In the 1955 film Conquest of Space, an installation–if we can use that word–called The Wheel orbits the Earth: As in Project Moonbase and in many subsequent movies, this space station serves in part as a way-station for travelers outbound, … Continue reading The Space Station Day Thread: Conquest of Space (02/28)
The 1953 film Project Moonbase features a disc-shaped American space station with four docking ports spaced evenly around its outer edge. This works as a convenient … Continue reading The Space Station Night Thread: Project Moonbase (02/16)
I thought that it would be fun to take a look at fictional space stations in film and TV, and to start things off on this particular date, it seemed appropriate to go with Mystery Science Theater 3000‘s Satellite of … Continue reading The Space Station Night Thread: Satellite of Love (02/14)
Jousting, as such, has been a thing since at least the fourteenth century. It has its roots in horseback combat, but is of course most familiar to us in a sporting context. Here is the core terminology1: Though the practice … Continue reading Day Thread of Jousting (02/09)
Alphabetically, the first sovereign state in the world is Afghanistan, a very mountainous country. Most significant range wise is the Hindu Kush, which also stretches into Pakistan and Tajikistan. The highest peak in Afghanistan is Noshaq, on the border with … Continue reading The Day Thread of Highest Peaks: Noshaq (02/06)
This second chapter in the H series will look at things that fuse the letter H and the number 2, starting with the second-level HTML heading element, <h2>. In many cases, it will be the highest level of text on … Continue reading The Night Thread of H2 (02/03)
Sith Lord Darth Vader is a pretty spiritual guy most of the time. He isn’t too impressed with the Death Star, and only wears a cybernetically enhanced suit because he has to. Sure, he used to enjoy building pod racers, … Continue reading The Night Thread of Darth Vader the Car Salesman (01/25)
Wrangel Island is part of Russia, located in the Arctic Ocean about ninety miles north of the coast of Siberia at its nearest point. The island is fairly large — 90 by 50 miles, roughly — with some gorgeously rugged … Continue reading Day Thread of Wrangel Island (01/24)
Need to drive into town to rent some videos this weekend, or is that just cover for a proto-cyberpunk espionage mission? Meet your perfect car: . . .one of many exciting options (this is one of those commercial corporate-chorus jingles … Continue reading The Day Thread of Eighties Cars Builds Excitement (01/23)
Out of concern of another power outage, I’m making this quick and decided to go with an easy, beautiful target. Crater Lake, the caldera left by the massive eruption of Mount Mazama more than seven and a half millennia ago, … Continue reading The Night Thread Visits Crater Lake in Winter (01/17)
Tonight’s open thread is brought to you by the html tag <h1> which is meant for title or heading text of the highest level of importance, i.e. whatever merits the largest font. So I went looking for real-world sculptures of … Continue reading Night Thread of H1: The Biggest Heading (01/10)
If it may be said that the Glendale spiral has passed out of the Avocado zeitgeist, then please tolerate this header as a token of the recent past. There are indeed many Glendales scattered across the Anglophone world, including in … Continue reading The 01/07 Day Thread of (Glen)Dales and Dells
On this (northern) winter solstice evening, Happy Reverse Rush Day! Or if you subscribe to a different convention for ordering written dates, Rush Day 🦉 A couple of selections for *completely optional* listening…something to kick in the interstellar overdrive… …or … Continue reading Night Thread of Winter Solar-stice (12/21)
Maybe for some, the best part of emo is the incorporation of Math-rock into the Twinkle-Daddy sub-genre. If you didn’t know what that last sentence meant, this article will explain it all. –The History Of Emo: Emo bands through the … Continue reading The Night Thread Tackles Twinkledaddies (12/20)
In honor of video stores and cinemas and cinephiles, and wandering the aisles in search of something or someone. . . Dan Wilson–singer/songwriter/guitarist–did an AMA on Reddit a while back and had this to say in response to someone mentioning … Continue reading The Night Thread’s Gone to the Movies (11/30)
This month on Exoplanets, yet another world with a claim to primacy — Dimidium, or 51 Pegasi b — is the first other world discovered in orbit of a main sequence star. That star, 51 Pegasi, is located about fifty … Continue reading Day Thread of Exoplanet: Dimidium (11/28)
There’s something charming about local commercials. What they lack in big-budget polish they often make up in personable, folksy charm. And then every once in a while, something comes along that can’t be simply be categorized with news anchor skits … Continue reading The Day Thread Gets Wild About Anchorage (11/22)
Glo Worm is friend. These toys appeared in the 1980s and have persisted with some design change along the way. (It’s worth noting that past models may have been unhealthy to play with given the materials used.) There were also … Continue reading The Glo Worm Night Thread Gets Cozy (11/19)
I’m not qualified to speak technically about carbon nanotubes, but they seem super rad. Basically, one of them is like an atom-thick sheet of carbon wrapped in a tube. Single-walled versions are “about 100,000 times smaller than the width of … Continue reading Night Thread of Carbon Nanotubes (11/12)
Last week in Tolerable Discussions, I asked what color people most associate with the month of November, and among the many responses, one stood out: you guessed it, burnt umber. The greatest thing about burnt umber is how visceral the … Continue reading Day Thread of Burnt Umber (11/09)
This past year, there has been a lot of buzz in the basketball world centered on Victor Wembanyama, the 7’4″ rookie for the San Antonio Spurs. Unlike most ultra-tall players, “Wemby” is tremendously agile and well-coordinated. He passes, he moves … Continue reading Night Thread of Ralph Sampson (11/08)
