Month: June 2003

Although the The White Queen’s Dictionary of One Letter Words technically only has 26 entries, it is very thorough, well-annotated, and entertaining.

In the light of Sammy Sosa’s corked bat incident on Tuesday, “no cork or other foreign material was found in any of the 76 bats confiscated from Sammy Sosa’s locker and X-rayed by baseball officials” on Wednesday. As much as I’d like to give Sammy the benefit of the doubt, I’m still a little wary of the whole incident, although the results of this examination go a long way in my book.

I was a little skeptical about how much advantage can be gained with the use of corked bats, but it appears that they can help players, if only minimally. A Wired story quoting several baseball and physics experts debates the effectiveness of their use. The slight gain in bat speed is almost offset by the lighter mass of the bat, possibly reducing “by about 3 feet what would have been a 375-foot drive from a conventional wooden bat,” not really helping power hitters but allowing contact hitters to get a quicker swing and consequently a better look at a pitch. In the end, though, the article points out that “baseball players are famously superstitious, and if a player succeeds with a corked bat once, he is apt to use it again. Also, the reputation of corked bats has a strong hold on players looking for an advantage.” That’s the main reason why it’s illegal, even if its benefits are only minimal.

Taking advantage of the whole situation, “The Fort Myers Miracle, Minnesota’s Class A affiliate in the Florida State League, plans to hand out free pieces of cork to the first 505 fans through the gates on Thursday night.”

On the heels of Ford Motor Company’s 100th birthday, The Sierra Club is running a series of advertisements criticizing the auto manufacturer. One of their ad headlines reads “1903-2003: A Century of Innovation…except at Ford,” noting that the Model T achieved gas mileage of 25 miles to the gallon almost 100 years ago, better than the average Ford vehicle, which only gets 22.6 miles per gallon. Ford counters that some of its models are the most fuel-efficient in their classes, but this doesn’t change the fact that the Ford Explorer SUV only averages 16 miles per gallon. The Sierra Club’s arguments may be slightly spurious, but I commend their message and hope that if nothing else, it gets people to reconsider purchasing a gas guzzling SUV or truck that they don’t even need.

During World War II the British and Americans were developing plans for the HMS Habbakuk, a giant ship made of Pykrete. Pykrete is basically ice with wood pulp mixed in, resulting in a much higher strength and resistance to melting than conventional ice. Check out these two articles for more historical information and background, including some technical specs. Initially I was skeptical of the idea, but upon reading the different articles it seems feasible, especially in the economic and military context of the time. I’m surprised that I’ve never heard of it mentioned as a construction material for Arctic climates, though, as it seems to be ideal for that application…

Looks like the lawyers got to Ghyslain, AKA The Star Wars Kid. I joined the bandwagon and posted a link about him a month or so ago, but apparently the worldwide acclaim/ridicule was too much for him. Or perhaps ambulance-chasing lawyers smelled a juicy settlement. Hmmm…which one do you think it is?

I’m not all that into tarot cards, but I just had to link to the eighties tarot.

The DrikoLand Blog is one year old today! Although the site has been up and running since 1995 (thank you very much!), it took me until last year to dive into the Blogosphere. Discovering and using a blog interface has been sheer joy, as it allows me to update fairly regularly without having to slog through the tedium of HTML coding, although I still futz with my template more than I probably need to :-).

I had initially intended to use the blog as a place to let people know when I updated the ‘80s part of my site, which gets a lot more traffic than the blog does but is largely static. By the way, I’m about to break I just broke 400,000 hits on the ’80s site; another reason to celebrate! However, I’ve never had the time to properly, regularly update that site, unfortunately, so “update” posts are infrequent at best, although I really hope to remedy that soon. Mostly, I’ve been blogging interesting, funny stories that I used to mass e-mail to friends, concentrating on some of my favorite subjects like the ’80s, The Simpsons, aviation, and photography. I haven’t done as much freeform journal blogging as I’d like to, but that may yet change. In any case, hopefully the posts have been entertaining, thought-provoking, and diverse enough to keep people interested. Please let me know if you have any suggestions, criticisms, or compliments ;-).

Although at first it seemed like the site got off to a slow start, with just friends checking it out semi-regularly, it seems that I’m gradually getting more exposure and seeing some new faces. However, it would be great if more of you posted some comments to boost my ego a little.

I shouldn’t close this post out without givin’ a shout out to my peeps Shaft and Czar, two good friends and occasional co-posters that have added their touch to the site as well. Their efforts are very much appreciated and too infrequent! And thanks to everyone who has stopped by and visited, especially those die-hard regulars who take the time to add their $0.02 to the blog.

Unexploded cluster bomblets are not souvenirs.

There’s more than one Ronald McDonald?! And here I thought I was so special when he came to my seventh birthday party in Columbia Mall…

Last year I made a post about the California Coastal Records Project, a very cool effort that aims to document the entire California coastline with pictures taken from a helicopter in order to provide data on erosion and other environmental concerns.

Well, apparently Barbra Streisand only supports the First Amendment when it suits her, as she has sued the Project because her home happens to be in one of the pictures. Read the official press release, one of these other news releases, or The Smoking Gun for more information. I for one think that this is unconscionable. Her argument that people can find her house from these photos is completely baseless; her address is a matter of public record, and the photo doesn’t reveal anything more than what it looks like. What bullshit; her lawsuit will draw more attention to her home’s location than the website ever did…