LATEST ADDITIONS

I am in nerd heaven! The Royal Society has just put all of its journals online, going back to volume one in 1665. Read Robert Boyle's "Observables upon a monstrous head," Ben Franklin's kite experiments, Edmund Stone's invention of aspirin, Daines Barrington's observation of a "remarkable young musician" (Mozart), William Henry Fox's first accounts of photography, and Watson and Crick's discovery of DNA.

I couldn't resist posting one more photo of Bruce Thigpen's fan-driven infrasonic subwoofer, this time showing the drive-unit in operation. Loaded with an infinite baffle—it is in the next room—it fires into a foam-lined sub-chamber, which low-pass filters the residual fan noise, leaving just the awesome infrasonics to pressurize the room next door. Because the fan is providing the main motive power, just 30W of audio signal was required to create an spl of 115dB at 8Hz!

When I was younger, I wanted to grow up to become a Major League baseball player. Baseball runs in my family. My grandfather played in the sugarcane fields, my father played in the street, my uncles played Little League. Each generation, it seemed, got better and closer. I had one uncle who made it all the way to a Major League farm club before injuring his knee.

Amir Taheri has an interesting take on Grass' recent revelation of his Waffen SS past.