Not So Fast!

http://www.google.com/patents/about?id=p1dVAAAAEBAJ

Stanley Valinski patented this “man-catching tank” in 1921, “for use in banks for catching and holding burglars or the like.”

The steerable armored enclosure sits in the lobby with a watchman inside. If the bank is robbed, the watchman pushes a button to summon the police, then drives the tank to block the door, where he can cover the bandits with a gun or grab them using the angle frames.

It’s remarkably well thought out: There’s even a separate hatch by which bank officials can enter the tank if the watchman is shot. Probably best not to mention that in the interview.

| Technology

A Blind Aye

Rep. Tom Moore was dismayed at how often his colleagues in the Texas House of Representatives passed bills without understanding them. So in April 1971 he sponsored a resolution honoring Albert de Salvo:

This compassionate gentleman’s dedication and devotion to his work has enabled the weak and the lonely throughout the nation to achieve and maintain a new degree of concern for their future. He has been officially recognized by the state of Massachusetts for his noted activities and unconventional techniques involving population control and applied psychology.

That’s true as far as it goes — Albert de Salvo is the Boston Strangler.

The measure passed unanimously.

| Crime · Hoaxes · Society

“Astral Aries’ Avatar”

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mary_had_a_little_lamb_2_-_WW_Denslow_-_Project_Gutenberg_etext_18546.jpg

Mary had a little lamb, its fleece was white as snow,
And everywhere that Mary went the lamb was sure to go.
It followed her to school one day, which was against the rule;
It made the children laugh and play to see a lamb at school.

That rhyme has grown a bit boring — so Dave Morice has been spicing it up in Word Ways: The Journal of Recreational Linguistics. Samples:

Three-syllable words only, November 1998:

Marilyn’s ownership! Minuscule lambikin maximized fleeciness snowily.
Certainly everywhere Marilyn visited lambikin visited showily.
Yesterday lambikin, following Marilyn scholarly, misbehaved lawlessly.
Schoolfellows empathized laughingly, playfully, scholarly lambikin flawlessly.

Typed entirely with the left hand, August 1999:

Eva caged a wee, wee ewe, fat tresses wet as grass.
As Eva raced afar, ewe raced as far! Ewe was as crass.
Ewe started after Eva’s feet, faced ewe at fact cave.
Tads tagged, tads teased, tads raved at ewe, tads saw sweet treats ewe gave.

One long palindrome, November 1988:

Mary, baboon? To go to room? Gnu? Star? No, ’tis all lamb.
O, bit on stool, eh, Mary? Won sore heel? Sit! One rule, so:
No nose lure. No, ’tis Lee, hero, snowy ram. He loots not I, Bob.
Mall, la, sit on rat. Sung–“Moo rot! O, got no, O, baby ram!”

Rhopalic (words of increasing length), May 2000:

O, to own lamb, Mary’s little whitest creature,
Violating legalities, schoolmates interrupting
Schoolteacher entertainingly, disrespectfully,
Incontrovertibly counterproductive.
Semiprofessionally historicogeographic,
Superultrafrostified anticonstitutionalist,
Hyperconscientiousness anthropomorphologically,
Pathologicopsychological, philosophicopsychological.

And “The Lamb’s Viewpoint,” November 2006:

Lambie had a little girl, her hair was white as snow,
And everywhere that Lambie went, the girl was sure to go.
She followed him to graze one day; that was a real disaster.
It made the lambs all baa and bleat to see a girl in pasture.

| Language

Unquote

“He who is afraid to ask is ashamed of learning.” — Danish proverb

Locke was asked how he had contrived to accumulate a mine of knowledge so rich, yet so extensive and deep. He replied that he attributed what little he knew to the not having been ashamed to ask for information, and to the rule he had laid down of conversing with all descriptions of men on those topics chiefly that formed their own particular profession and pursuits. The best-informed men are undoubtedly those who adopt this rule.

— The Leisure Hour, 1883

| Quotations

An Earthy Diet

http://books.google.com/books?id=HVE9AAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_slider_thumb#v=onepage&q&f=false

London had a curious visitor in the 17th century: Francis Battalia, an Italian said to subsist on stones. “His manner is to put three or four stones into a spoon, and so putting them into his mouth together, he swallows them all down one after another; then (first spitting) he drinks a glass of beer after them,” wrote John Bulwer in his Artificial Changeling of 1650. “He devours about half a peck of these stones every day, and when he chinks upon his stomach, or shakes his body, you may hear the stones rattle as if they were in a sack.”

