John Farrier's Blog Posts

Kiribati's Lazy Naming Practices

The Republic of Kiribati (pronounced "Kirr-ih-bass") is a nation consisting of 32 islands stretching across 1.3 million square miles of water in the central Pacific Ocean. The social media manager for the government has had a lively week responding to a viral tweet about the names of villages on the island of Kiritimati.

Emmanuel Rougier, an early 20th Century French priest and entrepreneur, provided the names of the villages when he leased the island.

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The Portable Nuclear Bomb Shelter

In modern life, there's a very real risk of being caught in a nuclear blast. You may be caught unawares while casually walking to work, shopping, or doing chores around your home. This is a reality that we've lived with since August 22, 1949. Fortunately, American inventor Harold C. Tifft prudently responded with a portable protective shield. You can read a copy of his patent here.

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Two College Athletes Granted Cornhole Scholarships

Why do we exercise? In the West, a cultural emphasis on fitness derives from a desire for military preparedness.

Strabo notes that the Romans had a field dedicated to Mars, the god of war, outside of the city where men engaged "ball-playing, hoop-trundling, and wrestling." An apocryphal statement by Wellington asserts that "The Battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton." It is an invented quote, but became a popular attribution because the sentiment is true: sports prepare young people for war.

Which brings us to cornhole.

This is a martial sport popular in the United States, especially at outdoor social gatherings. It consists of throwing beanbags precisely into holes cut into an inclined board. Cornhole requires precision, focus, and courage--martial qualities.

So it is good that Winthrop University in South Carolina is offering scholarships to Gavin Hamann and Jaxson Remmick, who are two young men with prodigious talents in cornhole. The New York Post informs us that they are the first such scholarship recipients in the United States.

-via Dave Barry | Photo: Tony Alter


Man Secures Guinness World Record by Sticking 68 Matches up His Nose

The Greco-Roman historian Plutarch, in his Life of Julius Caesar, describes an incident in which the future ruler of Rome was reading a biography of Alexander the Great when he burst into tears. His companions asked him why. Caesar replied:

"Do you not think," said he, "it is matter for sorrow that while Alexander, at my age, was already king of so many peoples, I have as yet achieved no brilliant success?"

No matter what any of us can accomplish of the course of our lives, there is always someone greater than ourselves. That person is Peter von Tangen Buskov, who has secured a Guinness World Record for the most matchsticks stuck up the nostrils. That number is 68, but von Tangen Buskov plans to train his nose to take an even greater number, just as Alexander, at the time of his death, was planning the conquest of Arabia.

-via Dave Barry


Scottish People Love to "Hurkle-Durkle" in Bed

Little is known about the mysterious and frozen lands of the Caledonians. Historically speaking, we have few sources to work with. The First Century AD writer Tacitus, in his biography of the Roman general Gnaeus Julius Agricola, describes a great battle by Agricola in what is now Scotland, but provides only that the inhabitants have "red hair and large limbs" -- a description nearly as skimpy as a true Scotman's underwear.

But recent news reports trickling south of the Wall inform us that Scottish people like to "hurkle-durkle" in bed. And, despite gender stereotypes, both men and women do this. The New York Post tells us more, if you really want to know. Social media is abuzz with this scandalous news. Defenders insist that a good hurkle-durkle is beneficial for your health.

As for me, I make no judgments of other cultures or what other people do in the privacy of their bedrooms. Or huts. But I assure you that although my ancestors may have hailed from Scotland, I most assuredly do not engage in hurkle-durkling.

-via Dave Barry | Image: Pxhere


Traditional Chinese Bluegrass Music

Cathy Fink and Marcy Marxer are a musical duo who have, for decades, endeared listeners with their performances on guitars, mandolins, and, most importantly, banjos.

The banjo is traditionally associated with bluegrass music, although you can play almost any genre on it, including classical and hard rock. Fink and Marxer can blend it with traditional Chinese music with the aid of Chao Tian, a master of the Chinese dulcimer (sometimes called a yangqin). Two years ago, at a concert titled "From China to Appalachia", the three musicians performed together.

What is this new genre? On Twitter, Emma Tolkin suggests that we call it Appalachinese.


Single Male Assyriologist Seeks Single Female Assyriologist

Appropriate for Valentine's Day, the New York Times (paywalled) tells the love story of Sophie Lund Rasmussen and Troels Pank Arboll, two Danish academics who share an interest in the history of the ancient Near Eastern culture known as the Assyrian Empire. Rasmussen is actually an ecologist, but she likes to read within the academic specialty of her husband, Arboll, who is a professional Assyriologist.

The couple are credited with groundbreaking research into the history of kissing. The historical and archaeological records from ancient Mesopotamia indicate that couples kissed. It was generally a practice not engaged in as a precursor to further intimacy but something that couples did after they had "clashed chariots", if you know what I mean. Specifically, a clay tablet from 2400 B.C. describes a male god impregnating his mother/sister with seven gods and then kissing her.

If you get some romantic time with a partner on this Valentine's Day, perhaps you should pass along this story to set the mood.

-via Dave Barry | Image: British Museum


The Escalator Slide

As a general statement, it would be helpful if popular architecture made broader use of slides. Like batpoles, they're fun and convenient. Julijonas Urbonas, a Lithuanian architect known for his eccentric designs and art installations, erected this one as a public sculpture in a business district in Vilnius.

