Good morning, Whitewater.

Whitewater’s Thursday will be mostly cloudy with a high of seventy-seven. Sunrise today is 6:45 and sunset 6:48, for 12h 03m 09s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 81.9% of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s CDA Seed Capital Committee meets at 4 PM and CDA Board meets at 5 PM today.

On this day in 1968, the CBS News program 60 minutes first aired:

The program employed a magazine format, similar to that of the Canadian program W5, which premiered two years earlier. It pioneered many of the most important investigative journalism procedures and techniques, including re-editing interviews, hidden cameras, and “gotcha journalism” visits to the home or office of an investigative subject.^[6] Similar programs sprang up in Australia and Canada during the 1970s, as well as on local television news.^[6]

Initially, 60 Minutes aired as a bi-weekly show hosted by Harry Reasoner and Mike Wallace, debuting on September 24, 1968, and alternating weeks with other CBS News productions on Tuesday evenings at 10:00 p.m.Eastern Time. The first edition, described by Reasoner in the opening as a “kind of a magazine for television,” featured the following segments:

1. A look inside the headquarters suites of presidential candidates Richard Nixon and Hubert Humphrey during their respective parties’ national conventions that summer;
2. Commentary by European writers Malcolm Muggeridge, Peter von Zahn, and Luigi Barzini, Jr. on the American electoral system;
3. A commentary by political columnist Art Buchwald;
4. An interview with then-Attorney General Ramsey Clark about police brutality;
5. “A Digression,” a brief, scripted piece in which two silhouetted men (one of them Andy Rooney) discuss the presidential campaign;
6. An abbreviated version of an Academy Award-winning short film by Saul Bass, Why Man Creates; and
7. A meditation by Wallace and Reasoner on the relation between perception and reality. Wallace said that the show aimed to “reflect reality”.

On this day in 1857, N.C. Harmon wins big:

On this date N.C. Harmon of Lyman was awarded the first premium prize for cheese made in Sheboygan County. The award was given at the Sheboygan Agricultural Society fair held in Sheboygan Falls. The next year saw John J. Smith procure the first cheese vat in Sheboygan County. He manufactured cheese on a cooperative plan, collecting curd from his neighbors. Both are early events in the long and important history of cheesemaking in Sheboygan. [Source: Sheboygan County, Wisconsin Genealogy and History]

A Google a Day asks a geography question:

What town, once a fishing mecca, is now a desert with a “cemetery of ships” due to the shrinking Aral Sea?

Good morning, Whitewater.

It’s the first day of fall, and Google has a doodle to mark the change of season. In Whitewater, we’ll have mostly sunny skies and a high of eighty. Sunrise is 6:43 and sunset 6:49, for 12h 06m 03s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 72.1% of its visible disk illuminated.

Yesterday, I posted a video of a rat carrying a slice of pizza through the New York subway system. That animal has now been dubbed, predictably enough, the ‘Pizza Rat,’ and is the subject of a story in the New York Times: ‘Pizza Rat’ Prompts a Collective ‘Ew’ and Debate on Cleaning New York Subway. The newspaper story includes the observations of the commuter who recorded the rat’s efforts:

The video of the rat, posted by a comedian named Matt Little, showed just what the authority is up against: riders who have no qualms about casting aside food and other debris while aggressive rodents wait in the wings.

Mr. Little stumbled across the scene around 2 a.m. on Monday as he left a comedy show in the East Village with a friend. Rather than being put off by it, he said, he was “100 percent impressed” by the rat’s tenacity, and he pulled out his phone. After the rat carried it down a few steps and then ran away, Mr. Little said, he was not inclined to pick up the slice and throw it away before boarding his train to Brooklyn.

“I’ll be honest — I didn’t follow up with the slice,” Mr. Little said in an interview on Tuesday. “It was just in a rat’s mouth. We’ll let that stay where it is.”

On this day in 1779, John Paul Jones wins a victory over Britain:

During the American Revolution, the U.S. ship Bonhomme Richard, commanded by John Paul Jones, wins a hard-fought engagement against the British ships of war Serapis and Countess of Scarborough, off the eastern coast of England….

In August 1779, Jones took command of the Bonhomme Richard and sailed around the British Isles. On September 23, the Bonhomme Richard engaged the Serapis and the smaller Countess of Scarborough, which were escorting the Baltic merchant fleet. After inflicting considerable damage to the Bonhomme Richard, Richard Pearson, the captain of the Serapis, asked Jones if he had struck his colors, the naval signal indicating surrender. From his disabled ship, Jones replied, “I have not yet begun to fight,” and after three more hours of furious fighting it was the Serapis and Countess of Scarborough that surrendered. After the victory, the Americans transferred to the Serapis from the Bonhomme Richard, which sank the following day.

