Wired News notes that wireless provider Ricochet is still making a go of a comeback under Aerie. With service already rolled out in Denver and San Diego, the company has a long read ahead before they can support the 21 areas of coverage the original company offered in 2001. They are taking a reasonable pace, only planning to roll out 3-5 more cities before the end of 2003. Each new location poses logistical challenges as access to thousands of repeaters located mostly on streetlights will have to be renegotiated with each city. Ricochet hopes to work out deals offering free access to local police officers.

Was it an inside job? Who had the knowledge and audacity to swipe so many gems from Antwerp’s Diamond Centre? 123 of 160 vaults were cleaned out. Ten years ago, five vaults were robbed for an estimated loss of $4.55 million. According to this article on a foiled theft of the diamonds in London’s Millennium Dome, “the Guinness Book of Records says the world’s largest gem theft was carried out in August 1994 by three men who stole items valued at $43 million from a jewelry shop in the Carlton Hotel in Cannes, France.” Does the record still stand? A group of diamond merchants in Belgium are hoping so.

It’s fun to make a little joke about “The Book on the Bookshelf” being on the bookshelf. But it could be great fun to joke about “The Book on the Bookshelf” being on the book bookshelf. Jim Rosenau takes discarded hardback books, replaces most of their insides with salvaged lumber and creates unique bookshelves. (Rosenau, with partner Charlie Varon is responsible for those Salon.com haiku competitions.)

A new museum devoted to the art of the picture book recently opened in Amherst, Massachusetts. Founded by the author of The Very Hungry Caterpillar and his wife, The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art has a noble mission to “collect, present, preserve, and interpret picture book art from around the world recognizing its importance as an art form.” Readers of all ages are invited to view special exhibitions and try out crafts for creating their own illustrations.

“Government is not reason, it is not eloquence, it is force; like fire, a troublesome servant and a fearful master. Never for a moment should it be left to irresponsible action.” –George Washington

“…As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master This expresses my idea of democracy. Whatever differs from this, to the extent of the difference, is no democracy” –Abraham Lincoln

Industrial parks can spring up overnight around here, and during the boom times it seemed that you could sprinkle a few concrete seeds in an empty lot, add water, and instantly grow raw square footage ready for the cubicle installers. Tilt-ups are the weeds of which I speak. These rapidly built, but artistically maligned buildings are now prettied up with decorative flourishes and used for museums and churches. Tilt-up construction is just that. After the floor is poured, the concrete walls are formed on-site and tilted-up. It’s fast and the logistics are simple. But does easy up mean easy down? The results of Northridge (400 tilt-ups out of 1,200 damaged) and Loma Prieta on tilt-up construction was disturbing. Modern steel-frame buildings have a better safety record. The connectors between the tilt-up walls and roofs are key. Older tilt-ups used nailed wooden connectors. Newer building codes require steel connectors, and even those codes have been recently enhanced for stronger steel. Some tilt-ups have been retrofitted, but not all will be. It appears that we may have to wait for architectural evolution to take its course. (Also check out tilt-up.org with its top ten construction list. Largest square footage? 1,650,000 square feet, Rooms-To-Go Distribution Center, Lakeland, FL. Tallest panel? 91′ 7¼” Gloria Dei Lutheran Church, Nassau Bay, TX.)

Reader Marc sent in news and extra links regarding the Leblanc factory fire in the Normandy region of France which destroyed 1,400 clarinets and the entire stock of spare keys. The news item mentioned that the Leblanc Corporation of Kenosha, Wisconsin had taken over the factory which was formerly called Noblet and had been founded in 1750. The history before that acquisition, pulled from various web sources, is fascinating. It begins with Denis Noblet of the original firm granting his family business, as he had no heirs, to Georges LeBlanc, his best employee. The LeBlanc family set up the first full-time acoustical research laboratory for wind instruments in Paris and hired master acoustician Charles Houvenaghel. They produced a wide range of highly regarded clarinets.

Over in the U.S., Kenosha, WI to be exact, a young boy, Vito Pascucci, became interested in instrument design and repair work. Called to serve in WWII, Pascucci took his repair tools with him and worked with the Army Air Corps Band, led by none other than Glenn Miller. Having made plans to visit the famous instrument makers of Paris with Miller, Pascucci pressed onwards despite Miller’s death in a plane disappearance. His tour of Leblanc was conducted by Léon Leblanc, son of Georges. The two became close friends and Pascucci continued to visit the factory, learning their manufacturing processes. After Pascucci returned home, he was entrusted by Leblanc to set up distribution for their instruments in the U.S. The clarinets, still manufactured in France, were reassembled in Kenosha after the wood had acclimatized to the different environment. Pascucci grew the U.S. business over many years, acquiring other companies such as Martin Band Instruments. In 1989 he acquired majority interest and management responsibility for his mentor’s European business. And that’s how a famous French clarinet factory came to be owned by a company in Kenosha, Wisconsin.

Wander into the Oddmusic Musical Instrument Gallery and take a look at sound-producing contraptions such as the Bikelophone, the Sarrusophone, and the Octavator. (thanks salt!)

The library of Port Townsend, Washington took ten years (1902-1911) of their local paper’s microfilms, had it scanned by OCLC Preservation Resources, and then indexed by library staff and volunteers. The results are online and searchable. What wonderful ads there are: “Mothers who perceive the evidences of functional derangement in young girls should promptly have them begin the use of Dr. Pierce’s Pleasant Pellets.” and “The Pantorium: Pants Made to Order” or how about “Genuine Syrup of White Pine and Tar for Coughs and Colds.” Yummy yum yum. Someone is going to laugh at all our cellular phone ads one day, aren’t they? (via larkfarm)

Fish Out of Water
Dr. Tom Lessl of the University of Georgia studies Speech Communication. For three years he studied the fish outlines that people put on their cards. Well, more precisely he studied why people put the fish outlines on their cars, and he especially wanted to know about those who displayed the legged Darwin and evolution fish. He left surveys whenever he spotted one. You can read some of their responses in this news item on the study. Quickly after Darwin came the Truth fish devouring the Darwin fish, and the dead, legs up Darwin fish. Many other parodies followed. As the NY Times put it: “While natural selection drives biological change, the evolution of car fish seems to have been driven by ideological one-upsmanship at first, and then by market forces and irrepressible silliness. The newest species is the Sushi fish, a truly odd symbolic development in which the fish actually represents a fish.” (buy ’em here, another fishy article)