 1967
[Image source: Martin Luther King and the Montgomery Story (1958). Excerpted quote found here.]
Highway Beautification in the Great Karoo
Courtesy of Mr. Possum:
A Google street view of the main highway between Johannesburg and Cape Town. LOL one lane each direction. The weed whacking crew are trimming excess vegetation!
They are in the middle of the Great Karoo:
Here’s the Google Maps Street View linky if you want to have a look around.
Sweden’s Kolarbyn Eco-Lodge
The Kolarbyn Eco-Lodge, somewhere northwest of Stockholm, consists of 12 wood and mud huts. No electricity, no running water, no WIFI, no housekeeping or room service, and no warm place to go doodoo, all for about $80 per adult per night.
Okay, it’s rustic but there’s more to it than just the huts and a half-dozen shared “business buckets.” You get to have deep conversations about saving the planet with other eco-tourists who haven’t bathed either.
[Found here.]
Ghost Apples
KENT COUNTY, Mich. (WOOD) — The freezing rain created an unusual phenomenon in the Fruit Ridge area of Kent County: “ghost apples.”Andrew Sietsema sent in photos of the hollow ice apples to ReportIt late Wednesday night. He said he came across the interesting formations while pruning apple trees earlier that day.
Sietsema said the freezing rain coated rotting apples, creating a solid icy shell around them. When he pruned the trees, they would shake, causing many of the frozen apples to fall off, ice and all. However with a few of them, the mush slipped out of the bottom of the ice casing, leading to a “ghost apple.”
Sietsema says the temperature provided the perfect recipe: it was cold enough for the ice to remain, but warm enough for the apples to turn to complete mush, since apples have a lower freezing point than water.
Sietsema said Jonagolds are one of his favorite apple varieties, “but we’ll call these Jonaghosts.”
“Ghost Apple” photos were posted on Facebook by Andrew Sietsema on 06 February 2019. The following day the story (w/ photos) appeared on the website of WOODTV Channel 8, Grand Rapids, Michigan.
[h/t Pam M. via FB]
Tasselled Wobbegong
The tasselled wobbegong is a species of carpet shark in the family Orectolobidae and the only member of its genus It inhabits shallow coral reefs off northern Australia, New Guinea and adjacent islands Reaching 1.8 m in length, this species has a broad and flattened body and head.
I want to know what it tastes like. Somewhere somebody knows.
[Found here.]
Rock Roll
A landslide in Ronchi di Termeno, Italy, January 2014, sent two boulders down a cliff, one destroyed the barn. The boulder in the foreground was already there from a previous slide.
From NatGeo:
Two huge boulders sent tumbling by a landslide narrowly missed a farmhouse in Ronchi di Termeno in northern Italy on January 21, 2014. The above photo, taken two days later, shows one of the boulders after it rumbled down the hill and destroyed the barn before coming to rest in the vineyard—halted within a meter of the house. The second boulder, hidden behind the house, stopped just short of the building.
[…]
While smaller boulders tumble down cliffs often, [geologist Ben Mackey of NZ] says, huge rockfalls like this one are fairly rare. In a given location, boulders of this size would fall maybe once in many thousands of years. “Generally, it would not be advisable to live under a cliff prone to rockfall like this,” Mackey says.
[Found in here.]
Sound Mirror
Sound or acoustic mirrors were one of the first early warning detection systems invented to give advanced notice of an approaching enemy aircraft. These worked by focusing the sound from the plane’s engine so it could be heard before it was visible.
Sound mirrors worked using a curved surface to concentrate sound waves into a central point, which were picked up by a sound collector and later by microphones. An operator using a stethoscope would be stationed near the sound mirror, and would need specialist training in identifying different sounds. Distinguishing the complexity of sound was so difficult that the operators could only listen for around 40 minutes.
My WebEx Meeting Notes 29 July 2022 – 13 October 2022
9am daily. Pen on paper, 8-1/2 x 11, approx. 2 square inches per each 30 minute teleconference.
Tacky Raccoons 