Content-Type: text/shitpost

A few weeks ago my wife and kids were off at a conference so I took a road trip to Indianapolis and back via Kentucky and West Virginia. I hope to write up a report later on. Meantime I periodically had Google take down my passing thoughts, which I reproduce for you here with minimal explanation:

Don't forget to write an article about all the senses and the octopus sensorium

There is quite a lot to say.

There's a town in Pennsylvania named 84

I found this out because I saw directions to it on a highway sign. Had I known about this ahead of time, I might have scheduled a visit. Or maybe even a different road trip than the one I did take, something more like this:

In related number news, I was astounded to find myself offered the chance to drive on Interstate 99. When I first saw the sign I couldn't quite believe it and wondered momentarily if I had wandered into an alternate universe. I was so surprised that I pulled the car over to take a picture of this marvel:

(Explanation for foreigners: in the U.S. Interstate Highway system, odd-numbered roads always run north and south, with the low numbers such as Interstate 5 farthest west, and numbers increasing as you go east. The eastmost such highway is the mighty Interstate 95, one of the oldest and busiest highways in the U.S.. It runs roughly up the entire east coast of the country for 3000 kilometers, from Miami in the south through or near most of the major northeastern cities including Washington, Baltimore, Wilmington, Philadelphia, New York, Providence, and Boston. As a lifelong inhabitant of the northeast, I was quite familiar with it. And of course there is no I-99 because that would be farther east than I-95, and therefore in or under the Atlantic Ocean.)

(And yet there it was, sitting obstinately in central Pennsylvania for no clear reason.)

Anyway there is an I-99. Two in fact. Who knew?

Write an article about inventions that should have happened sooner and include the paraglider and silage

The silage is the really amazing one. Everyone agrees that it was invented in the 19th century, but there seems to be no reason why the Sumerians shouldn't have been making it.

Ridership post

I have no idea what this was.

Oh, I bet I know now. I think it was Google transcribing my command to “write a shitpost…” and then cutting me off before I could say what it should be about.

Maybe the next one will have a clue?

Post maybe, Mickey

Nope, I have no idea.

Park ranger in Yogi Bear cartoons the same as the agent in The Matrix

No point explaining this one, I just have to show you.

For years I wanted to do a mockup of a “Perl Charms” breakfast cereal box, with colored marbits shaped like $, @, %, and *, and a picture on the box of Larry Wall dressed like a cartoon leprechaun. Alas, I'll probably never do it.

Write about Harrison Bergeron as new dad

Ugh, yes. When my kids were babies I thought glumly about George Bergeron all the time.

Don't forget to write a blog post about destructive interference and what happens when all the light cancels out using that video that shows that it all comes out of the apparatus backwards

This is about question 4 in this ancient post about electromagnetism. Some time back someone pointed me to a youtube video that explains the answer and it's pretty excellent.

One place to visit is the Corning Glass Factory and museum in Corning New York

Maybe next time. I have a list of places to visit and this is on it.

There is a restaurant in West Virginia called Tudor's Biscuit World

BISCUIT WORLD!

In West Virginia there is a Nitro Museum what is that

It turns out that it is the town museum of Nitro, West Virginia, so-named because it was the center for nitrocellulose manufacture during World War I. (Nitrocellulose replaced black powder in firearm ammunition around the turn of the century.)