Edgar Allan Poe’s poem “The Raven” does not contain the letter Z.
Longest Migration
The arctic tern sees more daylight than any other creature on the planet — it migrates from pole to pole, 12,000 miles.
In its lifetime, that’s equivalent to flying to the moon and back.
Poser
Q: What is the difference between a rhododendron and a cold apple-dumpling?
A: The one is a rhododendron and the other is a cold apple-dumpling.
— Angelo Lewis, Drawing-Room Amusements, 1879
He adds, “You surely wouldn’t wish for a greater difference than that.”
In a Word
quinquiplicate
v. to multiply by five
Sarah Biffen
Self-portrait by Sarah Biffen (1784-1850), a Victorian painter who had no arms.
She painted this with her mouth.
Wrist Compass
If you wear an analog watch, you can use it as a compass:
Hold it flat in the palm of your hand, with the hour hand pointing in the direction of the sun. The point midway between the hour hand and the figure 12 is due south.
(In the Southern Hemisphere, point the figure 12 toward the sun. The midpoint between the 12 and the hour hand points north.)
Who Shaves the King?
The king of hearts has no mustache — he lost it when the original design was copied badly, and the error has persisted.
Decibel Levels
Decibel levels:
- 0 – Threshold of human hearing (with good ears)
- 10 – Human breathing at 3 meters
- 30 – Theater, with no talking
- 40 – Residential area at night
- 50 – Quiet restaurant
- 60 – Office or restaurant
- 70 – Busy traffic at 5 meters
- 80 – Vacuum cleaner at 1 meter; curbside of busy street
- 90 – Loud factory, heavy truck at 1 meter
- 100 – Pneumatic hammer at 2 meters; inside a disco
- 110 – Accelerating motorcycle at 5 meters; chainsaw at 1 meter
- 120 – Rock concert; jet aircraft taking off at 100 meters
- 130 – Threshold of pain; train horn at 10 meters
- 140 – Rifle being fired at 1 meter
- 150 – Jet engine at 30 meters
- 180 – Rocket engine at 30 meters
- 250 – Inside a tornado
- 1,000 – Eruption of Krakatoa
Schopenhauer wrote, “The amount of noise which anyone can bear undisturbed stands in inverse proportion to his mental capacity.”
Call It!
It’s estimated that if you flip a U.S. nickel 6,000 times, it will land once on its edge.
Anamorphosis
This is The Ambassadors (1533), the celebrated painting by Hans Holbein the Younger. It’s full of noteworthy symbols of exploration, but what’s that odd skewed element at the bottom?
If you view the canvas from a narrow angle, the image resolves into a skull:
This is an early example of anamorphic perspective, an invention of the early Renaissance. It’s thought that Holbein intended that the painting would be hung in a stairwell, when people ascending the stairs would view the image from the proper angle and get a gruesome surprise.
Why? That’s an unanswered question.