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Your Brains… er… Movie Recommendations… Needed
I’ve always been a fan of horror movies, but in the past couple of years I’ve really gravitated toward, you know, the living dead. Shaun of the Dead is pretty much my favorite movie of all time. George Romero? Can’t get enough. And lately I’ve been delving into zombie lit, or Z-Lit if you will. Max Brooks (son of Mel) has a tongue-in-cheek book out called The Zombie Survival Guide. It’s all those essential things you need to know when Z-Day finally happens. He followed that up with World War Z, which takes place post-zombie apocalypse and talks to people who survived, documentary-style. It’s not funny like the Survival Guide is; it’s dead serious and pretty fascinating.
Now let me backtrack a little bit. Every Thursday night, my husband and I get together with a group of friends to watch Lost. We call this, appropriately if not unoriginally, Lost Night. Even when Lost ends for the summer (or for their mid-season hiatus), we still get together and do something in its absence. Last summer we watched a new Mystery Science Theater 3000 (MST3K) every Thursday. This summer, we’ve decided to watch zombie movies. This all started because I DVRed what is possibly one of the worst zombie movies ever made last week and was crying from laughter trying to explain it to our group.
The movie? Return of the Living Dead.
Now, before you all jump on me, let me preface with this: I love zombies, but I am by no means an expert. I am not purporting to have seen every zombie movie ever made or know the names of the Zed extras in Night of the Living Dead. I don’t even know the Thriller Dance. That being said, I thought Return of the Living Dead was George Romero’s sequel to Night of the Living Dead. I only saw the title on the Independent Film Channel; I was not privvy to that outstanding movie cover or a plot or anything. Wow, was I wrong. Turns out George and John Russo, one of the writers of the original movie, were in disagreement with how to follow up their hit movie. They went their separate ways. George ended up coming out with Dawn of the Dead 10 years later; Return of the Living Dead is what Russo came up with in 1985.
It. Is. Bad. Comically bad. Let me try to sum up for you: High school dude, Freddy, has a new job at a medical supply warehouse. On the job, a co-worker informs Freddy that Night of the Living Dead was a true story – a gas was accidentally released that reanimated the dead. Only a few barrels of the gas are still in existence, and, surprise! They’re at the medical supply warehouse. The co-worker shows Freddy the barrel containing the gas and thumps on it to prove its durability, but the gas leaks and the two men are knocked out. Of course, zombies start running amok. Coincidentally, Freddy’s friends are waiting for him to get off work and decide to kill time in the cemetery across the street. Makes sense. Somehow this results in Trash, one of Freddy’s friends, ripping off her clothes and dancing on top of a grave wearing nothing but leg warmers (I’m proud to say the actress, Linnea Quigley, is from Davenport, Iowa). I know you’re wondering, and yes, she does end up as a “seductive”, dancing, naked zombie wearing leg warmers.
The zombies are smarter than you might think – when paramedics arrive on the scene, they are killed by the zombies who then call dispatch and request that they “send more paramedics.” Seriously. The same thing happens when the cops show up. Also, at some point, a zombie is captured and questioned as to why they are feasting on humans. The zombie replies that it hurts to be dead, and eating live brains is the only thing that relieves the pain.
Oh, and although skeletons are rising out of the cemetery – full skeletons, not skin and muscle or anything like that – they still have tongues and eyeballs.
So, after describing this, my friends and I did a little research and discovered that some truly heinous zombie movies are floating around out here. Some that we will be viewing this summer are Redneck Zombies, Zombies on Broadway, Motocross Zombies from Hell, Hard Rock Zombies and the MST3Ked Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies. Oh! And also, Return of the Living Dead: Rave to the Grave (”Dance til you drop… dead”).
So. The point of this long-winded post is to ask you two things:
1. What’s the worst horror movie you’ve ever seen?
2. Do you have any good (read: bad) zombie movie recommendations?
Neatorama’s Guide to 25 of the Strangest Collections on the Web
Some people collect stamps, others collect comic books. The people on this list, however, collect things that are far, far stranger. Behold, Neatorama's guide to the 25 Strangest Collections on the Web:
1. Graham Barker's Navel Fluff Collection
Graham Barker's Navel Fluff Collection
Some people see navel fluff or bellybutton lint as life's little annoyances. Not Graham Barker: he began collecting them since 1984, and now has the world's largest collection of navel fluff according to Guiness Book of World Records:
It was on the 17th of January 1984 that I found myself under-occupied in a youth hostel in Brisbane. The night was steamy and stormy - too wet outside and too hot inside to do very much, and my attention drifted to my belly button. There it was ... fluff! I must have seen it before that night, but this occasion was the first time I ever picked it out and wondered about it. I became curious about how much navel fluff one person could generate (enough to stuff a cushion, maybe?), and the only way to find for sure was to collect it and see. My first piece of navel fluff was stored in an empty film canister, and the collection had begun.
2. Air Sickness Bag Virtual Museum
Like its name implies, the Air Sickness Bag Virtual Museum is all about vomit bags. Indeed, it catalogs more than 2,000 photos of air sickness bags from all over the world.
In addition to airplane air sickness bags, the website also has a collection of bus sickness, sea sickness, and even space sickness bags!
Though most are underwhelming in terms of design, some are actually quite artistic. Virgin Atlantic airlines even held a "Design for Chunks" project in 2004, where artists submit their designs to be put as a limited edition barf bags!
Before you check out the website, I'll leave you with a few of the more unusual bags from the Visitor's Favorite section:
From left to right: Brooklyn Artist Sarah Nicole Phillip's Little Brown
Barf Bag, a parody of Bloomingdale's Little Brown Bag; The Space Shuttle
Sickness ("Emesis") Bag; Barf Bag One, unfortunately only a
gag gift and not the real thing.
3. Joseph W. Lauher's Handcuffs
If
you want to collect handcuffs, then Joseph W. Lauher is your man, and
handcuffs.org is the website to see. Indeed, Joseph has the largest collection
of handcuffs (with focus on vintage ones), leg irons, nippers, and thumbcuffs
on the Web: Link
What's a nipper and a thumbcuff? Well, a nipper is a handcuff that locks only one hand, but has a handle for keeping the cuffed person under control (Photo to the left is a 1888 nipper made by Thomas & Smith).
A thumbcuff, like its name implies, cuffs both of the person's thumbs.
4. Bob Toelle's Fish Posters
Bob Toelle collects posters - but not any poster, just the ones about fish - and he's got a lot of it. Currently, Bob has more than 700 fish posters from around the world: Link
5. Medical Antiques by Douglas Arbittier, M.D.
Amputation set by Ferris & Co., Bristol (c. 1885)
Dr. Douglas Arbittier collects old medical equipments, and specializes in cased surgical sets. His collection includes a lot of amputation saws, and bloodletting artifacts (leech jar, anyone?).
