Sometimes you hear statistics and they just don’t compute. I was recently struck by a couple after listening to a conversation with the author of The World in a Grain on the podcast 99% Invisible. I’m still having a hard time wrapping my brain around these.

Weâ€re adding the equivalent of eight New York Cities to the world every single year.

…

Hereâ€s another way to think about it. The amount of concrete that we use every single year is enough to build a wall 88 feet high, 88 feet wide right around the equator every year.

The World in a Grain, author Vince Beiser

99% Invisible website: https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/built-on-sand

The title on this post came from here:
https://concretehelper.com/concrete-facts/

TLDW: Mower blades create a vortex to suck up the blades of grass and hold them in position for the mower blade to cut them. If it did not do this, the blade would simply push the flexible grass blades down as it impacted them. (Hmmm, too many “blades” in this could be confusing. Maybe that’s a good riddle about a blade cutting a blade.)

In the old days before paying for gas with a credit card became common, you would try to make the dollar amount come to the nearest dollar or fifty cents to save on loose change. But these days, I rarely pay for gas with cash, so following Scotty’s advice is much easier.

Interestingly, the original concept and first machines were intended for offices where employees could create a fresh cup of coffee instead of relying on a full pot coffee maker which often got stale. When they finally developed a less expensive home version, sales really took off.

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

Project Cirrus

Project Cirrus was the first attempt to modify a hurricane. It was a collaboration of the General Electric Corporation, the US Army Signal Corps, the Office of Naval Research, and the US Air Force. After several preparations, and initial skepticism by government scientists,[6] the first attempt to modify a hurricane began on October 13, 1947 on a hurricane that was heading west to east and out to sea.

An airplane flew along the rainbands of the hurricane, and dropped nearly 180 pounds (82 kilograms) of crushed dry ice into the clouds. The crew reported “Pronounced modification of the cloud deck seeded”. It is not known if that was due to the seeding. Next, the hurricane changed direction and made landfall near Savannah, Georgia. The public blamed the seeding, and Irving Langmuir claimed that the reversal had been caused by human intervention.[6] Cirrus was canceled, and lawsuits were threatened. Only the fact that a system in 1906 had taken a similar path, as well as evidence showing that the storm had already begun to turn when seeding began, ended the litigation. This disaster set back the cause of seeding hurricanes for eleven years.

At first the seeding was officially denied and it took years before the government admitted it. According to the Sept. 12, 1965 edition of the Fort Lauderdale News and Sun-Sentinel, in 1947 a hurricane “went whacky” and “Twelve years later it was admitted the storm had in fact been seeded.”

Read more here,
Wikipedia page on Project Stormfury

From 99pi
“In 1947, Irving Langmuirâ€s research team at GE tried to break up a hurricane by dumping a lot of dry ice into it to see if it would collapse. But instead the hurricane changed trajectory, became stronger, and hit the Georgia coast. ”

99% Invisible “Making It Rain”

https://gimletmedia.com/episode/race-driverless-future-season-6-episode-8/

Here’s an explanation of why early computers had a physical lock on them.

And what that Turbo button was really for.

Polygoon – Hoe biljartballen worden gemaakt from KNBB – Biljart TV on Vimeo.

http://99percentinvisible.org/episode/the-post-billiards-age/

http://www.canopystair.com/