View from a different angle below (via top, via bottom). A little more info on harvestmen here and here.
04 May 2021
Awesome door
I haven't done any research on this, so I'll just post the title from the Reddit entry.
The oldest door still in use in Rome, Pantheon. Cast in bronze for emperor Hadrian's rebuilding, they date from about 115 AD. Each door is solid bronze seven and a half feet wide & twenty-five feet high, yet so well balanced they can be pushed or pulled open easily by one person.
Some readers here may have more information, or may have seen the door. The discussion in the thread at the via is trivial, but I did find a link to an interesting subreddit entitled Human For Scale.
Question for my copyeditor/poofreaders and other bored English majors: Is this a door (with two swinging parts), or are these two doors that meet in the middle?
Addendum: A tip of the blogging cap to reader Bob, who sent me a link to a webpage at Finding Ancient Rome, which has more information on this door/these doors:
And below this humble ceiling is the only door in the rotunda, the great double bronze door which was long thought to be a later replacement for the original, mainly because of the frame on either side and the grille above, which caused archaeologists to comment that it was too small for the opening. In fact, when at last the bronze was carefully studied, these were found to be original Roman doors, one of the rare survivals of monumental bronze. They had been cleaned in the course of the centuries, Christian motifs applied, but analysis of the fusion technique left no doubt that they date from the empire.
Each half of the double door weighs 8.5 tonnes, and rotates on pins set into the floor and the architrave above. An ingenious but laborious and little understood system allowed removal of the wooden architrave and replacement of the pins which tend to wear. In 1757, during an attempt to keep the door working, the whole thing fell, killing the foreman trying to remount it.
The right door was left totally blocked and the left door would open only partially. Two centuries later, after much careful study, using just soap (!) and specially-made plates to slightly lift the doors, the pins were replaced, the doors put back into their seats, and finally both could be opened and shut. It was 1998; the doors had not been fully opened for 241 years.
An antique "French letter"
The etymology of "French letter" is unclear. Condoms are also colloquially referred to as raincoats, rubbers, etc. The one illustrated above is made from sheep intestine and dates to about 1800, but the Wikipedia article on the history of the condom provides documentation back to the Renaissance.
Image from a BBC article on The search to make a perfect condom.
The Night Visitor
Working at my desk in my man-cave late at night when something FLUTTERS across my field of view. Momentary anxiety that we are harboring an unusually bold family of clothes moths. Relief to see it on the wall and recognize a Cabbage White butterfly, which apparently rode into my room unnoticed on a hyacinth blossom earlier in the day.
Another sign of spring is emerging in the patch of plants around our mailbox:
The "shrubby" plants toward the back are perennial rue that serve as a food plant for Black Swallowtail butterflies. Toward the front are spikes of milkweed that scoff disdainfully at puny human efforts to suppress weeds with a thick layer of hardwood mulch. I'm now checking them daily when I retrieve the mail, expecting to see Monarch butterfly eggs on them later this month. According to the Journey North map, a Monarch was seen on the Illinois/Wisconsin border 3 days ago.
Alpine road in winter
The Stelvio pass, South Tyrol, with Mount Scorluzzo on the right. Photograph: Stelvio National Park. Via a Guardian article on WWI relics emerging from melting European glaciers. I was just impressed that someone keeps this road open in the winter.
01 May 2021
Impressive tsunami footage
Interesting video filmed either by Darth Vader or by someone who has just run to the location (and should have run away earlier). A good reminder that a tsunami may consist of a succession of waves rather than a single one. This 6-minute video shows a 2017 Greenland tsunami; it is one of the later waves that washes away the buildings.
I recently watched Bølgen (“The Wave”), a Norwegian movie about a fjord-based tsunami. It is a fairly generic disaster movie, but rather well done, has won awards and has an 83% Rotten Tomatoes rating.
Related: New video of the Japanese tsunami.
I'll call it the "No-Brain School"
As reported by NBC Miami, via BoingBoing:
In Miami, Florida parents are paying nearly $30,000 for a private school that won't hire teachers who have been vaccinated for Covid-19. And if they've already taken part in the nefarious activity, they will be ordered to keep away from the students (and thus, most likely, will lose their jobs). In a bizarre statement to Miami's NBC6, the school, Centner Academy, said, "It appears that those who have received the injections may be transmitting something from their bodies to those with whom they come in contact."
More details and backstory at The Miami Herald.
"Op-ed" does NOT mean "opinion/editorial"
I suppose I've used the term dozens of times in TYWKIWDBI, always assuming that the piece to which I was linking was someone's opinion written on an editorial page of a journal.
But, as I browsed Why the New York Times is Retiring the Term 'Op-Ed', I discovered that the term was created as an abbreviation for opposite the editorial because it was geographically located on a newspaper page opposite from the editorial page.
You learn something every day.
"Because it's there"
A man parked in all 211 non-restricted spots at his local Sainsbury's. John Farrier provides details on this man's life-defining quest at the Neatorama via.
How mountains shape weather
Nice illustration using Mt. Fuji (no useful discussion at the via). Wikipedia does have an entry on rain shadow.
"Highway Gothic" and "halation" explained
A surprisingly interesting brief video about the fonts used on Interstate Highway signs. With quick pacing and excellent graphics, it illustrates the perceptual significance of minor variations in the shapes of letters.
I had to look up "halation" - an entirely new word for me ("the creation of a halo" - duh). I have enjoyed lots of interstate driving, and have always admired the quality of signage on these routes. Here's an example of what happens when you DON'T have good signage (via Neatorama):
I used to drive a lot in rural Kentucky as well, and the clusterfuck filmed above at the interesection of two-way roads doesn't surprise me at all.
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