When you visit his website, keep what Dr. Arbittier said in mind: "be thankful you live in today's medical world ...": Link
6. Barney Smith's Toilet Seat Art
Texan artist Barney Smith has an unusual choice of art medium: toilet seats! For the past 30 years, Barney had created over 700 artistically decorated toilet seat lids. Check it out here: Link
7. Sergei Frolov's Soviet Calculators
W.T. Odhner Arithmometer (1890)
Sergei Frolov has a fantastic collection of over 150 Soviet-made calculators, as well as vintage computers, watches and slide rules. I'm particularly fond of the old mechanical arithmometers, as shown above: Link
8. Phil Miller's Sugar Packets
Phil Miller is a sucrologist - meaning that he collects sugar packets and sugar cube wrappers. Indeed, Phil has been collecting since 1978 when he started with the Presidents of the United States sugar packets, and he hasn't looked back since. Life must be sweet if you collect sugar packets ... Link
9. The Asphalt Museum
The
Asphalt Museum is actually a real museum in a real building in Sacramento,
California, but it's weird enough that we'll just have to include it on
this list. It has a large collection of (you guessed it) everything asphalt.
The museum was founded by Scott Gordon and Marie Vans in 1991, while both attended Colorado State University.
In addition to asphalt "samples" from famous (like Route 66, Highway I, and the ancient Roman road Appian Way) and not-so-famous roads, the museum also has a recipe on how to make your own asphalt: Link
10. Gideon Weiss' Back Scratchers
Gideon Weiss must've had one really itchy back when he started collecting back scratchers. His online collection has grown to include 236 of the strangest back scratchers I've ever seen: Link
11. Michael Lewis' Moist Towelettes
Michael
Lewis welcomes visitors to his website with these warm words: "Welcome
to the exciting world of Moist Towelette Collecting."
Though I'm not sure just how wet naps would rank in the excitement scale, Michael's collection sure is something: Link
Don't miss the "Awards" section!
12. Nancy Alford's Mangles
What
is a mangle? You'll be forgiven if you don't know what it is: a mangle
is a cast iron contraption with two wooden rollers, a spring, and a side
wheel with handle. Its function is to wring clothes dry after you wash
them, so obviously it's now obsolete with the invention dryers and all
...
A few years ago, Nancy Alford was in a local department store when she saw, and fell in love with, a mangle. For her sixteenth wedding anniversary, Nancy wanted (and got) - you guessed it, a mangle. Her husband thought she was mad.
Since then, she has collected so many of them that they had to build a new house (which she aptly named Mangleten) to fit all her mangles. Link
13. Victor Paul Taylor's Scratchcard Collection
Victor Taylor is a lotologist (yes, a made up word meaning someone who collects lottery tickets). He has a particular interest in "Instants" Scratchcards, produced by Camelot for the UK National Lottery. As far as I can tell, none of the scratchcards have been scratched, so he's sitting on a potential goldmine worth bazillions!
Check out his incredibly detailed collection, which starts with the 1995 issues: Link
14. Lydia's AOL CDs
Younger Neatorama readers may not be familiar with AOL CDs, but the rest of us surely remember getting spammed with tons of these discs from America Online.
In the late 1990s and early 2000s, AOL produced over a billion CDs (with over 1,000 distinct designs) for its direct mail campaign. The strategy was a huge success: AOL became the largest dial-up Internet Service Provider in the world (for a while anyway). After its fateful merger with Time Warner and the decline of dial-up as a mean of accessing the web, the company stopped producing the discs in 2006.
But fear not. Lydia of Lydia's AOL Disks shares with us her collection of over 2,500 unique AOL diskettes and CDs. Check it out here: Link
15. Museum of Burnt Food
The
Museum of Burnt Food is dedicated to accidentally burnt food, er ... carbonized
culinary masterpieces (no intentionally burned artwork there!). The museum
was founded by harpist Deborah Henson Conant, who recounted this tale:
The museum was founded in the late 1980's one night when Deborah put on a small pot of Hot Apple Cider to heat, then received an unexpected . . . fascinating . . . and very long phone call. By the time Deborah returned to the kitchen, the Cider had become a "Cinder" and thus the first, and perhaps still the most impressive, exhibit: "Free Standing Hot Apple Cider" was born.
SINCE THEN, countless other works have entered the museum, such as "Thrice Baked Potato," "Why Sure, You Can Bake Quiche in the Microwave," the indestructible "Mmmm……Soy Pups," and the lovely matching set of Pizza Toast.
Deborah has a tip on kitchen decorating, which I think everyone should heed: "Never scrimp on fire extinguishers and smoke alarms." She would know now: Link
16. Steve Salcedo's Street Sign and Traffic Light Collection
From left to right: Auto Club of Southern California Stop Sign (c. 1940);
Children "Wanted Alive" sign, the equivalent of "Slow -
Children at Play" sign (c. 1950); "T" Intersection with
Marble Reflector (c. 1940); Eagle 4-way 12" Beacons (c. 1930)
Steve Salcedo's fascination with street signs and traffic lights began when he received a bulletin board about traffic signs when he was just a small boy. Two years later, his collection was well under way.
Currently, Steve has over 350 street signs in his collection - all legal (rescued from street departments before they were scrapped, purchased from antique stores, flea markets, etc.): Link
17. The Chocolate Wrappers Museum
In 1996, Martin Mihál's began collecting empty chocolate wrappers from around the world with a sizeable collection of 674 wrappers. A decade later, his collection grew to an astounding 38,579 wrappers! Martin has over 8,700 wrappers from Germany alone and even a few wrappers from far-flung countries like Oman and Uzbekistan.
So, the next time you eat a chocolate, think of Martin before you throw away the wrapper! Link
18. Becky Martz's Banana Labels
In 1991, Becky Martz first noticed banana labels when she put two bunches of bananas in the fruit bowl together. She noticed that the "Dole" labels actually weren't quite the same: one said Guatemala and the other said Honduras. Later that year, she noticed a particularly festive Chiquita label and decided that she wanted to collect banana labels.
Today, Becky has more than 7,000 different banana labels and even branched out to collect asparagus and broccoli bands.
If you think that this is a strange hobby, well, ... it is. But Becky isn't alone: there are others like her in the world, and they even have their own Banana Sticker Collector Convention. Check out Becky's collection here: Link
19. Museum of Talking Boards
The
Museum of Talking Boards is all about collecting Ouija boards. The site
is quite neat: it explains the history
of the board, theory
as to how it works, as well as things
you should never do or ask.
And, of course, it has a fantastic gallery of over 80 antique talking boards.
The board above is the original Ouija board, created by Elijah Bond and Charles Kennard and produced in 1891 by Kennard Novelty Company.
Visit the Museum of Talking Boards here: Link
20. Scott Weed's Date Nails
Date
Nail is exactly that: a marked nail hammered into poles and bridge timbers
to identify or date them.
Scott Weed of Nailhunter, who has a huge collection of these nails, wrote that "unlike most collectibles, Date Nails can still be found in the wild. With a couple of tools, some spare time and transportation, the world of Date Nail is open to everyone."
Indeed, but for now, I presume all of you will just satisfy yourself with visiting his website: Link
21. Dr. Val Kolpakov's Toothpaste Collection
Dr. Val Kolpakov is a practicing dentist in Saginaw, Michigan, so it's only natural that he has an unnatural affinity to toothpaste.
Starting in 2002, Dr. Val began collecting toothpaste from around the world. His website, Toothpaste World, categorizes toothpastes according to location, brand name, and year of production. Right now, he has over 1,400 items: Link
I'd be remiss if I didn't share with you a toothpaste trivia from Dr. Val's website. Here's the world's oldest known formula for toothpaste:
The world's oldest-known formula for toothpaste, used more than 1,500 years before Colgate began marketing the first commercial brand in 1873, has been discovered on a piece of dusty papyrus in the basement of a Viennese museum.
