[AKN #123] I live in a museum
LIVE: Roman Concrete Heals Itself, LAUGH: When The World Goes To Hell, Sell Cotton Candy, LOVE: How A Space Shuttle Design Feature Was Determined By The Width Of A Horse’s Ass
Sup homies?
I’ve hit the phase of life where I don’t allow myself to use most of the things in my house.
Like the other day I got out of the shower and I went to use one of the nice towels, but then I realized I used a face wash which might bleach the towel so I said “oh no, I better not use the nice one. Not today.”
Then I went to my room to grab a shirt, but when I went into the closet I found myself saying “oh no, I better not use the nice one. Not today.”
So then I tried to drown the sorrows of my middle class existence in wine, but when I went to grab the bottle, I found myself saying “oh no, I better not use the nice one. Not today.”
I live in a museum.
Only a matter of time before I shrink wrap all my furniture and buy a fine China cabinet to use as a shrine for all the things which I don’t allow myself to use.
On to the newsletter!
LIVE: Roman Concrete Is Better Than Modern Concrete Because It Heals Itself
Ok. So this is dope.
Material scientists at MIT discovered that the reason Roman concrete lasts so long is because it is made with a “calcium-rich lime clast” which gives it “unique self-healing properties.”
Seriously, this material has the same superpower as Wolverine of X-Men fame.
Here is how the mechanism works:
As soon as tiny cracks start to form within the concrete, they can preferentially travel through the high-surface-area lime clasts. This material can then react with water, creating a calcium-saturated solution, which can recrystallize as calcium carbonate and quickly fill the crack, or react with pozzolanic materials to further strengthen the composite material. These reactions take place spontaneously and therefore automatically heal the cracks before they spread.
The experiment they ran was pretty cool too:
To prove that this was indeed the mechanism responsible for the durability of the Roman concrete, the team produced samples of hot-mixed concrete that incorporated both ancient and modern formulations, deliberately cracked them, and then ran water through the cracks. Sure enough: Within two weeks the cracks had completely healed and the water could no longer flow. An identical chunk of concrete made without quicklime never healed, and the water just kept flowing through the sample.
What other incredible findings were lost to history?
What incredible technologies do we have today which will be lost to history after the experts die without passing along their knowledge?
What’s my name again? What’s my name again?
LAUGH: When The World Goes To Hell, Sell Cotton Candy
This is just an amazing photo from the middle of the storming of the Brazilian Capitol.
LOVE: How A Space Shuttle Design Feature Was Determined By The Width Of A Horse’s Ass
While the designs of the past may be a mystery as to why they are so good, they can also be a mystery as to why they are so bad.
A great example of this comes from a post my friend sent me on LinkedIn.
While LinkedIn is typically a cesspool of pseudo-inspiration drivel and posts which can only be described as “autofellatio”, sometimes you get an absolute banger like this post.
Now I would love to provide you a link to go investigate the source material…but I thought about it and was like “if anyone EVER forwarded me to LinkedIn, I would immediately unsubscribe from their newsletter because I don’t need to be visiting that digital equivalent of Hades more than I already unfortunately have to.”
So for your sanity and the safety of my follower count, I’ve reproduced the entirety of the post below. If you really want a primary source just Google the guys name and the text from the post…then question every decision you’ve ever made in your life such that you are demanding spending more time on LinkedIn.
From Dr. Joerg Storm:
The US 🇺🇸 standard railroad gauge (distance between the rails) is 4 feet, 8.5 inches. That's an exceedingly odd number.
Why was that gauge used?
Well, because that's the way they built them in England and English engineers designed the first US railroads.
Why did the English build them like that?
Because the first rail lines were built by the same people who built the wagon tramways, and that's the gauge they used.
So, why did 'they' use that gauge then?
Because the people who built the tramways used the same jigs and tools that they had used for building wagons, which used that same wheel spacing.
Why did the wagons have that particular odd wheel spacing?
Well, if they tried to use any other spacing, the wagon wheels would break more often on some of the old, long distance roads in England . You see, that's the spacing of the wheel ruts.
So who built those old rutted roads?
Imperial Rome built the first long distance roads in Europe (including England ) for their legions. Those roads have been used ever since.
And what about the ruts in the roads?
Roman war chariots formed the initial ruts, which everyone else had to match or run the risk of destroying their wagon wheels. Since the chariots were made for Imperial Rome , they were all alike in the matter of wheel spacing. Therefore the United States standard railroad gauge of 4 feet, 8.5 inches is derived from the original specifications for an Imperial Roman war chariot. Bureaucracies live forever.
So the next time you are handed a specification/procedure/process and wonder
'What horse's ass came up with this?', you may be exactly right. Imperial Roman army chariots were made just wide enough to accommodate the rear ends of two war horses. (Two horses' asses.)
Now, the twist to the story:
When you see a Space Shuttle sitting on its launch pad, there are two big booster rockets attached to the sides of the main fuel tank. These are solid rocket boosters, or SRBs. The SRBs are made by Thiokol at their factory in Utah . The engineers who designed the SRBs would have preferred to make them a bit fatter, but the SRBs had to be shipped by train from the factory to the launch site. The railroad line from the factory happens to run through a tunnel in the mountains, and the SRBs had to fit through that tunnel. The tunnel is slightly wider than the railroad track, and the railroad track, as you now know, is about as wide as two horses' behinds.
So, a major Space Shuttle design feature, of what is arguably the world's most advanced transportation system, was determined over two thousand years ago by the width of a horse's ass. And you thought being a horse's ass wasn't important? Ancient horse's asses control almost everything.
Pretty fun, right?
Wrong.
It’s really fun.
CLOSING TIME
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Disclaimer: Opinions expressed are strictly my own. Who else’s would they be?
Looking But Not Touching,
K.Rapp
And from then on capitalizing on political strife for financial gains was known as cotton candy economics