MetaFilter posts tagged with cold

Return Of The Nazi Weather Robot

Devonian — Fri, 17 May 2013 05:46:32 -0800

What won the war? The weather helped. For while the Allies had access to all the Atlantic meteorology, the Axis couldn't easily predict what systems were rolling in from the West - and with the Battle of the Atlantic the one thing that Churchill said kept him awake at night, knowing which way the wind blew certainly needed a weatherman. Or Britain would never be starved into submission. The Weather War was complex and engaging, Reports from U-boats and weather ships were dangerous to make, giving away positions and even - famously - fatally compromising the Enigma system. What the Nazis really needed were men on the ground on the other side of the Atlantic that wasn't happening. Instead, they built a robot called Kurt, and, in the only WWII armed enemy operation on land in North America, deployed it. And there it sat while its masters fought and lost, forgotten in the tumult. Until decades later a chance finding by a German historian set off a hunt to track it down...

"Scholars, however, have long known a very different story"

andoatnp — Fri, 08 Feb 2013 15:36:22 -0800

The Real Cuban Missile Crisis: Everything you think you know about those 13 days is wrong.

Wild is the Windy City

MattMangels — Wed, 30 Jan 2013 22:40:07 -0800

Chicago has been having some fairly remarkable weather lately, even by their standards. On the 25th of January there was more than an inch of snowfall recorded for the first time in 335 days, a new record. Then a surge of warm air from the south brought a temperature of 63 degrees at O'Hare airport on January 29th, a new record for that date, exactly one week after a temperature of 9 degrees was recorded (which, combined with the 35mph winds on that date, produced a windchill factor of about -20f). The current forecast (at time of posting this) calls for a high of only 14f on Friday (Feb. 1st), another significant temperature swing within a few days.

We don't need no shovel let the muthafka melt! Melt muthafka, melt!!

not_on_display — Tue, 29 Jan 2013 04:11:11 -0800

Sometimes, there's nothing better to do after a snowstorm than to watch the snow slowly slide off the roof. Do you get a thrill at that moment when gravity trumps friction, and a large slab frees itself, landing on the ground below in a big WHUMPF? Then please enjoy this curation of YouTubery documenting the anticipation and beauty that is the Roof Avalanche! Sometimes you have to start the avalanche yourself, or your roof might collapse. WAYS TO REMOVE SNOW: (A) THE CONVENTIONAL WAY, using (yawwwn) a tool called... ❄ The Avalanche ❄ The Snow Barber ❄ The Avalanche... again... zzzzz ...or (B) THE FUN AND POTENTIALLY DANGEROUS WAY, using techniques with names I just made up on the spot, such as: ❄ The Barn Slider ❄ The Stand-under-er ❄ The Broomstick ❄ The Jar-Lid Surfin' Crow! (is the slowest but funnest way) ❄ The Shovel ❄ The Two-Person Shovel ❄ The Ski Pole ❄ The Roof Surfer ❄ The Roof Surfer II: now with 1000% more loud music ❄ The Roof Hoe ❄ The Jump (C) MISCELLANEOUS or LET NATURE DO ITS JOB but WATCH OUT EITHER WAY ❄ [NSFW: language] ❄ A close call in Scotland ❄ A close call in Grantown-on-Spey ❄ Don't Poke The Bear [NSFW: Language] ❄ Hazard to pedestrians in Naas ❄ Watching the rain gutter get demolished ❄ Chillin' outside Mickey D's ❄ Off the roof of the Xscape in Milton Keynes ❄ Nothing happens in this one, though I totally wish it'd landed on the woman shooting the video. ❄ Stalking the elusive Colorado Roof Glacier ❄ Let's watch this one again in slow motion. Now in reverse. ❄ Captured by surveillance camera ❄ Like waiting for ketchup to flow ❄ Somewhere in New Hampshire with a great view ❄ The white zone is for loading and unloading only ❄ Walgreens Manager won't fall victim ❄ A view from the side ❄ kitteh! ❄ Temperature: 39ºF ❄ Bro tries to coin a new term ❄ The neighbor's roof ❄ The Big Chunk ❄ [Turn the volume down on this one] ❄ Careful what you wish for, kids

Hell Froze Over

schmod — Wed, 23 Jan 2013 09:20:22 -0800

It's cold in Chicago right now. How cold? Water will freeze to the sides of a burning building.