In faded black ink made of soot and gum arabic mixed with water, an ancient Egyptian scribe has carefully described what he calls a "powder for white and perfect teeth".
When mixed with saliva in the mouth, it forms a "clean tooth paste".
According to the document, written in the fourth century AD, the ingredients needed for the perfect smile are one drachma of rock salt - a measure equal to one hundredth of an ounce - two drachmas of mint, one drachma of dried iris flower and 20 grains of pepper, all of them crushed and mixed together.
The result is a pungent paste which one Austrian dentist who tried it said made his gums bleed but was a "big improvement" on some toothpaste formulae used as recently as a century ago.
22. Weird Fortune Cookie Collection
Ever got a strange fortune from a fortune cookie? Well, it belongs in the ever-growing collection at Weird Fortune Cookie Collection. Seriously, head on over there and browse their gallery (preferably after a nice little Kung Pao Chicken meal): Link
23. British Lawnmower Museum
British Anzani Lawnrider (c. 1960)
The tireless curators of the British Lawnmower Museum, Brian and Sue Radam, dedicate their lives to preserving the best example of British engineering prowess: the lawnmower!
The lawnmower was invented in 1827 by English engineer Edwin Beard Budding, who wanted a superior alternative to the scythe. He took a machine designed to cut the knap off cloth and used it to cut grass instead. At the time, people thought that he was mad, so he tested his invention in the middle of the night so no one could see him!
The British Lawnmower Museum's now has over 200 vintage lawnmowers and part of 400 others: Link
24. Helena Vnouckova's Napkins
Napkins: you use and throw them away, but Helena Vnouckova collects them. A lot of them - in fact, she has over 16,000 napkins from around the world (with sets of Christmas themed napkins, company napkins, and even airline napkins): Link
25. Museum of Hoaxes
I'm
going to end this long list with Neatorama pal Alex Boese's excellent
website: Museum of Hoaxes.
Alex Boese probably has the strangest collection of them all: he collects stories about and examples of scams and hoaxes! In 1997, Alex created the Museum of Hoaxes as research notes for his doctoral dissertation, and the website quickly became popular. So much so that Alex the "hoaxpert" wrote three books which we have featured on Neatorama before: The Museum of Hoaxes, Hippo Eats Dwarf, and Elephants on Acid And Other Bizarre Experiments.
If you haven't seen it before (perhaps you've been living under a rock), then definitely check out the Museum of Hoaxes: Link - you won't be disappointed!
I'll be the first to acknowledge that this is but a short list of unusual collections you can find on the Web. For more weird things people collect, check out MuseumStuff's Unusual Museums and Strange Collections, and Unusual Museums of the Internet at RingSurf.
If you or someone you know has an unusual collection we should list here, please let me know in the comment section!
Update 5/14/08: If you like this post, please digg it here!
Seven U.S. Presidential Nicknames (at least, ones we can print)
George W. Bush has plenty of nicknames, including some for whether you are a supporter or not. Dubya/W., of course, Bushie, Shrub. And obviously Bill Clinton didn’t escape his two terms un-nicknamed – Slick Willie, Bubba, Teflon Bill. But Presidential nicknames go all the way back to George Washington. Some of them you might be familiar with; others might surprise you. Either way, you will at least be entertained.
John Adams
Ouch. Poor John Adams didn’t have many fans. His nicknames included His Rotundity, which was made up after Adams suggested that George Washington be referred to as “His Majesty”. And Ben Franklin liked to refer to Adams as “Your Superfluous Excellency”. He did have a couple of more flattering nicknames, though, such as “Father of the Navy” and “The Colossus of Debate”. The latter was given to him by Thomas Jefferson because of his stellar argumentative skills.
James Madison
“Little Jemmy” was only 5′4″, the smallest president ever. It’s perhaps for this reason that Washington Irving (The Legend of Sleepy Hollow) called Madison “Withered Little Apple-John”. Madison was also called “The Fugitive President” because he and celebrated wife Dolley had to flee the White House during the War of 1812.
John Tyler
After Tyler was named president, he pretty much abandoned his former party, the Whigs. Because of this, the nicknames “The President Without a Party” and “Traitor Tyler” were coined. He was also called “His Accidency” because he was the first Vice President to take over when the previous President (William Henry Harrison) died in office.
Andrew Johnson
As the first president to be impeached, Johnson didn’t really inspire any friendly monikers. When he was sworn in as Lincoln’s V.P., he was rather drunk, apparently to try to numb the pain of his raging typhoid fever. This earned him the nickname “Andy the Sot” before he even became president. He was also called the Tennessee Tailor, after his previous profession, and Sir Veto, because he was notorious for nixing just about everything that crossed his path.
Rutherford B. Hayes
Because his party “stole” the election from Democrat Samuel Tilden, Hayes was called “Rutherfraud”, “His Fraudulency” and “The Usurper”. An investigation was done of the whole affair and the committee found in his favor – a close vote of eight to seven, thus garnering him the name “Old Eight-to-Seven”.
After that drama died down, he earned the names “Granny Hayes” and “Queen Victoria in Riding Breeches” because of his extremely straight-laced ways: no smoking, drinking or gambling combined with lots of prayer and family togetherness. Nothing wrong with that, maybe, but it irritated some members of D.C. society.
William Howard Taft
As the largest president we’ve ever had, you would think that his nicknames would call more attention to Taft’s size. And “Big Bill” was, but “Old Bill”, “Peaceful Bill” and “Godknows Taft” were not. Godknows Taft originated when a member of the press asked the President what a man who is out of work or starving should do to rectify the situation. Taft replied, “God knows. I don’t.”
Richard Nixon
Old “Tricky Dick”, of course, and “The Trickster”, but did you know Nixon was also called “Iron Butt”? Apparently his law school buddies called him that because he studied so hard. Also, “Richard the Chicken-Hearted” for refusing to debate opponent Hubert Humphrey in the 1968 campaign.
Neatorama Online T-Shirt Store
Neatoramanaut T-Shirt, now available at Neatorama’s Online Store
W00t! I’m excited and happy to announce that Neatorama’s online T-shirt store is open for business!
Get Neatorama T-shirts, including the Neatoramanaut design by Adam "Ape Lad" Koford that was voted Reader’s favorite a while ago, awesome cartoons by Mike Jacobsen of See Mike Draw, as well as funny Web Lingo shirts done exclusively for Neatorama.
We’ll be rolling out more shirts as we go, and some quantities are limited, so support the blog and buy your Neatorama T-shirt today! Thank you!
5 Scientific Laws and the Scientists Behind Them
"Eureka!" Archimedes screamed, then he ran outside naked ...
Well, now you can read about the interesting stuff that your school textbooks didn‘t bother to include. In his latest book, Archimedes to Hawking: Laws of Science and the Great Minds Behind Them, Cliff Pickover takes some 40 eponymous laws of physics and explains the life of the scientists whom these laws are named after. The book is far from a dry listing of scientific formulas - actually, it’s full of quirky trivia and nifty facts about some of the world’s greatest scientists.