From one side, it looks just like a stainless steel escalator, yet it leads not to a boardroom but instead to a slide. Two-piece suits are not required for the dress code, but they are strongly recommended. Use it to relax during your coffee break.  Also, since you don't really go anywhere or accomplish anything, you can regard it as just another day on the job.

-via Core77


In Defense of Blondes

Liv Swearingen is a singer, YouTuber, and social media star known for her light-hearted online content. But in this apparently now-deleted TikTok video, Swearingen gets serious about an issue near to her heart and no doubt stemming from personal experience: blonde jokes.

As a genre, blonde jokes assume that golden-haired women are dumb. In this video, Swearingen forcefully and persuasively argues that blonde women are, in fact, quite intelligent and denigrating their intellect is morally debasing.


Bicyclist Safely Crashes into Balloons

This video of an origin unknown to me shows a bicyclist proceeding quite lawfully through the bike lane on a two-lane road. A driver turns left in front of him, forcing the cyclist to veer off onto the driveway.

The man needed an airbag. Such things actually exist and are technologically improving. But with only a second available, he could not shop for one and improvised with a balloon display conveniently placed a few yards away.

Hey, if it's stupid but it works then it's not so stupid.

-via Born in Space


Chesterton's Bicycle

G.K. Chesterton, a Nineteenth and Twentieth Century British writer, is perhaps most well-known today for the principle known as Chesterton's Fence. It may be summarized as this: if there is some sort of rule or tradition in place, it may have been created with good reason. You may think that the reason is no longer valid or even counterproductive, but the people who came before you were not idiots and you should proceed cautiously when removing those traditions.

Why was this bicycle in the road? Perhaps it was parked there for a reason. Don't move it until you know what that reason was.

-via David Thompson


Check Out This Cool Nineteenth Century Multi Tool

Redditor /u/special_evan shares a photo of a multi tool quite unlike the Leatherman PST in your pocket. It's labeled with the words Underwood and Haymarket. Underwood was a metalworker who operated from a shop on Haymarket Street in London. This tool is allegedly made specifically for fishermen and sailors. /u/Nathan51530 identifies the tools from left to right as:

  • A hook used to untie knots.
  • A scoop for measuring medication.
  • A screw starter.
  • A different screw starter.
  • A corkscrew.
  • A toothpick or possibly an awl.
  • A saw blade.
  • A flathead screwdriver.
  • A pick.
  • A hook to snag fishing lines.

Of course, from those times to now, tools can be used for different purposes. /u/Big_Message_1110 jokes that, "Every tool is a hammer, unless it's a screwdriver. then it's a chisel."

-via Birch Brother


Could Seaweed Become a Food Source after a Nuclear War?

Florian Ulrich Jehn is a scholar who examines ways that humanity could mitigate starvation risks in the event of existential crises, such as nuclear war. He and colleagues have published a peer-reviewed report which considers the possibility of the mass cultivation of seaweed in the aftermath of a nuclear war.

Such an event and any ensuing nuclear winter could devastate terrestrial food production due to reduced sunlight. But tropical oceans are likely to remain environmentally sound. The authors conclude that it might be possible to produce sufficient quantities of Gracilaria tikvahiae in quantities equal to 45% of global human food needs.

-via Marginal Revolution | Still shot from Stanley Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove


AI Decodes Charred Scrolls from 79 AD

It's 2024. I doubt that I'm the only person to look into this new year with some trepidation for the future. There is a zeitgeist suggesting, to borrow from the words of Yeats a century ago, that some rough beast, its hour come at last, is slouching toward us.

Our greatest minds, seeking to pierce the separation between machine and man, have created artificial intelligences. These AIs are to be our servants for now. And to what purpose do we set these minds? To decode a necronomicon that was lost with the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD and the destruction of Pompeii and Herculaneum in a blood-dimmed tide.

There, a collection of papyrus scolls were seared into unintelligibility. Humanity was preserved from the Cthulic knowledge within until human scientists used artificial intelligences (or possibly the reverse) to reveal them. The Guardian reports that a cabal of researchers led by Youssef Nader, Luke Farritor, and Ulian Schilinger have won a $1 million prize called the Vesuvius Challenge to anyone who could discern the strange writings on the scrolls.

Surely some revelation is at hand.

-via Abraham Ash | Image: Vesuvius Challenge


What Accents Will Future Space Colonists Develop?

Assuming that the future history of humanity is not accurately depicted in Idiocracy, it's possible that large numbers of humans will eventually settle the solar system. These human communities will be isolated from each other and the languages that they use will change. What sort of accents might they develop?

Live Science investigated the scientific literature on accents developed in isolation. This includes a study of 11 researchers who spent the winter together in Antarctica and isolated from the rest of humanity. These people began developing a unified phonetic pattern in just a few months.

It is likely that the initial wave of colonists would establish an accent that later colonists would adopt. This is why the dominant Australian accent resembles the Cockney accent of the initial European colonists of that island.

Thus it will be essential that terran leadership ensure that the first colonists speak Valley Girl with a sharp vocal fry.

-via Dave Barry | Image: NASA


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Profile for John Farrier

  • Member Since 2012/08/04


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