City Lights

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Earthlights_dmsp.jpg

Earth’s city lights, seen by satellite. You can make out major transportation networks: the American interstate highway system, the trans-Siberian railroad, the Nile. 100 years after the invention of electric light, only Antarctica is entirely dark.

| Technology

Jack the Ripper

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:FromHellLetter.jpgThis is the “From Hell” letter, sent by Jack the Ripper to the president of the Whitechapel Vigilance Committee that was pursuing him. He included a bloody fragment to prove his identity:

“I send you half the Kidne I took from one woman and prasarved it for you tother piece I fried and ate it was very nise. I may send you the bloody knif that took it out if you only wate a whil longer”

Whoever he was, Jack certainly had a flair for dramatic horror. But much of his fame is really due to newspapers, which were becoming popular at the time. His crimes, which combined sex, violence, mystery, class warfare and police ineptitude, were tailor-made for cheap sensation. (In fact, it was probably a journalist who invented the “Ripper” nickname.)

Casebook: Jack the Ripper has gathered examples of lurid accounts from as far away as Poland, Jamaica, and Mexico. “All London is ringing with the horror of the thing,” writes one New Zealand editor. “The woman who reads, with hair standing on end, the details of some fresh outrage to-night cannot feel sure that on the morrow she may not be the next victim.” The whole episode is a low point for responsible journalism.

BTW, today the Ripper’s story has spawned a rather unwholesome fanbase, with concentration games, crossword puzzles, and fan fiction. Somehow time can make even serial murder seem quaint.

| Crime · History · Oddities

Theseus and the Minotaur

Theseus and the Minotaur is a series of Java-based puzzles in which you have to escape a maze without getting mashed by a computerized monster that moves predictably. There are 14 levels, and I can’t get past level 4.

The interesting thing is that the puzzles were designed by a computer, and they’re now being used in AI experiments at the National University of Ireland. So computers are now solving puzzles designed by other computers.

| Puzzles · Technology

Origins of Band Names

And here’s a list of the origins of band names:

  • Spandau Ballet was a Nazi guards’ term for the contortions of Jewish prisoners being gassed to death. There was a large gas chamber in the city of Spandau.
  • The Red Hot Chili Peppers were originally called Tony Flow and the Miraculously Majestic Masters of Mayhem.
  • Pantera is Portuguese for “panther.”
  • Oingo Boingo is Swahili for “thinking while dancing.”
  • The Eagles were originally going to call themselves Teen King and the Emergencies.
  • Def Leppard got its name from Joe Elliot’s drawing of a leopard with no ears.
| Entertainment · Trivia

Hang On Sloopy

Apparently Ohio’s official state rock song is “Hang On Sloopy.”

I don’t know if that’s the best song that ever came out of Ohio, but the resolution that proposed it is priceless:

If fans of jazz, country-and-western, classical, Hawaiian and polka music think those styles also should be recognized by the state, then by golly, they can push their own resolution just like we’re doing.

Washington has better taste — it chose “Louie Louie.”

| Entertainment · Society

Self-Defense With a Cane

Here’s a little light reading before you go strolling downtown: “Self-Defence With a Walking-Stick: The Different Methods of Defending Oneself With a Walking-Stick or Umbrella When Attacked Under Unequal Conditions.” It originally ran in Pearson’s Magazine in January 1901.

Apparently those things were pretty deadly: If you use your wrists and swing from the hip, “it is possible to sever a man’s jugular vein through the collar of his overcoat.”

| History · Literature

Unusual Personal Names

http://www.sxc.hu/index.phtmlA memo to every parent who’s ever lived: Giving your kid a special name does not make him special. It never has. It never will.

You know what I mean. It’s one thing to give yourself a screwy moniker. Body-modification enthusiasts have changed their names to Swirly Wanx Sinatra, Grenade Bee of Death, and RooRaaah Mew Crumbs, among other things, and there’s a U.S. Army Ohio National Guard firefighter who named himself Optimus Prime. That’s fine, you’re the one who has to live with it.

It’s worse when you inflict a harebrained epithet on a newborn, who will have to drag it through life like a neon hairshirt. Celebrities are notorious experts at this. Sylvester Stallone named his kid named Sage Moonblood. Jason Lee’s son is named Pilot Inspektor. Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin named their daughter Apple. And Welsh TV personality Paula Yates had daughters named Fifi Trixibelle, Peaches Honeyblossom, Pixie, and Heavenly Hirrani Tiger Lily.

This does nothing but embarrass the kid, and it’s not even original. In the late 17th century there was actually a member of the British parliament named Isaac Praise-God Barebone. And that’s nothing — he had brothers and sons named Fear-God Barebone, Jesus-Christ-Came-Into-The-World-To-Save Barebone, and If-Christ-Had-Not-Died-For-Thee-Thou-Hadst-Been-Damned Barebone. The last changed his name — I just love this — to Nicholas.

Of course, the parents see it differently, and a few have even gone to court to defend these monstrosities. In 1996 a Danish woman decided to name her son Christophpher, and she paid more than $45,000 in court fines for not using a government-sanctioned name. In the same year a Swedish family named its child Brfxxccxxmnpcccclllmmnprxvclmnckssqlbb11116 (pronounced “Albin”), claiming it’s “a pregnant, expressionistic development that we see as an artistic creation.” The court still charged them $680.

If you’re going to do this, fine, but at least be practical. Comedian Louis C.K. recommends naming your kid Ladies and Gentlemen. (“Ladies and Gentlemen, please!”) And Bill Cosby says, “Always end the name of your child with a vowel — so that when you yell, the name will carry.”

| Language