Cliff has graciously allowed us to take samples from the book for this article and generously offer personalized copies of the book to 3 lucky Neatorama readers (see below for details).
So, if you didn’t know that Archimedes sometimes sent his colleagues false theorems in order to trap them when they stole his ideas, or that Daniel Bernoulli‘s father threw him out for winning a science competition, then this Neatorama post is for you. Behold, the 5 Scientific Laws and the Scientists Behind Them (no complicated math, we promise!)
1. Archimedes’ Principle of Buoyancy
The Law: According to Archimedes’ principle, a body wholly or partially submerged in liquid is buoyed up by a force equal to the weight of the displaced liquid. This buoyant force depends on the density of the liquid and the volume of the object, but not its shape.
The law seems simple, but it is actually not intuitive that objects with equal volume experience the same buoyant force when held under water: cubes made of cork and lead would experience the same buoyant force, yet would have completely different behavior. This is because the different ratios of buoyant force to object weights.
Archimedes’ Principle of Buoyancy has many applications, including determining the pressure of a liquid as a function of depth. It helps us understand how floatation works and is one of the founding principles of hydrostatics.
The Famous Legend Behind the Law: One day, King Hieron II of Syracuse, Sicily, wanted to find out whether his wreath-shaped crown was actually made from pure gold. He called upon Archimedes to find out (without damaging the crown, say by melting it down). Roman architect and engineer Marcus Vitruvius wrote:
While Archimedes was turning the problem over, he chanced to come to the place of bathing, and there, as he was sitting down in the tub, he noticed that the amount of water which flowed over the tub was equal to the amount by which his body was immersed. This showed him means of solving the problem … In his joy, he leapt out of the tub and, rushing naked toward his home, he cried out with a loud voice that he had found what he sought.
Archimedes was able to obtain the exact volume of the crown by dunking it in water and measuring the displaced water. He then took the weight of the crown and divided it by its volume to get the density of the crown, which turned out to be between that of gold and silver. Archimedes was thus able to show that the wreath was not made out of pure gold (and the royal goldsmith was executed).
Modern scholars suggest that this story was bogus, as it would be unlikely that Archimedes had measuring equipment with sufficient accuracy to detect the difference (plus, he hated to bathe - see below).
The
Man Behind the Law: Archimedes of Syracuse (287-212 B.C.), was
a Greek geometer and is often regarded as one of the greatest mathematicians
and scientists who ever lived.
Here are a few things about Archimedes you may not know:
- Plutarch wrote that Archimedes was so obsessed with math that his servants had to force him to bathe, and that while they scrubbed him, he continued to draw geometrical figures on his body!
- Archimedes invented a machine called the Archimedean screw to pump water.
- He also invented a “death ray” weapon using a set of mirrors that focused sunlight on Roman ships, setting them on fire. After many scientists discounted the story as false, David Wallace of MIT actually did the experiment: He had his students build an oak replica of a Roman ship and focused sunlight on it using 127 mirrored tiles from a distance of 30 meters. After ten minutes of exposure, the ship burst into flames!
- When the Romans captured Syracuse in 212 B.C., a Roman soldier came upon the mathematician who was studying a mathematical diagram drawn in the sand. Archimedes was annoyed by the soldier’s interruption, and said “Don’t disturb my circles” before he was killed. Moral of the story: don’t piss off a Roman soldier!
2. Hooke’s Law of Elasticity
The Law: Hooke’s Law of Elasticity states that if an object, such a spring, is elongated by some distance x, then the restoring force F exerted by the object is proportional to x:
The k is a constant called the spring constant if the object is a spring.
The
Man Behind the Law: Robert Hooke (1635 - 1702) was an English
physicist and polymath. As you can see, Hooke was an ugly man (he was
severely disfigured by smallpox). (Photo: Molecular
Expressions: Science, Optics and You)
Here are a few things about Hooke you may not know:
- Robert Hooke was a sickly child and wasn’t expected to reach adulthood, so his parents didn’t bother educating him. Left to his own devices, Hooke made mechanical models and clocks.
- He was the first to coin the word “cell” to describe the basic unit of life (he thought that plant cells, when magnified through a microscope, looked like “cellula,” the living quarters of monks).
- Hooke was a busy man: he was the Surveyor to the City of London, helped rebuild the city after the Great Fire in 1666, and even designed the infamous Bethlem Royal Hospital (“Bedlam”) and the Royal College of Physicians.
- In 1672, Hooke criticized Isaac Newton who used a prism to split white light into its various components. Furious at Hooke, Newton had his portraits removed from the Royal Society and even attempted to burn his papers. Hooke mentioned to Newton about a possible inverse-square principle of gravitation, but Newton didn’t credit Hooke when he published Principia Mathematica, saying "Merely because one says something might be so, it does not follow that it has been proved that it is."
- Hooke was interested in the science of respiration, so he had himself placed in a sealed vessel from which air was gradually pumped out. As you can imagine, the experiment was detrimental to Hooke’s health: he damaged his ears and experienced deafness in the process.
- In 2006, the Royal Society purchased a manuscript by Hooke for $1.75 million, in which he wrote 500 pages of notes recorded during Royal Society meetings. In the notes, Hooke castigated Newton and Robert Boyle for stealing his ideas. He also wrote that Dutch microscopist Anton van Leeuwenhoek found "a vast number of small animals in his Excrements which were most abounding when he was troubled with a Looseness and very few or none when he was well."
3. Bernoulli's Law of Fluid Dynamics (Bernoulli's Principle)
The Law: Imagine fluid flowing steadily through a pipe that carries it from the top to the bottom of a hillside. The pressure of the liquid changes along the pipe, and Daniel Bernoulli discovered the law that relates the pressure, flow speed, and height for a fluid flowing in a pipe. Today, this law is written as:
You may not be aware of Bernoulli's Law, but it has numerous applications in real life: Bernoulli's Law is used when designing the Venturi throat, a constricted region in the air passage of a car motor's carburetor that causes a reduction in pressure, and in turn causes fuel vapor to be drawn out of the carburetor bowl.
The design of airplane wings take advantage of the knowledge we gleaned from Bernoulli's Law: these wings are designed to create an area of fast flowing air on its upper surface, which cause pressure near this area to drop and thus pull the wing upward.
Finally, we've all experienced Bernoulli's Law in action: the shower curtain is pulled inward when water first comes out of the shower because the increase in water and air velocity inside the shower causes pressure to drop. The pressure difference between the outside and inside of the curtain causes it to be sucked inward.
The
Man Behind the Law: Daniel Bernoulli (1700-1782) was polymath
that came from a family of extraordinary Swiss mathematicians. In fact,
his father, Johann Bernoulli, and his uncle, Jacob, were famous mathematicians.
Interestingly, both Daniel and his father Johann secretly studied mathematics against the wishes of their respective fathers. Just as Johann's father tried to force him into becoming a merchant, Johann did the same to Daniel. Indeed, Johann had his son's future all mapped out, including whom to marry!
Finally, Daniel told his father that he'd had enough, and both of them came to a truce: Daniel would become a doctor and Johann would personally teach him math.
