Well, once more round the calendar we go. Our country has been in existence for 250 years in 2026. I wonder if we've got another 250 in us, at least in our present form? The celebrations should (I hope) be good. We need something to cheer us up.
Here's a reminder from Stephan Pastis to not take the passage of time too seriously. Click the image to be taken to a larger view at the "Pearls Before Swine" Web page.
Let the kvetching commence!
Peter
Looks like the annual Pumpkin Regatta in Oregon last weekend lived up to its reputation.
I wonder what they do with all the pumpkin "flesh" they cut out of the gourds in order to make room for a paddler? Do they cook and eat it, or throw it away, or what? I suspect there'd be enough seeds removed to be able to plant half the state with pumpkins!
Peter
With our weather forecast for the next ten days looking like this (clickit to biggit) . . .
I think I need to move to a cooler clime! This report from Arkansas sounds just right for a break.
While some toil away in the heat of the summer sun, others are zipping up their winter coats for their work day.
Inside an old Johnson limestone mine sits Americold Logistics, a cold storage facility. The facility previously operated as Zero Mountain, which had turned the mine into a cold storage facility with ammonia refrigeration.
Tony Parrish has worked inside the 292,000-square-foot-cold cavern for 28 years. He said the cave was great for a cold storage facility because "inside the cave, it's 65 degrees year-round, whether it's 100 degrees outside or 35."
"If you've got glasses, they're going to fog up when you go outside," Parrish said. "If you've got a cold, you're going to keep a cold. If you don't like the warmth, the heat, you're fine, because there's more to do. Just go back from break early."
Brandon Early is a forklift operator who has worked at Americold for two years. He played hockey at the University of Arkansas in 2009 but still says it's as "cold as the Rockies baby."
"You go in and the forklift is black and you come out and the forklift is white, frosty, and steaming," Early said.
Ammonia refrigeration keeps temperatures at subzero levels, which explains the employees' attire of beanies and winter coats. Parrish describes the facility as the "Antarctic of Arkansas," with temperatures dropping as low as -35 degrees Fahrenheit. Parrish said the coldest rooms, their 6 blast cells, must drop to -35° F to take in freshly produced poultry.
. . .
In operations, Parrish said other facilities work just the same in cooling products. However, he said their facility has 10 feet of permafrost frozen into the limestone rocks, meaning if something went wrong it would keep cool longer.
There's more at the link.
If it's going to be 110º Fahrenheit outside next week, ten feet of permafrost sounds like a good change of pace - for a short while, anyway. I wonder if they do short-term rentals there? If I stuck my feet in the permafrost storage, and my head outside, would I feel just the right temperature on average?
Peter
Do note the acronym made up from the first letters of the words in the new task force name, and pronounce it as a single word . . .
Peter
I'm not a knife aficionado in the sense of salivating over a brand name, or this, that or the other fancy feature of a blade. However, over many years in Africa I came to appreciate simplicity, strength, versatility and toughness in a knife. We treated our blades hard there. They were "rode hard and put away wet", to use a Texas phrase, and sometimes broke under brutally hard treatment, or were lost in the heat of the moment. If a knife could last under that kind of wear and tear, it was valued. You'll also understand that folding knives seldom withstood such treatment: fixed-blade knives offered greater strength, and were thus preferred. I've written about those experiences in earlier articles:
Wilderness & survival tools - price versus quality
Useful information for knife novices
I recently came across a small knife on Amazon that, after testing, measures up to my African expectations. It's the "Duratech Compact Fixed Blade Knife". (Click this and any other image for a larger view.)
It's a small knife, designed for neck wear, or perhaps sideways on a belt for inconspicuous carry, or even pocket use. It's only 6" long overall, with a 3" blade (short enough to be legal almost everywhere - check your state's knife laws to be sure). Despite that, it's very ergonomic. I usually don't like small knives, because they're difficult for me to handle (I have large hands - I wear size 2XL gloves). Nevertheless, this knife doesn't present that problem, thanks to a very well-shaped handle of just the right length and diameter to grasp easily.
