Brendan I. Koerner's Blog, page 102
October 26, 2009
The Steakification of Blitzen
The rapid warming of the Arctic may delight those keen on easier shipping, but it's been nothing but terrible news for reindeer and their human overseers. On the Yamal Peninsula, the indigenous Nenet people are watching in horror as their precous herds break legs upon the gravel now popping up from the melted permafrost. And in Alaska, a bare 10,000 reindeer now roam the state's wildlands, down 600,000 just a century ago.
But a reindeer expert hopes to reverse the Alaskan decline, at least, ...
October 23, 2009
The Last 3,000 Miles
After a tremendous week of work, contemplation, and gorging on fish tacos out here in Palo Alto, we're heading back to Microkhan headquarters this evening. Not much time for blogging today, alas, as we try to suck a last few moments of enjoyment out of this trip. So we're skipping right ahead to Bad Movie Friday, and to a not-so-classic we've been storing up for ages: Commando. Unlike some of Arnie's early vehicles, this one does not stand the test of time. And not better clip makes that...
October 22, 2009
Grease for Strength
Yesterday morning, while tearing through the Stanford Faculty Club's equivalent of a Denny's Grand Slam (sans flapjacks, alas), we recalled how Americans were asked to collect their bacon drippings during World War II. We always assumed that this grease was then converted into fuel. But, boy, were we wrong—as the friendly Disney characters explain in the propaganda film above, that hog fat was a key ingredient in the production of glycerin, which in turn was integral to manufacturing...
A Shortcut for a Shortcut
In response to yesterday's post on the onetime vogue for mining-by-nuke, a treasured commenter asked:
I remember a rumor that someone proposed building an alternative to the Panama Canal (perhaps even at sea level) using nuclear explosives. Did you find any evidence of that in your research?
Indeed we did! This was actually the pet concept of Edward Teller, the man behind the H-bomb. In the interests of harnessing nuclear explosives for peaceful purposes, he founded Project Ploughshare. The...
October 21, 2009
Wrestling in Rumbek
Some hopeful news out of southern Sudan: stability has returned to the town of Rumbek, and with it one of the region's favorite sports:
Rumbek youth have resumed their favorable game of wrestling for the first time since four years after bloody confrontations in cattle raids and inter-tribal fighting.
The wrestling begun between two rival groups of businessmen working in Rumbek Market and students from Rumbek senior secondary school whose are belonging to Greater Yirol Counties of Lakes...
Nukes for Shale
The controversy over Iran's nuclear ambitions has sent plenty of folks scurrying back to the history books, to examine what made South Africa give up its bomb-building program. In joining the throng, though, we stumbled upon a curious factoid from the annals—an assertion, in an old (and offline) Foreign Affairs article, that South Africa initially had peaceful reasons for developing nukes:
In 1971 Minister of Mines Carl de Wet approved preliminary nuclear explosives research. These...
October 20, 2009
Sunsets in Outer Space?
We're off taking advantage of our Stanford library privileges, in order to flesh out a few big-picture ideas. The wannabe emperor in the clip above, by contrast, could certainly do a better job of paying attention to the small picture—say, for example, noticing that there are no sunsets in space. (Unless he has a revolving ship specially designed for this purpose.) He strikes us as exactly the sort of galactic villain/chump whose headquarters will feature a needless thermal exhaust port.
Intelligence as Curse
We're headquartered on the Stanford campus this week, which has brought to mind one of our favorite football scouting reports ever: John Clayton's strangely damning take on Kwame Harris, an All-Pac-10 offensive lineman for the Cardinal in the early part of the millennium. Clayton loved Harris's arms, technique, and strength, but didn't likehis head—and not because of any lackluster Wonderlic scores, either. No, Clayton's biggest negative was:
Harris is so intelligent that some teammates have...
October 19, 2009
"It's Time to Slip the Border"
We're enjoying all that Northern California has to offer. You're enjoying vintage ZZ Top. Who's getting the better deal this afternoon?
The Nom de Politique Rule
Following up on last week's post regarding the general dreadfulness of rulers who get their mugs put on coins, we had to add another rogue to the gallery: the late Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaire. One of his personalized coins can be glimpsed here, and some of his paper money above. Mobutu certainly proves our currency rule, as his kleptocratic ways are well-documented;the stat that always sticks in our mind is that, upon his death, Mobutu was one of the world's ten wealthiest men, despite...
