In with the old, out with the new

From today's Globe:

New England Confectionery Co. thought it could make its old-fashioned wafer appeal to a modern, health-conscious consumer by coloring and flavoring it with all natural ingredients such as cabbage and beets.


Instead, sales of Necco Wafers fell 35 percent.

“There were stacks and stacks of letters and e-mails that said, ‘Why did you do this? You ruined it,’ ’’ recalled Steve Ornell, Necco’s vice president of sales.

Less than two years after going all natural, the Revere company has gone back to its original recipe in hopes of recouping lost sales and loyal fans of the 164-year-old candy. The chalky, sugary candy that comes in eight colors is once again made of artificial dyes and flavors.

Estimating the Airspeed Velocity of an Unladen Swallow

From our friends at 13pt comes this impressive looking analysis.

The conclusion?

Although a definitive answer would of course require further measurements, published species-wide averages of wing length and body mass, initial Strouhal estimates based on those averages and cross-species comparisons, the Lund wind tunnel study of birds flying at a range of speeds, and revised Strouhal numbers based on that study all lead me to estimate that the average cruising airspeed velocity of an unladen European Swallow is roughly 11 meters per second, or 24 miles an hour.

Should whipping it be considered?

Charlie Rangel gets a portrait

From today's Los Angeles Times:

Forget what F. Scott Fitzgerald said about there being no second acts in life. A portrait of Rep. Charles B. Rangel (D-N.Y.), a former chairman of the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee, was unveiled in the committee’s hearing room today before a cheering crowd.

That’s the same 81-year-old Rangel who was censured by his colleagues last year for ethical misconduct.

Rangel, who received tributes from members of both parties for his four decades in Congress, basked in the moment, making only slight reference to his past troubles.

"I can’t wait to see how the New York Post handles it," he joked, referring to the tabloid's coverage of the portrait's unveiling.

Because...

An oldie but a goodie...

Saturday Joel Blogging

Cat Interior Design

From where else! Japan...

Jean Bartik, Software Pioneer, Dies at 86

The New York Times, By Steve Lohr, April 7

Jean Jennings Bartik, one of the first computer programmers and a pioneering forerunner in a technology that came to be known as software, died on March 23 at a nursing home in Poughkeepsie, N.Y. She was 86.

[...]

Ms. Bartik was the last surviving member of the group of women who programmed the Eniac, or Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer, which is credited as the first all-electronic digital computer.

[...]

When the Eniac was shown off at the University of Pennsylvania in February 1946, it generated headlines in newspapers across the country. But the attention was all on the men and the machine. The women were not even introduced at the event.

“For years, we celebrated the people who built it, not the people who programmed it,” said David Alan Grier, a technology historian at George Washington University and a senior vice president of the IEEE Computer Society.

[...]

Ms. Bartik left the computer industry in 1951 to raise her three children and returned to it in 1967. After holding a series of jobs in programming, training and technical publishing, she was laid off in 1985 as she was nearing 61 and could not find another job in the industry.

“There’s a lot of age discrimination, then and now, and I see it in my research,” said Mr. Bartik, a labor economist.

For the next 25 years Ms. Bartik was a real estate agent in New Jersey.

Just what the world needs.

Sylvester Stallone is to launch a clothing line

The Guardian, By Imogen Fox, March 27

Here's what we're hoping for from the Rocky and Rambo star's menswear label.

This autumn, Academy Award winner Sly Stallone faces his greatest challenge yet: the film legend is launching his very own clothing line. Stallone's menswear will be based on his two most iconic characters, Rambo and Rocky, and will feature – in the words of the designer – "looks for the rebel and the gentleman". Here are the key pieces we're desperately hoping for.

• A deluxe headband. Sly reckons that the line will be "premium", so we're holding out for something in six-ply cashmere that says "soldier-chic".

• An olive-green vest. Scoop-necked and a bit military. A menswear cliché perhaps, but the Stallone interpretation could be styled with a gold pendant. One for Cristiano Ronaldo this.

continued at the link