Links for March 29th

Posted byWaldo Jaquith 6 Comments on Links for March 29th
  • BBC News: Jordan battles to regain ‘priceless’ Christian relics
    Seventy ancient books, made out of lead, have been found in a Jordanian cave. The text is in encoded Hebrew, little of which has been translated. Scholars are debating whether they are of Jewish origin or—far more tantalizingly—very early Christian origin.
  • Village Voice: Women’s Funding Network Sex Trafficking Study Is Junk Science
    I'd read about the exploding rates of forced juvenile prostitution, and like most people, was shocked. It turns out that those numbers are a total fiction, ginned up by an advocacy group in an effort to get more funding. Good for the Village Voice for asking the questions that dozens of other reporters failed to ask.
  • New York Times: A Stealth Downsizing, as Shoppers Pay More for Less Food
    The U.S. isn't immune from global food price increases. Manufacturers of packaged foods are shrinking quantities while changing the packaging to disguise the increased per-unit cost.
  • Wikipedia: Cessna 172
    The record for longest manned flight was set in 1959, when two guys flew a Cessna 172 for 64 consecutive days without landing, to raise money for a cancer fund. They'd fly close to the ground to hoist up food and water in a bucket, matching their speed with a car driving below. The same method worked to refuel, only using a hose instead of a bucket. They only stopped because the engine simply couldn't run for that many hours without an overhaul, and it lost power.

Published by Waldo Jaquith

Waldo Jaquith (JAKE-with) is an open government technologist who lives near Char­lottes­­ville, VA, USA. more »

6 replies on “Links for March 29th”

  1. Editor’s Note: Village Voice Media, which owns this newspaper, owns the classified site Backpage.com. In addition to used cars, jobs, and couches, readers can also find adult ads on Backpage; for this reason, Women’s Funding Network and their allies have often called attention to the site, sometimes going so far as to call for its closure.

    That may have had something to do with the tough questions. :-)

  2. That Cessna story is just amazing. I give those guys tons of credit for breaking (I’m guessing they shattered it) a world record with an almost-off-the-shelf aircraft and a little ingenuity. And their car to plane inflight refueling, presumably taking place on public roads? Classic. The fact that they did it to raise money for a charity makes me love it even more.

  5. Not in Texas, guys. The last time I was there, Blue Bell (the best Vanilla in the country) was still sold in half gallons.

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