Wednesday, May 17, 2023

From Jenna Orkin Nuclear power helps bring down electricity prices by 75% in Finland Barrington VT Settlement with teachers fired for refusing Covid vaccine The Energy Transition Has A Metals Problem El Niño’s arrival is imminent and there’s a 90% chance it lasts all year, forecasters say Move over, U.S. dollar. China wants to make the yuan the global currency. Which fruits and vegetables are best to plant for the environment U.S. Midwest to Face Dust Bowl Conditions in the Coming Decades Florida passes bill to prevent billionaires like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos being sued if their mega-rockets kill or injure people Before His Killing, Tech Executive Bob Lee Led an Underground Life of Sex and Drugs After the Cash App founder died in a stabbing, some were quick to blame San Francisco’s street violence. The truth was more shocking. Jayanthi Galahitiyage · The US standard railroad gauge (distance between the rails) is 4 feet, 8.5 inches. That's an exceedingly odd number. Why was that gauge used? Well, because that's the way they built them in England, and English engineers designed the first US railroads. Why did the English build them like that? Because the first rail lines were built by the same people who built the wagon tramways, and that's the gauge they used. So, why did 'they' use that gauge then? Because the people who built the tramways used the same jigs and tools that they had used for building wagons, which used that same wheel spacing. Why did the wagons have that particular odd wheel spacing? Well, if they tried to use any other spacing, the wagon wheels would break more often on some of the old, long distance roads in England . You see, that's the spacing of the wheel ruts. So who built those old rutted roads? Imperial Rome built the first long distance roads in Europe (including England ) for their legions. Those roads have been used ever since. And what about the ruts in the roads? Roman war chariots formed the initial ruts, which everyone else had to match or run the risk of destroying their wagon wheels. Since the chariots were made for Imperial Rome , they were all alike in the matter of wheel spacing. Therefore the United States standard railroad gauge of 4 feet, 8.5 inches is derived from the original specifications for an Imperial Roman war chariot. Bureaucracies live forever. So the next time you are handed a specification/procedure/process and wonder 'What horse's a*s came up with this?', you may be exactly right. Imperial Roman army chariots were made just wide enough to accommodate the rear ends of two war horses. (Two horses' as*es.)  Now, the twist to the story: When you see a Space Shuttle sitting on its launch pad, there are two big booster rockets attached to the sides of the main fuel tank. These are solid rocket boosters, or SRBs. The SRBs are made by Thiokol at their factory in Utah . The engineers who designed the SRBs would have preferred to make them a bit fatter, but the SRBs had to be shipped by train from the factory to the launch site. The railroad line from the factory happens to run through a tunnel in the mountains, and the SRBs had to fit through that tunnel. The tunnel is slightly wider than the railroad track, and the railroad track, as you now know, is about as wide as two horses' behinds. So, a major Space Shuttle design feature, of what is arguably the world's most advanced transportation system, was determined over two thousand years ago by the width of a horse's a*s. And you thought being a horse's a*s wasn't important? Ancient horse's as*es control almost everything.

Tuesday, May 16, 2023

Fromm Jenna Orkin Stanford-led research finds small modular reactors will exacerbate challenges of highly radioactive nuclear waste Amid feud with Putin, Wagner mercenary leader offered Ukrainians the locations of invading troops in exchange for sparing his for-hire army, leaked documents reveal The Sneaky Way the Police Could Abuse Their Power to Restrict Free Speech Innocent man facing the death penalty saved by Seinfeld creator | 60 Minutes Australia In some of the world’s most remote places, off-grid solar systems are bringing villagers like Jawa more hours in the day, more money and more social gatherings. Video Showed an Officer Trying to Stop His Partner From Killing a Man. Now We Know Police Investigators Never Even Asked About the Footage. He defied Alzheimer’s for two decades. Scientists want to know how. America’s higher education institutions preach social justice while running on the exploitation of adjunct workers The popular TV newsmagazine show “60 Minutes” has released a 30-second video preview of its hotly anticipated report, airing Sunday, on finances within The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The segment will feature an interview with whistleblower David A. Nielsen, a former senior portfolio manager with the faith’s investment arm who filed a complaint in late 2019 with the IRS accusing the church of amassing a $100 billion reserve fund intended for, but never spent on, charity in potential violation of tax laws. China is winning a pivotal battle to dominate the future of technology