Simanaitis Says

On cars, old, new and future; science & technology; vintage airplanes, computer flight simulation of them; Sherlockiana; our English language; travel; and other stuff

ARITHMETIC CAN BE MOD

MODULAR ARITHMETIC made a brief appearance in “Edo Toggles and Models”: In particular, 2010 was a Year of the Tiger. What’s more, modular arithmetic shows up on clock faces, in … Continue reading

November 23, 2015 · Leave a comment

EDO TOGGLES AND MODELS

EDO IS the traditional name for Tokyo. The Edo period is also known as the Tokugawa Era, honoring Tokugawa Ieyasu, the first shogun of a clan that ruled Japan between … Continue reading

November 21, 2015 · Leave a comment

AN ARMCHAIR TOUR OF ARIZONA, THANKS TO THE COPPERSTATE 1000

A FRIEND who lives outside the U.S. asked me about the state of Arizona. She has never visited there, so I thought I would share some photos and memories of … Continue reading

November 18, 2015 · 5 Comments

SUZ’S LOVE NOTES

DAUGHTER SUZ sent me two e-mails, the first reading “Can I have one? Please?? xo.” The second one read simply, “Bwahahahaaa!!!!” followed by four red hearts. Each was accompanied by … Continue reading

November 17, 2015 · 5 Comments

WE’LL ALWAYS HAVE PARIS

“WE’LL ALWAYS have Paris” is more than a line from Casablanca. It’s an affirmation of civilization. Here are four recollections of the City of Light, from 1931, 1954, 1962 and … Continue reading

November 15, 2015 · Leave a comment

LULUS ON MY MIND

I SEEM to be encountering an inordinate number of Lulus in my life. SiriusXM “Radio Classics” just broadcast “Too Many Crooks,” a segment of Orson Welles’ The Lives of Harry … Continue reading

November 14, 2015 · 2 Comments

STUTZ AT LE MANS

LE MANS 24-hour races in the late 1920s were dominated by British Bentleys: They won 1927 – 1930. However, at the same time, the American carmaker Stutz set a Le … Continue reading

November 13, 2015 · Leave a comment

VIRTUAL REALITY—30 YEARS ON

CYBERSPACE HAS attracted me since I first heard of it in William Gibson’s 1984 novel Neuromancer. The concept gained academic cred in another book, Cyberspace: First Steps, a 1991 collection … Continue reading

November 12, 2015 · Leave a comment

DE SEVERSKY—A REAL FIGHTER

TODAY’S TITLE is multi-tasking. There’s Alexander de Seversky, the Russian-American aviation pioneer. And there’s his P-35, a precedent-setting aircraft that showed the best and worst of government procurement processes. The … Continue reading

November 11, 2015 · Leave a comment

BROTHER, CAN YOU SPARE A CURLICUE? I’M A LITTLE SHORTHANDED HERE

AT A recent book exchange, I swapped six bags of my literary has-beens for one bag of treasures. (The affair was enlivened when I mistakenly put a copy of the … Continue reading

November 10, 2015 · 1 Comment