Mildly interesting

[LuFins Dad]

In Japan, there is a large group of carpenters (15,000 members) called Kezurou-kai that demonstrate the traditional Japanese hand tools and techniques that were used to built the pagodas and temple structures that are the world’s oldest standing wooden structures.

Every year the Kezurou-kai have a planing competition to see who amongst them can shave the thinnest piece of wood with a hand planer. The winners are typically between 4-5 microns. A human hair is typically 50 microns… A red blood cell is 8 microns… And these measurements of the shaving are taken at their THICKEST point…

Link to video

[Mik]

@Doctor-Phibes said in Mildly interesting:

@George-K so the instrument is a sex machine! I knew it!

Well, you did get screwed when you bought it.

[jon-nyc]

@LuFins-Dad

That’s thinner than George used to plane wood, back when he had a wood shop.

Well, it is….

[George K]

If you watch nothing else, go to 7:50 or so. Amazing.

Many Japanese tools cut on the pull-stroke. Because of that, it requires less effort to guide it through the wood.

That's particularly true in the case of saws. Because you're pulling, the blade needs no support, allowing it to be thinner and require less work to cut through wood.

In contrast, look at a Western backsaw. Such a saw is used to cut dovetails, for example. It's called a backsaw because it needs stabilization on the blade to keep it from buckling when you're pushing it through stock. A Japanese saw is totally different.

Some Japanese saws do have the metal backing, but the blades are always thinner and much easier to use.

[LuFins Dad]

When we think of excellence in woodworking and craftsmanship we tend to think about the Amish or European traditions. When we think of Japan we think of electronics, robotics, and high tech… But the fact remains that the oldest wooden buildings still in use were built over 1100 years ago (one building in the temple grounds was started in 607 AD) in Japan. That craftsmanship still exists today.

[George K]

Riding the rails.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Train_wheel

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/train-wheel-science/

Link to video

[bachophile]

[George K]

[Horace]

I would have to call BS on passing thousands of pounds of metal through your system in the span of 1000 days.

[mark]

Bridge that connects Sweden and Denmark turns into an under water tunnel.

[jon-nyc]

@mark said in Mildly interesting:

Bridge that connects Sweden and Denmark turns into an under water tunnel.

I took that bridge in 2018 by train.

[Copper]

There are 3 within a short drive from here.

Chesapeake Bay Bridge–Tunnel

Monitor-Merrimac Memorial Bridge-Tunnel

Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel that I used to go to the Norfolk airport the other day.

[mark]

This is the OmniVision OV6948, the world's smallest camera has just famously entered the Guinness Book of Records, measuring just 0.575 x 0.575 x 0.232mm: it's good for 40,000-pixel color images using an RGB Bayer back-side-illuminating chip.

[George K]

Link to video

[bachophile]

Ultimate pwn by a Dutch architect.

When the Euro was first circulated, it was important to the EU that the banknotes not have a specific country’s landscape feature so as not to aggravate anyone so they had fictitious bridges put on the bank notes.

Afterwards a Dutch architect went and made bridges in Rotterdam looking like the banknotes to “claim” all the designs for Holland.

Fvcking dutchers.

[Copper]

[George K]

[jon-nyc]

Ralph Lauren’s son David Lauren married George HW Bush’s grandaughter Lauren.

Her name is now Lauren Bush Lauren.

[George K]

@jon-nyc said in Mildly interesting:

Ralph Lauren’s son David Lauren married George HW Bush’s grandaughter Lauren.

Her name is now Lauren Bush Lauren.

I worked with a guy who had a daughter named "Kelly." She married a guy whose last name was, yup, "Kelly."

[Copper]

I knew a guy named Brian O'Brien

A lack of parental imagination

But not quite as bad as Sirhan Sirhan