Brendan I. Koerner's Blog, page 67
July 12, 2010
Nose and Grindstone
As we pound away at day-job matters this afternoon, please take a moment to enjoy our favorite X-Clan track above. We've taken the liberty of fast-forwarding past the esoteric sermon that precedes the actual music. But if you'd like to learn more about the concept of, er, "white kryptonite," by all means, please rewind.
Goliath Cometh
We encourage you to click on the photo above to get a better sense of the Christophe Colomb's truly gargantuan size. The recently christened cargo ship is one of the world's largest, capable of carrying over 13,300 containers of goods. That's more than six times the size of most container ships, which typically top out at 2,000 TEUs.
The Christophe Colomb is apparently a harbinger of things to come in the shipping industry, where companies are increasingly keen to order so-called "post...
July 9, 2010
The Throw-In
Today's expedited spy swap in Vienna brought to mind an even more dramatic trade: the 1962 exchange that brought downed U-2 pilot Francis Gary Powers back home, and sent "Rudolf Abel" back to Moscow to live out his days as a KGB trainer.
Yet there was a third person involved in that sensational Berlin swap: Frederic L. Pryor (pictured), a grad student who the Soviets threw into the deal at the last moment. Pryor had ended up in East German hands after making a grave-yet-understandable error...
Ice Van Wyck
At the end of Wednesday's post about one of the least heralded pioneers of refrigeration, we noted that the "ice lobby" had been instrumental in frustrating John Gorrie's dreams of freezing water via mechanical means. This notion struck us as rather humorous since we can scarcely think of a less valuable commodity these days than ice, available at our local bodega for roughly 20 cents a pound. Yet as an astute commenter pointed out, naturally harvested ice was once so highly prized that New Y...
July 8, 2010
It's a Family Affair
Yesterday's arrest of a suspect in the long-running "Grim Sleeper" killings was made possible by familial DNA searching—in a nutshell, the suspect's genetic material wasn't in California's database, but a family member's was. A paper from earlier this year explains how the Golden State decides when such a search is enough to warrant further investigation:
In April 2008, the California Department of Justice relaxed its policies to allow for familial DNA searches and the reporting of results to...
Becoming Aquaman
This morning's all about taking Microkhan Jr. to his first-ever swim class, so no meaningful posting 'til a bit later on. The next time you hear from us, our first-born progeny will hopefully have the skills necessary to cross the Chuluut River—or, at the very least, the ability to kick his legs.
July 7, 2010
The Wizard of Ice
As our poor city continues to broil, it's worth remembering a man who dedicated much of his career to cooling down humanity: the great John Gorrie, who was convinced that an effective ice machine would be key to combating one of the 19th century's most dreaded diseases:
Dr. Gorrie became convinced that cold was the healer. He noted that "Nature would terminate the fevers by changing the seasons." Ice, cut in the winter in northern lakes, stored in underground ice houses, and shipped, packed...
H-Day
We stayed up late last night finishing Grounded, an unusual (and excellent) travelogue by our pal and occasional Slate colleague Seth Stevenson. (Check out one of our NFL-centric back-and-forths here.) The book is an account of Seth's attempt to circumnavigate the globe with his girlfriend, using only surface transportation—no planes, helicopters, or dirigibles. Hilarity and adventure ensue, as does a bunch of juicy local trivia. One of our favorite tidbits is mentioned toward the book's...
July 6, 2010
Twilight of the Encounter Specialists?
The man to the right is Pradeep Sharma, once renowned as one of Mumbai's top "encounter specialists"—that is, a cop whose not-so-secret mission is to assassinate underworld figures. Though these killings are said to take place during chases or confrontations gone awry, the Indian public knows full well that they are usually the product of planned hits. And many people have long supported this extrajudicial approach to crimefighting, given their lack of faith in the justice system's ability...
Burnt to a Crisp
Our long holiday weekend would've been much more enjoyable had New York City enjoyed its typical July weather. Instead, we were slammed with a heatwave of the utmost severity, which made strolling the streets only slightly more pleasant than roaming the post-apocalyptic Outback from Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome. And, alas, the worst is yet to come, which means another long day or two of bewailing our lack of central air conditioning.
When the mercury soars as it has, we feel entirely...
