Park rangers in South Africa are investigating a bizarre incident in which dozens of endangered African penguins appear to have been killed by honey bees.
To be more precise, Madeleine Ravier referred to her invention as a "bicycle for animals." She did not restrict the design in her 1907 patent to horses.
Ravier concluded that, as human locomotion is more efficient on a bicycle, animals likewise benefit by an appropriately adapted vehicle. Weird Universe quotes a translation of her patent:
What man did for himself he can do it for animals, or at least for some of them; There is a way to increase the efficiency of their limbs by the intercalation, between these limbs and the field of motion, of mechanical devices receiving the reciprocating motion of the limbs, transforming it into continuous rotary motion, and ending in rotating parts; and the result obtained can be used to make animals move man faster and farther than has hitherto been done by using them.
According to documents filed with the Federal Election Commission, Green Day frontman Billie Joe Armstrong plans to run for President on the Republican ticket in 2024. Saint Jimmy of TheKrustyKrab is registered as his running mate, and the rest of the band is listed as the Principal Campaign Committee. — Read the rest
by Claire Lower on Skillet, shared by Claire Lower to Lifehacker
Corn dogs are a breakfast food (sausage, fried batter—it’s all there!), and the best breakfast foods are those that can be made quickly and easily, even in an un-caffeinated state. Frozen corn dogs are almost that. They heat up quickly in the microwave and deliciously in the oven, but the former makes the batter all…
by Micaela Heck on Lifehacker, shared by Riley MacLeod to Kotaku
I don’t need to tell you how dark the state of the world is lately—I’m confident you know. What you might not know, however, is that podcast listenership has been down since the pandemic shuttered our workplaces and canceled our commutes, which is unfortunate, given podcasts are the very thing that might bring us some…
History of the Transcontinental Railroad and US Mail
On May 10, 2019, the U.S. Postal Service will commemorate the 150th anniversary of the completion of the Transcontinental Railroad with a set of Forever stamps. Construction of this railroad during the 1860s was the wonder of the age. Its completion was marked by the “Golden Spike Ceremony,” held when rail lines built by the Central Pacific Railroad Company from the west and the Union Pacific Railroad Company from the east were joined at Promontory Summit, Utah.
With the completion of the transcontinental link, it was possible — for the first time — to travel between the Atlantic and Pacific Coasts on a nearly continuous rail line. Not only did the new railroad facilitate the transportation of people and goods, it also allowed the mail to travel with unprecedented speed and ease.
Moving the Mail
Before railroads, mail was transported on horseback, in wagons, or by boat. The Post Office Department recognized the value of railroads in moving the mail as early as 1832, when stagecoach contractors on a route from Philadelphia to Lancaster, Pennsylvania, were granted an allowance of $400 per year “for carrying the mail on the railroad as far as West Chester.”
In 1835 Postmaster General Amos Kendall predicted, “The multiplication of rail-roads will form a new era in the mail establishment. They must soon become the means by which the mails will be transported on most of the great lines of intercommunication.”
Congress saw the advantages of moving the mail by rail, too. In 1838, all railroads in the United States were declared to be post routes and the Postmaster General was instructed “to cause the mail to be transported thereon, provided it can be done upon reasonable terms.” By 1850, 6,886 miles of railway were used to carry the mail; by 1860 that mileage had quadrupled to 27,129. Most of that track, however, lay east of the Mississippi River.
When California entered the Union in 1850, it was distant and isolated from the East. Mail for the Pacific Coast had to travel many weeks — first by steamship to Panama, then overland across the isthmus, and finally by sea to San Francisco. Postmaster General Nathan Hall wrote, “The conveyance of correspondence … between the Atlantic and Pacific portions of the United States, has become a large and important branch of our mail service.” Yet he acknowledged that due to the great distance, “The mail service in California and Oregon … is still in an unsettled state.” Overland mail routes to California were established in the 1850s, but the routes were hazardous and service was erratic.
Between San Francisco and the nearest railroad lay nearly 2,000 miles of mountains, deserts, rivers and plains. The idea of connecting California to the rest of the nation by rail was but a distant dream. The technical challenges of scaling the Sierra Nevada Mountains were formidable, but not nearly as insurmountable as the political hurdles. Politicians from the North and the South were stalemated over which route the railroad should take. It wasn’t until after the southern states seceded in 1861 that the deadlock was broken.
In 1862, President Abraham Lincoln signed the Pacific Railway Act, to provide for the “safe and speedy transportation of the mails, troops, munitions of war, and public stores.” The act created the Union Pacific Railroad Company and authorized it to build a railroad westward from Nebraska, to connect with a road to be built eastward by the Central Pacific Railroad Company of California. Construction began the following year, eastward from Sacramento, California, and westward from Omaha, Nebraska.
Over the next six years, construction progressed and the distance between the ends of the two railroads grew shorter. The Post Office Department contracted with Wells, Fargo & Co. “for the transportation of the United States mails between the western terminus of the Union Pacific railroad and the eastern terminus of the Central Pacific … until the two railroads should meet.”[1]
The two ends finally met on May 10, 1869, at a point 66 miles from Salt Lake City. The effect on speeding the mail was dramatic. Before the completion of the transcontinental railroad, mail averaged between 16 and 20 days to travel from the Missouri River to California. In October 1869, the average time from San Francisco to Washington, DC, was 7 days, 7 hours, and 11 minutes. The quickest trip that month, from San Francisco to Washington, DC, took just 6 days, 15 hours.
The stunning impact of the new railroad was summed up in a speech given by the San Francisco businessman, A.S. Gould, in September 1869: “The mind well-nigh loses its balance in the fact of this wondrous revolution, and yet it is true, the Pacific Railroad has emerged from the ideal to the real, and California … is brought nearer than ever to the necessities of the east and of the world.”[2]
Steve Kochersperger, Senior Research Analyst, Postal History, U.S. Postal Service
[1]Annual Report of the Postmaster General (1869).
[2]Daily Picayune (New Orleans, Louisiana) Sept. 28, 1869.
After a long day of driving for Uber and Lyft, this fella decided to work out exactly how much money he'd be taking home after paying taxes and expenses on his income as an independent contractor. While there's certainly a number of tax loopholes and write-offs that he could be taking advantage of, it looks like, for most people, driving for Uber or Lyft isn't worth the time.
Aaron Oppenheim writes, "I made a lil lazy mashup of Legs and Where The Streets Have No Name (just tempo and key matching) because someone on twitter pointed out that they are basically the same song. It works incredibly well."
(more…)
This is cool. "Boil the Frog" is a 2012 web app by Paul Lamere that creates a "seamless playlist between any two artists."
Boil the Frog lets you create a playlist of songs that gradually takes you from one music style to another. It's like the proverbial frog in the pot of water. If you heat up the pot slowly enough, the frog will never notice that he's being made into a stew and jump out of the pot. With a Boil the frog playlist you can do the same, but with music. You can generate a playlist that will take the listener from one style of music to the other, without the listener ever noticing that they are being made into a stew.
Naturally, I had to gave it a whirl. I discovered that it takes 23 songs to connect Nancy Sinatra to Insane Clown Posse, but only 11 songs to connect her to Vanilla Ice.
You can give it a try and learn how it works here.
