"To Our bed"

In bed we laugh, in bed we cry,
And, born in bed, in bed we die;
The near approach a bed may show
Of human bliss to human woe.

~Dr. Johnson

Eleazar Maccabeus

During the battle of Beth-zechariah, Eleazar saw a war elephant carrying special armor. Thinking that this was a sign that it carried the enemy Seleucid King Antiochus V, Eleazar decided to perform the heroic act of killing the elephant and the king. He got under the elephant and thrust his spear into its stomach. The elephant died but its dead body fell on top of Eleazar, killing him as well. It turns out that the elephant was not even carrying the king.

Here is Eleazar's wikipedia page.

The Female Stranger

In the fall of 1816 a strange ship arrived at Alexandria, Virginia. Two people emerged from the vessel, a man and his wife, and walked into Gadsby's Tavern Hotel (then called City Hotel). The hotel owner's wife immediately called a doctor for the woman was clearly very ill. Despite medical attendance the woman grew sicker every day. The man then summoned the doctor, the entire hotel staff, and the owner and his wife. He asked them all an unusual request: he asked that everyone present in the room swear an oath to never reveal the man or his wife's identity. Everyone agreed and took the secret to their graves. Several days after the oath was taken the woman died. To this day the man and the woman's identities remain unknown. The man buried his wife at St. Paul's Cemetary in Alexandria, Virginia. Her gravestone has the following engraving:

"To the Memory of a
FEMALE STRANGER
whose mortal sufferings terminated
on the 14th day of October 1816
Aged 23 years and 8 months.

This stone is placed here by her disconsolate
Husband in whose arms she sighed out her
latest breath and who under God
did his utmost even to soothe the cold
dead ear of death.

How loved how valued once avails thee not
To whom related or by whom begot
A heap of dust alone remains of thee
Tis all thou art and all the proud shall be

To him gave all the Prophets witness that
through his name whosoever believeth in
him shall receive remission of sins.
Acts.10th Chap.43rd verse"

For more information please go here.

Ancient Egypt

In Ancient Egypt both men and women wore make up. The colors varied but two of the more common ones were green (copper based) and black (lead based). The make up was primarily used as protection from the sun, but many believed that it had healing powers.

Some pyramid builders left behind graffiti on the pyramids they built. They wrote such things as "Friends of Kufu" and "Drunkards of Menkaure."

Some more facts can be found here.

Long Exposure Photography

Here are some stunning examples of long exposure photography.


Image by Express Monorail - Exposure: 10.9 sec


Image by MumbleyJoe - Exposure: 31.9 sec


Image by Insight Imaging: John A Ryan Photography - Exposure: 30 sec


Image by Matthew Fang - Exposure: 117.4 sec

Image by MumbleyJoe - Exposure: 114 sec

For more examples go here.

"To a Capricious Friend"

In all thy humors, whether grave or mellow,
Thou'rt such a touchy, testy, pleasant fellow,
Hast so much wit, and mirth, and spleen about thee,
There is no living with thee, nor without thee.

~Joseph Addison (translation)

The Beast of Gévaudan

The Beast of Gévaudan is a name given to man-eating wolf-like animals that terrorized the former province of Gévaudan (modern day département of Lozère), in the Margeride Mountains in south-central France from 1764 to 1767 over an area stretching 90 by 80 kilometres (56 mi × 50 mi). The beasts were consistently described by eyewitnesses as having formidable teeth and immense tails. Their fur had a reddish tinge, and was said to have emitted an unbearable odor. They killed their victims by tearing at their throats with their teeth. The number of victims claimed by the beasts differ according to source, however, de Beaufort (1987) estimated a toll of 210 attacks resulting in 113 deaths and 49 injuries. Ninety-eight of the victims killed were partially eaten. Author Brockis claims 25 women, 68 children, and 6 men were killed, with over 30 others injured. An enormous amount of manpower and resources was used in the hunting of the animals, including the army, conscripted civilians, several nobles and a number of royal huntsmen. All animals operated outside of ordinary wolf packs, though eyewitness accounts indicate that in some instances they were accompanied by a smaller female which did not take part in the attacks. Ultimately 2 of the beasts were killed, but none of their remains were preserved.

The Gévaudan attacks were not considered isolated events. A century earlier, similar killings occurred in 1693 at Benais, in which over 100 victims, almost all of them women and children, were claimed by a creature described as exactly resembling the Gévaudan Beasts. Four decades after the Gévaudan attacks, more attacks occurred between 1809 and 1813 in Vivarais, when at least 21 children and adolescents were killed by another beast. From 1875 to 1879, more attacks occurred in L'Indre. All these killings, including the Gévaudan attacks, seem to have occurred mostly in four year periods. Attacks by wolf-like creatures continued to be reported in France up until 1954.

