Hey, Dougster!
I got it!!!
One of my favourirte movies!

Here is a little summer trivia and a bit of Seven Degrees of Separation tossed in for good measure. One of the most spectacular building interiors in Los Angeles, and maybe America, is the Bradbury Building at 3rd and Broadway, in downtown L.A. It would be nice if the building was named after Mr. B, but it was not. George Wyman is credited for designing the building. George Wyman grandson is Forrest J. Ackerman.

I did a photo essay of the building for my high school photography class.

(Doug Spaulding: Would that not be a great place for 4E documentary footage?)

I am confident that every member of this forum group has seen the interior of the building, in the cinema or on TV. This fall it will again be on the big screen in the re-release of Blade Runner. One of my favorite Outer Limits was Demon with the Glass Hand starring Robert Culp. The building featured in both of these. I have attached a shot of the interior.

BR_loc_Bradbury_int2.jpg (83 Kb, 9 downloads)

Fascinating about the Bradbury building and yes, you’re right, I’ve seen it a couple of times on TV shows and also in Blade Runner. Wasn’t it originally a Mall?

By the way:

Ever take a close look at the front of your town library? How many steps does it have? Mine has three. That’s to the main door and into the adult section—no forth step into the door because it’s handicapped friendly. (Ever notice how handicapped accessible areas are labeled “Handicap” and not handicapped? I’ll give you odds someone doesn’t know what they’re doing.) The Main Street that the library faces is an incline so as you face the front door the ground inclines to the right and there is more building from roof to ground on the left end than there is on the right end and the main door is in the middle.

A little ways over on the left (still in the front) is the children’s entrance and it has five steps to the stoop and the sixth is the one you use to step into the library after you open the door. A magical step (especially after dark) where you walk into a four-foot foyer with display cases on the left and right that might contain ‘The Hardy Boys” or “Nancy Drew” or “Anne of Green Gables’ or “Bridge to Terabithiea”. Whatever the library wanted to showcase for that week or month. And that door was not shared. It was the Children’s Entrance. Their own special door. Walking through it was like walking through the front arch in Disneyland to the town square just as a bunch of balloons were released or coming up out of a subway in the inner city to find that you are in the middle of a street festival.

At least that’s the way it was before the Heelots got hold of it. Walter Brennan described Heelots in the film “Meet John Doe” as people (“a lotta heels”) who go after what the other feller has got; but I’m using the term to describe people who change traditional things oblivious of the impact it might have.

THEY BRICKED UP THE DOOR!

No more sixth step. No more four-foot foyer with display cases on the left and right. I call the steps “the Balfour incline” now because they don’t go anywhere. (If that statement is enigmatic to you then please read “Kidnapped” by Robert Louis Stevenson). But if you think to look over on the left side of the building (don’t give up and use the main entrance) you will find the new children’s entrance with it’s own, newer enchantment. After all, the people who run places such as these are really magical people, aren’t they?

I can’t help but mourn the loss of the original children’s entrance however. If only there were a Will Halloway, Jim Nightshade or Douglas Spalding kind of way to climb up the five steps to the stoop and take that sixth step and through the wall. What would I find?

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Chapter 31,

Ah, Chap, our local libraries have no steps at all, with the exception of the Felton branch (the smallest in the County system)which used to be a church (link below, q.v.).
Now they're looking for another, bigger location.
The thing I miss in libraries is silence! Libraries used to be the epitome of silence, but (at least around here) no longer, alas!

http://www.santacruzpl.org/history/libsch/felton.shtml

Was there today, forgot to count the steps, but I'd say a good six or eight and darn poor, little or no handicapped access.

Sidestepping steps for a moment, this miscellaneous page must allow for amazing theories for sure, like...the pancake theory. Or the flapjack theorum. That is, all the mysteries of the universe are spelled out in the pouring of pancake batter into a frying pan.
Why does it all go round, instead of square? The nature of things (in pancakes) says everything goes in one direction, but, looked at from above, it's all going in different directions, tho, individually, as to areas, it would appear to be all going in one direction. And all going at the same speed. Now this must be one of the basis of everything, this law of the pancake. Like the apple that fell out of the tree and gravity was identified, the pancake/flapjack postulation indicates a law of uniformity (even in the simpliest morning pancake) tho all may, in reality be going off in opposite direction.

This has been brought to you by: Another Great Nutty Idea

Now back to counting steps....

Now let's see, need the force of local gravity, the temperature of the pan, the density and consistancy of the mix and then a triple integration of dx,dy,dz should resolve the viscous shear force vector. It seems we had one like that as an engineering student. The answer is of course who cares! What flavor was the mix? And where the hell is the syrup bottle?

patrask:

Can't you say the same for gravity? When the apple 'fell' it was actually the earth moving towards the apple, now unbridled?

For instance, the attached, is a painting I did few years ago. On glass. It was done by floating lithographty ink on a layer of benzene and alcohol, all on glass. A paper with closed pores (heavy gloss) is applied. What occurs is an image that often mimics sunsets and cloud and general "look of nature". How is that?

NardArt.jpg (51 Kb, 10 downloads)

Grassy, in the buckwheat recipe you've linked, what does this guy mean by, "...fold the egg whites through the batter in two batches."
I'm assuming he means fold in half of them, then the other half...? Because stiff egg whites in batter do tend to "flatten" after awhile, I thought maybe he means use up half of the batter (with egg whites in it) and then use the other half (with freshly folded-in egg whites).

BTW::::
By the way...has anyone connected with the new GOOGLE SKY? It let's you see the sky thru the Hubble telescope and link up with the stars as you do with linking up with neighborhoods on the Google Earth. This is beyond amazing. It's unthinkable...except it's THERE!!!

Can you do that free, Nard? I couldn't get the thing working with what they were offering for free.

B-II,

Sorry for the long delay in responding, I totally forgot I'd contributed to this thread. I think what that means is to only fold in half at a time. Add half, fold. Then add the other half and fold.

grasstains: It's free! I got internet-cable. Don't know if that has something to do with it. Once you download the blue striped Google-Earth logo, you put it in your applications. Yes?

Oh, I don't know what I'm doing. Perhaps I'll try again. I really wanted to check out their 3D virtual tour of cities of the world, and that's the thing I couldn't figure out. I just don't see anything to "click" on once I enter the free arena.

================================================

grasstains:

Click on the link below. Then click on the free icon, probably upper right. You should get a page that says "AGREE and Download /Cancel." By agreeing to the rules and regulations, (clicking on AGREE)... that triggers the download. http://earth.google.com/

You may get another pop-up that says ... 'application needed', and you click on that. (You may or may not get that one). But then, depending on the speed of your computer (I'm using my wife's right now and she has a moderately fast 1.4 MHz speed)...just wait until it downloads. For instance, it takes less than a minute on my wife's. By the way, what kind of computer are you using?

I don't really know any tech-speak. This computer is a Dell Windows XP Home Edition. We have sbc/yahoo DSL which is supposed to be faster than our straight dial-up. But it's really not much faster. I think we have a virus, and we don't have much memory for downloading things. I think I'll just sit this one out. I thought it would be like google maps, with no downloading required. Oh well.