Saturday, May 30, 2026

Opensource Boat Block

 


Max at Reversing Entropy, has created an open source boating block because he was tired of expensive, not so strong boating blocks.  He came up with the design for a 5 in 1 "modular sailing block designed to replace snatch blocks, triples, sheeve blocks and more".  

He describes what he came up with on a YouTube video.  If you don't want to make them yourself, he has a page where you can purchase them.   Or, you can download the step files to make them yourself.  

A visual archive of the Capitol attack (NPR)


Got a crazy family member that is part of the MAGit cult?  They telling you that Jan 6 didn't happen, or that it was all Liberals that did the illegal stuff, or that they were just peacefully protesting?  (sigh). NPR has a very good rundown on the events of that day.  

What broke the Supreme Court? (The Federalist Society)


Peter Shamshiri, Michael Liroff, and Rhiannon Hamam's 5-4 Pod does a really good job at educating us on what the Federalist Society does, how they are run (very very admirably well), and how they have affected the US.  


Wednesday, January 29, 2020

A New Record: 27 Hours, 25 Minutes

Road and Track has a nice article about Arne Toman and Doug Tabbut, who are the latest crazy men to bust the C2C Express record and make it from NY to LA in the shortest amount of time.  (also note this youtube video)

This is to follow up on Ed Bolian's win, and Alex Roy's.

Monday, December 23, 2019

Great War Movies

(List of classic war movies)

WWx
  • Dirty Dozen: "Twelve tough criminals are offered absolution if they undertake a suicide mission into Nazi Germany"
  • Windtalkers: Navajo soldiers who are "untranslatable" by the Japanese during WW2
  • Lawrence of Arabia: "British officer who unites the desert tribes of Arabia against the Turks during World War I"
  • Unbroken: Navy pilot survives Japanese POW camp
  • Twelve O'clock High: Commander of a US Bomber unit in WWII
  • The Pacific (mini-series): Marines fighting in WW2 Pacific 
  • Dunkirk: Evacuation of the English from France in WW2
  • Letters from Iwo Jima: Japanese in WW2's battle of Iwo Jima
  • Hacksaw Ridge: Marine who wont carry a gun saves saves wounded from behind enemy lines
  • Fury: Tank fighting in Germany
  • Fat Man and Little Boy: Story behind the building of the bomb
  • Enemy at the Gates: Russian sniper who terrorized the Nazis
  • Das Boot: German subs in WW2
  • Inglorious Bastards: Jewish-American guerilla solders kill Hitler
  • Band of Brothers (mini-series): 
  • The Great Escape: Solders in a German POW camp
  • Saving Private Ryan: Solders in WW2 fighting to find someone behind enemy lines
  • The Fighting SeaBees: The creation of the SeaBees
  • Redtails: The black Tuskegee fighter pilots prove themselves
  • Memphis Bell: First bomber crew to survive and make it home
  • Pearl Harbor: American fighter pilots in Hawaii during the attack
  • Downfall: Hitlers end 
  • The Longest Day: Day-Day
  • A Bridge Too Far: Allied airdrop behind enemy lines
Vietnam:
  • Rescue Dawn: Fighter pilot in Vietnamese POW camp
  • Hamburger Hill: American solders fight to take a hill
  • Apocalypse Now: American Army assassin is sent behind enemy lines to kill a rouge US Colonel
  • Full Metal Jacket: Solders going nuts in Vietnam
  • We were Solders: Army commander outnumbered 
  • Platoon: Army solder in the jungle
Iraq Wars:
  • American Sniper: Navy Seal in Iraq
  • Generation Kill (mini-series): Marines during the first 40 days of Iraq war
  • Zero Dark Thirty: The hunting of Osama bin Laden
  • Whiskey Tango Foxtrot: Journalist in Afghanistan
  • Jarhead: Marine sniper in boot camp and then Iraq
  • Hurt Locker: Bomb disposal team in Iraq
  • Green Zone: Army inspectors looking for weapons of mass destruction 
  • Lone Survivor: SEALs get ambushed in Afghanistan
Other:
  • Top Gun: Navy fighter pilots
  • Glory: Black regiment in the civil war
  • G.I. Jane: Woman proving she can fight in the Navy
  • Black Hawk Down: Troops survive behind enemy lines

Thursday, October 17, 2019

Graph paper

https://incompetech.com/graphpaper/

Print out any kind of graph paper! 

Where can you go?

FlightConnections shows you all the flights to/from any airport. 

New England Power

New England got hit by another nor'easter. You can see how much of the state is without power from the following sites:

Global Weather

https://earth.nullschool.net

a visualization of global weather conditions
forecast by supercomputers
updated every three hours

  • ocean surface current estimates: updated every five days
  • ocean surface temperatures and anomaly from daily average (1981-2011): updated daily
  • ocean waves: updated every three hours
  • aurora: updated every thirty minutes