These creatures have never been identified. Some think they were a kind of wolf while others think they were a punishment from God. What do you think?

Here is the wikipedia article where this information comes from.

Words of Wisdom

"It is well to know something of the manners of various peoples, in order to more sanely judge our own, and that we do not think that everything against our modes is ridiculous, and against reason, as those who have seen nothing are accustomed to think."

~Rene Descartes

Words of Wisdom

"I'm lost, but I'm making record time."

~Allan Lamport

Astonish Yourself

The following are from Roger-Pol Droit's book Astonish Yourself! 101 Experiments in the Philosophy of Everyday Life (2003).

1. Call yourself
2. Empty a word of its meaning
3. Look in vain for "I"
4. Make the world last twenty minutes
5. See the stars below you
6. See a landscape as a stretched canvas
7. Lose something and not know what
8. Recall where you were this morning
9. Hurt yourself briefly
10. Feel eternal
11. Telephone at random
12. Rediscover your room after a journey
13. Drink while urinating
14. Make a wall between your hands
15. Walk in the dark
16. Dream of all the places in the world
17. Peel an apple in your head
18. Visualize a pile of human organs
19. Imagine yourself high up
20. Imagine your imminent death
21. Try to measure existence
22. Count to a thousand
23. Dread the arrival of the bus
24. Run in a graveyard
25. Play the fool
26. Watch a woman at her window
27. Invent lives for yourself
28. Look at people from a moving car
29. Follow the movement of ants
30. Eat a nameless substance
31. Watch dust in the sun
32. Resist tiredness
33. Overeat
34. Play the animal
35. Contemplate a dead bird
36. Come across a childhood toy
37. Wait while doing nothing
38. Try not to think
39. Go to the hairdresser
40. Shower with your eyes closed
41. Sleep on your front in the sun
42. Go to the circus
43. Try on clothes
44. Calligraphize
45. Light a fire in the hearth
46. Be aware of yourself speaking
47. Weep at the cinema
48. Meet up with friends after several years
49. Browse at the bookseller's
50. Become music
51. Pull out a hair
52. Walk in an imaginary forest
53. Demonstrate on your own
54. Stay in the hammock
55. Invent headlines
56. Listen to short-wave radio
57. Turn off the sound on the TV
58. Redisover a childhood scene that seemed larger
59. Get used to eating something you don't like
60. Fast for a while
61. Rant for ten minutes
62. Drive through a forest
63. Give without thinking about it
64. Look for a blue food
65. Become a saint or sinner
66. Recover lost memories
67. Watch someone sleeping
68. Work on a holiday
69. Consider humanity to be an error
70. Inhabit the planet of small gestures
71. Disconnect the phone
72. Smile at a stranger
73. Enter the space of a painting
74. Leave the cinema in daytime
75. Plunge into cold water
76. Seek out immutable landscapes
77. Listen to a recording of your voice
78. Tell a stranger she is beautiful
79. Believe in the existence of a smell
80. Wake up without knowing where
81. Descend an interminable staircase
82. Swallow your emotion
83. Fix the ephemeral
84. Decorate a room
85. Laugh at an idea
86. Vanish at a pavement cafe
87. Row on a lake in your room
88. Prowl at night
89. Become attached to an object
90. Sing the praises of Santa Claus
91. Play with a child
92. Encounter pure chance
93. Recite the telephone directory on your knees
94. Think about what other people are doing
95. Practice make-believe everywhere
96. Kill people in your head
97. Take the subway without going anywhere
98. Remove your watch
99. Put up with a chatterbox
100. Clean up after the party
101. Find the infinitesimal caress

Try doing one a day.

A Father, Mother, and Son

I have been in a "puzzle mood" lately. Here is one more. This one is a bit more difficult than the last two.

The ages of a father, mother, and son add up to 70. The father is 6 times as old as the son. When the father is twice as old as the son, the combined age of the three is 140. How old is the mother?

Multiplication and Addition

We all know that 2 + 2 = 4 and 2 x 2 = 4. We also know that 0 + 0 = 0 and 0 x 0 = 0. Are there any other positive numbers A and B such that A + B = A x B = C?

[As before, please do not post an answer as a comment. Feel free to email me a response. To prevent redundancy, this applies to all puzzles and problems hereafter.

