Archive of April 2006
Bridge taxonomy
Lorie and the daughter-to-be konked out early tonight, so I’ve gotten to spend much of my friday evening engaged in one of my favorite leisure-time activities: browsing around in Wikipedia. I started out on purpose at the page for Interstate 80, because my father-in-law will be driving a big chunk of it this weekend. That made me wanna call up the I-90 page, because whereas 80 is the second-longest interstate highway, I knew that 90 is the longest. I found it interesting to learn that the bridge between Seattle and Mercer Island is the second-longest floating bridge in the world, which got me wondering which one is the longest. Turns out it’s on the same lake - it’s the always-charming, though thoroughly frustrating and most likely dangerously under-engineered Evergreen Point Floating Bridge on Washington State Route 520.
It wasn’t much longer before I was hopping all over Category:Bridges reading about both interesting particular bridges and stuff about the engineering and construction of all the particular types of bridges. Really fascinating stuff, but the big highlight of the evening was this taxonomic diagram showing the ancestral relations among various bridge types, and according to the principle forces predominant in each type. I really want to print this out and get it framed.
Actually, another highlight: the page about the catenary.
21:14 | 0 CommentsSignificant creep
From the NYT, the Pacific Coast Highway is sliding off the bluff. While this doesn’t really affect me in anything like a direct way, I still consider it a big drag. The picture at the top of the article is somehow one of the saddest things I’ve ever seen.
08:45 | 0 CommentsDorkage
While walking to the post office near my office this afternoon I crossed paths with this fundamentally dorky, but approximately goth-looking young man, who was singing along to the music in his headphones. It took me a moment to recognize, but I realized what I was hearing was an off-key rendition of “Sugar Magnolia” by the Grateful Dead.
Kids today! No sense of how to match their fashion to their musical taste (or vice versa).
Also, in the year 2006, why on earth is anybody under the age of 55, in whatever dress, listening to the Grateful Dead? I just don’t get it.
13:57 | 0 Comments