The San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge

Filed Under SF Bay Area, Video | 2007-04-24, 16:18

This may be more interesting to the Bay Area locals, but I figured other people might find it neat as well. This is an old newsreel about the Bay Bridge opening up back in 1936. I love the style with which this news is presented. It’s exciting and sensational and for good reason.

Some fun facts about the Bay Bridge (via wikipedia)
* The Bay Bridge is 44,352 ft (8.40 miles) long.
* One of the busiest bridges in the US, carrying approximately 280,000 vehicles per day.
* The legal name of the bridge is The James “Sunny Jim” Rolph Bridge
* Construction began on July 9, 1933, with the bridge opening on November 12, 1936, causing one of the greatest SF traffic jams ever.
* The total cost came out to $79.5 million (equivalent to $1.07 billion in 2005 dollars).
* The toll started at 65 cents, dropped to it’s lowest of 25 cents.
* The current toll for autos is $4, collected only for westbound traffic. For comparison, the original $0.65 toll in 1936 would be $8.62 in 2005 dollars.
* The dirt excavated for the Yerba Buena tunnel (the largest diameter tunnel in the world) was used in part to build Treasure Island.
* Construction for a more earthquake-resistant replacement on the eastern span began in 2002, with an initial completion date slated for 2007. Now they’re looking at somewhere around 2012 or 2013.

thanks to SFist for finding the video

1 Comment

Paul Lockett is a scam

Filed Under Scam | 2007-04-22, 13:28

I received the following email the other day, thought I’d post it up here to let people know that it is a scam. Don’t bother replying.

Good day,

My name is Mr. Paul Lockett, I am a senior partner in the firm of
Infinity Consultants “Private Investigators and Security Consultants”.
We are conducting a standard process investigation on behalf
of “HSBC”, the International Banking conglomerate.

This investigation involves a client who shares the same surname with
you and also the circumstances surrounding investments made by this
client at “HSBC”, the Private Banking arm of HSBC. The HSBC Private
Banking client died in testate and nominated no successor in title
over the investments made with the bank. I would respectfully request
that you keep the contents of this mail private and respect the
integrity of the information you come by as a result of this mail.

I contact you independently of our investigation and no one is
informed of this communication. I would like to intimate you with
certain facts that I believe would be of interest to you.

You share similar details to the late fellow; I am prepared to place
you in a position to instruct the firm to release the deposit to you
as the closest surviving relation. Upon receipt of the deposit, I am
prepared to share the money with you, that is, I will simply nominate
you as the next of kin and have them release the deposit to you. We
share the proceeds 50/50. I would have gone ahead to ask the funds be
released to me, but that would have drawn a straight line to me and my
involvement in claiming the deposit. But on the other hand, you with
the same very name as the depositor’s would easily pass as the
beneficiary with right to claim. I assure you that I could have the
deposit released to you within few days.

I am aware of the consequences of this proposal. I ask that if you
find no interest in this project that you should discard this mail. I
ask that you do not be vindictive and destructive. If my offer is of
no appeal to you, delete this message and forget I ever contacted you.
Do not destroy my career because you do not approve of my proposal.
You may not know this but people like myself who have made tidy sums
out of comparable situations run the whole private banking sector. I
am not a criminal and what I do, I do not find against good
conscience, this may be hard for you to understand, but the dynamics
of my industry dictates that I make this move. Such opportunities only
come ones in a lifetime. I cannot let this chance pass me by, for
once, I have found myself in total control of my destiny. These
chances won’t pass me by. I ask that you do not destroy my chance, if
you will not work with me let me know and let me move on with my life
but do not destroy me. I am a family man and this is an opportunity to
provide them with new opportunities.

There is a reward for this project and it is a task well worth
undertaking. I have evaluated the risks and the only risk I have here
is from you refusing to work with me. I am the only one who knows of
this situation, good fortune has blessed you with a name that has
planted you into the center of relevance in my life. Lets share the
blessing. If you find yourself able to work with me, contact me
through my email account below. If you give me positive signals, I
will initiate this process towards a conclusion.

