Travelers are sometimes surprised to find hundreds of evenly spaced “barrels” of snow on a field or lake. Are they the work of elves?
In fact they’re created when strong winds arise after a fall of light, sticky snow.
When the conditions are right, they can reach 3 feet in diameter.
Clarke’s Third Law: Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
Benford’s Corollary: Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced.
Raymond’s Second Law: Any sufficiently advanced system of magic would be indistinguishable from a technology.
Sterling’s Corollary: Any sufficiently advanced garbage is indistinguishable from magic.
Langford’s application to science fiction: Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a completely ad-hoc plot device.
A poem without the letter s:
Oh! come to-night; for naught can charm
The weary time when thou’rt away.
Oh! come; the gentle moon hath thrown
O’er bower and hall her quivering ray.
The heather-bell hath mildly flung,
From off her fairy leaf, the bright
And diamond dew-drop that had hung
Upon that leaf — a gem of light.
Then come, love, come!
To-night the liquid wave hath not —
Illumined by the moonlit beam
Playing upon the lake beneath,
Like frolic in an Autumn dream —
The liquid wave hath not, to-night,
In all her moonlilt pride, a fair
Gift like to them that on thy lip
Do breathe and laugh, and home it there.
Then come, love, come!
To-night! to-night! my gentle one,
The flower-bearing Amra tree
Doth long, with fragrant moan, to meet
The love-lip of the honey-bee.
But not the Amra tree can long
To greet the bee, at evening light,
With half the deep, fond love I long
To meet my Nama here to-night.
Then come, love, come!
From George Wakeman, “Tormenting the Alphabet,” Galaxy, 1866.
See also Nevermore.
Engineer Claude Sawyer left the Australian steamer Waratah when it docked in Durban in July 1909. He said he’d seen a vision of a man “with a long sword in a peculiar dress. He was holding the sword in his right hand, and it was covered in blood.”
The Waratah left for Cape Town carrying 211 passengers. It was never seen again.
iatronudia
n. a woman’s pretending to be ill in order to disrobe in front of a doctor
13 + 33 + 63 = 244
23 + 43 + 43 = 136
A faded and somewhat droll survival of ecclesiastical excommunication and exorcism is the custom, still prevailing in European countries and some portions of the United States, of serving a writ of ejectment on rats or simply sending them a friendly letter of advice in order to induce them to quit any house, in which their presence is deemed undesirable. Lest the rats should overlook and thus fail to read the epistle, it is rubbed with grease, so as to attract their attention, rolled up and thrust into their holes. Mr. William Wells Newell, in a paper on ‘Conjuring Rats,’ printed in The Journal of American Folk-Lore (Jan.-March, 1892), gives a specimen of such a letter, dated, ‘Maine, Oct. 31, 1888,’ and addressed in business style to ‘Messrs. Rats and Co.’ The writer begins by expressing his deep interest in the welfare of said rats as well as his fears lest they should find their winter quarters in No. 1, Seaview Street, uncomfortable and poorly supplied with suitable food, since it is only a summer residence and is also about to undergo repairs. He then suggests that they migrate to No. 6, Incubator Street, where they ‘can live snug and happy’ in a splendid cellar well stored with vegetables of all kinds and can pass easily through a shed leading to a barn containing much grain. He concludes by stating that he will do them no harm if they heed his advice, otherwise he shall be forced to use ‘Rough on Rats.’ This threat of resorting to rat poison in case of the refusal to accept his kind counsel is all that remains of the once formidable anathema of the Church.
— E.P. Evans, The Criminal Prosecution and Capital Punishment of Animals, 1906
You and I are having an argument. Our wives have given us new neckties, and we’re arguing over which is more expensive.
Finally we agree to a wager. We’ll ask our wives for the prices, and whoever is wearing the more expensive tie has to give it to the other.
You think, “The odds are in my favor. If I lose the wager, I lose only the value of my tie. If I win the wager, I gain more than the value of my tie. On balance I come out ahead.”
The trouble is, I’m thinking the same thing. Are we both right?
The neatest and prettiest [palindrome] that has yet appeared comes from a highly cultivated lady who was attached to the court of Queen Elizabeth. Having been banished from the court on suspicion of too great familiarity with a nobleman in high favor, the lady adopted this device — a moon covered by a cloud — and the following palindrome for a motto —
ABLATA AT ALBA. (Secluded but Pure.)
The merit of this kind of composition was never in any example so heightened by appropriateness and delicacy of sentiment.
— Frank H. Stauffer, The Queer, the Quaint and the Quizzical, 1882
This sentence contains thirty-six letters.