Mountain Canal

China’s INSANE Ship Lifts vs. Its $10BN Smart Lock
MegaBuilds

China's Belt & Road Initiative continues apace. This project squashes those Steam Punk fantasies of monster machines.

Flying Machine

Flying Machine

I suspect this image was generated by an AI (Artificial Intelligence) computer program. Google did not find it posted anywhere.

Indian Ambulance

Miracle പടത്തലവൻ🚨Orginal video🚨Refering🚨#pooram #kodungallur🚨救护车 #keralaambulance #drivingstatus

Just kinda nuts.

പടത്തലവൻ is Malayalam for Warlord

Pooram is a major temple festival in Kerala, India

Kodungallur is a town in the Indian state of Kerala

救护车 is Chinese (Simplified) for Ambulance

SUPERMARINE WALRUS

RARE SUPERMARINE WALRUS TO FLY AGAIN
GULL PERCH FLYER

Cool video. I like the way he has combined old footage, animation and new stuff. The Vought Kingfisher was the American version of this airplane. The PBY Catalina was also big in search and rescue. The Walrus was tiny compared to the Catalina. The Walrus was a quarter of the weight and had less than half the wingspan.

Foundation of Western Civilization

The 14th-century carving Nine Good Heroes at City Hall in Cologne, Germany

David Warren opens his post about Charlemagne with this paragraph:

That triad of triads — the Nine Worthies of medieval antiquity, from Hector and Alexander to Godfrey of Bouillon (three pagans, three Jews, and three Christians, to whom Falstaff was added by Doll Tearsheet in Shakespeare) — are not celebrated today. We must relearn that, without historical characters much larger than life, our own little lives will shrink smaller.

I've heard some of those names before, but not the Nine Worthies, so I asked Google and got back this:

The Nine Worthies were a collection of ideal heroes—three pagans, three Jews, and three Christians—who embodied the ideals of chivalry in medieval Europe, first listed by Jacques de Longuyon in 1312. The pagan figures were Hector, Alexander the Great, and Julius Caesar; the Jewish figures were Joshua, David, and Judas Maccabeus; and the Christian figures were King Arthur, Charlemagne, and Godfrey of Bouillon. These figures represented a historical continuum of heroic leadership and were seen as worthy of study and emulation by aspiring knights. 

The Three Groups of Worthies

The Nine Worthies were grouped by their religious and historical origins, creating a universal history of heroic virtue: 

• Pagan Worthies:
• Hector of Troy: A courageous and noble warrior from the Trojan War. 
• Alexander the Great: The ancient Macedonian king who conquered a vast empire. 
• Julius Caesar: The Roman general and statesman. 
• Jewish Worthies:
• Joshua: The biblical successor to Moses, who led the Israelites into the Promised Land. 
• King David: The biblical King of Israel, known for his bravery and harp-playing. 
• Judas Maccabeus: A Jewish leader who fought against the Seleucid Empire. 
• Christian Worthies:
• King Arthur: The legendary British king. 
• Charlemagne: The king of the Franks and founder of the Holy Roman Empire. 
• Godfrey of Bouillon: A leader of the First Crusade and the first ruler of Jerusalem after the Crusader conquest. 

Significance

• Chivalric Ideal: The Nine Worthies provided a framework for understanding the ideal knight, whose life served as a model for aspiring to chivalric virtues. 
• Universal History: This compilation linked figures from different eras and cultures, presenting a broader vision of history and heroism. 
• Cultural Popularity: The concept became popular in literature, art, and tapestries across Europe, reflecting its enduring appeal as a symbol of knightly excellence. 

Falstaff and Doll Tearsheet are characters from Shakespeare's play. Falstaff is also the main character in the opera Falstaff by Verdi.

Hal's main companion in enjoying the low life is Sir John Falstaff. Fat, old, drunk, and corrupt as he is, he has a charisma and a zest for life that captivates the Prince. - Wikipedia [Hal is Prince Hal, future King of England]

Dorothy "Doll" Tearsheet is a fictional character who appears in Shakespeare's play Henry IV, Part 2. - Wikipedia

Soviet Space Program - Condensed

ППК Перезагрузка feat. Время первых
IamPanikaha

Very cool. The Voskhod 3KD inflatable airlock shows up just after the 1:30 mark.

How the First Spacewalk Nearly Ended in Disaster – Alexei Leonov Voskhod 2 - by The Curious Droid

Google translates the title as PPK Reboot feat. Time of the First

Screw You IKEA

New Kitchen Cabinets

A couple of weeks ago I spent five days helping younger son install some IKEA kitchen cabinets. You wouldn't think a simple project like this would take so long, but you aren't allowing for the fact that we only managed to put in a couple of hours a day, and half of that time got ate up with driving to Lowes.

The project was a little tricky because the duct for the vent was right on the edge of the middle cabinet. We cut out the corner of the cabinet which meant the hanger in that corner went away. We got around this by bolting the two cabinets together.

The biggest headache was mounting the range hood. Because of our complications, we had to install the vent after we hung the cabinet, which means we had to hold the hood in mid air and align the screw holes that were up inside the hood with the brackets bolted to the cabinet. For reasons known only to IKEA, these screws, and only these screws, had tiny Torx heads (T-10) and none of the bits in our box of driver bits was small enough. Never fear, IKEA has a solution:

IKEA Torx Bit Adaptor for Range Hood
(Cabinet and Hood are shown upside down)

It was awkward but it worked, until the tip of the adaptor snapped off.