I send you this mail not without a measure of fear as to what the
consequences, but I know within me that nothing ventured is nothing
gained and that success and riches never come easy or on a platter of
gold. This is the one truth I have learned from my private banking
clients. Do not betray my confidence. If we can be of one accord, we
should plan a meeting, soon.

Kind regards,

Mr. Paul Lockett
paullocket2@yahoo.com

156 Comments

Large Detonations and Explosions

Filed Under Fire, Video | 2007-04-17, 14:37

It started with a 100 ton detonation found via techyum:

Then we found another view of it:

Then we started poking around and found these:

How about a 426 ton one?

These all appear to be from the EOD (Explosive Ordnance Disposal) guys over in Iraq, disposing of weapons and explosives they’ve seized.

1 Comment

Christopher Conte

Filed Under Art, Body Modification | 2007-04-11, 18:25

Unbelievably gorgeous sculptures from Christopher Conte. Articulated insects, stainless steel arms, and more.

Thanks to jwz

Hip-Hop Pop-Up

Filed Under Movies and Music, Websites | 2007-04-11, 12:46

I’ve had a love/hate relationship with pop culture and advertising for quite some time. While I find quite a bit of it insulting and manipulative, I also find it incredibly intriguing at the same time. Hip-Hop Pop-Up is one of those sites that extracts and exposes the subtle advertising in mainstream hip-hop today. With a culture built around brand names, what’s hot now, and flashy possessions, it’s not too surprising to see how often inadvertant commercials are dropped in the lyrics. However most of us are so used to it that it doesn’t stand out. Hip-Hop Pop-Up will play a mainstream hip-hop song and launch pop-ups for each of the products/brand names that are mentioned in the lyrics. The current song on there is Kanye West’s “All Falls Down” which clocks in with 11 product placements and 10 companies, generating 12 pop-ups. You’ll want to turn off your pop-up blocker to get the full effect. Yes, kind of annoying, but so is the fact that we’re advertised to almost every second of our lives.

via ni9e blog

Pearls Before Breakfast

Filed Under Movies and Music | 2007-04-10, 21:31

Monday, April 9, 2007 1 p.m. ET
Post Magazine: Too Busy to Stop and Hear the Music
Can one of the nation’s greatest musicians cut through the fog of a D.C. rush hour? Gene Weingarten set out to discover if violinist Josh Bell — and his Stradivarius — could stop busy commuters in their tracks.

HE EMERGED FROM THE METRO AT THE L’ENFANT PLAZA STATION AND POSITIONED HIMSELF AGAINST A WALL BESIDE A TRASH BASKET. By most measures, he was nondescript: a youngish white man in jeans, a long-sleeved T-shirt and a Washington Nationals baseball cap. From a small case, he removed a violin. Placing the open case at his feet, he shrewdly threw in a few dollars and pocket change as seed money, swiveled it to face pedestrian traffic, and began to play.

It was 7:51 a.m. on Friday, January 12, the middle of the morning rush hour. In the next 43 minutes, as the violinist performed six classical pieces, 1,097 people passed by. Almost all of them were on the way to work, which meant, for almost all of them, a government job. L’Enfant Plaza is at the nucleus of federal Washington, and these were mostly mid-level bureaucrats with those indeterminate, oddly fungible titles: policy analyst, project manager, budget officer, specialist, facilitator, consultant.

Each passerby had a quick choice to make, one familiar to commuters in any urban area where the occasional street performer is part of the cityscape: Do you stop and listen? Do you hurry past with a blend of guilt and irritation, aware of your cupidity but annoyed by the unbidden demand on your time and your wallet? Do you throw in a buck, just to be polite? Does your decision change if he’s really bad? What if he’s really good? Do you have time for beauty? Shouldn’t you? What’s the moral mathematics of the moment?

On that Friday in January, those private questions would be answered in an unusually public way. No one knew it, but the fiddler standing against a bare wall outside the Metro in an indoor arcade at the top of the escalators was one of the finest classical musicians in the world, playing some of the most elegant music ever written on one of the most valuable violins ever made. His performance was arranged by The Washington Post as an experiment in context, perception and priorities — as well as an unblinking assessment of public taste: In a banal setting at an inconvenient time, would beauty transcend?

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