I have yet to see one, but living in the Land of 10,000 Piles of Road Salt, I’m guessing people are having second, third, and even fourth thoughts about buying something that rusts if you leave it in the sun too long.

Not surprised it hit a private jet. I mean, I’m surprised it hit any jet, but I’m not surprised that the jet it happened to hit was a private one. His jet would have to go park with the other corporate jets at almost any airport, and that would mean squeezing into the Signature apron with these smaller jets most of…

There’s a YouTuber named refashionedhippie and if she doesn’t cover this hammer I’ll be disappointed. Although honestly, it’s beginner stuff in the category of “overpriced crap with a designer label on it for rich people with far more money than sense”.

Thank you, I was trying to figure out what in the Sam Hill that “gym use” could possibly be other than “bring this heavy thing to the gym so you can have a weight that’s awkward and will therefore hurt you but it’s *expensive* so you can show off that you have money”.

Speaking the truth, man! :-D :-D :-D

This was an ancient practice, done in the Mideast since antiquity but introduced to Western Europe comparatively recently (I think around the 18th century?). It actually significantly reduced mortality. While it did kill a lot of people directly, on balance it resulted in far fewer deaths overall by eliminating…

Nitpick: cowpox is not a bacillus. It’s a virus.

I’m just curious — was that before or after homogenization? I have no particular yen for raw milk (though it does have value for the manufacture of certain kind of cheeses), but I’m very interested in the process. Did the milk flavor change due to the pasteurization or the homogenization? Becuase I could definitely…

Please, please, please do not encourage lactose intolerant people to drink raw milk.  It has no magical properties to crack galactose, and they will curse your name a few hours later.

Yeah, I’m not at all worried about influenza in raw milk.  There are way way WAY bigger things to worry about in raw milk.

I assume you are referring to cowpox inoculation? That did not involve milk at all. Jenner inoculated his test subjects with serum obtained from an open sore on the hand of a milkmaid infected with cowpox. This was basically the same method used for variolation (which inoculated people with variola major, smallpox),…

1. Yes, my understand is they used acoustic sensors elsewhere on Centaur to pick up the vibrations from the chattering valve to detect each cycle. Then they just counted up the cycles. I don’t know exactly how they counted them — they may have detected a pitch and used that to infer a frequency, from which you get a…

Moffatt has written the next Christmas special?  SQUEEE!!!!!  I am so there!

Interestingly, Tory Bruno of ULA indicates that, if this were an uncrewed flight, they would have launched, but they had even tighter standards for a crewed launch.

That sounds like “build to print”, which isn’t actually an unusual thing. Well, it’s fairly common on defense contracts. It’s much more unusual in the commercial sector, where companies are supposed to be protecting the intellectual property of their suppliers -- hence ValveTech’s lawsuit.

Well, the longer a spacecraft sits after tanking, the more likely stuff like this can crop up. Helium is a very small molecule, after all, and difficult to contain. At least it’s not reactive, so it doesn’t present as many problems as a hydrogen leak.

As it happens, we sold my mom’s house for 300K last year in a walkable, park-adjacent neighborhood in the midwest. Two bedrooms, one and a half baths. Two car detached garage. Mostly unfinished basement. Slightly updated, thanks to the sewer backup in 2022 that forced a tearout and renovation of the basement half bath…

We may need to stop building certain kinds of houses, and start building others. There is a shortage of “starter home” properties, yet most of the new construction I’m seeing, even in high density housing, is luxury housing. I can certainly see why: the financial incentives definitely encourage builders to aim for…

By the time the famous flag which would come to be known as the Star Spangled Banner was made and flown over Fort McHenry, both Vermont and Kentucky had joined the Union. (Fun fact: the flag also had fifteen stripes. This practice of adding stripes was later discontinued, as it was increasing the width and would…

He’s not working.  He’s playing.  He likes to present himself as this insane workaholic, but it looks far more to me like he’s just a petty tyrant who views these corporations as his playthings.