Today, I bring to you one of the coolest things I saw all weekend (besides my two adorable cats snuggling together in one teeny, tiny basket… duh). MAGICAL CONCRETE! Yeah I said it. Magical. This concoction of super-porous concrete pavement is designed to absorb just over 1,000 gallons of water in 60 seconds and drain it into the soil below. Though it is not ready for colder climates, this wondrous invention could do some very impressive things in the way of water conservation.
So, CK has been in Greeley, Colorado all week, which got us thinking: “How long will it take CK to travel home from Greeley?” So we did some math. Below, in no particular order, some answers to that question.
If CK were to walk: 340 hrs
If CK were to drive at the legal speed limit: 15 hrs 7 mins
If CK were to bike: 92 hrs
If CK were to fly on a commercial airplane: 1 hr 3 min drive from Greeley to Denver International Airport, 2 hr 22 min flight from DIA to GEG, totaling 3 hrs 25 mins
If CK were to ride a motorized wheelchair at max speed: 209 hrs
If CK were to ride a Segway at max speed: 83 hrs 45 mins
If all roads from Greeley to Spokane were replaced by the world’s fastest roller coaster: 11 hrs
If CK were a blue-fin tuna and all roads from Greeley to Spokane were replaced by water: 24 hrs
If CK were to hop on a zeppelin: 9 hrs 30 mins
If CK were to borrow Harry Potter’s broomstick, the Firebolt: 5 hrs 20 mins
If CK were to catch a ride on the Millennium Falcon: .4104 nano-seconds
Safe travels, boss!
You can find some very interesting things on the Internet. Sometimes you specifically search for them, and sometimes, just sometimes, a website you would never normally care about just pops up in your browser window. That being said… *POP!* meet the peanutized version of the helveticka crew!
So, today is Nintendo’s 126-year anniversary. Those of you who remember a time before Mario are probably doing the math in your heads right now. And yes, that’s way more years than might seem plausible. Nintendo’s company founding back in 1889 pre-dates most of what we would consider “technology” (except for that one time). Nintendo started as a manufacturer of Hanafuda cards, Japanese playing cards that literally translate to “flower cards.” It’s is a slow, thoughtful game, and as much as I love jumping around and saving Hyrule, I find that there is a grace to Hanafuda that has yet to be matched by any other Nintendo game.
As a writer of no small renown, I’m sometimes asked whether any rules of grammar or usage still have the power to trip me up. Just for the record, the answer is “No.”
There are, however, times when my brain isn’t quite as nimble as it used to be. Today is one of those days, and when the question as to the use of continual vs. continuous came up, I (gasp!) had to look it up.
Here’s the scoop: if the action is repeated at intervals, use continual. If it’s uninterrupted, use continuous. So: Chinese water torture is continual; Morgan’s impertinence is continuous. (Yet both, according to legend, can drive a person insane.)
There was apparently a bit of a kerfuffle last week when Kellita Smith, the actress who stars in SyFy’s Z Nation, told an interviewer that Spokane is “almost apocalyptic ready.”
You see, Z Nation—a zombie series so gloriously campy that it could only appear on the same network that gave us Sharknado, Sharknado 2: The Second One, and Sharknado 3: Oh Hell No!—is filmed in Spokane. Smith was simply pointing out the benefits of working in an area in which you’re never lacking in post-apocalyptic settings.
That was how I took her comment, anyway. After all, I shot the above photo just a mile east of Gonzaga University—a 20-minute walk, fer cryin’ out loud. Others, however, took umbrage, predictably using social media to scold Smith for being, among other things, a “terrible person.” Yawn.
Here’s the thing, folks: Smith is not only babe-a-licious, she’s also right. And you know what? That’s not a bad thing.
Happy Friday, everyone!
To add a bit of mystery and intrigue to your day, try guessing which mug belongs to each member of the helveticka team. (Hint! Not featured is Michelle, office administrator extraordinaire. This narrows down the people to: CK, Shirlee, Aaron, Courtney, Morgan, and Linda) Answers to be posted later today on our twitter.
I recently found out that what I’ve been calling a “black” iPhone all these years has a much more absurd title: “Space Gray.” In an age where parents name their kids things like Sandman and Ruckus, it’s no surprise that Apple would reach into the great celestial beyond in order to secure their place in the history of technology and color naming. What really got to me, aside from the clear dilemma between “space” and “gray,” was the air of mystique about the name, inspiring me to get to the bottom of just what Space Gray is anyway. A quick google search made the answer pretty clear: no one really knows.
I was specifically looking for a hexcode, something concrete to which I could tie my understanding of “Space Gray,” but what I found was inconclusive. My initial search turned up #a5adb0, #858487, #b4b5b9, #666666, and #CCCCCC. Unsatisfied, I tried the pull-an-image-into-photoshop-and-use-the-eyedropper approach which was, of course, useless.
