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Space Bling
If you are a constant reader of this journal, you might have noticed that I am highly interested in unobtanium — various exotic materials. This post will depart from my usual blabbering about titanium.
Many years ago I got my first glimpse of aventurine – a form of quartz with suspended flecks of other minerals. The name itself sounded absolutely exotic and appropriate for a mineral that looks like a piece of solidified star field. It comes from Italian “a ventura” – meaning “by chance”. It refers to the fact that Italian glass makers learned to make glass that looks like aventurine by chance through mixing in flecks of copper. But in Russian “avantura” is a word that does not carry the same meaning. It can be best translated as “a risky and/or shady venture”.
Aventurine is usually green or orange, and I am not sure if the black version that I like so much is really aventurine at all. Recently I came by an ad in Russian Forbes magazine for a very expensive watch made by Bernhard Lederer Universe called blu-Planet. It has an internal dial made of aventurine which the ad claimed was of meteoritic origin.
My research shows that aventurine has a terrestrial origin, but while looking at meteorites I found a most interesting fact. It turns out that many metallic meteorites when polished and dipped in a dilute acid bath, show the most amazing patterns reminiscent of microchip’s silicone surface. These are called “Widmanstatten patterns” (after the name of a scientist who discovered them) and are a result of nickel and iron cores of asteroids slowly crystallizing for millions of years in the void of space.
Pieces of space rock are desirable. Apollo space program brought back a limited amount of Moon specimens and it was waaay expensive. Then it turned out that some meteorites found on Earth have the same chemical composition. So basically, you can get pieces of asteroids, the Moon, Mars and hell knows what else without leaving the planet. In fact you don’t need to leave your chair — eBay has loads and loads of meteorites for sale.
Space stones do not come cheap — they sell for about a dollar per gram, which is significantly more than the price of silver, and might go for much more than the price of gold. No wonder that a former truck driver from whose website I took these amazing photos of meteorites has been able to support his family through meteorite hunting. Overall, it looks to me like the cost effectiveness of a truck driver with an ATV and a metal detector is pretty good compared to the cost of our space program.
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Cover Your Manhole
After a string of electrocutions of pets and people, as well as for the famous manhole butt branding, Con Ed is applying some weird resin on top of its ornate manholes. Most of the surface is covered with opaque resin, but it looks like the middle, with “Con Edison” logo, is covered with clear epoxy or something similar.
By the way, I only now found out that “con” in Con Edison does not stand for “swindle”, ie “confidence”, “convict” or “against”, but for “consolidated”. Go figure.
I’ve decided to try some ads in my rss feed. These will be items from Amazon.com that I will be placing manually. The idea is that unlike in gothamist.com, these will not be random flashing ads that nobody is interested in (I stopped reading this blog – it’s easier to pick up NYT or NYP or read their official feed). These will be tempting things, things that I either own or would like to own, sometimes related to the post and sometimes not.
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Loop-de-Loop
Mayor Bloomberg spent 73 million wingwangs on his previous election campaign, already spent additional 23 mil on reelection and is rumored to be willing to go as high as 100. So basically the cost of New York City mayorship is about equivalent to a trip to the moon.
That much money could probably help a little bit in balancing NYC’s budget or go a long way in building a new kind of a spaceship (or a space elevator even), but maybe once you have that much money you might want to spend it on what gives you the greatest pleasure, and not the most useful application.
Speaking of circumlunar trips, if the 100 million private trip will ever happen, it will only be a second commercial trip around the Moon. In 1998 a Hughes satellite got stuck in a wrong orbit because the last stage of a Proton booster cut out too early. The insurers wrote it off (200 million, or two NYC mayorships) , but allowed Hughes engineers assisted by two former JPLers, Rex Ridenoure and Ed Belbruno, who came up with the idea, to try something unusual — a lunar swing-by using the satellite’s onboard propellant. They used a trick similar to the one that saved the stranded Apollo 13 astronauts, to bring the satellite through a few figure 8 loops around the Moon and settle it into correct geostationary orbit. Off the shelf software made by AGI was used to make calculations.
Here is a collection of press releases about the maneuver and here’s a diagram of one of the loops that I dug up in archive.org:
I actually have a mug from AGI proudly sitting on my desk. Every time I look at it I remember this story about some smart people and good software that saved a 200 million dollar satellite.
Lake Bill II : Just When You Thought You Were Safe
Microsoft seems to have outinnovated itself again. Not only does MS Virtual Earth have a slightly higher close-up resolution in some places – hey, I think I can see Ballmer going for a swim in lake Bill here, but also showing the supersecret walkway that goes right over buildings 1 and 3. At this resolution you can almost make out the letters on the Microsoft Bob walk of fame tile. Sadly, this resolution is not available for Brooklyn.
My earlier post about Lake Bill is here.
Wedgie!
Looks to me like they are making a movie out of NStorm’s awesome “Elf Bowling 2 : Elves in Paradise“. Ah, that game bring such memories of the .com bubble: that X-mas you could hear its sound effects in almost ever cubicle or octapod.
