Civil and traffic engineers the world over have tried any number of interesting methods to get traffic to slow down. Traffic lights, policed speed traps, digital speed displays, speed bumps, “Slow! Children Playing” signs, flashing “Reduced Speed Ahead” signs, and myriad other measures have all been employed with varying levels of success.

One particularly interesting measure was instituted in the Dutch city of Delft:

“European traffic calming began as a grassroots movement in the late 1960’s. Angry residents of the Dutch city of Delft turned their streets into ‘woonerven,’ or ‘living yards.’ What were once channels for the movement of cars became shared areas, outfitted with tables, benches, sand boxes, and parking bays jutting into the street. The effect was to turn the street into an obstacle course for motor vehicles, and an extension of home for residents.

“Woonerven were officially endorsed by the Dutch government in 1976. Over the next decade, the idea spread to many other countries. Laws and regulations were changed to permit woonerf designs in Germany, Sweden, Denmark, England, France, Japan, Israel, Austria, and Switzerland. By 1990, there were more than 3,500 shared streets in the Netherlands and Germany, 300 in Japan, and 600 in Israel. …

“The twists and turns, plus brick pavement and periodic raised areas, brought motorists down to ‘walking speeds,’ meaning about 15 kph or 9 mph.”

I can only imagine the reaction of American motorists zooming down a busy street only to encounter a sofa, a table or a sandbox strategically placed as a road block to slow them to a more agreeable speed.

Winston Churchill had nearly reached the height of political power in Britain early in his career; by the age of 33 he was a cabinet minister and one of the nation’s most popular speakers. Yet a series of events and unpopular positions caused Churchill to lose his political standing and become a subject of ridicule and rejection. By the early 1930s, he had been excluded from the seats of power. Churchill’s prophetic warnings about Adolf Hitler were ignored by an English public that preferred to hear comforting worlds of peace.

When Britain was plunged into World War II, Churchill was already 65 years of age, eligible to retire on a government pension. Yet that is the moment when the nation turned to him, and Churchill became the prime minister who inspired the British people to remain firm during her darkest day of the war.

Different directional compasses bear different markings. Some compasses are marked off to display a full 360 degrees, and some are marked in gradations of 20 degrees. Some also display a "declination." The declination is a means of showing the difference between magnetic north and true north. 

Have you ever been on a cruise ship out in the middle of the ocean and wondered how in the world the captain and crew knew which way to go? We know they use, among many navigational tools, a compass, but how does it work?

If you've ever looked at a compass, you know that there are hundreds of little hash marks — 360 to be exact — that mark off each separate degree of direction.

When a captain sets course, they know exactly to which little degree mark they need to set the compass. As long as they stay on that course, they will reach their destination.

But what would happen if someone moved the compass one little tiny degree to the left? At first it would look like you were still going in the same direction, on course for your destination. But in reality, as the vessel proceeded en route, the ship would be moving ever so slightly 1° away from the original course.

Before you know it, that ship would be miles away from its planned destination, all because it was one little tiny degree off course.