There is a common misunderstanding about coloured windows that makes the craft seem simpler than it was.
The assumption is that the glass is a canvas — clear material with…
Three variables produce nearly every dune shape there is: how much sand there is, how many directions the wind blows from, and whether vegetation is holding anything down. Here are…
There is a failure mode in any signalling system that is worth more attention than the system itself, and lighthouses have an obvious one.
A light works by being seen.…
There is a structure that appears on rivers everywhere, that most people cannot name correctly, and that does something quite different from what it appears to do.
A weir looks…
There is a category of vanished industry that seems impossible in retrospect, and the ice trade is the clearest example.
The proposition was to cut a perishable product out of…
Source: Wikipedia
There is a category of institution that was built on a wrong explanation and worked correctly anyway, and it is worth understanding because the pattern recurs.
The wrong explanation,…