Here are a few things about Daniel Bernoulli you may not know:
- Johann had always been jealous of Daniel's success. In 1735, after both the father and son tied for first place in a science competition held by the Paris Academy of Sciences, Johann was unable to bear the “shame" of being comparable to his son and threw Daniel out of his house for winning the prize that he felt should've been his alone!
- Daniel published his work on fluid physics in a book titled Hydrodynamica (where we get the word "hydrodynamics" from) in 1734. Johann became jealous of Daniel's work and published his own plagiarized version, Hydraulica … and predated it to 1732 to make it seem that his work appeared before his son's!
- Daniel was a prolific author and wrote on whatever subjects struck his fancy. One of his papers discussed the formula for computing the relationship between the number of oarsmen on a ship and the ship's velocity. In another paper, Daniel wrote what would become the basis of the economic theory of risk aversion and overall happiness gained from goods or services.
4. Dalton's Law of Partial Pressures
The Law: Dalton's Law of Partial Pressures states that the total pressure Pt exerted by a mixture of gases in a container is equal to the sum of the separate pressures that each gases would exert if just that single gas occupied the entire volume of the container.
That may seem trivial, but it's actually one of the more useful gas laws for scientists.
The
Man Behind the Law: John Dalton (1766 - 1844) grew in a poor
family, was a poor speaker, severely color-blind, and was even considered
a crude or simple experimentalist. Yet, he achieved significant professional
successes and made great contributions to chemistry, meteorology, and
physics.
In the early 19th century, Dalton developed the atomic theory, in which he proposed that each chemical element is composed of atoms of single, unique type and that though these atoms are indestructible, they can combine in simple ratios. For this, many consider Dalton to be the "Father of Chemistry".
Here are a few things about John Dalton you may not know:
- Legend has it that Dalton once bought his mother special stockings for her birthday. The mother, a Quaker woman, was shocked that he would buy her scarlet stockings. Dalton thought that they were blue, and asked his brother … who also saw them as blue! At that point, he realized that both he and his brother were color blind.
- Dalton did the first systematic study of color blindness and wrote the very first paper on the subject. In his honor, color blindness is sometimes called Daltonism.
- Since he was 21, Dalton kept a detailed diary of the weather, and continued to update it until the very day of his death. Dalton was so obsessed with records that he kept meticulous records of hits, misses, and other scores when he played the English game of lawn bowling!
- Dalton never married, saying "My head is too full of triangles, chymical process, and electrical experiments, etc., to think much of marriage."
- After his death, and according to his wishes, one of Dalton's eyes was cut open to determine the cause of his color blindness (Dalton had always thought that it was due to colored fluid inside his eyes - but that turned out not to be the case.) In the 1990s, cellular analysis revealed that the eye lacked the pigment that provides sensitivity to green.
5. Fourier's Law of Heat Conduction
The Law: Fourier's Law of Heat Conduction deals with the transmission of heat in materials. The law states that the heat flux, Q (the flow of heat per unit area and per unit of time), is proportional to the gradient of the temperature difference.
Fourier's Law is used in many diverse areas of science, and it explains why diamonds are cool to the touch (they have high thermal conductivity).
The
Man Behind the Law: Jean Baptiste Joseph Fourier (1768 - 1830)
was a French mathematicians and Egyptologist.
Here are a few things about Fourier you may not know:
- When he was only 16, Fourier discovered a new proof of Descartes’ rule of signs. His teenage achievement quickly became standard proof. By the age of 21, however, Fourier was in doubt whether he could ever make a significant contribution to mathematics. He wrote to his professor "Yesterday was my 21st birthday, at that age Newton and Pascal had already acquired many claims to immortality." It’s a good thing Fourier carried on!
- Instead of a career in science, young Fourier seriously considered being a priest. Indeed, he arrived at the Benedictine abbey of St. Benoit-sur-Leoire to prepare for his vows, but left when he realized that he only had one true love: mathematics.
- During the French Revolution, Fourier tried to defend scientists like Antoine Lavoisier, the founder of modern chemistry. Appeals to spare Lavoisier’s life was cut short when the judge said “The Republic has no need for geniuses” and he was guillotined. Afterwards, Fourier was thrown in prison but managed to escape death when the political climate changed.
- In his work on heat propagation in thin sheets of material, Fourier invented a very useful mathematical tool that would later become known as the Fourier Series. Here, Fourier showed that any periodic function can be represented by a sum of simple sine and cosine oscillating functions.
- Fourier accompanied Napoleon to Egypt. When he returned, Fourier had a strange medical condition: he was always cold and had to wear several overcoats, even in the heat of summer. It’s ironic to think that though he was an expert in heat transfer, Fourier was not good at regulating his own body heat!
- Global warming? Blame Fourier - he came up with the idea that the atmosphere acts as a “translucent dome,” which like a lid of a pot, absorbs some of the heat of the Sun and reradiates it downward to Earth.
- During his last months, Fourier’s body was so frail that he would live inside a wooden box with holes cut out for his head and arms. This “living coffin” would keep his body upright and let him work on his correspondence!
The
article above is but a small selection of the amazing trivia and fascinating
stories about some of the greatest names in science. If you love science,
or would like to instill the love of science to your children, pick up
Cliff Pickover's Archimedes to Hawking: Laws of Science and the Great
Minds Behind Them. You won't be disappointed
Links: Archimedes to Hawking Amazon page | The book's website | Cliff's website
On a personal note, this article took way longer than I thought (and I didn't even get to Stephen Hawking!) ... because I ended up reading Cliff's book from cover to cover! It was definitely an interesting read.
Now, like I mentioned above, Cliff has generously offered free copies of Archimedes to Hawking to Neatorama readers with the most interesting experience with science or funny personal story about a science class ... Write yours in the comment section; the best three will win a free personalized copy of Cliff's book (so make it good!)
If you like this article, please digg it - thank you!
10 Insulting Words You Should Know
*For example:
"Some cause happiness wherever they go; others, whenever they go," says Oscar Wilde.
George Bernard Shaw wrote to Winston Churchill, "I am enclosing two tickets to the first night of my new play; bring a friend....if you have one." And Churchill wrote back, "Cannot possibly attend first night, will attend second......if there is one"
Well, it’s hard to teach wit - but all of us can learn the next best thing: the approximation of it by obfuscation, i.e. using big, difficult, and obscure words. So, to do our part in improving the quality of insults on teh Interweb, Neatorama has come up with a list of 10 Insulting Words You Should Know:
1. FRENCHIFY (v)
Definition:
1) To make French in quality or trait 2) To make somewhat effeminate,
and 3) To contract a veneral disease (a 19th century slang).
Analysis: We have the English to thank for this word. Most people implicitly understand that it means to become more like the French, but not a lot know the second or the third meaning. We’re still not sure which is more insulting.
2. BESCUMBER (v)
Definition:
To spray with poo.
Analysis: Actually bescumber is just one of many words in the English language that basically mean “to spray with poo”. These are: BEDUNG, BERAY, IMMERD, SHARNY, and the good ol’ SHITTEN. In special cases, you can use BEMUTE (specifically means to drop poo on someone from great height), SHARD-BORN (born in dung), and FIMICOLOUS (living and growing on crap).
Alternative: If that is too vulgar, you can use BEVOMIT and BEPISS, which meanings should be obvious to you, as well as BESPAWL (to spit on).
