Random

“As a joke following Apollo 13’s successful splashdown, Grumman Aerospace Corporation pilot Sam Greenberg (who had helped with the strategy for re-routing power from the LM to the crippled CM) issued a tongue-in-cheek invoice for $400,540.05 to North American Rockwell, Pratt and Whitney, and Beech Aircraft, prime and subcontractors for the CSM, for “towing” the crippled ship most of the way to the Moon and back. The figure was based on an estimated 400,001 miles (643,739 km) at $1.00 per mile, plus $4.00 for the first mile. An extra $536.05 was included for battery charging, oxygen, and an “additional guest in room” (Swigert). A 20% “commercial discount,” as well as a further 2% discount if North American were to pay in cash, reduced the total to $312,421.24. North American declined payment, noting that it had ferried three previous Grumman LMs to the Moon (Apollo 10, Apollo 11 and Apollo 12) with no such reciprocal charges.”

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_13

This month seems to start with mainly videos. Wasn’t the intention specifically but I just seemed to keep finding one video leading me to another. Thankfully the rest of the month became more varied.

• Quite a long video about a micro apartment in Seattle. Very interesting how much he manages to fit into a very small space. Even a bath!
• Fashion model Cameron Russell talks about how looks aren’t everything in a surprisingly honest way
• 50 Debunked Science Misconceptions is an old one now, but a good one
• Someone asked some parents what they thought the future would hold… then they asked their children and showed them their answers
• A prank held in an Ikea where a couple gets trapped while walking around the shop
• This is a chart showing what plants should be planted together and what shouldn’t
• I thought this example of what 4 dual income families spend their money on was quite interesting, if a little American in places
• This site in particular is very good, full of manly ways to clean and cook etc. Cordless drill plus bath has to be a winner though
• The guys at Backblaze did a very interesting write-up of how long your average hard drive lasts
• I am aware I seem to be finding more and more parenting articles but I figure they might be handy…
• Which I guess in part explains this mix of parenting and technology in some open letters from parents about sexting
• A very poignant and powerful article about the assisted death written by the creator of Dilbert, Scott Adams
• Wikipedia is tiny.. I mean really tiny given what it contains. The whole thing is only 100GB and if you take out the images it is just 25GB. If you fancy keeping a copy with you try this
• The Neuroscientist Who Discovered He Was a Psychopath: says it all really

OK so this post is technically late but it has been a busy work. If you take nothing from this set but one link, make it the last one and watch the video.

• Exdended excerpt from astronaut Chris Hadfield’s new book “An Astronaut’s Guide to Life on Earth”
• The only time I have ever agreed with Russell Brand, and on politics of all things
• A very long and interesting article about the Edward Snowden case, the Guardian and editor Alan Rusbridger
• An Android app called Timebale specifically designed for students
• Anybody with children young enough to appreciate their own hammock (hint, all of them) should make them this
• What the world might be like in the year 2100
• A Chrome add-on that gives you a dictionary definition and links to other useful information when you double-click on a word
• And in the spirit of browsers, how about a pile of improvements for Firefox too
• Microsoft have released an update and a blog post detailing how to save a lot of disk space by removing old Windows updates
• A small insight into the nutter / millionaire entrepreneur John McAfee
• Standing 3 hours a day is like running 10 marathons a year
• 7 things you may not realise about marriage
• 3 oils that you should have in your kitchen
• Finally the best Halloween costume every devised has to be this one

Well this is two months in a row. Looking good so far. If anyone has anything they would like me to be looking out for then please ask and I will try to include it (assuming it is covered under my reading). What follows is about 20% off the top.

• www.gettycritics.com – A site that puts captions to frankly ridiculous stock images. So far my personal favourites are this and this.
• Mother sells her daughters concert tickets on ebay for lying to her. – I can only hope to write something as good when I am parent.
• Two of my favourite graduation speeches (appropriate at other times too) Tim Minchin and Adrian Tan
• Everything You Needed to Know About the Internet in May 1994
• Mini Tasker is an Android app that lets you assign actions to events. For example, when you connect to your home WiFi, turn your bluetooth off
• Video and article about hand built watches and the background of the man making them
• Turns out that when it comes to buying MP3’s Amazon is a lot cheaper than iTunes
• QuickOffice is mobile and tablet office suite bought by Google and made free on Android and iTunes
• A free online university called Future Learn backed by more than 20 UK universities
• Clothing changes how you feel and act through enclothed cognition
• Debt reduction calculator
• Stop people on Facebook seeing when you have read their messages
• The Feynman Physics Lectures have been put up in web form. Videos are still here if you would prefer those
• A scientific guide to saying no
• 10 useful organisation solutions
• A way on Android to use different keyboard layouts in portrait and landscape views

I spend far too much time reading a lot of articles on the web. A lot of it is for work (if you are not running in this industry then you are getting left behind). I extend that same interest in new and better to as many things as I can. As such during the month I come across quite a few things that I should probably share. Given my many failed attempts to resume blogging this seems at least a worthwhile way to try and restart (again). If all goes to plan this will become a regular thing. If not, at least you got some links for your troubles.

• Android App for better control over volume
• Lifehacker: How to encrypt your e-mails
• App for downloading a local copy of Wikipedia (smaller than you would expect) (Windows, Mac, Linux, Android)
• Set of articles about if it is ever OK to snoop on your children’s internet usage: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4
• How much should you be saving for retirement
• OpenStax free textbooks. Very early stages but the idea is amazing
• 2 Ingredient pizza dough
• Folder Actions: Free software to automate things like thumbnail images when you add them to a specified folder etc.
• Shoud I remove it: Tool that scans your machine and helps you decide if all those applications are needed
• An infographic for what colours work best in what rooms and why
• Isaac Asimov’s 1964 article on what the 2014 world fair might exhibit. I particularly love the line about nuclear power being common in the home.
• Meal plan generator based on how many calories you want to eat. Useful for ideas at the very least
• Very small replacement keyboard for Android. Might be worth looking into if you only have a small screen
• XKCD: What If – All about orbital speed and how low down space actually is (hint, I almost drive as far as space is away to work each morning).
• 40 Days of Dating: An experiment where two friends try and date for 40 days and both note down how they are feeling about each other during the process. The blog is side by side so you can compare their thoughts on the same events.

Between 250,000 and 500,000 die from flu each year in the world, so far only 31 people are known to have died from swine flu this year.

Over 40,000 people die in the US from car accidents per year, yet between November 2001 and October 2005 no-one died on a passenger aircraft in the US.

14 people are know to have died from Anthrax in 2004 none of them in the US.

150,000 over 65’s have died from being too cold in their own homes in the UK from 2000-2006.

Side note, most popular day to go to A&E in the UK is a Monday with 16% of admissions

Oh, and those masks you see people wearing in countries with swine flue have been shown to have no affect whatsoever (other than they make you look silly).

Hmm, there are so many more of these types of stats I just can’t seem to find them nor do I have the time to go hunting.