davintosh

Here’s a great product… The Rescue Reel.

I remember having similar thoughts on 9/11, seeing people jumping out of those burning skyscrapers… There should be a better option for people in a situation like that than making a decision between dying by fire/smoke or by jumping.

Looks like it allows anyone to rappel down the side of a building even if they don’t know how to rappel. I’ve rappelled before, but I’d be hard-pressed to back out of a broken window on what I remember from those lessons ten years ago. If I worked in a high-rise building, I think I would spend my own money for the peace of mind something like the Rescue Reel would provide.

via Newsweek.

The Decline: The Geography Of A Recession

This is a fascinating look at how the recession has progressed(?) And depressing.

Makes me wonder how much darker that map is going to get before it gets any better.

This is pretty amazing; Deval Patrick, the sitting governor of Massachusetts, could say something like this about Glen Beck’s “Restoring Honor” rally last weekend…

Now, Patrick’s gaffe could be nothing more than a slip of the tongue, with him meaning one thing and something else coming out, or it could be a slip of the tongue that simply revealed what he really thinks about the political right.

When later questioned about his remark, Patrick predictably claimed “he meant that Fox TV host Glenn Beck should not have chosen the site of Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have A Dream” speech on its 47th anniversary to hold his “Restoring Honor” rally.” Kinda hard to make that stretch when listening to what he said.

I can’t help but wonder whether that explanation would be accepted so readily if Patrick were a Republican after making a similar comment. I kinda doubt it.

Bumped into this site tonight. It’s in Italian, but Google Translate helps to make sense of things. They’re racing modified 70-100cc scooters. In wild sometimes neon colors… And I think they’re serious.

Although I’ve never seen this movie — The Alamo, starring Dennis Quaid as Sam Houston & Billy Bob Thornton as Davy Crockett — it’s one that I should track down to watch. Everyone knows the story and the ending definitely won’t be a surprise, but the handful of scenes I’ve watched via YouTube look very good, plus you’ve just got to like most anything with Billy Bob in it.

The scene in the clip above is great; Davy Crockett figures out “what’s missing” from the drum & bugle cadence that’s driving everyone crazy, so he jumps up on the wall and joins in on the fiddle. Awesome fiddling by Craig Eastman, and a tune that I was whistling for hours last night after stumbling across the video. Enjoy!

Edit: Just bumped into another YouTube clip from the same movie; one of the characters explains that “degüello” means “slit throat.” A little more digging points to a Wikipedia article about the song; “the original meaning of the Degüello call was an appeal to an enemy to surrender or else they would die by the sword.”

Not very likely that Davy Crocket actually played violin like in the movie, but whether it’s true or not it’s a neat addition to the story.