Oh, and if you want to say poo without looking like you're saying it, you can use ORDURE, DEJECTION, and EXCRETA. To mean something more specific, you can use MECONIUM (first feces of a newborn child), MELAENA or MELENA (the abnormally tarry feces containing blood from gastrointestinal bleeding), LIENTERY (diarrhea with undigested or partially digested food), and STEATORRHEA (fatty stool that's hard to flush down).
Here are some words along the same line that may one day prove to be useful for you: TURDIFY (turn into turd), COPROPHAGIA (eating of feces [wiki]), and COPROPHILIA (Think 2 Girls 1 Cup [wiki - don't worry, SWF], if you don't know what this is, I shan't corrupt you any further).
Let's end entry number two with these two amazing words COPREMESIS and MISERERE, both of which mean fecal vomiting. Yes, fecal vomiting. It's a medical emergency caused by the obstruction of the bowel (source).
3. MICROPHALLUS (n)
Definition:
An unusually small penis.
Analysis: Self explanatory.
Alternative: Insulting a man’s private part is a very reliable way to put him down (if he’s smaller than you) or to get beat up (if he’s larger than you). Usually, even a dimwit can decipher the meaning of this word, after all, it’s just a combination of “micro” and “phallus”.
So, to insult a physically larger opponent, we recommend you use these words instead: PHALLOCRYPSIS (retraction or shrinkage of the penis), CRYPTORCHID (undescendend testicles), and PHALLONCUS (tumor of the penis).
4. COCCYDYNIA (n)
Definition:
Pain in the butt.
Analysis: It's a real medical term: coccydynia is pain in the coccyx or tailbone. Most people simply call it "buttache."
Similar: PROCTALGIA, PROCTODYNIA, PYGALGIA and RECTALGIA all mean pain in the butt.
Alternative: CERVICALGIA (pain in the neck), PHALLODYNIA or PHALLALGIA (both mean pain in the penis), and PUDENDAGRA (pain in the genitals).
The word "butt" is highly versatile in its vernacular use - you can say "butt face" or "hairy butt" - dem are fightin' words - but it's much better to use these instead: ANKYLOPROCTIA (stricture of the anus, the state of "tight-assity"), STEATOPYGOUS (fat-assed), DASYPYGAL (having hairy buttocks), and CACOPYGIAN (having ugly buttocks).
nbsp;
5. NINNYHAMMER (n)
Definition:
A fool or a silly person.
Analysis: The word "fool," unless you're Mr. T, is sometimes
woefully inadequate to express the stupidity of the person you're talking
about. So use Ninnyhammer. Or at least NINNY.
Alternative: The English language is chockful of colorful words meaning stupid person, such as: DUMMKOPF, IGNORAMUS, JOBBERNOWL, GOWK, and WITLING.
For mental retardation, eschew the ubiquitous 'tard - rather, use AMENTIA (extreme mental retardation because of inadequate brain tissue), CRETINISM (mental retardation associated with dwarfism, caused by the deficiency of a thyroid hormone, a person with cretinism is a CRETIN), and MORONITY (used to mean mild retardation of having a mental age of 7 to 12 years, now it's an obsolete term though we still use the word moron).
6. BUNCOMBE (n)
Definition:
A ludicrously false statement. Basically it means bullshit or nonsense.
Analysis: Actually, you probably already know this word by its more common spelling: bunkum.
The origin of this word is fascinating. In 1819, a North Carolina congressman, the Honorable Felix Walker, was giving a rambling speech with little relevance to the current debate. He refused to yield the floor, and claimed that he wasn't speaking for Congress but instead "for Buncombe" (a county in North Carolina he represented). That's all it took.
Over time, the spelling changed to "bunkum," and the meaning strangely changed to be "excellent." Then it changed back in 1870, when a San Francisco gambler introduced a new game "banco" played with dice that were later found out to be loaded. Sure enough, BUNCO became known to mean swindle or cheat, and bunkum reverted back to its original meaning. (Source)
The word DEBUNK came directly from this: it's just bunk(um) with the prefix de- (meaning to remove).
7. HIRCISMUS (n)
Definition:
Offensive armpit odor.
Analysis: Hircismus comes from the root word "hircus"
which means goat in Latin. Someone must have thought smelly pits smelled
like goats. Actually, this word combines two sources of great insult potential:
smelly and armpits. Why this is not used more often in the discourse of
hateful communication is beyond me.
Alternative: As we've mentioned, armpit is an untapped
goldmine for insults. Here are some examples of words you can use: MASCHALEPHIDROSIS
or MASCHALYPERIDROSIS (excessive sweating of the armpits). MASCHALOPHILOUS
(sexual attraction to the underarms) and AXILLISM (the use of armpit for
sex).
Smelling like goats is also a good source of insults (especially since goat is also a slang for a lecherous man). Try CAPRYLIC and HIRCINE (smelling like a pungent goat), and CAPRIC (resembling a goat).
8. CORPULENT (adj)
Definition:
Very fat.
Analysis: Good ol' fat is a reliable insult word. After all, nowadays, no one like a fatty ... except Mauritanian men. That's right: in the Islamic Republic of Mauritania, fat and Rubenesque women are sexy and desirable. So much so, that instead of the crash diet of the West, they have a similar but opposite program: crash feeding or "gavage," where girls as young as 5 years old are force-fed milk, cream, butter, couscous and other calorie-rich food:
Girls as young as 5 and as old as 19 had to drink up to five gallons of fat-rich camel’s or cow’s milk daily, aiming for silvery stretch marks on their upper arms. If a girl refused or vomited, the village weight-gain specialist might squeeze her foot between sticks, pull her ear, pinch her inner thigh, bend her finger backward or force her to drink her own vomit. In extreme cases, girls died. (Source)
Interestingly, the ideal man is skinny (Mauritanians view portly men as womanish and lazy).
Alternative: ABDOMINOUS (potbellied), STEATOPYGOUS (fat-assed), and FUSSOCK (a very fat woman).
9. FEIST or FICE (n)
Definition:
1) A small dog of uncertain ancestry, a mongrel. 2) A person of little
worth or someone with a bad temper, and 3) Silent fart.
Analysis: You actually already know this word: feist
is used throughout the Midland and Southern United States to mean a snappy,
nervous and belligerent little dog. The adjective feisty which
means "full of spirit or spunky," comes from this word. But
that's not why it's on this list (hint: #3!)
What you may not know is the true origin of the word. Feist comes from the Middle English fisten, which means to break wind (fist originally also meant flatus or fart). Feist is a special type of fart: the silent (and often deadly) type. Oh, and the word "fart" itself comes from another Middle English word farten or ferten, which in turn is from the Old English feortan.
Feist is the type of word that, if introduced to young adolescents, no doubt would spark a lifelong interest in learning new words.
Alternative: Fart is another one of those goldmines of insults. To obfuscate what you really mean, use instead: FLATUOSITY (fart). Other gems: EPROCTOLAGNIAC (someone aroused by flatulence, his own or someone else's), CARMINATIVE (something that makes you fart), and BDOLOTIC (prone to farting).
10. CACAFUEGO (n)
Definition:
A swaggering braggart or boaster.
