Plat of Zion 2024 Oct 11
I was previously unaware that the founders of Mormonism Joseph Smith and Brigham Young, in addition to creating their modern spin on Christianity and convincing their friends that sleeping with dozens of woman (many below the age of consent) was actually fulfilling a religious obligation, had utopian dreams of planned cities. And they're about as successful as you'd imagine: enforced in Salt Lake City despite leaving the place unfriendly and hostile to everyday folks.

Terminal Island: Touring The Edge of America 2024 Sep 4
As I have been lately complaining, Terminal Island on the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach is a difficult yet fascinating place to visit. So while it may be a trick for us to get there, we can always live vicariously, such as through this Center for Land Use Interpretation guided tour back in 2005.

Los Angeles Export Terminal 2024 Sep 4
In 1997 the city of Los Angeles spent considerable money building these two huge hemispheres out on the port to facilitate the export of coal. Just as they were completed, the coal export market collapsed, and then domes then of course became mired in a complex web of lawsuits. But here, on this page, in full 360-degree interactive panoramas, let us remember the time Los Angeles built on its coast a pair of gigantic breasts.

Mark Bixby Memorial Bike Path 2024 Aug 18
It is very difficult to be a pedestrian on Terminal Island. The ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles dominate Terminal Island, and are largely responsible for the island's very existence. But the place is covered in "No pedestrians allowed" signs.

In May 2023 that changed with the opening of the Mark Bixby Memorial Bike Path. Offering a bike and pedestrian route from Long Beach and across Terminal Island, it has unique views and impressive backdrops. However sometime after it's grand opening, it closed due to "construction." I can find no mention of this construction online. I believe it's a conspiracy, that the Port Authorities objected to having pedestrian access to their ports and so begrudgingly opened the Bixby Path with some fanfare and then quietly closed it again as soon as nobody was looking.

But maybe I'm reading too much into it. (I'm not, I'm just trying to not appear unhinged.)

Crowdstrike's impact on aviation 2024 Jul 29
When Crowdstrike did a whoopsie a couple weeks back, exactly how many flights were canceled? This guy did the research.

Burying poop in the ground... for good and profit! 2024 May 5
What if we took nature pooping to an industrial scale? Could it actually be a solution to greenhouse gas emissions? I don't understand how it possibly could be, but the people in this Verge article seem to think so, and some very large companies are throwing money at them to make it happen. Actual answer to our ongoing catastrophe or wishful poop thinking?

Santa Justa Lift 2024 Apr 11
There's a beautiful and fantastical industrial age elevator in Lisbon, Portugal that's still operating, partly as a tourist attraction but also as a real part of the city's public transit network. Imagine if we took such care and interest to pedestrian needs in America.

the top of the DNS hierarchy 2024 Feb 25
This link is a meandering, plaintext description of the core of the internet's DNS and which nonetheless gives a good summary of the technology and its history. I learned some things, some of which are even about DNS.

Why Name a Street After Locusts? 2024 Feb 14
The linked blog post from 2012 asks the same question that I had – why are so many streets named "Locust"? Locusts, after all, are gross vermin, and streets tend to named after desirable things or presidents or people's names. Frustratingly, though the blog post links to an answer, that answer is now missing due to internet rot. However, this 2006 newspaper article from Centralia (wherever the hell that is) contains what is likely the answer to my question: "Despite the joke that Locust referred to the destructive swarming insect, the street's name is in reference to the tree species, as are most streets in the area." And that not only makes sense, but it's so obvious I'm wondering why I couldn't come up with that answer on my own.

Setting up the Fremont Cabal Internet Exchange 2024 Feb 12
One of the three Internet Exchange Points at Hurricane Electric's FMT2 datacenter in Fremont, California is FCIX – the completely volunteer-run sponsor-powered internet exchange. It's somewhat fascinating to learn about, if you're interested in internet backbone systems.

Why do high voltage power lines hiss when it's raining? 2024 Feb 12

All uninsulated lines show corona. [Corona discharge] just [is] not a big deal until you're dealing with a pretty high voltage. As the voltage goes from a very big positive to a very big negative, the air around it gets ionized... This is the normal mains hum... Water is much, much heavier than air, and it ionizes just as easily. So on a rainy or humid day, the corona is pulsing with water in it. This gives it momentum, so the heavier water particles travel out farther. But they themselves are ionized, which means they can ionize more air than the line could normally reach on its own, and ionized air is conductive. And there's almost always 3 of these lines pretty close together. The sound you're hearing is a million teeny tiny electrostatic discharges from all the charged up water particles interacting with each other with nearby lines or grounded objects. This is actually the worst time to be anywhere near them; the air is supposed to be their insulator, and at that moment it isn't working as well.

Total Telephone line length by country 2023 Nov 23
The top 10 countries on this chart parallel some sort of metric crossing industrialization, population, and modernization but won't likely glean much more than an arched eyebrow from someone familiar with these places. More curiously is the bottom of the list, where Guinea – that country in West Africa with 13.5 million people living in it – appears to be the only country on the planet with no telephone lines.

Why are cities so full of potholes? 2023 Nov 6
City roads are often frustratingly rough to drive on. Why? This random comment on reddit actually has a good and thorough answer to this question, listing out the difficulties in getting the right materials in, the heavy amount of patching required, the high workload the streets are placed under, and constraints on the installation timelines that prevent proper settling.

Denver Airport's website has a page listing the conspiracy theories about it 2023 Oct 25
The reptilian overlord's tail is in its mouth tonight. This is obviously a counter-informational campaign designed to make those who know the truth look like fools. How deep does the rabbit hole go?

The Mystery of the Bloomfield Bridge 2023 Aug 30
In case yesterday's confounding dive into local trivia merely whetted your appetite for following bunny trails to their conclusion, I present to you the "mystery" of why this pedestrian footbridge in suburban Minneapolis was built. A long and exhaustive read, but one which is ultimately fruitful.

This desolate English path has killed more than 100 people 2023 Jun 26
The Broomway is a public path in England that's over 600 years old and lies 440 yards off-shore. Accessible only during low tides, a travel writer visits The Broomway in this article and talks about the reality of transiting a byway that may very well sweep you out to sea.