~Armando]

Topsy

Topsy the elephant, who performed with the Forepaugh Circus, had killed three men in three years (the last being a drunk trainer who mistreated her). Her owners, seeing her as a threat, decided that she had to be executed. After discussing several means of execution Thomas Edison suggested electrocuting her with alternating current. On January 4, 1903 Topsy was given copper-lined sandals, was covered in electrodes, and then received the current from a 6,600 volt AC source. She died in a matter of seconds. Edison captured the whole event on film and later released it under the title "Electrocuting an Elephant." On July 20, 2003 a memorial was erected for Topsy at the Coney island museum.



Here is Topsy's wikipedia page. Here is more information on the event.

A Tricky Problem

Can you think of 5 odd figures that add up to 14?

[The answer will be given in a later post. No cheating please. This is for your own amusement. If you would like to give an answer you can email me. Please do not post it as a comment so that others can have the chance of solving it for themselves. Thanks.

~Armando]

Lethal Irony

In 19th century England, anyone who attempted suicide and failed faced the death penalty.

"As I've Matured..."

As I've Matured...
I've learned that you cannot make someone love you. All you can do is stalk them and hope they panic and give in.
I've learned that one good turn gets most of the blankets.
I've learned that no matter how much I care, some people are just jackasses.
I've learned that it takes years to build up trust, and it only takes suspicion, not proof, to destroy it.
I've learned that whatever hits the fan will not be evenly distributed.
I've learned that you shouldn't compare yourself to others - they are more screwed up than you think.
I've learned that depression is merely anger without enthusiasm.
I've learned that it is not what you wear; it is how you take it off.
I've learned that you can keep vomiting long after you think you're finished.
I've learned to not sweat the petty things, and not pet the sweaty things.
I've learned that ex's are like fungus, and keep coming back.
I've learned age is a very high price to pay for maturity.
I've learned that I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy it.
I've learned that we are responsible for what we do, unless we are celebrities.
I've learned that artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity.
I've learned that 99% of the time when something isn't working in your house, one of your kids did it.
I've learned that there is a fine line between genius and insanity.
I've learned that the people you care most about in life are taken from you too soon and all the less important ones just never go away. And the real pains in the ass are permanent.

~Anonymous

"The Fool and the Poet"

Sir, I admit your general rule,
That every poet is a fool.
But you yourself may serve to show it,
Every fool is not a poet.

~Alexander Pope

Words of Wisdom

“If triangles made a god, they would give him three sides.”

~Montesquieu, Persian Letters (1721)

Snowball Sentence

The following are two snowball sentences from Dmitri A. Borgmann's book Language on Vacation: An Olio of Orthographical Oddities (1965). Each word is one letter longer than the last.

"I am not very happy acting pleased whenever prominent scientists overmagnify intellectual enlightenment."

"I do not know where family doctors acquired illegibly perplexing handwriting; nevertheless, extraordinary pharmaceutical intellectuality, counterbalancing indecipherability, transcendentalizes intercommunications' incomprehensibleness."

Can you come up with a longer one?

How Old Are You?

The following set of pictures show the same 20-year-old model in different ages. Only make-up and lighting were used.

Photographers: Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin
Model: Eniko Mihalik
Fashion Editor/Stylist: Carine Roitfeld
Makeup Artist: Lisa Butler
Hair Stylist: Marc Lopez

Age 10


Age 20


Age 30


Age 40


Age 50


Age 60



~ Vogue Paris (November 2008)

The Ultimate Rejection Letter

The college application process has just about ended this year. This year it will be especially difficult to receive an acceptance letter from top colleges. It is very likely that you will receive a number of rejections. If this happens, perhaps the following sample letter will come in handy (it is a modification of a rejection letter I found online). This sample contains information that would have been pertinent to me had I been in such a situation. Replace everything in italics with your appropriate information.


Dear Princeton Admissions Committee,

Thank you for your letter of April 1. After careful consideration, I regret to inform you that I am unable to accept your refusal to offer me a place in the Princeton Class of 2012.

This year I have been particularly fortunate in receiving an unusually large number of rejection letters. With such a varied and promising field of candidates, it is impossible for me to accept all refusals.

Despite your outstanding qualifications and previous experience in rejecting applicants, I find that your rejection does not meet my needs at this time. Therefore, I will assume the position of a (very important) member of the Princeton Class of 2012 this upcoming fall. I look forward to seeing the rest of my classmates then.

Best of luck in rejecting future applicants.

Sincerely,
Armando


This is my humorous jab at a fear many students have. There isn't much I can do to help except wish all of those applying my sincerest best wishes.

