March 2011 Archives

Archeologists have found new clues about the music early Klondike stampeders were listening to during the Yukon Gold Rush, thanks to recordings found aboard a 110-year-old shipwreck.

The three records and a gramophone were discovered last summer in the A.J. Goddard, a sternwheeler that sank in Lake Laberge, north of Whitehorse, in October 1901.

The idea is to install small doors, unexplained portals, throughout the city. To start, in San Francisco. These doors would be scaled down to a size that is cognitively possible but whimsically improbable. Tiny ones. Like, Alice Through The Looking Glass, maybe 15-25 inches or so. I don't imagine them to be operable, but the more detailed in appearance the better.

In 1969, Chairman Mao commanded the construction of a second Beijing beneath the surface of the original city, designed to accommodate all six million of its then inhabitants so that if nuclear war did kick off, folk would still have somewhere to hang out and play Mah Jong while the rest of us burnt to death in a shower of atomic rain. War never came, but the city is still there.

You can read and see more here.

The small distinguishing mark you see over a lowercase /i/ and a lowercase /j/ is called a tittle - an interesting name that seems like a portmanteau (combination) of "tiny" and "little," and refers to a small point or stroke in writing and printing. Generally, a diacritic dot such as a tittle is also referred to as a glyph. However, in regards to /i/ and /j/ - the removal of the mark is still likely to be read as /I/ or /J/; as such, these are not examples of a glyph.

Derived from the Latin word "titulus," meaning "inscription, heading," the tittle initially appeared in Latin manuscripts beginning in the 11th century as a way of individualizing the neighboring letters /i/ and /j/ in the thicket of handwriting. With the introduction of the Roman-style typeface in the late 1400's, the original large mark was reduced to the small dot we use today.

Mazda has some creepy crawly culprits in its new safety recall -- spiders.

After discovering spider webs in the vents, the Japanese automaker is recalling more than 50,000 Mazda6 cars from the 2009-2010 model years in the United States and an additional 15,000 vehicles in Canada, Mexico and Puerto Rico.

The company said Thursday a spider could weave a web in a vent connected to the fuel tank system and clog up the tank's ventilation. Pressure on the fuel tank could lead to a crack, causing fuel leakage and the risk of a fire.

earthquakes ranging in magnitude from 1.8 to 3.8 have rattled the north-central Arkansas cities of Greenbrier and Guy this week, and the cause is unknown.

The U.S. Geological Survey has reported more than 30 earthquakes in the area since Sunday [February 13], including a magnitude 3.8 quake Thursday morning and at least 16 others occurring Wednesday, two of which were magnitude 3.2 and 3.5.

A 4.7-magnitude earthquake that researchers described as the largest in Arkansas in 35 years [...] There were no reports of major damage, though some residents spoke of dislodged screen doors and cracked ceilings. Damage or not, some said this was the longest and scariest quake yet.

Researchers with the Arkansas Geological Survey have pointed out spatial and temporal relationships between the earthquakes and the use of injection wells, which are used to dispose of the wastewater left over from gas drilling. (Researchers see no such correlation between the quakes and the drilling itself, a process called hydraulic fracturing.) While a possible connection is being studied, the Arkansas Oil and Gas Commission has imposed an emergency moratorium on the drilling of new injection wells in the area.