On freezing to death.

zoo — Mon, 31 Dec 2012 03:40:52 -0800

The cold hard facts of freezing to death. "The cold remains a mystery, more prone to fell men than women, more lethal to the thin and well muscled than to those with avoirdupois, and least forgiving to the arrogant and the unaware"

Imagine a frozen ocean

zarq — Wed, 28 Nov 2012 20:16:27 -0800

"Entering into one of the fiercest competitions in existence, I found art."
Sixteen mushers. 120 dogs. An adventure across one of the longest mushing trails in the world: the Beringia, a dog sled race stretching 683 miles across eastern Russia. Twilight on the Tundra Italicized quote at the top of this post is from an essay by the author at the Fulbright Russia website. For more from Julia Phillips: From November 3, 2011 - August 13, 2012 she kept a blog at The Moscow Times: The Kamchatka Observer. (That's a link to her first entry. Main page is here.)

Make It Stop!

gman — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 18:22:24 -0800

Shit Cancer Patients Say is a video filmed by five-time cancer survivor Woody Roseland at Presbyterian St Luke's Hospital.

"You can’t regret your fate, although I do regret my mother didn’t marry a carpenter."

zarq — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 14:16:22 -0800

Growing up, she was a beloved celebrity in her home country. Thousands of girls were named after her. So was a bestselling perfume. But Josef Stalin's "Little Sparrow," his only daughter, (born Svetlana Stalina) defected to the United States in 1967. Upon arriving in New York, she promptly held a press conference that surprised the world, denouncing her father's regime. Svetlana became a naturalized US citizen, moved to Taliesin West, married an American, changed her name to Lana Peters, then returned to the Soviet Union in 1984, declaring that she had not been free "for one single day" in the U.S., only to once again return to America in 1986. She lived out her remaining days in a small town in Wisconsin. Mrs. Peters passed away from colon cancer on November 22nd, at the age of 85. Mentioned in several of the above links: the 2007 documentary film, Svetlana About Svetlana. Trailer. More. She wrote two bestselling autobiographies. The Wisconsin State Journal article included 3 images.

Don't let the smooth taste FOOL YOU

whimsicalnymph — Fri, 21 Jan 2011 09:23:13 -0800

SLYT: Atlanta Weather Update by Megan Mcglover. She doesn't like the cold.

Paddle from Alcatraz

Chinese Jet Pilot — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 13:00:17 -0800

The Alcatraz Swim-o-Meter calculates the time and path of your watery escape from Alcatraz, designed and built by San Francisco Dolphin Club member Kent Myers.

Cold Steel FTW

(Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates — Fri, 07 May 2010 14:54:12 -0800

Is your sword having difficulty cutting through boots filled with meat? Then perhaps you need the Cold Steel Two Handed Great Sword. [via] Trouble getting through your opponent's cleverly designed chainmail (and some cardboard boxes)? What you need is the Cold Steel War Hammer. Pesky eggs hanging from strings hanging from a wooden frame got you down? There's a solution: the Cold Steel Indian War Club. More Cold Steel products/videos here. (All meats utilized in these videos carefully preserved and donated to the Ventura County Rescue Mission.)

Ok, you guys are dead to me.

Christ, what an asshole — Tue, 04 May 2010 03:05:17 -0800

Life imitates art.

So long to Mt. Washington wind speed record, 14 years ago

skynxnex — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 13:13:15 -0800

Mount Washington gust record gone with the wind. Mount Washington had been the home of the surface wind speed record since April 12, 1934 with a 231 miles per hour wind; but during cyclone Olivia (with only 10 minor injuries) on April 10, 1996, a wind gust of 408 km/h (253 mph) in Austrailia was only just now noticed and confirmed by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). The Mount Washington Observatory has accepted the record in their offical reaction but in more personal blog posts they are a bit more skeptical. The Washington Post Capital Weather Gang posted a Farewell to Mt. Washington's wind record from two former employees of the Observatory, lovingly referring to the record wind as "Gale." (And via Capital Weather Gang.)

The Big Chill

Artw — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 10:15:21 -0800

What Britain looks like without the Gulf Stream.

Your Chance to Survive!

Ruthless Bunny — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 08:28:47 -0800

Duck and Cover! There are many aspects of the Civil Defense program that may seem funny today, but the period after World War II was a very scary time. Civil defense officials and volunteers during that time were very serious about their work and I believe they deserve respect for their efforts. They rendered emergency services after natural and man-made disasters and would have had an impossible task had there ever been a nuclear war. This virtual museum is dedicated to the Civil Defense and emergency workers of the United States who worked to protect the public from nuclear attack.

These Guys Kissed Several Girls Just to Try It

stresstwig — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 13:10:22 -0800

Los Colorados, Ukrainian Polka Band, Plays Katy Perry's Hot 'n' Cold.

Making bubbles in the pool

not_on_display — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 12:31:38 -0800

Got some dry ice? Got a swimming pool? Well, what are you waiting for? Inquisitive dogs will be confused! Start with a small chunk. Next, take a 60-pound block of dry ice and kick it into the jacuzzi. Okay, so you're looking for more of a thrill? Try a dry ice depth charge! (If you don't have a pool, a frozen lake will do.)

