{"id":286345,"date":"2026-06-29T11:57:07","date_gmt":"2026-06-29T16:57:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/?p=286345"},"modified":"2026-06-29T11:57:14","modified_gmt":"2026-06-29T16:57:14","slug":"this-texas-ranch-is-for-remote-controlled-telescopes-only","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/2026\/06\/29\/this-texas-ranch-is-for-remote-controlled-telescopes-only\/","title":{"rendered":"This Texas ranch is for remote-controlled telescopes only"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Rockwood, Texas is home to a unique business called Starfront Observatories. Owner\/operator Bray Falls hosts hundreds of other people\u2019s telescopes in perfect conditions \u2014 ultra-dark skies (Class 1 on the Bortle scale), clear weather, and fast internet connections \u2014 so astrophotographers from around the world can run their scopes and make observations completely from their computers. Out in the middle of nowhere Texas, a young astrophotographer is running one of the largest telescope ranches on Earth. Stargazers from around the world ship their gear to Bray Falls, who tends 550 telescopes (and counting) on 40 acres outside Brady, the geographic heart of Texas. Customers control the scopes from a laptop anywhere on the planet for as little as 99 dollars a month. The imagery produced by the telescopes on this ranch is impressive. (via Kottke.org<\/a>)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A teenaged girl’s study on hand-dryer noise was published in an academic journal<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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When Nora Keegan found her ears ringing after using a hand dryer and noticed other kids holding their ears at the sound of the machines, she decided to investigate. Nora, of Calgary, was 9 years old at the time. Nearly four years later, Nora\u2019s research on the topic has been published in a scientific journal and she is just 13 years old. “Oh, it was crazy,” Nora told “Good Morning America” about learning via email that her research had been accepted into the Canadian journal Paediatrics & Child Health. “I remember I was at school and I was so happy.” Nora began her science experiment in fifth grade by driving around with her parents, both doctors, looking for hand dryers in public places that children frequent, like libraries and restaurants. The family purchased a professional decibel meter for Nora’s experiment and also used a ruler and measuring tape to measure the hand dryers’ volume. (via ABC News<\/a>)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Note<\/strong>: This is a version of my When The Going Gets Weird newsletter, which I send out via Ghost, the open-source publishing platform. You can see other issues and sign up here<\/a>.<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

This Jewish community in the Caribbean smuggled gunpowder to revolutionaries<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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When museum curator Josh Perelman boarded an American Airlines flight from the Caribbean island of St. Thomas to Philadelphia in early April, his carry-on luggage was heavy with the weight of memory\u2014of a long-vanished community and an obscure but critical chapter in the history of the American Revolution. The precious object, carefully wrapped in a padded box with its own handle, was a Hanukkah lamp from 1761. Known today as a menorah, this fixture is displayed every December in many Jewish households around the world, its candles lit to celebrate the eight days and nights of the Festival of Lights. Bearing the Hebrew year 5522, the artifact is a poignant reminder of a Jewish community that once flourished on the Dutch island of St. Eustatius. This community played a little known but crucial role in the Revolution, conveying a steady stream of munitions and supplies from the forges and mills of Northern Europe to George Washington\u2019s army in North America. (via The Smithsonian<\/a>)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hi everyone! Mathew Ingram here. I am able to continue writing this newsletter in part because of your financial help and support, which you can do either <\/em>through my Patreon<\/em><\/a> or by upgrading your subscription to a monthly contribution. I enjoy gathering all of these links and sharing them with you, but it does take time, and your support makes it possible for me to do that. I also write a weekly newsletter of technology analysis called <\/em>The Torment Nexus<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ancient Romans used lead “curse tablets” to take revenge on their enemies<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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In Rome, a thin sheet of lead measuring 4 by 6 inches was found inside an urn containing the ashes of a person who died young and violently. The sheet, dating to the fourth century A.D., was folded over several times, pierced with a nail and inscribed with a message in Greek: \u201cI invoke you, holy angels and holy names, join forces with this restraining spell and bind, tie up, block, strike, overthrow, harm, destroy, kill and shatter Eucherios the charioteer and all his horses tomorrow in the arena of Rome… Let him not come from behind and pass but instead let him collapse, let him be bound, let him be broken up, and let him drag behind your power. Both in the early races and in the later ones. Now, now! Quickly, quickly!\u201d <\/em>This is an example of a Greco-Roman \u201ccurse tablet,\u201d a magical petition written on a sheet of lead that ancient people believed had the power to control or \u201cbind\u201d their enemies. (via History.com<\/a>)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During the Great Famine in Ireland men would build roads and buildings for no reason<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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In the middle of a green Irish field stands a bizarre structure: not so much a building as a collection of holes, a series of gaping arches framing the sky. This is Conolly\u2019s Folly, built in 1740 at the height of a terrible famine. It was built by the starving as an alternative to simple charity \u2014 a way to earn a little money and keep body and soul together. Conolly\u2019s Folly is an early example of make-work infrastructure. That same model was adopted on a much larger scale when the Great Famine struck just over a century later. The British government was  ideologically opposed to providing aid without work. As a result, all across the Irish landscape, there are \u201cfamine roads\u201d \u2014 running from nowhere to nowhere and now slowly disappearing into the grass. Typically, the roads were planned out by simply drawing a line on a map between one point and another, with little to no surveying of the actual terrain. As a result, in some places, the starving workers were forced to cut through solid rock. (via JSTOR Daily<\/a>)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When filming Kingpin, Bill Murray threw 3 strikes in a row without even trying<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Acknowledgements<\/strong><\/em>: I find a lot of these links myself, but I also get some from other places that I rely on as “serendipity engines,” such as <\/em>The Morning News<\/em><\/a> from Rosecrans Baldwin and Andrew Womack, Jodi Ettenberg’s <\/em>Curious About Everything<\/em><\/a>, Dan Lewis’s <\/em>Now I Know<\/em><\/a>, Robert Cottrell and Caroline Crampton’s <\/em>The Browser<\/em><\/a>, Clive Thompson’s <\/em>Linkfest<\/em><\/a> and <\/em>Why Is This Interesting<\/em><\/a> by Noah Brier and Colin Nagy<\/em>. If you come across something you think should be included here, feel free to email me at mathew @ mathewingram dot com<\/em><\/p>\n

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Rockwood, Texas is home to a unique business called Starfront Observatories. Owner\/operator Bray Falls hosts hundreds of other people\u2019s telescopes in perfect conditions \u2014 ultra-dark skies (Class 1 on the Bortle scale), clear weather, and fast internet connections \u2014 so astrophotographers from around the world can run their scopes and make observations completely from their computers. Out in the … <\/p>\n

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