Even uber-Republican Florida Governor Ron DeSantis says they’re not welcome, but the Tampa Bay Young Republicans, whose 2025 executive board is pictured below, are welcoming outright misogynists and alleged human traffickers Andrew and Tristan with open arms. Why?
What does the sole woman in the board (who, unsurprisingly, holds the position of Secretary) have to say about the Tates?
For context, see this article: U.S. votes against a U.N. resolution urging Russia’s withdrawal from Ukraine.
Maybe you’ve got a corner in your house for U.S. Air Force memorabilia, or maybe you’re restoring a B-57 Canberra bomber — but either way, if you’re looking for an ejection seat, there’s a seller in St. Pete looking to sell a B-57 Canberra ejector seat for $2,000 (but they also seem open to offers).
I was a big fan of airplanes and aerospace stuff as a kid, so I’m familiar with the B-57, which was made by the Glen L. Martin company, which later got merged in the 1960s into Martin Marietta, and then again in the 1990s into Lockheed Martin.
While the B-57 has long since been retired from the Air Force, NASA still have a couple of specialized versions, the WB-57, which they use for high-altitude research.
On the very off chance that you’re thinking of buying this seat because you think it might be cooler than using an elevator or stairs…
This basic physics equation shows how much force is required for an ejection seat to do its thing:
Pilots who have ejected from a plane report that they lost a little height from having their spines compressed from the force. If you had a big meal before ejecting, having your body and the digested food within suddenly weigh 14 to 20 times as much will probably cause you to crap your pants.
So yeah, this seat is best used as memorabilia rather than a cool thing you can demonstrate at your pool parties (“Hey, everybody, who wants to see me land on the roof?”)
Another Sunday, another “picdump!” Here are 250+ memes, pictures, and cartoons floating around the internet that I found interesting or relevant this week. Share and enjoy!
On Wednesday, Anitra and I caught Alton’s Brown’s live show, Last Bite, at the Straz Center. This is fourth live tour, and it’s also supposed to be his final one.
“I’m 62 and I’ve always said that the secret to being a good guest at a cocktail party is knowing when to leave — and it may be time for me to leave,” Brown said when explaining why this is his last tour. “After the tour, I’ll take a break maybe and disappear for a little while and see if the world misses me. If it doesn’t, oh, well, I had a good run.”
The tour started this month in Florida, and Tampa was the 6th stop out of over 60 cities.
At the age of 62, his hair growing out, and his stage costume made to look as if we’d woken him up at three in the morning, Alton Brown looked more like Doc Brown from Back to the Future.
And yes, there was live cooking! (The photo above shows Alton cooking an omelette on a slab of iron heated to 325°F.
Alton started with a couple of stories from his own life, including ones about a dinner party gone terribly wrong and the perils of relying on AI for coming up with recipes.
He’s always been about making the science behind cooking accessible, and we got a simple (but useful) explanation of thermodynamics.
The second act of the show featured the technology that drove the Industrial Revolution — steam power — in the form of the Wiener Wonder, a hot dog-making assembly line machine powered by steam and four randomly-selected members of the audience (alas, I wasn’t one of them).
The Wiener Wonder wasn’t just a demonstration, but a competition! The hot dog assembly crew were challenged not just to assemble 80 hot dogs, but do so as quickly as possible, with their finish time compared with the finish times of the teams at the other cities on the tour so far. As of Wednesday evening, Tampa was in first place!
And of course, there was a musical number — an old tune that I remember from way back, and featuring a name that those of you who’ve eaten at a certain German restaurant in Tampa will recognize:
I’ve been a long-time follower of Alton’s, partly because I’m just a big ol’ science nerd, partly because I like to cook, and partly because he has a lot of science demonstration and pedagogical tricks that I’ve borrowed in my own work in developer relations and making presentations to audiences, both technical and non-technical.
I’m glad I was able to catch his show and even see a couple of friends who were in attendance — the Russes and Chris Ayers — and even get a signed copy of his new book, Food for Thought:
If you’re in a city on the tour, catch Last Bite!
Elon Musk doesn’t really have an online personality — it’s more a collection of reactionary responses to stimuli, and it’s evidenced by his uncritical retweeting of any story that fits his narrative, no matter how implausible.
The most recent case in point was his retweet of a story by @Basil_TGMD, a splash in the sea of right-wing dreck that Twitter has become:
The tweet purports to show an image of a migrant mob storming a Birmingham hospital with axes and blades, and the writer claims the story has been ignored by the mainstream press.
(By the way, the Birmingham in question is the one in England, which happens to be the second-largest city in the UK, and not the one in Alabama.)
Here’s the thing:
At least Musk and @Basil_TGMD have deleted the tweets.
Given the fact that he’s “auditing” the U.S. government, Elon’s appalling level of credulity is greatly concerning.
This one was too timely and too good to save for Sunday’s picdump, so I’m sharing it now:
