Michael Shainblum at Yosemite, amazing photographs. More at his web site.
Federal court dismisses a lawsuit brought against pollster J. Ann Selzer for publishing a 2024 poll that found Harris in the lead in Iowa.
An argument that our world is ugly because nobody cares.
Scott Siskind asks what is behind the disappearance of homeless tent camps from San Francisco.
Conservative Christian Rod Dreher against Groyperism and Nick Fuentes: "Jews are the canary in the coal mine."
Sarah Kliff in the NY Times against continuous fetal monitoring during labor, which she argues leads to unnecessary C-sections. Those of us in the natural birth movement have been saying that for 40 years.
On Twitter/X, a cry from the heart by an old-line constitutional conservative against what is happening on the right.
Meet Spitfire, the champion of jumping dogs, 12-minute video.
A report that many Somalis in Minneapolis did not vote for Somali mayoral candidate Omar Fateh because he belongs to a rival clan.
An argument that China will allow mass immigration to solve its looming labor shortage. Japan and Korea cannot, because they are democracies, but the Chinese dictatorship can. (Twitter/X) I do not believe this at all.
Review of the big Rashid Johnson retrospective at the Guggenheim, with pictures.
Review of a book by a cranky conservative environmentalist who hates modernity, economic growth, the trans movement, and a whole lot more.
Aerial photographs of the camps built in the Saudi desert for the workers building Neom, their apparently failed dream of a great linear city.
Bonkers theory about a bonkers archaeolocial site, the "Band of Holes" in southern Peru. More here. I don't believe it but I don't have any other ideas.
Mostly sail-powered cargo ship crosses the Atlantic, 3-minute video.
Ukraine claims a major success using its domestically-built "Long Neptune" cruise missiles (old-fashioned Neptunes sank the Moskva), striking the Russian port of Novorossiysk and shutting down its oil terminal. Reuters, Twitter/X, video on Twitter/X. As part of this attack the missiles struck a Russian S-300/400 SAM battery, creating a huge explosion. Long-rang cruise missiles are now something any industrial state can build in quantity. The long debate in the US over whether to supply Ukraine with Tomahawks is pretty much moot, since Ukraine can build their own serviceable missiles and European states are ramping up production of the very effective Storm Shadow.
1 comment:
Mostly sail-powered cargo ship crosses the Atlantic, 3-minute video.
So it's effectively just a windjammer.
No, seriously. Compare to the Preussen, a windjammer from 1902.
Instead of the Preussen's five masts and 47 small individual sails, this has two masts and four giant sail multi-segment sails - which is good since the idea of a windjammer was always to reduce crew size compared to engine driven cargo ships, and simpler sail arrangements should support that (although it comes at the cost of total sail area - Preussen had more than twice as much area: 73,000 square feet vs 32,000 square feet.)
The smaller sail area also seems to hamper both cargo capacity and speed. Preussen had a cargo capacity of 8000 tonnes, while this manages only 5300 tonnes. Likewise, Preussen had a max speed of 20.5 knots vs the 11 knots this can achieve under sail power alone (16 knots with engine assistance).
The big advantage seems to be in crew savings - the Preussen had a complement of 45, this needs only 13. The other advantage is that it conforms to modern cargo container standards for loading and unloading. (And, presumably, to modern safety standards.)
Even the physical dimensions aren't very different. Preussen was 482 feet long, while this is 446 feet; Preussen was 223 feet tall, while this is 295 feet tall with the masts fully extended, but they can be folded down to reduce the overall ship height to only 137 feet to help with clearance on bridges, etc.
I'm not sure why this took so damn long, or why the improvements are so relatively minor compared to Belle Epoque technology.
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