Post-Soviet Penthouses, the Biggest Penthouses in the World
Recently, while shopping in a Russian bookstore I splurged (the damn things are $7 a pop) and picked up some Russian versions of American magazines – Forbes, Maxim and the like. Russian Maxim, although edgier: nipples are allowed, is not that much different from the American version. But Forbes, that’s a completely different story.
All the stories are filled with oligarch-related news, but the really interesting part is the advertisements. They seem to fall into three categories: multi-thousand dollar luxury watches, luxury watercraft and luxury housing. And holy crap, am I impressed by the luxury housing.
There’s this company, Donstroy, that specializes in super-luxury apartment buildings. They use architectural styles with pejorative names: neo-Stalinist and McMansion, but also Post-Modernism and what looks like neo-Constructivism to me.
I, for one, like Stalinist architecture and think that Triumph Palace looks pretty hot, even though it’s just a usual riff on the Municipal Building in New York that is so common in Moscow (I will write a separate article about this phenomenon later).
Unless that spire is a mooring mast for personal Zeppelins, Triumph Palace is not the most impressive building in Moscow. What really blew me away, was the Crimson Sails complex that absolutely exudes architectural hubris. It features 10 foot plus ceilings, floor-to-ceiling windows, some floors with only two apartments each, yacht club with a real lighthouse, over the top gym, three saunas and three Turkish baths, Austrian low temperature baths (which I had no idea existed), regulation bowling, tennis center, a water park, an apple garden, an Alpine garden (I had to look up what that is), and an and most importantly, walkways that let you get around the complex without exiting to the street level. If I had that much money in Russia, I’d be afraid to go out in the street too. Besides, if I lived there, why would I want to?
But the 18,298.5 square foot 3 floor penthouse called “Cesar” in Crimson Sails is what really changed my preception of reality in architecture. A living room with 26 foot ceilings. Personal elevator. Ginormous terrace with two rotundas and a pool, panoramic views of Moscow to kill (or die) for. Plus – that thing on the top is a helicopter pad. Rupert, eat your heart out.
Brought to You by the Proliferation of Digital Cameras
Livejournal’s blogging software might not be that good as far as I am concerned, but they still have some of the best communities ever. Take, for instance, found_objects”>. It’s a community dedicated to pictures of interesting random crap, very much in the style of Found magazine. Of course, many livejournalers are not familiar with the concepts of “interesting”, “resizing pictures” and “editorial selection”, but overall besides the huge blurry pictures of absolutely uninteresting stuff (what, the community is called “found objects”, I found this) there’s much, much outstanding stuff. Here’s my selection for your lesurely browsing:
Four Stations of New York City
Some people like saying “the Internets”. I like saying “the Subways” (as in Ms. Subways). The subway system in New York City is really a patchwork of different systems, all built by different companies during different times with different philosophies. Because of that subway kiosks and stationhouses are so different in style.
Usually the kiosk is built to blend in with the surroundings. For instance one in front of the Citicorp building echoes its slanted shape.
The one in front of the over the top Art Deco RCA building is also thoroughly Deco.
On the other hand right in front of the dignified Victorian station kiosk with its cast iron ornamentation you will find a supermodernistic “Sculpture for Living“.
Avenue H stationhouse (aka Fiske Terrace Station) of the Brighton line is an altogether different animal, not found anywhere else in the system. It’s an old shingled railroad stationhouse, hailing back from the day when Midwood was really just that – woods in the middle of Brooklyn.
[update] By the way, just in case I ever find a way to travel back in time, I have a ticket for that railroad ready:
Maybe when I finish One Hundred Views of the Empire State Building I’ll pay homage to Hiroshige. We’ll see.
Dare and Do
Rear Admiral Dr. Grace Murray Hopper coined the expression “it’s easier to ask forgiveness than it is to get permission.” Just that alone justifies naming a ship and a park after her, but she did a few extraordinary things and coined some other expressions as well. Her motto, “Dare and Do” is also rather inspirational.
Unfortunately I do not own RADM Hopper’s autograph, but I have the next best thing. You see, a Brooklyn-based aviator and mechanic, one of the builders of “The Spirit of St. Louis”, Corrigan became famous in his own right by practicing Dr. Hopper’s prescription. He modified his own plane for a transatlantic flight, but spent years battling the bureaucracy. Finally he took off from Floyd Bennett field on a trip to California, but due to a “navigational error” (which he never admitted to be a ruse) ended up in Dublin, Ireland. Amused and impressed New Yorkers gave him a ticker tape parade, the Post printed a headline in reverse and for the rest of his life he was know as “Wrong Way” Corrigan. And here’s an autograph from my collection:
Corrigan and Hopper were born and died around the same time. They were a part of the Greatest Generation (by the way “American Generations” articles at Wikipedia are outstanding). Did something die with them? Why is the Canyon of Heroes so infrequently hosting ticker tape parades? Why didn’t Burt Rutan, Steve Fossett and Co. get one? Are there fewer non-sports heroes or is my generation, or is this all a result of the decline of the ticker tape machine?