An interesting week for aero/astro nerds! This week we'll go flying (in more ways than one), bring the house down...the street, learn why UI design is worth it, and maybe even play some Jazz. Onward!
=- Space invaders -=
The big exciting story this week is that we landed the Perseverance rover on Mars! Two super cool things about Perseverance:
It will drill into the Martian surface and collect core samples that will be saved for later return to earth (on a future mission)
And on the topic of planetary exploration, lest we not forget that the Russians landed the Venera 13 probe ON VENUS (in 1982!). Here's a photo from the surface:
The probe lasted about 2 hours before its electronics melted from the 855 degree surface temperature. But it recorded and sent back audio from the surface! Here's a slightly cheesy but annotated video of the recordings.
-// Fly time //-
The other crazy thing that happened this week was that United Airlines 328 - a Boeing 777 - had an explosive engine failure right after it took off from Denver. It landed safely! But not before some amazing things happened...
Here was the view from inside the plane (eek):
And the view from the ground:
And the view of the engine cowling from someone's front yard (!!!)
And the full ATC audio w/ flight track overlay. Everyone was cool and collected, which is amazing.
[/\] Home on the range [/\]
And on the fun side of the week, this morning a 139-year-old, 2-story Victorian house in San Francisco - 807 Franklin Street - moved. Literally:
The SF Chronicle has the backstory and a great video (w/ drone footage!):
I happened to be out on a bike ride and caught the whole scene. Here's a short 4K video I shot to really get a sense for the scale of this thing:
** Play time **
Jazz Keys - This is fun! Turn your sound on, start typing, and make some jazz with your keyboard.
At 93, She Waged War on JPMorgan—and Her Own Grandsons - The fascinating story of Beverley Schottenstein going after her financial advisors (who happened to be her grandchildren) - and winning. Moral: Don't mess with your grandma.
:: Pretty pixels ::
Photographer Mitch Rouse did a gorgeous project capturing some of the amazing patterns of California agriculture
Oddly Satisfying Vol. 9 "is a series of different short loops, each one based upon the idea to trigger some kind of odd satisfaction and that inexplicable feeling we all know." By Andreas Wannerstedt.
That's it for this week! Thanks again for playing along. If you enjoyed this, feel free to forward to someone else who might as well. If you got this from a friend, subscribe here.
