Futility Closet

I need to suspend Futility Closet for a time — my employer has begun layoffs and I need to focus on finding a stable job.

If you know of any opportunities, I'd be grateful to hear of them. I'm an editor and manager with 20 years' experience, including IEEE, UNext.com, and the Sci Fi Channel. Please contact me at greg.ross@gmail.com.

Syllogisms offered in Lewis Carroll's 1896 textbook in symbolic logic:

1. Babies are illogical.
2. Nobody is despised who can manage a crocodile.
3. Illogical persons are despised.
Therefore babies cannot manage crocodiles.

1. No interesting poems are unpopular among people of real taste.
2. No modern poetry is free from affectation.
3. All your poems are on the subject of soap bubbles.
4. No affected poetry is popular among people of taste.
5. Only a modern poem would be on the subject of soap bubbles.
Therefore all your poems are uninteresting.

Mr. E.N. Sponce, of Windhouse, in the island of Yell, relates, that about the beginning of the present century, during a violent thunderstorm off the Shetland Islands, a fishing-boat belonging to Mr. Midyell was struck by lightning, which came down the mast, tearing it in shivers, and melted into a mass a watch in the pocket of a man (the skipper) who was sitting close by the mast, and considerably scorched him, as well as materially injured the boat, and, more or less, the other five men in it. This account of the occurrence was received by Mr. Spence from the skipper himself.

– John Timbs, Things Not Generally Known, Familiarly Explained, 1859

A baby-patting machine patented by Thomas Zelenka in 1968.

Mark Twain wrote, "A baby is an inestimable blessing and bother."

In June 1980, Maureen Wilcox found that she held the winning numbers in both the Massachusetts and the Rhode Island lotteries.

She won nothing, though: Her Massachusetts numbers won the Rhode Island lottery and vice versa.

Raymond Smullyan proposes a scene in which two men are regarding a blackboard. On the board is written ONLY AN IDIOT WOULD BELIEVE THIS SENTENCE.

The first man says, "Do you believe that sentence?"

The second says, "Of course not. Only an idiot would believe that sentence."

"He clearly does believe it, yet he says he doesn't believe it," Smullyan says. "So he's in the curious position of believing something and also believing that he doesn't believe it."

A doubly magic square: Every row and column adds to 840 and multiplies to 2,058,068,231,856,000.

vernalagnia
adj. heightened sexual desire in the springtime

The waistcoat should first be unbuttoned in the front, and then the buckle at the back must be unloosed. The operator, standing in front of the person operated upon, should then place his hands underneath the coat at the back, taking hold of the bottom of the waistcoat, at the same time requesting the wearer to extend his arms at full length over his head. Now raise the bottom part of the waistcoat over the head of the wearer (if the waistcoat be tight it will be necessary to force it a little, but this must not be minded so long as the waistcoat is not torn); the waistcoat then will have been brought to the front of the wearer, across his chest. Take the right side bottom-end of the waistcoat, and put it into the arm-hole of the coat at the shoulder, at the same time putting the hand up the sleeve, seizing the end, and drawing it down the sleeve; this action will release one arm-hole of the garment to be removed. The next thing to be done is to pull the waistcoat back again out of the sleeve of the coat, and put the same end of the waistcoat into the left arm-hole of the coat, again putting the hand up the sleeve of the coat as before, and seizing the end of the garment. It may then be drawn quite through the sleeve, and the puzzle is accomplished.

— Cassell's Complete Book of Sports and Pastimes, 1896

In 1610, thinking he had discovered two moons orbiting Saturn, Galileo composed a message:

ALTISSIMUM PLANETAM TERGEMINUM OBSERVAVI ("I have observed the most distant planet to have a triple form")

… and sent it to Kepler as an anagram:

SMAISMRMILMEPOETALEUMIBUNENUGTTAUIRAS

Remarkably, Kepler managed to "solve" this as a message about Mars, not Saturn:

SALVE UMBISTENEUM GEMINATUM MARTIA PROLES ("Hail, twin companionship, children of Mars")

The German astronomer had predicted that the Red Planet had two moons, and imagined that Galileo was confirming his belief.

There's a message in this, somewhere.