Based on a true story
Paris’ Grevin Wax Museum painter Franck Bruneau prepares the head of Rolling Stones lead singer Mick Jagger’s statue in their workshop before it is shipped to Prague for the opening of the museum on April 11, 2014. (Reuters/Philippe Wojazer)
Well, no need to sleep tonight…or ever again. Via In Focus.
Easter Sunday
Vatican City
Happy Easter from Daily Overview! St. Peter’s Basilica, located within Vatican City, is regarded as one of the holiest Catholic sites and one of the greatest churches in all of Christendom.
There were long lines both on the website and at enrollment centers to sign-up up for insurance in the days leading up to the end of the ObamaCare open enrollment period. But these lines lacked the enthusiasm of an iPhone release. James Taranto wrote in his WSJ post, Yes, We Can Wait:
The first thing we thought of when we saw the pictures was the photos we’ve recently seen on Twitter of Venezuelans waiting in bread lines. Waiting in line to purchase necessities is a characteristic not of a prosperous free society but of command economies under repressive regimes. Closer to home, one doubts even the Transportation Security Administration would be so tone-deaf as to advertise long airport lines as an indication it’s doing a great job.
So what in the world could the White House have been thinking? Here’s a guess: They look at the ObamaCare lines and think not of communist subjects queuing up for bread or toilet paper, or Americans for driver’s licenses, but something more like the lines of consumers eager to be the first to get the new iPhone or the latest Harry Potter book. Affluent people often wait in line for things about which they have a particular enthusiasm—or for special experiences, like an amusement park ride, concert or meal at a favorite restaurant.
One obvious difference is that whereas the iPhone and Harry Potter queuers are eager to get the new thing first, the ObamaCare ones are presumably anxious not to miss the deadline (even if it’s not rigorously enforced). ObamaCare lines might have been impressive if they’d begun to form in the last days of September. At the end of open enrollment, the White House boast is akin to the IRS’s citing a “surge” in filing of tax returns two weeks from now as evidence that the income tax system is popular and well designed.
Long lines on the last day something is available usually means something far different from long lines on the first day.
My wife took this photo of my two youngest kids playing on our new back porch.
Jason Kottke sees liking something publicly as a sort of spectator sport.
Coffee, like almost everything else these days, is a sport. Everyone has a favorite team (or coffee making method or political affiliation or design style or TV drama or rapper or comic book), discusses techniques and relives great moments with other likeminded fans, and argues with fans of other teams. The proliferation and diversification of media over the past 35 years created thousands of new sports and billions of new teams. These people turned hard-to-find nail polish into a sport. These people support Apple in their battle against Microsoft and Samsung. This guy scouts fashion phenoms on city streets. Finding the best bowl of ramen in NYC is a sport. Design is a sport. Even hating sports is a sport; people compete for the funniest “what time is the sportsball match today? har har people who like sports are dumb jocks” joke on Twitter. Let people have their sports, I say. Liking coffee can’t be any worse than liking the Yankees, can it?
Right on.
I’ve lived in the same apartment since January 2009. That’s the longest I’ve lived in one place in my life (almost). Leaving is bitter-sweet. It has been home to the best years of my life. Gabi was pregnant with my first child when we moved in, and we are moving out with three children (who are in desperate need of more room to run). Goodbye house. Goodbye Parkcrest.
I’ll have to say goodbye to this view…
…and this sunset.
I look forward to sharing pictures of the new place once we get settled.
Noise canceling headphones, quite car interiors, silent retreats—there is a big move toward quality, high-end quiet. Silence has always been valuable, but increasingly, people are showing that they are willing to pay for it. Chloe Schama discusses in the New Republic why silence is becoming a luxury product.
Unwanted noise is perhaps the most irksome form of sensory assault. A bothersome sight? Close your eyes or turn the other way—eyesores are, generally, immobile. An annoying taste? Spit it out. (Why was it in your mouth?) Sound, on the other hand, is ambient, elusive, enveloping. Even the softest drone can echo cacophonously if it worms itself into your head.
For silence—as in many areas of modern life—technology both causes the problem and provides the solution.
Technology has both increased our perceived need for silence and created (or at least improved) the means of attaining it. We’re assaulted by incessant technological “noise” and reliant on technology to control it. We’re battered by a ceaseless stream of emails and memos and tweets and status updates, but we plug into the latest iPod to tune it out.
How long will it take for drone cargo ships to set sail and start crossing the high seas?
Military drones already fly frequent missions and civilian operations using unmanned aircraft are coming. Driverless cars are clocking up thousands of test miles. So why not let remote-controlled ships set sail without a crew? Indeed, the maritime industry has started to think about what would be required to launch a latter-day Marie Céleste.
There are many potential benefits to drone cargo ships. Most cargo ship accidents involve human error. Removing that variable from the equation should increase maritime safety. Drone ships will also need far fewer people to run. That will let them save on labor costs and fuel. Unmanned ships will be able to travel slower on long voyages than traditional cargo ships, burning substantially less fuel.
These unmanned ships will have to watch out for a different sort of pirates.
As for piracy, with no crew to be taken hostage it would be much easier for the armed forces to intervene. Of course, more modern pirates might try to hack their way into the controls of an autonomous ship to take command. Which is why encrypted data communication is high on the maritime industry’s list of things to do before ghostly vessels ply the trade routes.
Drone ships will probably still run with a skeleton crew aboard, but it sounds like a job as appealing as being the caretaker for the Overlook Hotel.
What weapons of war do you need to defend your territory? Consider the following from the Guardian:
You’re a 16th century German prince plotting to crush a peasant rebellion, or perhaps you’re leading an army against the Ottoman Empire or settling a score with a rival nobleman. What’s a guy looking for a tactical edge to do?
The answer, of course, is rocket cats.
The illustrations from a 16th century guide on siege warfare show what looks like cats with jetpacks strapped to their backs. However, it turns out they’re cats being used as fire bombs to set fire to a besieged city. Alex Moore from Death and Taxes wrote:
The idea was set forth by artillery man Franz Helm, who had apparently seen action in Turkey and witnessed first-hand the power of gunpowder. His idea went like this: Rather than try to lay siege to a castle or otherwise protected town, you could simply kidnap a cat, attach a jetpack to its back, set it on fire nearby and release the cat, which would run back home in its panic wearing the jetpack and set the whole town on fire.
I’m sure there are other examples, but adding Handwriting for Android into Evernote is the first time I’ve seen a major mobile feature, from a mainstream software developer, introduced on Android before iOS. I’m sure the feature will come to iOS soon, and I will probably try it once—for the novelty—and then never use it again. I have a hard time reading my handwriting on paper, much less on a touch screen.
