64 Things Every Geek Should Know. A bit PC-centric, but there’s some good links in this list.
It got down to 63° last night, so we cranked up the furnace this morning to warm the house. I’ve been meaning to gather a list of links on caring for steam heating systems. In no particular order: Bleeding, shimming, gurgling and clangs, Steam radiator tips, and troubleshooting a steam distribution system.
Gone are the days, sadly, when a major car manufacturer would actually print the word Honcho on the side of a vehicle. This is no pantywaisted leather cocoon of luxury. This is a man’s man’s vehicle. (craigslist link)
Mars lander finds bits of ice, according to NASA. Ice, bitches! If it’s true, this could be a huge step for travel and colonization.
I don’t remember hearing about this, but it’s an amazing story. A two-seat Apache helicopter evacuated a wounded soldier in Iraq last year; they strapped the soldier inside while the copilot rode outside strapped to the wing. Outstanding. Here’s some video.
Life After People, History Channel, 9PM Monday the 21st. This stuff has fascinated me for years. I know where I’ll be Monday night.
Jesus Christmas, I would have sold my everloving soul to Satan for this model when I was a kid. Some kook in Japan is building a model of the battleship Yamato in his living room, the ship that inspired my favorite show, Star Blazers. (via)
From Metafilter this morning: An excellent post about the Ghost Fleet of Mallows Bay, which is the largest concentration of wooden steamship wrecks in this hemisphere. Here’s the history behind it—some things never change.
Tweaking my dual interest for airplanes and abandoned equipment, here are some photos of the Soviet space shuttle Buran, abandoned since 1989 at the Baikonur cosmodrome in Siberia. Here’s a little more on the subject. (via)
A new (award winning) documentary about the Apollo space missions, compiled from remastered NASA footage, with interviews of the surviving astronauts. The trailer alone gave me goose bumps. It’s hard to even imagine what living through that time must have felt like. (via)