HOW TO BECOME EXTINCT
THE FASCINATING BOOK EXTINCT, recently reviewed here at SimanaitisSays, describes six different categories of extinction: Failed, Superseded, Enforced, Defunct, Aestivated, and Visionary. Here are tidbits about these criteria and examples … Continue reading
GONE, BUT NOT FORGOTTEN PART 2
YESTERDAY IN PART 1, we discussed the obsolescence of arsenic wallpaper and the Chaparral 2J Sucker Car, both appearing in the book Extinct: A Compendium of Obsolete Objects. Today in … Continue reading
GONE, BUT NOT FORGOTTEN PART 1
DOES YOUR HOUSE EXHIBIT obsolescence? Mine does, sorta, as described in a book I just bought. Penner is a professor of architectural humanities at the Bartlett School of Architecture, University … Continue reading
eVTOL UPDATE PART 2
YESTERDAY IN PART 1, we looked at “The Battery That Flies,” Ben Ryder Howe’s article in The New York Times, April 16, 2022. Today in Part 2, we do a … Continue reading
eVTOL UPDATE PART 1
“VTOL” MEANS “VERTICAL take-off and landing” aircraft. Drones are VTOL; so are helicopters; and so are aircraft like the Bell Boeing V-22 Osprey, Hawker Siddeley Harrier Jump Jet, and Dornier … Continue reading
BIOFUELS—ASSESSED HOLISTICALLY
BLENDING CORN-BASED ETHANOL into gasoline has been seen as a means of reducing anthropomorphic carbon dioxide emissions. However, “Environmental Outcomes of the U.S. Renewable Fuel Standard,” Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci., … Continue reading
EXTRACTING RARE EARTHS FROM WASTE
RARE EARTH ELEMENTS present an environmental paradox: REEs are key to green technologies such as solar panels, wind turbines, and electric vehicles. Yet their rarity involves mining that causes significant … Continue reading
DEISM—THROUGH A COMPUTER HARD DRIVE?
I LEARNED YEARS ago that our Founding Fathers were Deists. And I knew from Roman Catholic Latin/English missals that “Deus” meant “God.” Thus, I figured, Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, and those … Continue reading
MY NEW EYES
I’VE HAD MY new eyes for about a month now and I want to celebrate the talented people who made this possible. Here are tidbits on my experience with cataract … Continue reading
TWO EINSTEIN ANECDOTES
I WAS SORTING THROUGH colloquium presentations of mine from the mid-1970s—Geez, was I ever scholarly back then—and I came upon these two Einstein anecdotes. Their source was Ira M. Freeman, … Continue reading
Simanaitis Says 