Analysis: Cacafuego literally means "shit fire"
in Spanish. Anyone who boasts their new knowledge of insulting words from
this article can be called a cacafuego.
That's not the only interesting thing about it:
Cacafuego is also the nickname of a 16th century Spanish galleon captured by Sir Francis Drake (El Draque or The Dragon as he was known to his Spanish victims). The ship's original name was Nuestra Señora de la Concepción (Our Lady of Conception), but for some reason it's called by her sailors as "cagafuego" (fireshitter) or "cacafuego" (shitfire).
It was Drake's biggest plunder: it took his crew four days to transfer the cargo from the Cacafuego. In all, Drake got 80 pounds of gold, 26 tons of silver, 13 cases of silver coins, jewels, and more.
Synonym: BLATHERSKITE, BRAGGADOCIO, FANFARON, GASCONADER, and RODOMONTADE (English is full of this kind of word, though I think caca "shit fire" fuego is in a class of its own!)
REFERENCES
- Depraved
and Insulting English, a marvelous book by Peter Novobatzky and Ammon
Shea. Highly, highly recommended.
- The Free Dictionary
by Farlex
- Free Thesaurus by DonationCoder
(based on Grady Ward's Moby Thesaurus)
- Miriam-Webster Unabridged
Dictionary (it's behind a paywall)
Silly Political Parties (of the non-elephant-or-donkey variety)
It’s only April. That means we have another six months to hear all about the upcoming U.S. presidential election. While it’s obviously a very important decision that we all need to be well-informed about, I must admit, I’m getting a little tired of hearing about it. So, for something completely different, let’s discuss frivolous political parties (and no, I don’t mean Democrats or Republicans).
The Deadly Serious Party
The Deadly Serious Party of Australia was anything but. In the 1980s, the DSP was formed and promised to send a flock of trained, killer penguins to protect the Australian coasts from an invasion from Argentine.
Beer Lovers Party of Belarus
Yes! A party I can get behind. Apparently Beer Lovers political parties weren’t that uncommon in post-Soviet states. Their platform was “cleanness and quality of the national beer, state independence and the neutrality of Belarus, freedom of economic relations, personal inviolability and inviolability of the private property”.
The chairman of the party, Andrey Romashevsky, was arrested in 1995 for “hooliganism”. I had no idea that was a criminal offense. After he was released, he moved out of Belarus and the Beer Lovers Party pretty dissolved. Its mascot is a drunken hedgehog, which is a stereotype from Russian jokes (maybe someone can explain that to me?)
The Rhinoceros Party
The Parti Rhinocéros, AKA the Rhinoceros Party, was registered in Canada for more than 30 years. They issued “A promise to keep none of our promises.” Members of the party claimed to be the “spiritual descendants” of Cacareco, a Brazilian rhino that was elected to São Paulo’s city council in the 1950s. They claimed that the rhino was the perfect symbol for a political party, because, among other things, they are “slow-moving, dim-witted, can move fast as hell when in danger, and have large, hairy horns growing out the middle of their faces.” Promises the party made (which they had already promised not to keep) included repealing the law of gravity, paving Manitoba to make the world’s largest parking lot, ending crime by abolishing all laws and that they would enforce higher education by building taller schools.
Union of Conscientiously Work-Shy Elements
The UCWSE was a shockingly successful silly political party started in Denmark in 1979. Jacob Haugaard, the founder, was rather unexpectedly elected to the national parliament of Denmark in 1994. During his ‘94 campaign, he promised better weather, better Christmas presents, more pieces of Renaissance furniture in IKEA, Nutella in the army field rations and more bread for the ducks in parks. He actually accomplished the last two during his four-year term, and also had a public toilet placed in the park in Aarhus. This was especially important to him, because after each election he served beer and sausages in the Aarhus park to his voters.
Although the UCWSE was a joke, Haugaard was not expecting to actually be elected and took his duties very seriously when he was. He retired from politics in March 1998 when his first (and only) term was up. Photo from InternationalReports
The McGillicuddy Serious Party
The McGillicuddy Serious Party formed in 1984 in Hamilton, New Zealand, and had a strong Scottish theme. This seemed a little strange to me until I did some research – Hamilton is named for Captain John Charles Fane Hamilton, the Scottish commander of the HMS Esk. He was killed in Tauranga Campaign of the New Zealand Land Wars.
Anyway, Clan McGillicuddy discovered an extremely distance relationship to the Stuart pretenders of the royal family and suggested one of their own as a replacement for Queen Elizabeth II. They challenged the New Zealand army to a winner-take-all pillow fight battle for the crown. The challenge was declined.
To select political candidates, the party held a battle with newspaper swords and water balloons. Whoever lost the battle would become the candidate for that particular election. A game of musical chairs was another option.
The various policies of the party over the years included free dung, leaving beer on all of the beaches so any invading army would abandon attack and get drunk instead, a potato famine, limiting the speed of light, free castrations and putting accountants in concrete and using them as traffic barriers.
The Official Monster Raving Loony Party
Arguably the most famous frivolous party so far, the Official Monster Raving Loony Party is a registered party in the U.K. started in 1983 by David Sutch, AKA Screaming Lord Sutch. The party had some pretty solid backing in Commander Bill Boaks, a retired WWII hero who was involved in the sinking of the Bismarck.
Their platform included refusing to sign up to the euro, but inviting the rest of Europe to use the pound; letting motorists drive straight over a roundabout when no traffic was coming; and the introduction of a 99 pence coin to save on change. Despite their bizarre manifesto, some of the things the OMRLP asked for have come to pass in the U.K., including a voting age of 18, passports for pets and all-day pub openings.
Eventually, the some members of the party split off into other factions, most notably the Raving Loony Green Giant Party and the Rock ‘n’ Roll Loony Party. Photo from BBC News
Five People Killed By Their Own Inventions
Can you imagine putting years of time, effort and money into a life-changing invention that you think will:
a) Make you tons of money
b) Make you famous
c) Change the world
d) All of the above
And instead, your amazing invention ends up being your kiss of death? It happens… maybe infrequently, but it does happen. Below, check out five examples of inventors who might have prolonged their lives if they had never dreamed up their creations.
Bad Blood
Alexander Aleksandrovich Bogdanov was a Russian Renaissance Man – his interests included physics, philosophy, economics, science fiction, the universal systems theory and, his downfall – the possibilty of human rejuvenation through blood transfusion. Bogdanov was interested in the theory that a blood transfusion could possibly hold the secret to eternal youth, or at least slow the aging process. He actually performed a blood transfusion on Vladimir Lenin’s sister, Maria Ulianova. He tried 11 of these procedures on himself, with one of his friends remarking that Bogdanov appeared to be 10 years younger.
In 1928, he completed a blood transfusion on himself that ended up resulting in his death. The transfer was from a student who had malaria and tuberculosis. Some suspect that the death was, in fact, a suicide – Bogdanov wrote a very “nervous” political letter shortly before his death.
The Printing Press – Literally
William Bullock is the man responsible for the 1863 invention of the web rotary printing press. It completely changed the printing industry because of how quickly it could produce.
This was one of his many inventions – others included a roof shingle cutter, a cotton and hay press, a seed planter, a lathe cutting machine and a grain drill (which won him a prize from the Franklin Institute).
