The man in charge of the Olympic long-track speedskating rink is disappointed. After the 500 meter race, Marc Norman, caretaker at the Utah Olympic Oval, carefully examined temperature and humidity data. He had hoped that world records would be broken at this, the highest altitude speed skating track in the world. Air resistance is lower at high altitude, and the reduced oxygen creates a better sheet of ice. A Popular Science article goes into detail on the design of the rink, the ice, the building. The ice is tweaked for different events, adjusting for more “glide” at distance events and “grip” for shorter races. Norman mixes a secret soap substance into the Zamboni water in order to reduce the oxygen frozen in. The lower ceiling in the building allows for better control over the climate inside. A dehumidifier was specially designed for the space. With such deep preparation and fine control, it isn’t surprising that Norman is disappointed with the lack of record breaking skates. After analyzing the data, he decided that the temperature of the floor under the ice was too warm. But the skaters are pleased with the ice, even if they aren’t breaking any records.

If the Winter Olympics figure skating has made you wonder what your favorites from long ago are up to, there are short updates on Skating Inc’s Where Are They Now? page for many well-known skaters.

Those spare Iridium satellites finally did take off on Monday after three delays. And I found the answer to my question: what happened to the other two spares? They will be launched in June of this year.

A wire coat hanger in a 1,000 year old Chinese ceramic horse? The Asian Art Museum in San Francisco is moving to a new home and conservators are busy preparing the collection for the move. Some of it involves removing earlier restoration work, though actually the coat hanger is going to stay put since it is in good shape. The core of the collection, 13,000 works gifted to San Francisco by Avery Brundage, is the city’s second-most valuable asset (real estate is the first).

Happy Lunar New Year! At the start of 2002, snarkout posted an entry about the lucky foods people eat to mark the beginning of the year. I had not heard about the Chinese custom of eating dumplings for New Year’s and the placing of a coin in one of them. When I asked my father about it, he thought a bit and decided that it was probably a custom that is more common in the northern part of China. Rice is a staple in the south and east but wheat is used in the north. My father also defined the difference between what he considers a “custom” versus a “tradition”. He explained that the dumpling and coin thing is a custom which is not as strong as the traditions, such as the giving of money in red envelopes. The distinction is quite subtle, but it’s clear to him. The one food that is customary in my parent’s house for New Year’s is the Glutinous Rice Cake (Nian Gao). Unfortunately, I don’t enjoy its chewy texture.

What fun! English milk bottles of all sorts at Milk Bottle of the Week. Most have advertisements. Here’s a Kellogg’s Corn Flakes maze. There are messages from the police and messages from farmers. Queen Elizabeth has her own dairy and therefore her own milk bottles. (via Yahoo What’s New moo!)

Various news agencies have reported that the number of couples getting married in China has spiked up as the Lunar New Year approaches. Apparently the upcoming Year of the Horse is an unlucky one because it does not contain a date for the start of spring. Covering February 12, 2002 through January 31, 2003, this new year will have just missed the start of spring on February 4, 2002 and will not contain the following one. Engaged couples are taking all the luck they can get and rushing off to the marriage offices. But some are being patient and waiting for this year to pass by.

The Social Security Administration’s website has a history section. It includes Social Security Number trivia and describes why the geographical assignment of the first three digits of the SSN has an anomaly with New Hampshire having lower numbers than Maine. This was done so that Social Security Board Chairman John G. Winant, who was from New Hampshire, could be assigned 001-01-0001. But he declined it and it was eventually given to Grace D. Owen who was the first to apply for a number in New Hampshire. I also found an interesting photo of female African-American keypunch operators.

I first learned to type on a keypunch machine in my father’s office. Well, perhaps “learned” is too strong a word. But I did produce much nonsense and some actual words on stacks of punch cards. I still have a few of them. Douglas W. Jones collects punch cards and his site has historical information and scans of his card collection. Many of them have corporate logos. He also has a page on chads and voting machines. Jones’ site was featured in a NY Times article about surviving use of punch card systems.

The reincarnated Iridium is adding five more satellites to its crop of 66 plus 7 spares. It was only last year that the old incarnation was set to crash and burn, along with their satellites, before the U.S. Department of Defense came to the rescue. Last year’s press release stated that there were seven in-orbit spares and they were planning to launch seven more spares this year. I wonder what happened to the other two? In December they issued a press release stating that the satellites are expected to operate through mid-2010, and they have not needed to use any of the spares.