Stuart Austin

Mostly about books...

Day: Tuesday, July 27th, 2010

American Railroads

There is an excellent piece in the Economist detailing how America’s system of rail freight is currently among the world’s best, and how high-speed passenger trains could ruin it. Well worth a read.

Ted’s nightmare

I found this on Cute Overload. It really represents Ted’s worst nightmare. I wonder where I can get such a coat?

Cold War Secret Nuclear Bunkers by Nick McCamley

Cold War Secret Nuclear Bunkers: The Passive Defence of the Western World During the Cold War – US link/ UK link is for nuclear weapons aficionados only. It tells the story of the secret defence structures built by the West during the Cold War years. The book describes in considerable detail a vast umbrella of radar stations that spanned the North American continent and the North Atlantic from the Aleutian Islands through Canada to the North Yorkshire Moors, all centred upon an enormous secret control centre buried hundreds of feet below Cheyenne Mountain in Colorado. This is complemented in the United Kingdom with a chain of secret radars codenamed ‘Rotor’ built in the early 1950’s, and eight huge, inland sector control centres, built over 100′ underground at enormous cost. The book reveals the various bunkers built for the U.S Administration, including the Raven Rock alternate war headquarters (the Pentagon’s wartime hideout), the Greenbrier bunker for the Senate and House of Representatives, and the Mount Weather central government headquarters amongst others. Developments in Canada, including the Ottawa ‘Diefenbunker’ and the regional government bunkers are also studied. In the UK there were the London bunkers and the Regional War rooms built in the 1950’s to protect against the Soviet threat, and their replacement in 1958 by much more hardened, underground Regional Seats of Government in the provinces, and the unique Central Government War Headquarters at Corsham. Finally the book examines the provision, (or more accurately, lack of provision), of shelter space for the general population, comparing the situation in the USA and the UK with some other European countries and with the Soviet Union. The book’s focus is primarily on the UK infrastructure with less detail elsewhere. But for the British constructions it is unbeatable.

Wisdom

The artist… is in the painful situation of having to choose between being despised and being despicable.” — Bertrand Russell

Some of us manage to be both simultaneously.

Why don’t the French get as fat as us and the Americans?

The French paradox is a strong internet meme: Why don’t they get as fat as Americans, considering all the baguettes, wine, cheese, pate and pastries they eat?

The answer is researched and out. It’s because they use internal cues — such as no longer feeling hungry — to stop eating, reports a new Cornell study. Americans, on the other hand, tend to use external cues — such as whether their plate is clean, they have run out of their beverage or the TV show they’re watching is over.

“Furthermore, we have found that the heavier a person is — French or American — the more they rely on external cues to tell them to stop eating and the less they rely on whether they felt full.”

explained Brian Wansink, the John S. Dyson Professor of Marketing and director of the Cornell Food and Brand Lab in the Department of Applied Economics and Management.