From the evidence, I can only conclude that “Space Gray,” like crop circles and the source of many of Ripley’s problems, is extraterrestrial in origin, most likely gifted to Steve Jobs during a secret diplomatic mission to the Andromeda Galaxy. Thanks, aliens. I guess…
More than a client, Hydrafab Northwest has been an important helveticka collaborator for several years now. Nearly all of our 3D projects—namely interpretive exhibits, displays, and signage—have benefited from their expertise. So whenever we need custom metal fabrication with unique finishes and installation services, Hydrafab is the first call we make.
Take a look:
At this year’s Spokane County Interstate Fair, visitors can check out beef and dairy cattle (including a particularly impressive display of Texas Longhorns), goats, pigs, sheep, chickens, ducks, geese, rabbits…the usual stuff. There are also some “exotic” animals, like a pair of Patagonian cavies and a newborn zebra. A number of Boer goats—first introduced to the U.S. in 1993—are on hand, as well as a handful of Dexter cattle, once considered a rarity but now, according to the Livestock Conservancy, a “recovering breed.”
But perhaps the most endangered species on display (one whose habitat is decreasing at an alarming rate) is the Great American Smoker, seen above. Unlike the other animals at the fair, no physical enclosure is necessary for a group of G.A.S.—the collective noun is “cloud”—since the individuals naturally congregate in those areas designated for them.
Biologists have observed that both the population and the demographics can shift at a moment’s notice, indicating that the cloud forms out of expediency rather than a shared familial bond. This effect has been likened to a snowflake or fingerprint: no two G.A.S. clouds are alike. Moreover, migratory patterns are impossible to predict, even with computer modeling.
Thankfully for attendees, though, fair officials have thoughtfully set aside several spaces to encourage nesting. Called “smoking areas,” they’re nearly invisible to the untrained eye—but their approximate locations have been marked on this map.
Happy hunting!
Today seems like a good day to listen to Terry Riley’s One Earth, One People, One Love—one of 10 “spacescapes” commissioned by NASA back in 2001.
Richard Williams was at the world premiere in 2002, and explains how the “whistles, chirrups, howls, static and something that sounds like chattering voices” of space became a piece of extraordinary depth and poignancy—a piece that, for Riley, “took on a different hue after September 11, 2001.”
This may be the dumbest thing in the history of dumb things. It’s an app that promises to help you “find gender favouring, polarising, race related, religion inconsiderate, or other unequal phrasing” in your writing. No, seriously.
Just for fun, I plugged in Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail”—and guess what? Dr. King’s missive contains no fewer than 123 microaggressions. Number 81 is my favorite: “Lord may be insensitive, use Official, Owner, Expert, Superior, Chief, Ruler instead.” How in the world did the good reverend manage to pray without the benefit of this powerful tool?
I just hope to God (sorry!) Chief it’s a hoax.
Pete Christlieb, who played the sax solo on Steely Dan’s “Deacon Blues” (Aja, 1977), on the creative process:
“I went over to the studio one night after the Tonight Show finished taping at 6:30 p.m. When I listened on headphones to the track Tom [Scott] had arranged, there was just enough space for me to play a solo.
“As I listened, I realized Donald [Fagen] and Walter [Becker] were using jazz chord changes, not the block chords of rock. This gave me a solid base for improvisation. They just told me to play what I felt. Hey, I’m a jazz musician, that’s what I do. So I listened again and recorded my first solo. We listened back and they said it was great. I recorded a second take and that’s the one they used. I was gone in a half-hour. The next thing I know I’m hearing myself in every airport bathroom in the world.”
Read the whole story in this month’s “Anatomy of a Song” feature over at the Wall Street Journal.
From the diary of A. C. Benson, September 8, 1904:
“A verger took a party round [York Minster], and talked so pleasantly and gently; I did not listen to much he said, but just crept about in the holy gloom, and felt the awe of the huge solemn place, so filled with tradition and splendour, creep into my mind. That feeling is worth ten thousand cicerones telling you what everything is. I don’t want to know; indeed, I want not to know; it is enough that I am deeply moved. A foolish antiquarian was with the party, asking silly questions and contradicting everything. Such a goose, and so proud of being learned! The wealth and air of use pleased me. Yet the spirit which built it is all gone, I think. Religion—by which I mean services and dogmas—what is it? I sometimes think it is like tobacco, chewed by hungry men to stay the famished stomach. And perhaps the real food for which we starve is death.”
This is really more of a usage note than a grammar issue, but I was too lazy to come up with a headline, so grammar it is.
Today we’re talking about whether to use historic or historical. Like most either/or usage questions, it depends on what you’re trying to say.
Historic refers to what’s important in history:
Aaron’s superhuman effort led the EWU marching band to a historic victory over KZZU at the 1989 Taco-Eating Championship.
And historical refers to whatever existed in the past, whether regarded as important or not:
Dismayed by the historical anomalies he saw at the local Renaissance Faire, CK vowed never to return.