brainwagon

Today’s Gutenberg Gem is Edward Lasker, a rather colorful individual in the history of chess. He won the championship of Paris in 1912, in London in 1914, the New York City championship in 1915 and the Chicago championship in 1916, and then went on to become an International Master at the age of 75. He also wrote one of the first English language texts on Go. He should not be confused with his cousin, Emanuel Lasker, who was world chess champion from 1894-1921, and he liked to play Go too.

Try this link for two works of Lasker’s, Chess Strategy and Chess and Checkers: the Way To Mastership.

Metafilter pointed me at Xaphoon – The Maui Xaphoon (Bamboo Sax or Bamboo Flute), another website with an unusual music instrument. This is cute because it’s a very small, portable instrument with a terrific sound which closely approximates a full saxophone.

They make a $60 injection molded ABS version which is called The Pocket Sax. While searching for a dealer, I found this page which gave interesting background on how they actually designed and manufactured these mass produced instruments. Cool!

Wildfires near the Mount Graham International Observatory in Arizona are threatening the as yet uncompleted Large Binocular Telescope. The area immediately surrounding the complex has been evacuated. The flames are about three miles away.

CNN.com – Firefighters defend $120 million telescope – Jul 5, 2004