Change of Plans

It has been a little more than a week since I started this little blog of mine. I thought I could manage two posts per day but this is simply too much work. I have decided to lower my sights to a more realistic one post per day (starting tomorrow). I hope I manage to keep this up long enough to ultimately not consider this enterprise a waste of your time and mine. I also hope that at the very least this blog will give you a moment of amusement. Maybe even two.

~Armando

Pythagoras's Student

"One story claims that a young student by the name of Hippasus was idly toying with the number √2, attempting to find the equivalent fraction. Eventually he came to realize that no such fraction existed, i.e. that √2 is an irrational number. Hippasus must have been overjoyed by his discovery, but his master was not. Pythagoras had defined the universe in terms of rational numbers, and the existence of irrational numbers brought his ideal into question. The consequence of Hippasus’ insight should have been a period of discussion and contemplation during which Pythagoras ought to have come to terms with this new source of numbers. However, Pythagoras was unwilling to accept that he was wrong, but at the same time he was unable to destroy Hippasus’ argument by the power of logic. To his eternal shame he sentenced Hippasus to death by drowning."

~ Simon Singh, from Fermat's Last Theorem (1998)

Metal Sculptures

Edouard Martinet creates astonishing metal sculptures of birds, insects, frogs, and fish using material he finds in junk yards.






For more of his work go to his website.

"A Pun-gent Chapter"

The bakers, being ambitious to extend their do-mains, declared that a revolution was needed, and, though not exactly bred up to arms, soon reduced their crusty masters to terms. The tailors called a council of the board to see what measures could be taken, and, looking upon the bakers as the flower of chivalry, decided to follow suit; the consequence of which was, that a cereous insurrection was lighted up among the candle-makers, which, however wick-ed it might appear in the eyes of some persons, developed traits of character not unworthy of ancient Greece.

~Theodore Hook, describing a general strike in Paris

Mighty Mary

On September 12, 1916 Mary the circus elephant killed her assistant trainer Red Eldridge after he apparently poked her behind the ear with a hook as she was about to eat a watermelon rind. The locals immediately demanded her death and newspapers falsified reports that she had killed before. After receiving boycott threats, Charlie Sparks, owner of the circus Mary performed at, decided that the only reasonable way to prevent his business from failing was to publicly execute Mary. On September 13, 1916 Mary was taken to the Clinchfield Railroad yard in Erwin, Tennessee where she was to be hung from an industrial crane. The first attempt failed resulting in Mary receiving a broken hip among other grave injuries. After a thicker chain was placed around her neck she was hung again and after a few minutes Mighty Mary died. This incident remains the only known elephant hanging in history.



For more info go to Mighty Mary's wikipedia entry. For a more detailed account go here.

"Write Written Right"

Write we know is written right,
When it is written write;
But when we see it written wright,
We know it is not written right:
For write, to have it written right,
Must not be written right or wright,
Nor yet should it be written rite;
But write, for so 'tis written right.

~Anonymous

Tupper's Self-Referential Formula

Jeff Tupper "discovered" the following remarkable formula that when plotted under certain conditions produces the graph shown after. Go here for more information.

Tomato!

An 1893 United States Supreme Court decision (Nix v. Hedden) declared the tomato a vegetable. However, this only applies when dealing with US tariffs. For all other purposes the tomato is a fruit.

Words of Wisdom

"It is perfectly monstrous the way people go about, nowadays, saying things against one behind one's back that are absolutely and entirely true."

~Oscar Wilde

Private Moon

Russian artists Leonid Tishkov and Boris Bendikov created their own "private moon" and took the following photographs:


For more of their work, go here.

"Short Road to Wealth"

I'll tell you a plan for gaining wealth,
Better than banking, trade, or leases;
Take a bank-note and fold it across,
And then you will find your money in-creases!

This wonderful plan, without danger or loss,
Keeps your cash in your hands, and with nothing to trouble it;
And every time that you fold it across,
'Tis plain as the light of the day that you double it!

~Anonymous

Creative Writing 101

Kurt Vonnegut gives the following eight rules of creative writing in the preface to his book Bagombo Snuff Box (1999):

1. Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.
2. Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for.
3. Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.
4. Every sentence must do one of two things—reveal character or advance the action.
5. Start as close to the end as possible.
6. Be a sadist. No matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them—in order that the reader may see what they are made of.
7. Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.
8. Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To heck with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages.

He further adds, "The greatest American short story writer of my generation was Flannery O’Connor (1925-1964). She broke practically every one of my rules but the first. Great writers tend to do that."

