In James Tobin’s book To Conquer the Air, I was amazed to learn that the Wright Brothers paid a premium for their first bicycles, even in today’s money, it sounds like a lot for a bike!
In the Wright family, Orville was infected first, in the summer of 1892, when he bought a fine new Columbia for $160, a very substantial sum at the time when relatively few workers earned more thatn $500 per year. He soon entered races and did well. Will bought his own model-used, for $80- several weeks later.
“Although the brain accounts for less than 2% of a person’s weight, it consumes 20% of the body’s energy.”
Drubach, Daniel. The Brain Explained. New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 2000.
as quoted here: http://hypertextbook.com/facts/2001/JacquelineLing.shtml
I caught a very interesting lecture by Stephen Pinker author of The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window into Human Nature
These guys make some incredible projects, if only I had time to try some of them! But it’s not just all electronics and gadgets they also do crazy stuff like zombie makeup, vampire teeth and origami. I just may have to make some time to try the foxhole radio project.
T-shirt factory lets you design the shirt. Designs are voted on by site visitors to determine which ones are chosen to be printed. If only I had time!
Wally Walington of Flint, Michigan thinks he knows how Stonehenge was built using simple techniques. Watch the video and be amazed as Wally uses what he calls “the forgotten technology” to move massive concrete blocks by himself.
What is Seem Carving you ask? This new software doesn’t just scale your picture, it actually creates more picture when upscaling and intelligently deletes selected areas when shrinking. Better to view the video and see it in action than try to explain it with words. Best of all it’s FREE to use!
A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.
-Lazarus Long, Time Enough For Love
According to Jeff Shaara in his book Civil War Battlefields
It seems that when we get a myth in our head it’s hard to replace it with the truth!
The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently issued a flier to combat myths about the flu vaccine. It recited various commonly held views and labeled them either “true” or “false.” Among those identified as false were statements such as “The side effects are worse than the flu” and “Only older people need flu vaccine.”
When University of Michigan social psychologist Norbert Schwarz had volunteers read the CDC flier, however, he found that within 30 minutes, older people misremembered 28 percent of the false statements as true. Three days later, they remembered 40 percent of the myths as factual.
