Basically it is a result of static electricity created by friction as materials of dissimilar material strike against each other. In this case titanium/nickel blades moving through the air and dust. It occurs on the ground as well, but you don’t usually see it as much unless the aircraft is landing or taking off. The most common time is when fuel is being pumped. When large tankers are being fueled they must be grounded to prevent static electricity from discharging and creating explosions.
“Print number 6517 and 6518 are smeared and does not define clarity.”
Another excellent find among my grandmother’s old documents was a set of hilariously informative instructions for nose-printing your dog.
When my father was young, his family owned an enormous Great Dane named Lady who turns out to have had a pedigree. Canadian National Live Stock Records show her mother’s name as “Duchess of Willowdale” and her father’s as “Dandy of Metheringham.” To register Lady herself with the Canadian Kennel Club, my grandfather had to send in a nose-print. I have no idea what the primary method for taking nose prints was, but it apparently failed, according to this letter from the Dept. of Agriculture: Continue reading…
Perhaps the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. But probably my oxen will haul a dozen loads of gravel just as quickly.
Going through my grandmother’s old things last night, my father and aunt came across her typing textbook from secretarial school in England, 1934 to 1936. One of the exercises, about halfway through, includes a somewhat hilarious list of sentences using every letter of the alphabet. Continue reading…
The incredibly lifelike scenes are actually huge works of art, painted on the side of perfectly intact buildings.
Even that woman peering into the ruin above is not real. The paintings, which have fooled many, were created by John Pugh, who specialises in trompe l’oeil — or ‘trick of the eye’ — art.
I could not help smiling for this whole clip. It’s just great. Wow.
Bobby McFerrin demonstrates the power of the pentatonic scale, using audience participation, at the event “Notes & Neurons: In Search of the Common Chorus”, from the 2009 World Science Festival, June 12, 2009.
An article in today’s Boston Globe described an intense standoff between President Obama and a housefly that thought it could be a whitehousefly…
During a White House television interview with CNBC’s John Harwood, the president tried shooing the fly away, saying, “Hey! Get out of here.”
Harwood offered, “That’s the most persistent fly I’ve ever seen.”
Obama paused for a moment, seeming to study the fly’s flight path, and then he suddenly slapped his right hand down on his left. The fly had bugged its last commander in chief.
“Nice!” Harwood said to the sounds of a few claps in the background.
The look of concentration is priceless. Also, I think that fly took up about $1,000 of presidential time.