The blade is the proper thickness, too, able to stand up to hard use (including batoning smaller logs - I know, I've tried). It's very sharp, and retains its edge well. (It cuts tough meat like it wasn't there, better than most steak knives.) If you want the ultimate concealment knife, the wood grips are attached using Torx screws, so (with the right screwdriver) you can remove them and grasp only the bare full-length tang if you wish (I'd wrap it in something like gaffer tape or skateboard tape, if I were you). The knife is also light enough (only 2½ ounces) to carry around your neck, underneath your shirt. You won't notice it's there.
To carry it on your belt, you can superglue a belt/pocket clip to the sheath, or have a leather sheath made. For pocket carry, the existing sheath is fine, and the knife is small enough to make that possible despite being a fixed-blade unit.
What really surprised me is the value for money this knife offers. It's only $11.99! I wouldn't complain at having to pay double that cost or more, because the utility it offers is worth that to me: but at that price, it's an absolute steal. Having bought one to try it, I promptly ordered half-a-dozen more. They'll go into my "lend or give to friends in need" stash, and one will be in my wife's handbag.
I think this may be the best-value-for-money everyday carry knife I've come across in a long time. It has all the strength of a fixed-blade, but is no larger than many folding knives, and the price is unbeatable. Highly recommended.
(No, I'm not being compensated by Duratech in cash or in kind for recommending their knife. I just think this is a screaming good deal, and I'd like my friends to know about it.)
Peter
Found on Gab. Clickit to biggit.
Isn't that great? I don't have a very "visual" imagination - mine's more textual and linear, perhaps not surprising in a writer - but some people have the most amazing ability to pick up what you or I might consider trash, or flotsam and jetsam, and assemble a piece of art like this one. In doing so, they enrich all of us.
Peter
In honor of the occasion, here's what's always struck me as a quintessentially American celebration: rock group Boston performing the National Anthem instrumentally at a football game on July 4th, 2006.
May the freedom we celebrate today continue to be a reality; and may all who threaten that freedom lose their own.
Peter
The video is self-explanatory.
I wonder how many years it took for all that silt to accumulate? It sure was reluctant to move.
Peter
The fighter pilots of the French Navy clearly have as much fun as those of the US Navy, to judge by the videos they produce. Here's their most recent offering.
Boys and their toys, indeed!
Peter
I came across this photo of an old-fashioned metal shopping list on Gab yesterday. Click the image for a larger view.
It brought back many memories, because my mother had one like it in the 1950's and 1960's. It hung over the counter in the kitchen where she prepared our meals. She'd flip one of the little metal indicators when she ran short (or out) of something, so she could prepare her shopping list more easily. If it was urgently required, I might find myself sent down to the shops to buy whatever she needed; otherwise, it waited for a big shopping run once per week.
The thing that struck me is, there is no provision for "fast" or pre-prepared food in that device at all. Everything consists of the raw materials that a cook will use to make a meal from scratch. There are no TV dinners, no "heat-'n-eat" meals, no pre-cooked sausages or pre-prepared salads or anything like that. It was simply assumed that "food" meant raw materials, that would be prepared, cooked and served by someone in a domestic kitchen. Compare that to today's shopping list. How many of us buy "minute" rice (already partly cooked) instead of "raw" rice? How many of us buy "microwave-in-bag" vegetables, instead of the older varieties that still required boiling or baking - never mind buying raw vegetables and peeling, dicing and preparing them from the beginning? How many of us buy cooking sauces or seasonings (e.g. Gochujang, or pre-mixed curries, or Old Bay) instead of making our own, the way most old-time cookbooks assumed we would?
(Speaking of old-time cookbooks, I always giggled at the recipe for jugged hare in my mother's well-worn copy of Mrs. Beeton. "First, catch your hare." Quite so!)
I'm sure we've gained immensely in convenience and time-saving short-cuts in the kitchen through the advent of modern food processing. However, I suspect our meals are over-processed compared to those of our parents and grandparents, giving us a lot less nutrition and a lot more "filler" materials. I'd like to know how much of our current obesity epidemic can be attributed to that.
