where are the electric taxis now?

Cabbie Jacob German was arrested and jailed in New York City May 20, 1899, for driving his electric taxi at the "breakneck speed" of 12 mph.

- from Wired http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2008/05/dayintech_0521

Sheesh - more than 100 years ago, we had electric taxis racing around the cities. Where are they now?

Mistaking 'Common' and 'Lowest Common'

I'm reading a great book on Ajax: Pragmatic Ajax. There is a lot of great info in the book but this particular quote is what really resonated with me.

Just because everybody is doing it doesn’t make it bad. That kind of logic is just counterintuitive enough to appeal to our old highschool self, whose fascination with The Cure and Metallica was fed by the belief that Phil Collins couldn’t possibly be any good because so darn many people listened to his music.

I don't know why particular bit jumps out at me. Good book - go get it.

One more great clip from that same section of the book:

And for crying out loud, think very, very carefully before you start shaking, puffing, and squishing elements on the screen.

:)

MHM 2008

Northern Colorado Rocketry hosted Mile High Mayhem 2008 was this past weekend. It was a 3-day event but I only went up on Saturday because weather on Friday was horrible and Sunday was a day to stay home with the family.


Lots of cars and campers on the flight line. The second picture shows the people lines: lines were long to get out to the pads. Waiting in line to go set up was a new experience for me. There were 21 active pads (12 low power and 9 high power) but we definitely needed more pads.


There were a lot of great flights but the highlight for me was Greg's launch of his Black Brant. In the first picture you can see us setting up on Pad 4. The second picture is the launch: J350W boosting the rocket to 7012 feet above ground level. Good stuff!