hillary feature in nymag

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did you know?

Did you know a baby #porcupine is called a porcupette? These cute critters have soft hair mixed with barbed quills that stick up when they feel threatened to deter predators. Porcupines sleep in trees and feed on the inner bark, twigs and leaves. They live to be 5-6 years old and have one or two young, which are born with soft quills that harden within an hour. Photo courtesy of #California Department of Fish and #Wildlife.

A photo posted by U.S. Department of the Interior (@usinterior) on May 31, 2016 at 8:23am PDT

fortnightly boat

New York Harbor is not only one of the largest and busiest natural ports in the world, but also the most complex. State law requires any foreign ship, or American ship with foreign cargo, to be escorted into the harbor with one of their pilots.

The entrance to the harbor from the Atlantic is protected by two thin pieces of land that jut out into the water: Sandy Hook from New Jersey and Rockaway from Long Island. These narrow outreaches have shallow shores that make entering the bay tricky.

Henry Hudson ran into the Sandy Hook Bar, a barrier of sand built up on the seafloor by downstream currents, when he tried to come into the harbor in 1609. It took him three days to successfully get in and explore his namesake river. Hudson enlisted the help of men who held long, straight poles off the sides of ships to test the water’s depth. The men who were experts with these pijls, as they were called in the Dutch shipping days, were called pijl loads, a title that eventually became “pilot.” (via)

on a related note, i watched the finest hours last night. it was not great but i liked it anyway.