Are you going to yell Kelly Clarkson! during your body wax?
Friend Michael Hart writes:
It all started 40 years ago today, when a couple of computers were connected by a long gray cable in order to pass some data. The experiment was funded by the Advanced Projects Research Agency (ARPA) and the project was called the ARPANET. By the end of the year, four sites were connected. Today it’s hundreds of millions of computers and we call it the Internet.
Funny, I emailed Nat Geo on the internet’s 25th birthday, suggesting they do some kind of piece, even a map, but they were SOOO not interested back in the day. Now they have a story and some video.
Wikipedia has a nice timeline for the ARPANET.
Neighbor kid’s parents are elated that I can help with his middle-school math and science homework. He’s not so convinced, citing that he’s going to be a doctor when he grows up. Doctors don’t use mathematics at all, do they? *ducks as calipers and scopes are thrown by various family members*
But wait. Kid’s jumping ahead of himself. There’s college and beer in between.
[An engineer and physicist working at a federal research laboratory, Chris] Holloway has noticed that the typical pour in a pint glass is less than a pint. And since the widest part of the glass is at the top nearly twice as wide as the bottom leaving just the top half-inch of the glass unfilled costs the customer nearly 15% of the pint he’s paying for. So what may look trivial to bartenders and to drinkers, thanks to our tendency to focus on height rather than width when taking the measure of liquids, is a serious tavern injustice.
To address this, he’s produced the Beer Gauge, which he sells on his Web site for $2 plus shipping and handling … It’s essentially a pocket-sized card, with a groove built in to make it fit snugly along the side of a standard U.S. pint glass. Near the top are lines that drinkers can line up with the top of their pour to show the bartender how much beer they’re missing. Whether anyone would do this in a crowded bar with a busy bartender is an open question. Holloway emphasizes that it’s important to be polite but firm: At times I have reminded the bartender that the 15% to 20% of the beer missing from my pint is their tip. They are more willing to fill the glass at that point. Of his local bartenders, he said, They know me now, and I have to admit, when I order a beer, it’s filled to the top.
He adds that bartenders aren’t to blame. “The real issue here is not that bartenders or bars are trying to rip us off, it’s the poor design of a pint glass, Holloway said.
Now you know where your tax money is going and what pocket protectors are really all about. And why you should make kids do their math and science homework. For your beer drinking pleasure, of course.
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What do you know? Gretna is the name of a Scottish town and its now defunct football (soccer) club.
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Looks like I will be yanked back into D's league this year and I have to be prepared.
This Washington Post article on a woman and her struggles in turning a sketchy New Delhi park into a community art area reminds me of Rex and NOLA Rising.
A year ago, contemporary artist Sreejata Roy had a dream: revive a dirty and desolate park deep in a working-class neighborhood in this evolving city. She did not want to create art within the trash-filled heaps, but to make the park itself into a work of art.
… But collaborative public art means Roy often has to agree to ideas she does not believe in. She wants greenery, but residents want barbed wire to keep out strangers. She wants people to mingle and come together in the park. But the women want to have a fenced, segregated section in the park. “We want a space where we feel safe, away from the men. A women’s corner,” said Chandan Kaur, 50, who sells candies on a pushcart.
And Roy’s work just got messier last month. The city broke down the illegal gym but, in the process, tore down the park’s blue wall as well. “The wall was an invitation to everyone to speak their minds,” said Tina Negi, 13. “We wrote about the park, drew scenes of women resting under the banyan tree, children playing on swings and sliders. Now we feel empty without the wall.”
“It is not an easy project. There is politics everywhere,” said Roy, whose work ends in October. “But that is what it takes to create an artwork that truly belongs to the people.”
Read more about Ms. Roy’s quest at her blog The Park.
