Darien’s new materials handling is cool, but not world record headspin cool. Actually, that’s probably a false comparison, enjoy them both.

Tabasco thinks their peppers and eponymous sauce are hot. Anybody who’s just ate a habanero thinks that’s a hot pepper. But earlier this year, Paul Bosland of New Mexico State University said “Damn, I’ve got a hot pepper.” And the Guiness World Records folks agreed.

Bosland had identified the Naga Jolokia pepper and measured it at over one million Scoville Heat Units, quite a bit more than three times the burn of a hot hot habanero. National Geographic Magazine charted it up in a recent issue:

BBC Gardening charts it slightly differently, calling the old habanero much mightier than NGM’s list, and putting the Dorset Naga, the UK’s entry into the race, up at more than 1.5 million SHUs (pepper spray is two to five million SHU, pure capsaicin is over 15 million):

• Dorset Naga, 1598227 SHU
• Caribbean Red Hot, 530283 SHU
• Orange Habanero, 487672 SHU
• Fiesta (grown outdoors), 286185 SHU
• Scotch Bonnet, 265054 SHU
• Apache, 103282 SHU
• Fiesta (grown indoors), 102328 SHU
• Paper Lantern, 85486 SHU
• Adorno, 67726 SHU
• Etna, 65937 SHU

Wikipedia explains some of the discrepancy:

Pungency values for any pepper, stated in “Scoville units,” are imprecise, due to expected variation within a species—easily by a factor of 10 or more—depending on seed lineage, climate and even soil (this is especially true of habaneros).

Both the Dorset Naga and Naga Jolokia were derived from peppers cultivated in India, but all the world’s peppers come from the Americas. Like potatos, corn, and tobacco, they spread rapidly after the European encounter and are now embraced in the traditional cuisines around the world.

Today, Cinco de Mayo, is as fine a day as any to test yourself with the hottest peppers you can find. Just keep the margaritas flowing.

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It’s late summer and the heat wave killed the grass on your lawn, so what better to do than challenge Bob Cleveland’s record for the fastest lawn mower yet? Not sure your mower has what it’ll take to race down the salt flats at over 80 MPH? Wimp.

Utah’s KSL TV quotes Bob saying “we don’t need a whole lot of horsepower to go fast.” And when you look at the tiny wheels on that thing, well, you’ve gotta imagine you can do better.

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People like to topple dominos, and some people like to topple great long snaking lines of them. So TV crews get involved, people spend a month or more lining the damn things up, and Domino Day becomes an annual event.

Enter sparrow. Sparrow menaces dominos, topples 23,000 of them. Enter exterminator. Exterminator shoots sparrow. Enter news media. Enter public outcry. Enter death threats.

Result: a record 4 million dominos, the sparrow incident is being investigated by a reported seven agencies, and the martyr sparrow has been preserved for display in 2006.

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I don’t remember exactly why I found myself looking up Moscow’s Ostankino Tower, a 1772 ft (540 m) tall radio-television tower. Compared to the world’s tallest buildings, it’s taller than all the greats: the Taipei 101, the Sears Tower, Empire State Building, though some people keep towers — even those with observation platforms — in a category separate from skyscrapers.

So what’s a tower enthusiast to do? Go take a look at the World Federation of Great Towers (also at Wikipedia). That’s how I found the Olympic Tower, in Montreal.

The Federation makes no distinction between towers and skyscrapers. Well, actually, there are some distinctions. Here’s their membership criteria:

• Structures must have the shape of a tower
• Structures must be symbolic of tourism in the town or country where they are situated
• Structures must have an Observation or Viewing Deck, with the purpose of receiving tourists at the Tower
• The construction of the tower must be completed and the tower open and functioning as an observatory/public venue

Oh, there’s a $1500 annual membership fee. And, yeah, there are a few conspicuous absences. It’s not clear if they don’t meet the criteria, or if they just don’t pay, but you won’t find Petronas Towers, or Sears, or a lot of others in the in the list. So back to Wikipedia for their list of the world’s tallest structures, including radio towers, chimneys, pylons, minarets, oil platforms, silos, buildings in-progress, and skyscrapers that aren’t eligible for World Federation of Great Towers.

But as great and tall as all these things may be, they still have nothing on our Warren Rocket.

tags: broadcast tower, empire state building, great towers, kvly-tv mast, moscow, ostankino tower, oylmpic tower, radio television tower, russia, sears tower, taipei 101, tallest, tallest structures, tallest towers, world federation of great towers, world record, world’s tallest

Treehugger alerted me to the rather surprising story of this light bulb, burning continuously since 1901. Yeah, at least that’s the story here, at the Centennial Light Bulb Committee’s website (a partnership of the Livermore-Pleasanton Fire Department, Livermore Heritage Guild, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories, and Sandia National Laboratories).

The bulb is said to have been made by the Shelby Electric Company of Shelby, Ohio, and given to the fire department by Dennis Bernal, owner the Livermore Power and Light Co. The 4-watt bulb was first installed at the fire department hose cart house in 1901, moved to the fire station at First and McLeod, and in 1976 move to it’s current location as a “nightlight over the fire trucks” at the fire station at 4550 East Ave, Livermore, California.

Yeah, there’s even a webcam you can check.

It’s been recognized by the Guinness Book folks, as well as Ripley’s, though it does have some competition (a 1908 bulb in Texas is said to be still glowing). Fortunately, the city plans to keep nightlight on as long as it can. You can visit the bulb weekdays, 8 AM to 5 PM.

tags: 100 years, 4 watt, 4 watts, california, centennial bulb, durability, electricity, fire department night light, illumination, light bulb, livermore, livermore ca, livermore fire department, livermore pleasanton fire department, long lasting, treehugger, watts, world record

The Laconia Citizen reported today that Ron Mowry’s 31 year quest for recognition as the real pinball wizard of 1974 has finally achieved some success. The Twin Galaxies Official Video Game & Pinball Book of World Records will credit Mowry’s 72 hour 8 minute marathon pinball session as a record.

Mowry set his 1974 record at a sandwich shop in Hallandale Beach, Florida, but he was raised in Plymouth, NH, where he now works for the university.

What odd, mostly anonymous lives we all lead.

Technorati Tags: florida, laconia citizen, new hampshire, pinball, pinball wizard, plymouth, twin galaxies, video game, wizard, world record