A Dutch ship discovered a second stone eater on a northern island in 1757 and brought him to Avignon, where a Father Paulian declared himself “fully convinced that he is no cheat.” And in 1788 London exhibited a third such man, “the most Wonderful Phenomenon of the Age, who GRINDS and SWALLOWS STONES, &c.,” “subsisting on pebble flints, tobacco pipes, and mineral excrescences.”

What accounts for this? In Miracle Mongers and Their Methods (1920), Houdini wrote, “I watched several performances of one of these chaps who swallowed half a hatful of stones, nearly the size of hen’s eggs, and then jumped up and down to make them rattle in his stomach. I could discover no fake in the performance, and I finally gave him two and six for his secret, which was simple enough. He merely took a dose of powerful physic to clear himself of the stones, and was then ready for the next performance.” Draw your own conclusions.

| Oddities

Exit Smiling

http://books.google.com/books?id=WQVAAAAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

In 1728, at age 23, Ben Franklin composed his own epitaph:

The Body of
B. Franklin, Printer
(Like the Cover of an old Book
Its Contents torn out
And shrift of its Lettering and Gilding)
Lies here, Food for Worms.
But the Work shall not be lost;
For it will, (as he believ’d) appear once more,
In a new and more elegant Edition
Revised and corrected,
By the Author.

Fifty-six years later, six years before his death in 1790, he wrote these lines:

If Life’s compared to a Feast,
Near Fourscore Years I’ve been a Guest;
I’ve been regaled with the best,
And feel quite satisfyd.
‘Tis time that I retire to Rest;
Landlord, I thank you! — Friends, Good Night.

| Death

Far Be It

In 2008, researchers at Oxford University found that subjects could reduce pain and swelling in an injured hand by viewing it through reversed binoculars.

Conversely, a magnified injury was more painful. “If it looks bigger, it looks sorer,” said physiologist G. Lorimer Moseley. “Therefore the brain acts to protect it.”

| Oddities

Thrice Sure

Three patricians of the coal yards fared forth on mercy bent, each in his great black chariot. Their overlord, the yard superintendent, had bade them deliver to seven families a total of twenty-eight tons of coal equally divided.

Well out of the yards, each with his first load, Kelly and Burke and Shea paused to discuss the problem of equal distribution — how much coal should each family get?

”Tis this way,’ argued Burke. ”Tis but a bit of mathematics. If there are 7 families an’ 28 tons o’ coal ye divide by 7, which is done as follows: Seven into 8 is 1, 7 into 21 is 3, which makes 13.’ He triumphantly exhibited his figures made with a stubby pencil on a bit of grimy paper:

thrice sure - 1

The figures were impressive but Shea was not wholly convinced. ‘There’s a easy way o’ provin’ that,’ he declared. ‘Ye add 13 seven times,’ and he made his column of figures according to his own formula. Then, starting from the bottom of the 3 column, he reached the top with a total of 21 and climbed down the column of 1’s, thus; ‘3, 6, 9, 12, 15, 18, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28.’ ‘Burke is right,’ he announced with finality.

This was Shea’s exhibit:

thrice sure - 2

‘There is still some doubt in me mind,’ said Kelly. ‘Let me demonstrate in me own way. If ye multiply the 13 by 7 and get 28, then 13 is right.’ He produced a bit of stubby pencil and a sheet of paper. ”Tis done in this way,’ he said. ‘Seven times 3 is 21; 7 times 1 is 7, which makes 28. ‘Tis thus shown that 13 is the right figure and ye’re both right. Would ye see the figures?’

Kelly’s feat in mathematics was displayed as follows;

thrice sure - 3

‘There is no more argyment,’ the three agreed, so they delivered thirteen tons of coal to each family.

— Irvin S. Cobb, A Laugh a Day Keeps the Doctor Away, 1923

| Science & Math

“Cryonics’ First Mardi Gras”

http://www.flickr.com/photos/13218517@N00/2324040547
Image: Flickr

If you’re not doing anything next spring, head to Nederland, Colo., to celebrate Frozen Dead Guy Days, a three-day festival commemorating Bredo Morstoel, whose body is packed in dry ice in a Tuff Shed in the hills above town.

Bredo’s grandson Trygve Bauge imported the corpse from Norway in 1989 and stored it in liquid nitrogen; when Trygve was deported in 1993 and his mother evicted from her home, local businesses pitched in to keep the body preserved.

The annual festival includes coffin races (above), a hearse parade, lookalike contests, an ice-carving demonstration, documentaries (Grandpa’s in the Tuff Shed and Grandpa’s Still in the Tuff Shed), frozen turkey bowling, showshoe races, and snow sculpture contests. Nearby Glacier Ice Cream has even concocted a commemorative flavor, Frozen Dead Guy.

Bredo has been dead now for 20 years; psychics report he’s amused by all this but doing fine.

| Death · Oddities