James Edmondson

Owner of a Harrow hat, unused MEng (Dunelm), unfinished Westfield. Husband of @dunty. 11yo teenager, 9yo son who happens to have DS and a 5yo human hand grenade

[All The Right Movies @ATRightMovies]

What is the first film you think of when you see TONY CURTIS?

[Matt Forde @mattforde]

The single greatest squad reveal video in the history of squad reveal videos

[Benedict @carto_graph]

Ben isn’t exaggerating about the order of magnitude difference.

In constant $:
🇬🇧 HS2: $626 mn/km

🇫🇷 LGV to Bordeaux: $43 mn/km
🇮🇹 Brescia–Verona: $63 mn/km
🇰🇷 Suseo line: $89 mn/km. Pricey. But that’s because it’s 87% in tunnel.

[Melissa Chen @MsMelChen]

Bro has a door opener for his door opener

[All The Right Movies @ATRightMovies]

The Mexican Standoff in THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY (1966) is a filmmaking masterclass. Sergio Leone directs the music of Morricone and the editing of Nino Baragli to devastating effect

[James Edmondson @edmondson]

Still amazes me.

[SpaceX @SpaceX]

Falcon 9 lands on Landing Zone 40

[barrel rolls @barrel_rolls]

“listen to your body”

my body: touch the cactus

[James Edmondson @edmondson]

@JAHeale @Madz_Grant Accompanied by a claret or was her cellar poorly stocked?

[Stephen Pollard @stephenpollard]

I've never been more wrong about anything - and I've been wrong about a lot! - than my fear Charles would be a disastrous monarch.
It's not only that he hasn't put a foot wrong, it's that he has done everything - and more - so right. He has the perfect touch, the right manner and, most important of all, good judgment and the determination to act on it.

[Brett Bruen @BrettBruen]

Not a single China expert.

POTUS would normally have at least one NSC/State official to provide briefings.

Underlines how utterly unprepared he is for meetings with Xi.

[All The Right Movies @ATRightMovies]

The McLovin scene from SUPERBAD (2007). Still a treat...

[Ben Judah @b_judah]

Well said.

[James Edmondson @edmondson]

Simpler times.

[Batfox Pictures @Batfox_Pictures]

Released in June 1998, “Vindaloo” became one of the defining unofficial anthems of the 1998 World Cup. Created by Fat Les, featuring Keith Allen, Blur’s Alex James and Damien Hirst, it reached number two in the UK behind “3 Lions 98” and turned terrace-chant nonsense into a full national singalong.

[Nicole Lampert @nicolelampert]

It’s stark when you see it like this, isn’t it?

[Harriet Sergeant @HarrietSergeant]

Are Chinese people in Britain chased down the street for what Beijing does to Uighurs? Are Russians here hunted for Ukraine? Are Afghans attacked over how women are treated back home? No. But Jews are singled out, blamed, and targeted for Israel. The hypocrisy isn’t even subtle.

[James Edmondson @edmondson]

I wonder how long the incorrect grammar has appeared on Colgate toothpaste boxes. Do I get a lifetime supply of toothpaste for pointing it out? #its @colgate @CP_News

[Gideon Rachman @gideonrachman]

I don’t know how people like Megyn Kelly and Carlson, who backed Trump to the hilt in 2024, can now turn round and claim to be shocked and angered that he did this. This is what happens if you invest supreme power in an unbalanced unqualified narcissist and connive in the myth that he is a strategic genius.,

[Anon Opin. @anon_opin]

Who decided that the correct way for actors to hold a torch was not underhand from the waist but overhand, shoulder height?

[Anish Moonka @anishmoonka]

Those wheels you’re looking at are 0.75 millimeters thick. That’s half the thickness of a US dime. Each one was carved from a single block of aluminum, and NASA sent six of them to Mars knowing they’d eventually shred.

Curiosity was built for a 2-year mission. It landed in August 2012, and by December that year NASA had already extended the mission indefinitely. Thirteen years and 35.5 kilometers later, the rover is still going, but the wheels started cracking just 14 months in. The damage came faster than anyone at JPL predicted. Sharp embedded rocks were punching straight through the skin between the treads.

So NASA assembled a Wheel Wear Tiger Team (a crisis problem-solving tradition that goes back to Apollo 13) and got to work. In 2017, they uploaded a traction control algorithm from Earth that adjusts each wheel’s speed in real time based on the terrain, reducing force on the front wheels by 20%. They rerouted the rover to softer ground and started driving backward when possible, because pulling wheels over rocks produces less force than pushing them into rocks.

The wildest part: if enough treads snap off, Curiosity is designed to find a sharp rock on Mars and use it to deliberately rip out the damaged inner section of its own wheel. JPL tested this on a replica rover and found Curiosity can keep driving on just the outer third. They predict this won’t be needed until around 2034.

Every 1,000 meters, the rover pulls over and uses the camera on its robotic arm to photograph its own wheels so engineers on Earth can count every crack. Each wheel also has tiny holes that spell “JPL” in Morse code, which Curiosity uses to measure distance by photographing its own tracks in the dirt.

These photos directly changed the next rover. When NASA built Perseverance, engineers 3D-printed about 70 different tread designs before landing on 48 curved treads instead of Curiosity’s 24, with thicker skin. They tested the new wheels over 60 kilometers and got zero damage by Curiosity’s original failure definition. “A boring graph with no data on it,” as one JPL engineer put it.

A $2.5 billion machine doing self-surgery with rocks on another planet because the mission outlasted its design by 6x.

[Todd Spence @Todd_Spence]

Matt Berry + Star Trek = perfection
(amazing edit by @Picardlooking)