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from
mefi
Luigi Colani,
Biomorphic Designer — This prolific
master of
plastic has been creating organically streamlined
planes,
trains,
automobiles,
trucks,
motorcycles,
ships,
cities,
homes,
computers,
cameras,
televisions,
furniture,
pianos,
ceramics,
shoes,
eyewearPDF,
pens,
airbrushes, and other wonderful
stuff (
including the
kitchen sink) for some
60 years. Wherever you need to
go, you can reach your
final destination in Colani style. More designs
here,
here,
here, and
here.
[Brits and touristas take note: London's Design Museum will host a Colani exhibition, Translating Nature, from March 3 to June 17, 2007. Bibliophiles can check out the book Colani: The Art of Shaping the Future.]
posted to MetaFilter by cenoxo
at 1:04 AM on February 18, 2007
(15 comments)
Tales of Future Past*
— It's been a looong Monday. Do you want to get
off the planet and out of the
city to a place where you can really
live? Well, here's some
food for thought on the way
home down life's
highways. First, take a break from all this depressing
war talk. Then
empower yourself by giving yourself some
space and maybe
taking off for a few days.
Drive just a bit slower, turn up the
volume and
imagine that your
mechanic will say the tranny's OK after all. Once you're in the front door, take
time to get slightly
wired and forget all about
politics. Get
recharged for tomorrow: have a nice long
bath, put your
mind at ease, watch
Ur Fave shOw, and listen to some soothing
music. Now, don't things look a lot better?
[*
Note the 'Start the Tour' links at the bottom of each page.]
posted to MetaFilter by cenoxo
at 4:36 PM on February 12, 2007
(10 comments)
The real James Bond
—
Sidney George Reilly, the shadowy '
Ace of Spies' and
inspiration for Ian Fleming's
007, was born Shlomo/Sigmund Georgievich Rosenblum in Ukraine/Poland in 1874. Perhaps illegitimate,
dapper Sidney was a tireless self-promoter, patent-medicine
chemist, world traveller, and high-stakes gambler (not only at the tables: he married four women but divorced none.) A Czarist
Okhrana informer as a Parisian student, he was hired as an undercover agent in the late 1890s by
M of Scotland Yard. Reilly worked both sides of the
Russo-Japanese War, influenced
British oil interests in Iran, brokered
World War I arms sales, and volunteered for the
Royal Flying Corps in Canada. Sent to Russia by
C of Britain's
SIS in 1918, he joined a
plot to overthrow the Bolsheviks: it failed, but he escaped to London. Returning to Russia in 1919 to help the
White Army, he was later awarded the
British Military Cross. A staunch anti-Communist, Reilly schemed against them throughout his career.
Lured back to Russia by agents of the '
Trust' — an anti-Bolshevik trap set by the Soviet
OGPU — Sidney was arrested, interrogated, and shot in 1925.
posted to MetaFilter by cenoxo
at 5:16 PM on October 18, 2006
(14 comments)
Eject!
Eject! Eject! Whether used in the
air, on
land, at
sea (and
under it), or
on the way to the Moon,
ejection seats and
capsules have saved
thousands of aviators
worldwide. The
basic concept was first tested in
1912, developed by the
Germans in WWII, and became standard safety equipment in
high-speed,
high-altitude jet and rocket aircraft. (Although
ejection seats were in
Gemini spacecraft, they were only in early
Space Shuttle flights.) Much happens very quickly
during ejection, and harrowing
accidents and pilot
deaths still occur. The decision not to eject right away may be heroic, but even pilots who wait may live while
innocent bystanders^ die. However, the efforts of
dedicated researchers and
rocket sled testing by seat
manufacturers keep adding
new members to the unique
club of men and women who survive to fly again.
posted to MetaFilter by cenoxo
at 12:45 AM on August 28, 2006
(21 comments)
Around the world on a Dream Machine
— 77 years ago, the
giant German airship
LZ-127 Graf Zeppelin left
Lakehurst, NJ on an aerial
world tour sponsored by American media mogul
William Randolph Hearst. The airship's
gondola carried 20 passengers in high-tech
style, including: U.S. Navy observer
Charles Rosendahl; English
pilot, Zeppelin
frequent flyer, and Hearst reporter
Lady Grace Drummond-Hay; and Japanese naval aviator
Ryunosuke Kusaka. The 41 crewmen were captained by
Dr. Hugo Eckener, Zeppelin
champion and the world's
best airship pilot. The
hydrogen-filled LZ-127 flew over the Atlantic to
Germany,
Siberia,
Japan, over the Pacific to
California, across the
United States, and
back to Lakehurst. The 20,500 mile, 21-day flight—with 12 flying days at ~80 mph top speed—defined airship travel's
golden age.