He perfected his web rotary press in 1860. Although a rotary press was already in operation, Bullock’s allowed continuous large rolls of paper to be used, eliminated the need to hand-feed paper through. The press could print up to 30,000 sheets an hour.
In 1867, though, the machine turned against Bullock. He was adjusting a new press that had been installed for the Philadelphia Public Ledger newspaper and tried to kick a driving belt onto a pulley. His leg got caught into the machine and was completely crushed. He died a little more than a week later during an operation to amputate his leg.
The First Aviation Accident (maybe)
Before the Wright Brothers, there was Otto Lilienthal. Known as the “Glider King”, he was the first person to make successful gliding flights more than once. Publications ran pictures of his successes, which helped to make the idea of inventing a “flying machine” more plausible to the public.
After many years of successes, failure finally caught up with him. On August 9, 1896, he fell from a height of 56 feet and broke his spine. He died the next day, but said “Kleine Opfer müssen gebracht werden!” (”Small sacrifices must be made!”).
The Wright Brothers credited him with as their inspiration for pursuing flight. “Of all the men who attacked the flying problem in the 19th century,” Wilbur Wright said, “Otto Lilienthal was easily the most important.”
Toxic substances couldn’t kill him…
Thomas Midgley, Jr. held more 100 patents, had a degree in mechanical engineering from Cornell and worked for a subsidiary of General Motors. He discovered that adding tetra-ethyl lead to gasoline prevented internal combustion engines from “knocking”. However, this also released huge amounts of lead into the atmosphere, causing health problems and massive pollution. After people at the GM plants started hallucinating and dying of lead poisoning, though, Midgley was assigned to develop a non-toxic refrigerant for household appliance. So, he discovered dichlorodifluoromethane (please don’t ask me to pronounce that), AKA Freon. Turns out that Freon is a chlorinated fluorocarbon, which is insanely bad for the ozone layer. This guy just couldn’t win!
Midgely wouldn’t live much longer to discover other toxic substances, though – in 1940, he developed polio. The disease left him extremely disabled, but, being the inventor that he was, he developed a system of pulleys and ropes to lift him out of bed. It was this invention – and not the hazardous exposure to lead and CFCs – that killed him. In 1944, he got tangled up in the ropes of his contraption and strangled to death.
The Brave Little Tailor
Franz Reichelt was a tailor who was convinced that the next big thing was a coat that doubled as a parachute. So he got busy sewing and developed just that. To test the coat/parachute (coatachute? Paracoat?), Reichelt climbed up to the first deck of the Eiffel Tower. He told authorities that he was going to use a dummy to test the invention, but at the last minute he strapped himself in and jumped to his death in front of a large crowd of spectators. If you YouTube his name, you’ll find video of the entire event. Since this is a family blog, I wasn’t sure that I should link to a man plummeting 60 meters to the cement below.
…And One Man Who Didn’t Die From his Invention
Apparently there’s a long-standing story that Dr. Joseph-Ignace Guillotin died at the “hand” of his namesake invention, the Bowie Knife. I’m just kidding. He helped conceive of the guillotine, obviously. He suggested the beheading machine as a way to humanely execute criminals. Guillotine was actually against the death penalty and hoped that his invention would be a step toward more humanity, which would eventually abolish the death penalty altogether. At the time, people who couldn’t afford to pay for a quick death were decapitated, but it often took quite a few blows and the axe or sword was usually rather dull. Although Guillotin was arrested and imprisoned in the late 1700s, he was not executed. He was freed and died of natural causes in 1814.
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+SUA Real Mystery…
My wife, son, and I just spent a few weeks driving from Arizona to Alaska. I’m sure many people are familiar with the trees of mystery park in northern California.
When we arrived there we noticed Babe was missing his head…. Am I the only one who thinks Paul Bunyan is looking rather suspicious?
Later that same evening…..
The House(s) That Spite Built
Human emotion is a crazy thing. It can lead people to do irrational, silly and even spiteful things. So spiteful, in fact, they would erect an entire house just to irritate someone.
A spite house is exactly what it sounds like – a building that was built or altered for the sole purpose of exacting revenge. A person would have to be pretty seriously spiteful to spend the time, effort and money to construct a whole building in the name of anger. Let’s look at a few edifices that were born out of those emotions.
The Hollensbury Spite House
I can imagine that in 1830, having horses constantly trod near your house would get pretty irritating. The noise, for one thing, but all of those road apples being dropped wouldn’t be too pleasant, either. And that’s exactly how John Hollensbury of Alexandria, Va., felt about the alley next to his house that constantly received horse and foot traffic. So, to prevent people from using the alley, he built a seven-foot wide, 25-foot deep, two-story house. He actually used one wall of the existing house to construct the new house, so as a result the living room of the Spite House has deep gouges in the brick wall from the wheels of carriages brushing up against it. Photo from Michael Temchine of the New York Times
The Richardson Spite House
In Manhattan, at Lexington and 82nd, imagine a tiny apartment building created just to tick someone off. In 1882, two neighbors each owned a small plot of adjacent land. Each plot was only about 104 feet long and five feet wide. One of the men, Hyman Sarner, offered to purchase the land from his neighbor, Joseph Richardson, for $1,000. Richardson countered that the land was worth at least $5,000. When they failed to reach an agreement, Richardson built a rather impractical four-story apartment building on his tiny rectangle of land. It was demolished in 1915, unfortunately – I’d love to see that tiny little apartment building dwarfed by the huge buildings and museums near 82nd and Lex today. I bet the rent would be outrageous.
The Skinny House
The Skinny House in Boston is pretty well-known, at least in the area. The story goes that in 1874, a couple of brothers had a fight over the land they had jointly inherited from their father. Instead of properly settling the fight, one brother built a large home on the land while the other brother was away in the military. When the traveling brother returned home, he decided to spite his greedy brother and build a small house on what was left of the land they both owned, blocking his brother’s nice view.
It still stands today and is occupied. At its widest point, the Skinny House is just over 10 feet wide. The narrowest point in the house is only 6.2 feet wide.
The Edleston Spite House
Spiteful construction might seem like an American phenomenon, but it’s really not. England has seen its share of spite as well. In 1904, the Edleston family owned a plot of land next to the church yard of St. Mary’s in Gainford, England, where they attended church. When Joseph died, the family asked to build a monument in the churchyard in Joseph’s memory – he was a very active member of the church and had been for 41 years. The church said that the churchyard was already too full, but that the family could donate their land to the church and build something on that. Irked, the family built a house on the land next to the church, complete with a 40 foot column that pointed a V-sign (victory?) toward the church. The house is still there today, although I unfortunately couldn’t find any pictures of it.
The Tyler Spite House
You’ve been reading these and thinking “That’s great, but what I would really like to do is spend the night in a spite house,” haven’t you? Well, you’re in luck. The Tyler Spite House in Frederick, Md., is now a bed and breakfast. In 1814, Dr. John Tyler was the first American physician to perform a cataract operation. When the city made plans to extend a street directly through Tyler’s land, he did a little research and found that a local law prohibited building a road if work was under way on a “substantial” building in the path of the new road. He found this law just in time – he immediately had a building foundation poured on the small piece of his property that the new road would run through and effectively stopped the road from being built.