So Seattle once again has the world’s longest floating bridge. Yes, it’s a bridge, yes, it’s for vehicles (and next summer also peds and bikes and possibly rail later) and it’s made of concrete and it floats.

We had the longest one already, but it was old and creaky and was thinking about sinking and DON’T THINK IT CAN’T HAPPEN WE LOST ANOTHER BRIDGE THAT WAY. It was hilarious. (We are not very good at highways, and between that an Galloping Gertie, I’m not convinced we’re real good at bridges, either. For that, go to Portland.)

Anwyay, before turning the first chunk of it over to vehicle traffic, they invited everybody to go hoof around on it. So of course we did, and that was fun. Several pictures here; lots more (and bigger) on Flickr.

Let’s walk to Kirkland!

PYLONTRON BIDS YOU WELCOME, PUNY CARBON UNIT

I was walking along the barrier between the bike path and main traffic, since later, that won’t be possible. Anna gave me a sign that she was sick of that and I should stop. I’m kind of surprised I didn’t run into Ranma going the other way.

Slightly Disquieting Pipes.

SAME BRIDGE DIFFERENT SIDE CHEAP GIMMICK

THIRD HALF! ARE YOU READY FOR SOME BRIDGE HOCKEY?!

Looking at the old bridge’s drawbridge control station from the new bridge. The new bridge is taller on the west end, so doesn’t need a drawbridge anymore. That makes it stronger in storms. Right now, the old one needs to be closed to traffic kind of a lot, for safety reasons I HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH, THANKS.

I DO WHAT I WANT.
And nobody ever gets to do that again (without major traumatic injury anyway) ’cause that section is OPEN NOW TO TRAFFIC. Ha HA ha!

It’s April 1st, April Fool’s Day, and honestly, for supervillains who are in it for the lulz, this is literally the worst day. It’s like Halloween in the Buffyverse – doing anything today is just so… tacky.

So I’m 100% not.

Here’s a really cool Legend of Korra book two fan-made opening title sequence done in anime style.

Here are two fictional perfect cinnamon rolls (Supergirl and Flash) sharing ice cream.

When I was in Newfoundland, teens there were headbanging to super-high-energy trad. Please enjoy a crowd nearly starting a goddamn riot to a classical orchestra. It is wonderful:

Here is a rather short (but the right length) story you should take time out to read, A Guide for Young Ladies Entering the Service of the Fairies, by Rosamund Hodge. I need to remember this for next year’s Hugo nominations.

You heard Studio Ghibli’s Toonz animation software went open source, right?

Occasionally I will rise to the defense of Brutalist architecture, talking about how it can be beautiful, and pointing to thinks like Habitat ’68 in Montreal and Freeway Park in Seattle, along with other examples. Here are some examples from the former USSR – not all are in the greatest of condition, but the Druzhba health spa in Yalta is magnificent and I will fight you over it. I also rather like the examples in Minsk and Yalta.

So. There you go. Seven wonderful things. Zero April Fool’s Day “jokes.” Enjoy.

ps: Also, hey, a reminder that I post my fannish tracks as free downloads. Enjoy those too.

I can paint during blackouts, I can play with handheld sequencers during blackouts.

Basically, I got bored and started making theme songs for tacky game shows of the 1970s which never existed. None of these were good, of course, but this one was probably the least bad – I figure it’s circa 1977, a slot-machine celebrity-trivia-themed game show involving a lot of guest appearances by Jo Anne Worley and Phyllis Diller.

Oooh, bad luck there. <sad horn> Next contestant, pull that bandit!

Oh right, painting. Yeah, this is probably the last speaker post. I finally connected them up to my Samson amp to test the old-style connectivity, and the little Class T amps I added in are definitely better. Okay, the Samson has more bass, that’s fair. But wow, these miniboard amps are a lot more precise and focused in every other way.

And after the power went, out I painted ’em. These pictures aren’t 100% before-and-after, because I’d already cleaned them up a lot before taking the “before” shots. Yeah. Literal caked dirt filling the foam rings around the woofers. Sound quality aside, just consider that for a minute.

Yeah! This is what I meant on Twitter about looking like they belonged on a stage. Go you, paint!
 

This post is part of a series on restoring infamous vintage stage monitors. Spoiler: they made good, in the end.

Hiraikotsu – the giant boomerang from Inuyasha – ACTUALLY WORKS WHAT:

This isn’t as crazy as the actual working Nausicaä glider, but it’s up there.

Also, if this isn’t the most Fallout 4 thing you’ve seen this week outside of the game, you have to tell me what is because damn:

Probably Brotherhood of Steel, could be supermutants

That’s from a book that’s just out, Abandoned in Place, about early space programme architecture that was, as per the title, abandoned in place when it got outdated or put out of use for good. All the photos in the preview are good, but I’d wondered where some of the source for Commonwealth tech came from, and I guess now we know.

Apparently, sometime in the 1980s, TEAC – a legitimate, major, respected maker of audio gear – thought it would be a great idea to combine reel-to-reel loading technology with audiocassette frames.

Yes, it’s a compact audiocassette where you load the reels individually. And you can swap them out! I AM NOT EVEN MAKING THIS UP LOOK AT IT THIS IS LUDICROUS:

The selling point was presumably size of the little mini-reels vs. size of an entire cassette frame. But… honestly, how did this ever make it to market? Particularly given what a pain in the ass it is to actually load into a cassette frame and use. Watch the video, it’s pretty much hilarious.

These NASA JPL solar system and exoplanet travel posters are pretty wonderful. Downloadable print-resolution versions (most in PDF, a couple TIFF only) are up there as well, poke around and you’ll find them. I’m thinking I’ll print a few out on a good printer and get a frame and rotate through them.

Some days when you say you wish you could just go to another planet, it’s just because you saw a really cool tourism poster.

FUCK YEAH CLOUD CITIES OF VENUS.

Played around a bit more with the spider capo last night, re-creating that E-based partial-capo configuration I described yesterday.

It really seems to like mixolydian scales. Here’s a quick recording of some chordal scale noodling, playing with both myxolydian and true minor. (Mono, raw mp3.) I don’t honestly know whether “it” means the capo or the chording created by the capo in this specific usage, though I of course suspect the latter.

I got less fretwear buzz last night mostly through fiddling, but I still need to get those frets replaced. There’s no way around it.

See, this is the kind of thing that would send me into a killing spree. It’s assembly of a 6mm-wide Rubik’s Cube. I was dimly aware of Rubik’s Cube Fandom, which make their own insane rotational iterative puzzles, each more complicated than the next, some the size of basketballs, but I wasn’t also aware that there was a competition for smallest.

Seriously, it’d be heat ray time for EVERYONE, I get antsy just watching it be assembled. But I still think it’s awfully neat and hey, go you, obsessive rotational puzzle fandom, go you:

ps: This may be the final day of posts using the Social distributor/comment collector. I’m kind of hoping that they leave the proxy app running and just take the plugin offline on the site. I doubt it, but hey, I can hope. Again, if you have suggestions for replacements, tell me about it – thanks.

Courtesy Boing Boing, enjoy this video of what happens in Portal if you set up a custom level with two portals directly against each other, and Chell inside. It is pretty amazing.

It’s awesome that people are still screwing around with the Portal games.

Apparently my previous-favourite and still second-favourite animated power couple – Kim Possible and Shego – are opening a restaurant. KiGO 5eva. \n/

KiGO has always been here

Remember this?

That’s Right, You Heard It Here First

H/T to Minion Paul for the KiGO Banner
ps: New song! “Thirteen,” and it’s a free download.