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Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in
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| Sunday, October 12th, 2008 | |
| 12:45 am | A Knight’s House: Tobias Stimmer
In 1566, the Swiss artist Tobias Stimmer (1539-1584) was commissioned to adorn the Haus zum Ritter (Knight’s House) in Schauffhausen with frescoes. Today, the Haus zum Ritter’s frescoes are considered the “best preserved Renaissance frescoes north of the Alps.” A bit about the frescoes and Stimmer: 1. The frescoes on Haus zum Ritter cover a wide range of themes, ranging from the virtues of Swiss knights to portraits of the owner (Hans von Waldkirch, a knight) and the artist himself. Also included are allegories of the virtues maintained by the State and the Church; mythology, including Apollo, Daphne, and Odysseus; self-sacrificing love; and female virtue and male steadfastness. 2. Tobias Stimmer was one of 11 children of Christoph Stimmer, who was not only a schoolmaster but also a well-regarded painter, calligrapher, and bookbinder. At least five of the other Stimmer sons also became artists. 3. Haus zum Ritter was built in 1492 and was originally two individual medieval manor houses. When Hans von Waldkirch rebuilt Haus zum Ritter in 1566, he added on the upper floors. Stimmer spent between two and three years covering the façade of Haus zum Ritter with his frescoes. 4. Though Stimmer was an artist by trade, producing woodcuts for book illustrations, he was also a writer. He authored a comedy in 1580 that “portrays the misunderstandings that arise when a wife plans to seek a lover during her husband’s absence.” The comedy, titled Comoedia von zweien jungen eeleuten, wie sey sich in fürfallender reiss beiderseitz verhalten, is usually just known as Von zwei Eheleuten. 5. Stimmer’s original frescoes were removed from Haus zum Ritter in 1935 and were replaced with reproductions by Carl Roesch. The badly damaged originals are now on display in the Museum zu Allerheiligen (All Saints Museum).
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| Saturday, October 11th, 2008 | |
| 9:42 pm | 15 Noteworthy Nobel Prize Nuggets In honor of Nobel Prize season, here are 15 quick stories about the awards.
2. Physicist Lise Meitner, whose work helped lead to the discovery of nuclear fission, was reportedly nominated for the Nobel Prize 13 times without ever winning (though nominations are kept secret, so we don’t know for sure). This makes her the Dynasty of the Nobel Prize scene—that show was nominated for 24 Emmy Awards but never won. Other analogies we’d accept: The Color Purple (11 Oscar nominations in 1985, no wins), the Buffalo Bills or Minnesota Vikings (4 Super Bowl losses each) and William Jennings Bryan (three-time Democratic nominee for President, losing twice to McKinley and once to Taft.)
6. Big names who never won: Dmitri Mendeleev, Leo Tolstoy, Virginia Woolf, James Joyce, Marcel Proust, Mark Twain, Gertrude Stein, Henrik Ibsen, Joan Robinson, Thomas Edison, Nikola Tesla, Jules-Henri Poincaré, Raymond Damadian and Mahatma Gandhi. 7. People who refused the Prize: • Le Duc Tho was awarded the 1973 Nobel Peace Prize with Henry Kissinger for their roles in brokering a Vietnam cease fire at the Paris Peace Accords. Citing the absence of actual peace in Vietnam, Tho declined to accept. • Jean Paul Sartre waved off the 1964 Nobel Prize in Literature. His explanation: “It is not the same thing if I sign Jean-Paul Sartre or if I sign Jean-Paul Sartre, Nobel Prize winner. A writer must refuse to allow himself to be transformed into an institution, even if it takes place in the most honorable form.” • Afraid of Soviet retribution if he traveled to Stockholm to claim his prize, Boris Pasternak declined to accept the 1958 Prize in Literature, which he’d earned for Doctor Zhivago. The Academy refused his refusal. “This refusal, of course, in no way alters the validity of the award. There remains only for the Academy, however, to announce with regret that the presentation of the Prize cannot take place.” His son Yevgeny accepted the prize for his father in 1989. • Swedish poet Erik Axel Karlfeldt won for Literature in 1918. He did not accept because he was Secretary of the Swedish Academy, which awards the prize. He was given the award posthumously in 1931. This was allowed because the nomination was made before Karlfeldt died—no candidate may be proposed after death. 8. Winners without the greatest reputations: • Daniel Carleton Gajdusek, who won in 1976 for his research in human slow-virus infections, spent 19 months in jail after pleading guilty in 1997 to charges of child molestation. • Johannes Fibiger won in 1926 after discovering parasitic worms cause cancer – a breakthrough that turned out to not be true. • Yasser Arafat shared the 1994 Nobel Peace Prize with Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Rabin. This decision caused Nobel Committee member Kare Kristiansen to resign. “What consequences will result,” he asked at the time, “when a terrorist with such a background is awarded the world’s most prestigious prize?” • William Shockley won for Physics in 1956 for his role in the invention of the semiconductor, but his support of the eugenics movement alienated the scientific community. Shockley also donated sperm to the Repository for Germinal Choice, a sperm bank developed to spread humanity’s best genes. 