Category: from the blogroll

Public Transport Easter Eggs

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A lovely video by blogrollee The Tim Traveller in which he heads to Stockholm to catch a metro, and then proceeds to find the seven different easter eggs…

Easter eggs are secret messages hidden in computer games, movies, and advertisements. They help content creators bring new meanings to ideas or add a dash of humor to a creative concept. Someone edits a favorite character into a clip, or embellishes a story with cultural references. Some additions gain cult status.

…built into the ventilation grids next to some of the windows on the train.

Niche? Yes.
Nerdy? Absolutely.
Actually pretty cool? 100%.

His videos all have easter eggs of their own as well, usually involving the music (which he records himself). In this one, you have ABBA’s Dancing Queen when he sees the crowns, The Wannadies’ (another Swedish band) Might Be Stars for the stars, and he returns to ABBA for the wholly appropriate Another Town, Another Train to finish.

But it was when he asked if anyone else knew of other easter eggs on public transport that things got serious.

Well. Sort of.

Because there was this comment:

The New Mexico Rail Runner’s door chime is the “meep meep” sound that the Looney Tunes roadrunner makes!

WHAT?!?!? NO WAY!

OK, but first things first. The New Mexico Rail Runner is:

a commuter rail system serving the metropolitan areas of Albuquerque and Santa Fe, New Mexico.

And it looks pretty cool:

But it’s the doors we want to see hear. Because there’s no way that they would have actually used the “meep meep” sound that the Looney Tunes roadrunner makes, is there?

Of course there is:

Why? Well, why not? I mean, apart from the fact that it might attract coyotes.

Like the Stockholm metro air vents, there’s always a reason to tie into the local history or environment.

You’re going to need a sound to warn people that the doors are closing, so why not make it quirky, fun, and a feature? And since the Rail Runner is named for the New Mexico state bird – the Greater Roadrunner – what better sound was there to choose?

I’ll likely pop back to that comments section at some point to grab some more amazing public transport easter egg facts, but this one is going to be tough to beat.

The Impossible Dream

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It’s been a hot day in Cape Town, and it’s been a busy one too. I would love to be sitting at home in front of a warm TV right now, but it’s Monday evening and it’s Dodgeball training, so I’m out in my car park. Given that I am out here, I would love to be sitting in my car park with the windows down and the fresh breeze blowing the heat of the day away.

Sadly, there appears to be a raw sewage issue somewhere in the vicinity. It’s literally nauseating.

Anyway, not much I can do about the thick pooey odour enveloping everything here.

So here’s a video I watched earlier. A great tale, 17 years in the making, some amazing videography, and some important lessons about recognising when it’s time to give up.

We all have our impossible dreams and we all have our limits. How we choose (or are able) to balance one against the other, and how much value we place on each will likely define our successes. It doesn’t have to be running marathons. For example, Forest Drive (Bishopscourt, not Pinelands) kicked my arse again today. That’s a 750m bit of asphalt, not 42km of American city roads, but that’s my current nemesis. But I’ll return on a cooler – but equally steep day – to fight back.

And I will beat it. Or I’ll give up.

One of the two.

One For Brian

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Leafing back through previous blog posts, I suddenly found myself dipping into my Brian Micklethwait archive. It’s been almost two years since Brian died, and even longer than that since our missed connection in London, pre-Covid.

But I did think of him on my recent visit there, and very deliberately took this very Micklethwaitian image as I was crossing the Golden Jubilee Bridge on that Sunday morning.

It has all the elements: iconic London, bridges, several (or more) Big Things and so many cranes.

I think he would have liked it.
And it’s a Quota Photo as well. Perfect.

Not much more to add, really.

Day 576 – Sad news

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Long time friend of the blog, Brian Micklethwait has died.

Brian was diagnosed with lung cancer late last year and died last week.

I loved that he blogged about whatever he wanted to: whatever had interested him that day, no matter how mundane it might seem to others. He blogged for himself, and his was a very personal blog, simply for that reason. And amongst his regular photographs of photographers, London’s Big Things, local statues or the bridges over the Thames, there were the occasional shop window selfies.

He was described in one of the tributes I read as:

a beacon of sensible thought…

And that’s pretty accurate.

While we didn’t always see eye to eye on some issues, we exchanged emails, blog posts, photographs and ideas for over 12 years. He is mentioned in no fewer than 58 posts (59 now) on 6000 miles… and he will be sadly missed.

Day 310 – Another poo mystery solved by science

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Via Brian Micklethwait, here’s another one from the category “Who the hell asked?”

Just what we all needed to know. I can finally sleep easy tonight.

Apparently, it’s all to do with the last metre of the intestine and not the shape of the extrusion point. Although, presumably the extrusion point must also be that sort of shape though anyway because isn’t there something about a square peg in a round hole or something?

Ag, it’s actually fine. I really don’t need to know. Really.

There are some delicious little comments in the article, such as the name of the journal in which this study was published: Soft Matter.

It’s not all about shit, either. I was enthralled to read about Phase transition characterization of poly(oligo(ethylene glycol)methyl ether methacrylate) brushes using the quartz crystal microbalance with dissipation by Guntner et al., and really enjoyed the incredible work of Hoeger and Ursell at the University of Oregon, demonstrating Steric scattering of rod-like swimmers in low Reynolds number environments. Who knew?

Anyway, what is the reason that wombats have cube-shaped poo?

Asked why wombats have this feature, Carver said one theory was that wombats, with their strong sense of smell, communicate with each other via faeces and that the cube shape helps prevent the faeces from rolling away.

The researchers also found that cube-shaped faeces on an eight degree slope rolled far less than spherical-shaped models.

Well, I’m glad someone has done the hard research yards and discovered that cubes roll less than spheres. Absolutely groundbreaking stuff. Dice manufacturers will be livid when they read that.
All this time and they’ve been wasting their time working with cubes instead of prolonging our anticipation by using spherical-shaped models:

“Will it be a three…? Will it…? Will it…? Ah. It’s not really stopping.
I might just go and grab a quick drink while we wait until it’s done.
Hang on! There! It’s a two!

 

And it’s also a six.”

Actually, perhaps not.

But if it was so very important for your poo to stay where you left it, why would you evolve:

…big changes in the thickness of muscles inside the intestine, varying between two stiffer regions and two more flexible regions… in addition to the drying out of the faecal material in the distal colon.

Anyway. The paper is here should you wish to read further:

Of course they do.

All your questions will be answered there, aside from the huge, gaping omission: which way do they face when they are doing it?