[More inside]
posted to MetaFilter by cenoxo
at 7:21 AM on August 8, 2006
(24 comments)
Mildred Fish Harnack
was the only
American woman executed for treason during World War II.
Born, raised, and
educated in Wisconsin, she moved to
Berlin with her German husband
Arvid in
1929. Arrested by the Nazis in September 1942 for their
pivotal role in the Communist
Red Orchestra resistance movement, they were tried in December 1942:
Arvid was hung and
Mildred received six years hard labor. Reviewing her case (during the humiliating German defeat at
Stalingrad), Adolph Hitler ordered her retried in January 1943. This time, she was convicted, sentenced to death, and
beheaded by
guillotine in
Plötzensee Prison on February 16, 1943.
[Mildred's life is detailed in the 2000 biography Resisting Hitler: Mildred Harnack and the Red Orchestra.]
posted to MetaFilter by cenoxo
at 2:56 PM on July 24, 2006
(10 comments)
The 1919 Transcontinental Motor Convoy
— Take a
28 year old future
U.S. President on a two month long, 3,251 mile, transcontinental
road trip (where relatively
few have gone before). Wait while he shoulders a little
responsibility, add some
autobahn^ envy, and 37 years later he
signs into law over 40,000 miles of the
National Defense Highway System (later
renamed: it recently passed
50 years of growth.) About his
favorite domestic program, Ike said, "
More than any single action by the government since the end of the war, this one would change the face of America. ...Its impact on the American economy - the jobs it would produce in manufacturing and construction, the rural areas it would open up - was beyond calculation." More documents, logs, and first-hand reports from the 1919 convoy
here.
posted to MetaFilter by cenoxo
at 9:47 PM on July 12, 2006
(27 comments)
'Twas blind, but now I see?
— Virgil surgically regained his sight after nearly 50 years of blindness: "
On the day he returned home after the bandages were removed, his house and its contents were unintelligible to him, and he had to be led up the garden path, led through the house, led into each room, and introduced to each chair." In the end, he and
others like him
[PDF] would have rather stayed in the
Country of the Blind.
(A happier ending was the more recent case of Mike Mays, previously posted here.)
posted to MetaFilter by cenoxo
at 1:59 AM on June 17, 2006
(19 comments)
Project Nekton
— Take
Mt. Everest, add a mile to the top, and turn it upside down. That's how far oceanic explorers
Jacques Piccard and
USN Lt. Donald Walsh descended on January 23, 1960 into the Pacific's
Challenger Deep, the
lowest spot in Earth's oceans. Their submersible, the
second-generation bathyscape Trieste, was designed by Swiss balloonist
Auguste Piccard (Jacques' father) and built in
Italy. This
underwater balloon was buoyed by
70 tons of gasoline, ballasted by
nine tons of steel shot, and dangled a
cramped, six-foot diameter, 14 ton
observation gondola underneath it
[more Trieste photos here]. It took Piccard and Walsh nearly five hours to touch bottom
35,800 feet down in the
Mariana Trench. Their unique voyage still stands 46 years later: no one has gone back—except by
ROV—and
more people have landed on the Moon.
posted to MetaFilter by cenoxo
at 11:06 PM on May 28, 2006
(28 comments)
Lifeboat ethics.
"
Terror had assumed the throne of reason, and passion had become judgment." After the ship
William Brown sank on a voyage from England to America in 1841, its longboat with 41 passengers and crew aboard leaked badly and began sinking. To stay afloat, the first mate ordered sailors to throw men and women overboard: those remaining were saved and eventually rescued. One sailor who followed orders, Alexander Holmes, was convicted of manslaughter after he returned to Philadelphia in 1842. This true story inspired a famous
fictional case, many
legal opinions,
two movies, and a recent
book. What would you have done in the same life-or-death situation?
posted to MetaFilter by cenoxo
at 5:09 PM on January 7, 2006
(57 comments)