9. As part of his divorce settlement, Einstein’s Nobel Prize money went to his ex-wife, Mileva Maric. 10. The first Nobel Laureates collected 150,800 Swedish kronor (about $15,420 today). The stakes have been raised. This year’s prize was $1.5 million – shared in the case of multiple winners. 11. Alfred Nobel’s will established five categories: Physics, Chemistry, Physiology or Medicine, Literature, and Peace. The prize for economics—formally called the Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel—was created in 1968 by Sweden’s central bank in honor of its 300th anniversary. 12. The Curie family is a Nobel Prize machine, winning five: Pierre and Marie for Physics in 1901; Marie solo for Chemistry in 1911; daughter Irene and her husband Frédéric Joliot-Curie for Chemistry in 1935; and Henry Labouisse – Irene’s daughter Eve’s second husband – accepted on behalf of UNICEF in 1965. No family has won more. 13. Marie Curie’s second prize was marred by scandal. Then a widow, Curie had an affair with a married scientist, Paul Langevin – a former pupil of Pierre Curie. Love letters were involved, eventually leading to a duel between Langevin and the editor of the newspaper that had printed them (no shots were actually fired.) When it was suggested that she not accept the prize, she wrote a shrewd letter, in which “she pointed out that she had been awarded the Prize for her discovery of radium and polonium, and that she could not accept the principle that appreciation of the value of scientific work should be influenced by slander concerning a researcher’s private life.”
The prizes for physics and chemistry shall be awarded by the Swedish Academy of Sciences; that for physiological or medical works by the Caroline Institute in Stockholm; that for literature by the Academy in Stockholm; and that for champions of peace by a committee of five persons to be elected by the Norwegian Storting. It is my express wish that in awarding the prizes no consideration whatever shall be given to the nationality of the candidates, so that the most worthy shall receive the prize, whether he be Scandinavian or not.
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| 6:26 pm | The Weekend Links It’s a tough job market out there. So check out the odd jobs A-Z list from 2008, and see if you can’t find something new and different for a career … such as a kitty litter box decorator, or a bartender at the Liberace mansion (Thanks Jan!) [Error: Irreparable invalid markup ('<img </p>') in entry. Owner must fix manually. Raw contents below.] <p class="ljsyndicationlink"><a href="http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/19150">http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/19150</a></p><p>It’s a tough job market out there. So check out the <a href="http://www.savvysugar.com/2297655">odd jobs A-Z</a> list from 2008, and see if you can’t find something new and different for a career … such as a kitty litter box decorator, or a bartender at the Liberace mansion (Thanks Jan!)<br />
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From Merinda, a <a href="http://www.anatomyarcade.com/games/WAB/WAB.html">game about bones</a> that is both educational and addictive. See how well you do! (Merinda says she beat it - did anyone else?)<br />
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<img id="image19147" src="http://www.mentalfloss.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/food1.thumbnail.jpg" alt="food1.jpg" /><img id="image19148" src="http://www.mentalfloss.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/food2.thumbnail.jpg" alt="food2.jpg" /><img id="image19149" src="http://www.mentalfloss.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/food3.thumbnail.jpeg" alt="food3.jpeg" /><img id="image19149" </p>
<p>If you're hungry or on a diet, you may not want to click <a href="http://www.tastespotting.com/">here</a>, where tons of delicious food pictures are aggregated from blogs and on display. The idea is so popular, there’s <a href="http://foodgawker.com/">another site</a> devoted to it as well.<br />
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Speaking of food, according to <a href="http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/10/081009-dinosaur-big.html">this article</a>, chewing your food 40 times before swallowing may not be in your best interest. At least, that’s how some dinosaurs did it … but you see what happened to them.<br />
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A <a href="http://www.heraldleaderphoto.com/2008/09/18/man-decorates-basement-with-10-worth-of-sharpie/">cheap decorating idea</a>: “When Charlie Kratzer started on the basement art project in his south Lexington home, he was surrounded by walls painted a classic cream. Ten dollars of Magic Marker and Sharpie later, the place was black and cream and drawn all over.”<br />
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Everything I needed to know in life I learned from … a <a href="http://www.maniacworld.com/baby-duck-feed-the-carp.html">baby duck feeding carp</a>?. See it to believe it!<br />
