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In this video, Tomorrow’s Build takes a look at the $7 billion flood defense system that was built to protect Venice, Italy from increased flooding due to climate change. They detail how the system was built, how well it works, how it compares with other defense systems, the challenges associated with keeping it working, and how well this sort of defense system might work for other coastal cities (NYC, SF, Sydney).
Here’s where we’re at with space elevators. “The Space Elevator has been a dream of scientists for centuries. A new design may finally make it a reality — at least, by the next century.”
Here’s the thing about humans: they will danceify every possible activity — and canoeing is no exception.
American Freestyle canoeing is the art of paddling a canoe on flat water with perfect control of its movements. The canoe is usually leaned over to the side to help the boat turn sharply and efficiently and paddle strokes are taken on either side of the canoe depending on the individual move. Balance, paddle placement and turn initiation are a few keys to this control. Since the movements seem dance-like, some practice this art timed to music, which is the ultimate in control.
The vest & bow tie, the choice of music (The Lady in Red by Chris de Burgh), his control of the canoe — it’s all perfect.
See also It’s Reflective Fjord Season, Watch As a Master Woodworker Turns a Giant Log into an Elegant Dugout Canoe, and Kayaking Down a Drainage Ditch. (via life is so beautiful)
For his video series for Eater, Daniel Geneen took a tour of the Lodge Cast Iron factory in South Pittsburg, Tennessee to see how cast iron skillets are made.
While all of this is happening, molds for pans are being made out of fine, pliable sand that’s compressed in massive machines. The ladles pour the molten metal into these molds. Once the metal is poured and cooled, the sand molds get placed into a shake-out machine that shakes the sand away from the pan, and then into an enormous drum to shake off the rest. The pans are finally put on a giant conveyor belt to be sorted and inspected. Any pans that are not up to muster get thrown back into the original scrap heap to be melted down again and remade into another pan.
In comparison, here’s how Borough Furnace makes their cast iron pans by hand in their much smaller workshop:
Very similar process, down to the sand molds, just on a much smaller and more hands-on scale.
paint everything everywhere! This is a super-fun little game.
Among Giants is a short documentary about a group of activists who lived in the trees of a Humboldt County redwood forest for four years in order to stop logging in the area.
Risking injury and incarceration, an environmental activist disrupts the clear-cutting of an ancient redwood grove by sitting on a tiny platform a hundred feet up in the tree canopy. Already three years into the tree-sit when filming begins, AMONG GIANTS blends vérité cinematography with intimate personal reflection to create a vivid picture of life in the trees and the unwavering dedication of the activists.
The activists’ tree-sit was successful — 1000 acres of the redwood forest were transferred to a public trust to create the McKay Community Forest. (via the morning news)
The new Tesla Plaid Model S is so so ridiculously fast. As my son would say, “it’s OP”.
Before this morning, I had never heard of Lusia Harris and now she’s one of my favorite basketball players. Playing in the 1970s, before the enforcement of Title IX in athletics, the 6’3” Harris dominated in high school, led a small university to three consecutive national basketball championships in the first 5 years of the program (while averaging 25.9 points and 14.5 rebounds per game), scored the first basket in Olympics women’s basketball history, is the only woman ever officially drafted by an NBA team, and was inducted into the National Basketball Hall of Fame. And those aren’t even her proudest achievements — you’ll have to watch the video for that.
For an electrifying young basketball player on the national stage, success often comes with a lucrative professional contract and brand deals — but Harris’s moment came in the 1970s, decades before the W.N.B.A. was founded, when few opportunities were available to female athletes interested in pursuing a professional career. In Ben Proudfoot’s “The Queen of Basketball,” Harris tells the story of what happens when an unstoppable talent runs out of games to win.
This video is part of the NY Times’ Almost Famous series, which also includes stories about radio astronomer Jocelyn Bell Burnell and actress/singer Kim Hill.
The Royal Museums Greenwich has announced the shortlist for the 2021 Astronomy Photographer of the Year competition. I’ve included a few favorites above (by Andrew McCarthy, Larryn Rae, and Stefan Liebermann) but you can check out the rest on their site. (via curious about everything)
New climate study: heatwaves are going to get more likely. “From 2051 to 2080, those prolonged, record-breaking events are expected to become three to 21 times more probable than they were in the past.”
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