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In 1986, after the space shuttle Challenger exploded 73 seconds into its flight, the eminent physicist Richard Feynman was called in to find out what had gone wrong. He later demonstrated that the “O-ring” seals, which were meant to join sections of the shuttle’s solid rocket boosters, had failed due to cold temperatures, with catastrophic results. But he also discovered more than a few other... Source

I probably should wait a bit before writing these notes – I had my diabetes eye screening this morning which includes the demon drops that leave my vision even more compromised than usual. I am fully Mr Magoo-ing it at the moment but this is the window I put aside to write so I’ll persist….and hope for the best! I had a bit of a bumpy return from Hamburg – …

iSelection: One for Juan (J. Heath) https://londonjazzcollector.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/heath-brothers_one-for-juam_-the-heath-brothers-paris-76_srlp29_sam-records-fr_kevin-gray_ljc.mp3 . . . Track List A1 One For Juan (J. Heath) 13:11A2 Watergate Blues (P. Heath) 6:14B1 Smilin’ Billy (J. Heath) 22:36 Full Production Credits (including essential detail omitted from the hype sticker): “Recording of The Heath Brothers “Jazz Vivant” radio show performance before a live audience at Studio 104, Maison de la Radio, Paris, on April 16, 1976, Original stereo master tapes …

In the second season of Ancient Apocalypse, Graham Hancock focuses his search for a lost ancient civilization on the Americas. The presentation is, if anything, even slicker than in the first season. The cinematography looks amazing, the music is inspiring, the editing is masterful. I am sure it will be a stunningly beautiful travelog. Right from the first few seconds of the trailer though, Hancock gets into some conceptual trouble. …

Before the election, Labour promised to make broad changes to the standards regime. Yet two months after the election, progress on many aspects of their plans has been slow, and the new government has already been accused of ‘cronyism’ and other ethical missteps. Peter Riddell argues that urgent action to create new safeguards (including legislation) is required, and that ministers cannot brush aside criticism on the grounds that their intentions …

If you have followed this site for very long, you know there are two things that I don’t do very much of – interviews and breaking news. This is more of an opinion site. I let others do the interviews and the reporting. Then I sort of take it all in, let it digest and […]

Reading Time: 33 minutes I ought to be in Slovenia right now, hanging out with nice internet people and thinking about nice internet things, but instead I am in my kitchen in London, in my pants, a bit tired and hungover and generally feeling quite resentful at the fact that things like ‘needing to earn money to eat’ have prevented me from travelling to Naive Yearly. To all those of …

I recently entered the Shropshire Shufflers’ Severn Bridges 10k in Shrewsbury (after a little bit of a kerfuffle where it wouldn’t accept my affiliated club name) and ran with Gaz to celebrate his birthday. Never expected Gaz to choose a 10k to as a birthday celebration and yet here we are; I like to think of it as my good influence as a long time runner Katie, at lifeofamissfit… Source

1988 Infocom Platforms: Apple II GS, PC Quarterstaff: The Tomb of Setmoth is an RPG title that was created for the Apple Macintosh back in 1988 for Infocom. It featured text entry, but also a dynamically generated map and graphics … Continue reading →

a daytime picture of the pike place market sign with a fancy vsco filter on it. this is one of the first pictures i took in seattle ten years ago. we’ve lived in this city for almost a decade now. seattle belongs to more people than the ones who can afford it. I’m traveling this week and I spent most of my writing time on my public testimony against the …

Astronaut Kate Rubins points at the "ISS Voting Booth" where she voted from the International Space Station on October 27, 2020 (NASA) The astronauts who are currently stuck in space thanks to Boeing's little mishaps will soon be voting in the upcoming U.S. presidential election between vice president Kamala Harris and convicted felon Donald Trump. They were supposed to come back to Earth after just eight days and given the …

Deserter Pubcast · Beers in Bermo: all the latest news about pubs, drugs, crisps and slacking off (Sept 24) In this episode: *** Source

Neil Madden recently wrote a blog post titled, Digital Signatures and How to Avoid Them. One of the major points he raised is: Another way that signatures cause issues is that they are too powerful for the job they are used for. You just wanted to authenticate that an email came from a legitimate server, but now you are providing irrefutable proof of the provenance of leaked private communications. Oops! …

Or in this case, six bags full. New Clients often have no idea how much waste I am going to generate, when I spend a morning (or afternoon!) in their garden.... To see the rest of this article, please hop over to Patreon.

The GameSky Team is the 2024 Spiel des Jahres winner. It was already getting many positive reviews before it was nominated. What surprised many people was it went on to win. This is a strictly two-player game, and the SdJ has never been awarded to such games. Sky Team is a cooperative dice game about landing a plane. You are pilot and copilot of a plane, and you must collaborate …