Not only is this the most beautiful XKCD post of all time, ...

... it is the most beautiful webcomic ever posted anywhere on the web by anyone.

The ouroboros is preparing to close the loop.

My blogging software suggested that it would be glad to allow the AI to write my blog from now on.

NTSB video explaining why the Dali lost control

18 months ago, in March 2024, the MV Dali crashed into the Francis Scott Key bridge in Baltimore Harbor.

The National Transportation Safety Board has released the summary section of its report on the incident.

There are many findings in the report, and lots to think about, but a particularly interesting part is the loose wire that crippled the ship at a critical moment. The NTSB made a very good 2 minute video explaining exactly what went wrong.

Another very interesting observation is this:

Contributing to the collapse of the Key Bridge and the loss of life was the lack of countermeasures to reduce the bridge’s vulnerability to collapse due to impact by ocean-going vessels, which have only grown larger since the Key Bridge’s opening in 1977. When the Japan-flagged containership Blue Nagoya contacted the Key Bridge after losing propulsion in 1980, the 390-foot-long vessel caused only minor damage. The Dali, however, is 10 times the size of the Blue Nagoya.

This seems like a sensible recommendation in response to that observation:

To the US Coast Guard:

1. Conduct and publish the results of a study that examines the availability, feasibility, and safety benefits of redundant means to ensure that large singlepropulsion-engine cargo vessels maintain propulsion and steering when maneuvering in restricted waters.

Quite a lot has changed in 50 years. There's lots to learn, and lots to do.

The Road from the Past: a very short review

Ina Caro's The Road from the Past is hard to describe. It's not a travel guide, it's not a history, it's not an autobiography. And yet, in various ways, it is all three.

Caro found herself traveling extensively in France, and decided to try her own approach:

Most people return from Europe with a memory of the places they have visited that is very much like a salad after it has been put through a Cuisinart. They have been to so many countries and heard so many dates and names of kings that when they return, the trip is all a blur. When I see the typical American tourist, I feel like yelling out, "Don't do it that way, it's no fun. Do it my way."

If you do it my way, you will rent a time machine -- available at any rent-a-car agency -- and drive through history. Our time machine can't take us into the future any faster than a minute at a time, but we can, if we properly plan our route, actually simulate the sensation of traveling through several centries of the past on a magical vacation in France. If you follow the route I describe from Provence to Paris, traveling to some of the most magnificent and beautiful monasteries, churches, chateaux, and towns built in France over a period of nearly two thousand years, and visit these sites in the order they were built, you will feel almost as if you are traveling through the past, through the history of France.

Indeed, her book describes exactly that: a journey she and her husband took through France, from Provence to Paris, visiting locations in a way designed to move from the very early Roman times, though the middle ages, into the Renaissance, through the Grand Siecle, and ending at last in modern-day France.

I read portions of Caro's book before a recent trip to Bordeaux, bouncing around from chapter to chapter and "visiting" some of my planned destinations ahead of time, through Caro's eyes.

It was a lovely way to whet my appetite for my journey, but in a way I broke Caro's cardinal rule, because I didn't read her entire book, start to finish, but rather sampled different portions that matched my existing plans.

That is, I read her book as a guidebook, rather than as autobiography.

But really, it doesn't matter: if you're interested in France, and have the time, Caro's book is a lovely way to start learning the extraordinarily long and complex history of this fascinating country. Read it however you want to.