Last 100 posts, part 9

This is the ninth installment in an occasional series of updates to recent kottke.org posts. Previous installment is here, from almost a year ago. Eep.

Two still-active threads: will a helicopter on a treadmill take off? and my favorite kottke.org thread in recent memory, loads of people sharing words that they mispronounce on purpose.

Ben Saunders had to break off his attempt at a speed record to the North Pole after only eight days because of an equipment failure. The bolts on his skis snapped.

Those few hours in the tent were some of the lowest of my life; I thought of all the people that had gone so far out of their way to make this expedition happen, of the weeks of intense preparation, the months of training and the years of experience, testing and perfecting everything from my diet to the design of the sledge. This expedition was the physical embodiment of one of the biggest and most audacious dreams I’ve ever had, and the whole thing hung from a giant chain that involved countless people, places, promises and pieces of equipment. It turned out on Friday morning that the weakest link of that entire chain was a pair of screws, each with a head the size of my little finger tip, and each snapped clean in half.

Speaking of the cold north, I lamented the lack of charts in this post about the earlier onset of spring thaw in the northern hemisphere. Erin whipped one up for us.

Related to these architectural offices in an old auto body shop are the offices of a small London start-up operating out of a carriage from the London Tube.

You want strange restaurant names? I give you, The Butt and Oyster. (thx, nick)

The lost Prada sunglasses have not been found by their owner.

More abandoned amusement park photos: Maryland’s Enchanted Forest and Seoul’s Dreamland. (thx, guy & ross)

The business of parenting was a popular post…maybe I should turn kottke.org into a dad blog? Well, until that happens, here’s a couple of related items that people sent in. First up is an NPR story on teaching kids how to play. Part of the solution discussed in the story? Deliberate practice. It’s all connected, isn’t it? And here’s an earlier related story. (thx, michael & matt)

Here’s a tangential connection: reading magazines within a Google Maps interface is related to telling stories using maps. And of course, there’s Microsoft’s Seadragon technology, demoed briefly at the start of this TED presentation. (thx, barrett)

Back in January, I linked to an interview of a hedge fund manager at n+1. They’ve posted a second interview with the same manager and he discusses, among other things, what happened with that whole Bearn Sterns run-outta-money government bailout thing.

More on the periodic table. Periodically is an album put together by DBLF Studios featuring 119 songs, one for each element. Peep the lyrics; here’s a bit of the lithium tune:

I’m unbelievable for non-linear optics
high performance jet helicpotics
I have numerous commercial applications
am no longer integral for atomic weapons
unfortunately meth-amphetamines I do catalyze
I absorb carbon dioxide when I hydroxize
nuclear fusion totally relies on me
I allow the criminally insane to go running free

There is also Tom Lehrer’s The Elements, a recitation of the elements of the periodic table, sung to the tune of Gilbert and Sullivan’s Major-General’s Song. Of course you can hear it on YouTube. (thx, george & philip)

A pair of responses to Rent Vs. Buy Myths That Ruined the Housing Market: Myths, Media, Motives: A Cautionary Tale and The Nonsense of “Rent Vs. Buy Myths That Ruined the Housing Market”.

MovieStamer has filled out a bit more.

Some popular tags from the last three weeks: standardoperatingprocedure, movies, photography, lists, design, books, abughraib, video, food, science, errolmorris, interviews, war, bestof, nyc, videogames, games, typography, www, tv, art, sports, sex, architecture, and religion.

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