A Google a Day asks a question about pop culture:

A popular singer whose real name is Katheryn Hudson, grew up listening to what type of music?

Good morning, Whitewater.

Tuesday in Whitewater will be mostly sunny with a high 0f seventy-nine degrees. Sunrise is 6:42 and sunset 6:51. for 12h 08m 56s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 61.4% of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Urban Forestry Commission meets at 4:30 PM, and the Police & Fire Commission at 7:30 PM.

On this day in 1862, Pres. Lincoln released the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, to take effect January 1, 1863.

Small drones are useful for photography, but in the video below, one sees that they can be programmed to build bridges or other structures:

In this work, a rope bridge that can support the crossing of a person is built by quadrocopters, showing for the ?rst time that small ?ying machines are capable of autonomously realizing load-bearing structures at full-scale and proceeding a step further towards real-world scenarios. Except for the required anchor points at both ends of the structure, the bridge consists exclusively of tensile elements and its connections and links are entirely realized by ?ying machines. Spanning 7.4 m between two scaffolding structures, the bridge consists of nine rope segments for a total rope length of about 120 m and is composed of different elements, such as knots, links, and braids. The rope used for these experiments is made out of Dyneema, a material with a low weight-to-strength ratio and thus suitable for aerial construction. Of little weight (7 g per meter), a 4 mm diameter rope can sustain 1300 kg.

The vehicles are equipped with a motorized spool that allows them to control the tension acting on the rope during deployment. A plastic tube guides the rope to the release point located between two propellers. The external forces and torques exerted on the quadrocopter by the rope during deployment are estimated and taken into account to achieve compliant ?ight behavior. The assembly of the bridge is performed by small custom quadrocopters and builds upon the Flying Machine Arena, a research and demonstration platform for aerial robotics. The arena is equipped with a motion capture system that provides vehicle position and attitude measurements. Algorithms are run on a computer and commands are then sent to the ?ying machines via a customized wireless infrastructure.

In order to be able to design tensile structures that are buildable with flying robots, a series of computational tools have been developed, specifically addressing the characteristics of the building method. The design tools allow to simulate, sequence, and evaluate the structure before building.

The location of the scaffolding structure is manually measured before starting the construction. The primary and bracing structure can then be realized without human intervention. Before realizing the stabilizers, the locations of the narrow openings of the bridge are measured and input to the system, which adapts the trajectories accordingly.

Via YouTube.

A Google a Day asks a science & technology question:

Of the five NASA space shuttles, which one flew the most missions?

Good morning, Whitewater.

A new week begins, and a new season is only two days’ time away. Monday in the Whippet City will be sunny with a high of seventy-four. Sunrise is 6:41 and sunset 8:53, for 12h 11m 49s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 51.2% of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Parks and Recreation Board meets today at 5:30 PM.

On 9.21.1780, Benedict Arnold betrays his country:

On this day in 1780, during the American Revolution, American General Benedict Arnold meets with British Major John Andre to discuss handing over West Point to the British, in return for the promise of a large sum of money and a high position in the British army. The plot was foiled and Arnold, a former American hero, became synonymous with the word “traitor.”

….During the war, Benedict Arnold proved himself a brave and skillful leader, helping Ethan Allen’s troops capture Fort Ticonderoga in 1775 and then participating in the unsuccessful attack on British Quebec later that year, which earned him a promotion to brigadier general. Arnold distinguished himself in campaigns at Lake Champlain, Ridgefield and Saratoga, and gained the support of George Washington. However, Arnold had enemies within the military and in 1777, five men of lesser rank were promoted over him. Over the course of the next few years, Arnold married for a second time and he and his new wife lived a lavish lifestyle in Philadelphia, accumulating substantial debt. The debt and the resentment Arnold felt over not being promoted faster were motivating factors in his choice to become a turncoat.

In 1780, Arnold was given command of West Point, an American fort on the Hudson River in New York (and future home of the U.S. military academy, established in 1802). Arnold contacted Sir Henry Clinton, head of the British forces, and proposed handing over West Point and his men. On September 21 of that year, Arnold met with Major John Andre and made his traitorous pact. However, the conspiracy was uncovered and Andre was captured and executed. Arnold, the former American patriot, fled to the enemy side and went on to lead British troops in Virginia and Connecticut. He later moved to England, though he never received all of what he’d been promised by the British. He died in London on June 14, 1801.

A Google a Day asks a geography question:

The Indian river basin that includes approximately 25% of the country’s area is bound by what mountain range to the south?