The Brunch Table

Here’s a hypnotic demonstration of simple, human-powered devices for moving multi-ton Stonehenge blocks, built without metal or machine-made parts.

My random curiosity of the day, caused by this weekend’s showing of Raiders of the Lost Ark in the park: were there ever actually any cool mechanical traps in ancient tombs? Seems I’m not the only one who’s ever wondered that. As usual, The Straight Dope is also on the case. In short, no mechanical traps have ever been discovered, unless you count the water trap in the Money Pit of Oak Island. It’s too bad—I’m sure that the Long Now guys would be all over that.

Since my “day” began over 24 hours ago in Normandy, I’m about to crash. So I’ll make this quick: you can see my first pass at a photo album for the trip here.

Honestly, the Watercube is the only recent architecture that feels properly post-millennial to me. Gehry gives me this 90’s “computer graphics are cool” vibe that just leaves me cold. Bring on the biomimicry! (Even if only at a superficial level.) I hope this thing does indeed get built for the Beijing olympics, because I’m intensely curious about how this sort of structure will age. Rusting bubbles? Blown out pseudo-cells?