Skier Suffers Exposure! Get it?!?

miss lynnster — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 18:30:31 -0800

A lot of people have nightmares about showing up to school or work naked. But hey, how about this one? Brrrrrrrrr. (nsfw)

Christie's breaks out in a cold sweat.

flapjax at midnite — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 07:46:33 -0800

Coming in at just under $860,000, the take for the recently auctioned estate of James Brown fell well short of the two million that Christie's had hoped for. You'll want to browse the collection for yourself, of course. If I had the extra scratch, I'd have sure bought this.

Born with the birth of flight

Your Time Machine Sucks — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 05:12:10 -0800

With the grounds it was built on having hosted the first demonstration of airplane flight in 1909, Tempelhof International Airport, the world's second-oldest working commercial airport, was officially opened in 1923. Also known as City Airport, it takes its official name from the Tempelhof neighborhood of Berlin, itself named for the Knights Templar who owned its land in the Middle Ages. The Nazi era saw a redesign by architect Ernst Sagebiel at the request of Albert Speer, widely hailed as one of the classic airport designs of the 20th century despite the darkness of its origins. In the postwar era, Tempelhof was the delivery site for the Berlin Airlift, when the Western allies kept West Berlin supplied with the necessities of life for 15 months via nonstop plane deliveries from the so-called Rosinenbomber or "Raisin Bombers", despite the Soviet blockade. There have been very few logistical feats to rival the Airlift since: at the height of the deliveries, flights were arriving every 3 minutes, around the clock, with an average of 8,000 tons of goods being flown in daily. The operation succeeded, but at the cost of 101 British, American and German lives. After the blockade was lifted, this sacrifice for West Berlin's survival was commemorated with the Luftbrückendenkmal, or Berlin Airlift Monument, which remains one of the few remaining loci of the extraordinary postwar relationship between the US and the former West Germany. Nothing lasts forever. One of the big side-effects of the reunification of Berlin was that the city, formerly two cities, had multiples of everything: central train stations, operas, and a veritable embarrassment of airports. Plans were made for the BBI, a huge new consolidated airport to be placed just outside of the city in former-East Brandenburg, and these plans were made contingent on the closing of Tempelhof. Former-West Berliners were shocked, and although American Ronald Lauder has twice offered to save Tempelhof by investing a half a billion Euros to turn it into an air-accessible health (or possibly beauty) center, he has been rebuffed both times. Things took on an air of inevitability: much like the decommissioning of Charlottenburg's Zoo train station in 2006, another West neighborhood was going to lose one of its anchors as the price of progress. Oder? This winter, in a city of 3.4 million, over 175,000 Berliners signed a petition demanding a public binding refendum on whether to close Tempelhof, invoking a new procedural rule for allowing direct voting on a city policy for the first time ever. Soon, the fate of the airport will be decided: if 610,000 Berliners vote to keep it... ...well, that part isn't clear yet. Klaus Wowereit, Berlin's slightly-starstruck SPD mayor, has said that he will ignore the results of the vote and proceed with the closing plan. The conservative CDU party has made hay of this, accusing the Mayor of being anti-democratic. Even chancellor Angela Merkel has gotten into the local tussle, encouraging Berliners to get out and vote to keep Tempelhof, and referencing the Berlin Airlift in her entreaty. Did I mention that Ms. Merkel grew up in East Germany? Despite its intention to ignore the results, the SPD has decide to hedge their bets by making use of the Ron Lauder offers to invoke a little bit of class warfare [pdf], with a construction worker saying "Ick zahl doch nicht für'n VIP-Flughafen!" ("I'm not paying for a VIP airport!" in a Berlin accent) on their thousands of posters. But however the vote goes this Sunday, Wowereit's stance may have set the stage for something otherwise-unimaginable: Berlin having a conservative local government in its future. Tempelhof is the rare working airport which still manages to evoke the golden age of air travel, and I recommended that any former flight lover who has lost their faith in an age rife with humiliations make a pilgrimage to its graceful halls and rediscover their wonder. But don't wait too long to visit or you may miss your chance.

These forum members are more dedicated than us

Lord_Pall — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 23:29:42 -0800

Some Russian online communities like to take on unusual challenges. Courtesy of English Russia.

Kadath in the Cold Waste

Artw — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 14:13:02 -0800

Landsat Image Mosaic Of Antarctica UK and US researchers peice together the most detailed map of Antarctica yet, searching through years of data to find cloud free images.

The Cold War Files

Effigy2000 — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 20:42:39 -0800

The Cold War Files. Interpreting history through documents.

Apoteket Orkestern

hama7 — Sat, 23 Jun 2007 19:56:33 -0800

Apoteket Orkestern.