(Of course, another facet of that is the enormous growth of fast-food outlets and family dining restaurants. When I was growing up, it was a rare and expensive treat to eat at a Wimpy Bar or a drive-in restaurant [how many former Capetonians remember the Spotted Dog in Mouille Point?], or to have Mom or Dad bring home a bucket of take-out chicken pieces. Nowadays, that's routine for most families. Pizza was never bought outside the home and eaten by hand - it was always made at home (including the dough), baked in the oven, and eaten around the table, with knives and forks. Yes, I think I'm a food dinosaur . . . )
Peter
Full marks for creativity to the artist who designed this brooch. A tip o' the hat to Phlegm Fatale for sending me the link.
It's certainly original. I can think of all sorts of situations where a lady might wish to wear something like that, to display her contempt for proceedings, but in a non-verbal and artistic way. As one commenter said of it, "[I] want it implanted in my forehead".
The Three Percenters logo has long since been branded as "racist" or "extremist", so it's fallen out of favor. Perhaps this might serve as the foundation for a suitable replacement? It could be produced as jewelry, in camo sew-on or velcro patches, etc. It would simply and eloquently express its wearers' opinion of "woke" culture and politics.
Peter
Sometimes everyday graffiti is so well done that it becomes street art. Courtesy of a link over at Ace of Spades, we find this article at Nailspot highlighting the work of Tom Bob. Here are a few examples.
Creativity in action! There are many more images at the link. Enjoyable viewing.
Peter
The statistics of this engine are mind-boggling.
The Emma Maersk’s Wartsila-Sulzer RTA96-C turbocharged two-stroke diesel ship engine is the most powerful and most efficient prime-mover of super ships in the world today.
The RTA96-C is the largest engine in the world and is available in 6 through 14 cylinder versions, all are inline engines. These engines were designed primarily for very large container ships but similar large diesel engines run large ships of all kinds. Ship owners like the combination of a single engine and single propeller for reasons of efficiency and cost of production vs operation of these mega-vessels. As ships continue to get larger with new generations of larger container ships being built each year shippers like Emma’s owner, A.P. Møller – Mærsk, will need bigger engines to propel them.
To help relate to the size of this monstrous engine consider that one cylinder bore alone is just under 38″ and the stroke is just over 98″. And the alone engine weighs in at 2,300 tons and is capable of delivering 109,000 horsepower.
There's more at the link.
The Emma Maersk is more than a decade old now, and has been superseded by even larger container vessels. These behemoths are powered by the same engine - just with a few more cylinders bolted on.
Here's Top Gear's Richard Hammond walking around one of these monsters and showing us how it works.
That's the biggest diesel engine in the world. What about the biggest gas turbine - similar to the type of engine that powers the largest aircraft in the world (although those are much smaller)? That would be the Siemens SGT5-8000H. Here's a video report from 2008, showing the prototype engine being transported across Germany to its test installation at the Irsching Power Station.
Big and beefy indeed!
Peter
Private pilot Mark Keech has flown in and out of Sydney Airport as a passenger many times, but he never thought one day he would do it from the cockpit.
That changed recently when he flew a Piper Cherokee 140 four-seater aircraft onto one of Sydney’s main runways, which stretches nearly four kilometres [about 13,000 feet].
“I can land this thing in about 250 metres [about 800 feet] and they told me to get off the first taxiway as quickly as I could [because another plane was coming],” he said.
“The first taxiway is one kilometre [about 3,300 feet] away, and I said to my daughter we’d have to take off again just to get to it.”
Mr Keech is one of many small aircraft pilots taking advantage of Sydney’s eerily-quiet airport during COVID-19.
Ordinarily, Australia’s largest airport sees at least 800 plane movements per day.
Amid the coronavirus pandemic, that number has been reduced to about 60 movements, mainly of freight jets.
“Normally the airspace isn’t available, so [for hobby pilots] to be able to tick Sydney Airport off in their logbook is a special thing,” [Sydney Airport airfield supervisor Nigel Coghlan] said.
. . .
Mr Keech said he had to try and manage the excitement of the occasion with making sure he followed all the necessary protocols.
“It became surreal because on one hand it was the same as landing at any other airport, but then I thought ‘this is serious, it’s an international airport and I’ve got a 777 up my arse’,” he said.