Project Habakkuk

Problem: It's WWII. Our aircraft carriers are being sunk by German U-boats. Steel and aluminium are in short supply and required for other purposes. So whaddaya do?

Solution, according to British scientist Geoffrey Pyke: Build an aircraft carrier out of ice. Not just your standard iceberg, but it's going be to made of Pykrete, which is 20% sawdust and 80% ice. Result: A virtually unsinkable ship. Call this monstrosity Project Habakkuk.

After hearing the proposal, Churchill agreed enthusiastically, at which point a small prototype was built in Canada. Then they realized the project would cost at least $100 million for the first ship, not to mention there was the problem of keeping the ship frozen while keeping the sailors warm. Eventually, they scrapped the project and went with conventional metal. The refrigeration units on the prototype were turned off, and the hull was left in Patricia Lake, where it took three hot summers to melt.

==Links==

*An article.
*Another article.
*Wikipedia article.

The Bloop

In the summer of 1997, the Unites States National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) detected an ultra-low frequency underwater sound originating off the South American southwest coast. This sound, named The Bloop, was heard a number of times and was loud enough to be heard up to 3,000 miles away. Although analysis of the sound determined that it was likely biological in origin, there is no known animal capable of emitting a sound of such intensity. The animal would have to be larger than the Blue Whale, the largest animal believed to have ever existed. The source of the sound remains unknown, but some speculate that the culprit is a many tentacled giant squid while others say it is Cthulhu. What do you think?

Cipher Love

The following is a remarkable cipher written by Professor Whewell:

"U 0 a 0 but I 0 U,
O 0 no 0 but O 0 me;
O let not my 0 a 0 go,
But give 0 0 I 0 U so."

It can be read as follows:
"You sigh for a cipher, but I sigh for you,
Oh, sigh for no cipher, but oh, sigh for me;
Oh, let not my sigh for a cipher go,
But give sigh for sigh, for I sigh for you so."

Whimsical Chemistry

Molecular names that prove that chemical nomenclature can be hilarious:

• Arsole
  
• Cummingtonite
  
• Moronic Acid
• Windowpane
• Fucitol
• Crapinon
• Draculin

Who says chemists don't have a sense of humor?

Note: For more chemical silliness, please go here.

PR Purposes

Prior to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and the Nazi's rise to power:

• The abbreviation for the top commander of the United States fleet was CINCUS (Commander-in-Chief, United States Fleet), which was pronounced "Sink Us"
  
• Adolf Hitler's Special Train was named Amerika
• The 45th Infantry Division of the United States Army had a shoulder sleeve insignia that featured a swastika

All three were changed soon thereafter.

Words of Wisdom

"Ironic, isn't it Smithers? This anonymous clan of slack-jawed troglodytes has cost me the election. And yet, if I were to have them killed, I would be the one to go to jail. That's democracy for you."

~Mr. Burns, The Simpsons

"I Loved You"

I loved you; even now I must confess,
Some embers of my love their fire retain;
But do not let it cause you more distress,
I do not want to sadden you again.

Hopeless and tonguetied, yet I loved you dearly
With pangs the jealous and the timid know;
So tenderly I love you, so sincerely,
I pray God grant another love you so.

~Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin

Futile Search

Diogenes of Sinope was once seen in a marketplace holding a lantern, apparently looking for something. Curious onlookers asked him what he was doing, to which he replied, "I am looking for an honest man."

New Year’s Day 2009

Happy New Year’s Day to all. May your wildest dreams come true this upcoming year, as long as they don’t interfere with mine.

I normally don’t do New Year’s resolutions but I’ve decided to break this habit this year just for fun. Here are my resolutions for the year 2009 (in no particular order):

1) Take over the world

2) Win the lottery (multiple times is best)

3) Learn to ice skate

4) Stay away from sea monkeys, because they apparently are not my friends

5) Wake up no later than 8 am every day

6) Win the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest, or at least the Lyttle Lytton Contest

7) Go to church every Sunday

8) Make a good pun, simile, or allusion once in a while

9) Become a beast at Guitar Hero or Rock Band, perhaps become good enough to be one of those people who videotape their games and post them on YouTube and get tens (some hundreds!) of views

10) Take care of my nanazoid

I get the feeling that my success rate will be very low this year but I will be optimistic. If all of the above fail to be accomplished I hope to at least become really really good looking, as opposed to really good looking (which I am right now). That’s right, I’m shallower than swash on a day when the wind is a one on the Beaufort scale. Okay, so I was kidding about being shallow but no one can argue that I’m stunning.

Again, I wish you all a very happy New Year’s Day and a year to come that is full of laughs and happiness.

~Armando