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See if your town made it on the list of <a href="http://www.qualityhealth.com/psp/7-brainiest-cities-in-america/featuredArticle.jspa;jsessionid=127B23A1D0EB2B937E92FD627C36C53D.webapp12">7 Brainiest American Cities</a>. Mine, er, didn’t.<br />
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Slightly scary <a href="http://ptnoticias.com/pumpkinway/">jack-o-lanterns</a> for Halloween.<br />
<a id="more-19150"></a><br />
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Short and hilarious video on <a href="http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3434714271274189234">elevator psychology</a>. As a frequent elevator user myself, I know it’s hard to resist the actions of your cramped compartment cohorts.<br />
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Dailies and Alt Weeklies are in trouble everywhere. Read the <em>Washington City Paper</em>’s <a href="http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/display.php?id=36322">satirical cover story</a> regarding its parent company’s bankruptcy, and what it means for readers.<br />
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Are you getting beaten up for your sandwich on the playground (or the office?) … consider using this <a href="http://www.skforlee.com/independent_work/lunch_bag.html">anti-theft lunch bag.</a><br />
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For any Flossers from the UK, try <a href="http://www.buymeabeer.com/">this service</a> that allows you to instantly send a drink voucher from Corney & Barrow Wine Bar directly to someone’s mobile phone. As link-finder Meredith points out, “They are also a supplier to Queen Elizabeth II, but I’m not aware if the Queen utilizes this service. ;)” As far as we know, anyway.<br />
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A <a href="http://www.metacafe.com/watch/1008325/super_sprayer/">video</a> that shows how a space painting is made with spray paint. The result is rather unexpectedly beautiful.<br />
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Having a bad day? Go <a href="http://www.cse.unsw.edu.au/~geoffo/humour/flattery.html">here</a>. </p>
<p>Keep sending in your great links, favorite spots, and interesting internet finds to <strong>FlossyLinks@gmail.com</strong>. Thanks in advance!</p>
<p>[<a href="http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/18933">Last Weekend’s Links</a>]
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| Friday, October 10th, 2008 | |
| 8:50 pm | Video of the Day My wife just sent me this clip, titled “My dogs greeting me after returning from 14 months in Iraq.” Have you ever seen a tail wag that fast? [Courtesy of andrewsullivan.com.] |
| 10:25 pm | John Markoff on Front-Page Stories That Weren’t John Markoff is best known for his reportage at The New York Times, as well as a series of books on popular technology (Cyberpunk and Takedown are both great). Markoff has been a print journalist riding the wave of technology for over twenty years — he knows his technical stuff, and he’s broken a lot of big stories over the years. Markoff gave a talk at last year’s EG Conference in Los Angeles. In it, he shared some anecdotes of his career in journalism: a series of stories that he thought were front page news, but apparently his editors disagreed. TED has just posted the talk, and I’ve embedded it below. It’s a nice little talk (just over ten minutes), and worth a look for those of us who still get technology news from the newspaper:
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| 6:19 pm | War Machines: The Next Generation of Killer Robots by David Axe The new generation of military robots can hover silently overhead, swarm undetected around enemies, and disable bombs—all without sweating a drop. Silent AssassinsPredator: The Remote Executioner Reaper: Warding Off Aliens Reaper is like the Predator’s brawny, muscle-bound cousin. Weighing in at 5 tons, Reaper can carry 5,000 lbs. of bombs and missiles, yet it’s still quiet enough to evade detection. In Iraq and Afghanistan, Reapers have specialized in rescuing cornered ground troops. More recently, however, the American government has been using them for a different purpose—to catch illegal immigrants. In 2005, the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol started flying weaponless versions of the hulking drones to monitor the Mexican border. They’re expected to head for the Canadian border later this year. Lords of the FliesX-47 Bombers: ’Bots that Can Swarm Engineers are working to build the first prototypes of the X-47 bombers—unmanned fighter planes that will be able to swarm around the enemy like giant locusts. According to defense-industry engineer Pat Johnson, the goal is to “get the drones to communicate with each other so they can work as a team.” They’ll be able to “see” each other using radars and cameras and “talk” to each other using radios. They’ll also be able to make split-second decisions about maneuvering in the air—all while keeping in constant contact with military planners back at headquarters. Combining all of those features is a tall order for engineers, and it may be another 15 years before the X-47s are ready for action.
Creepy CrawliesMULE: Ahead of the Pack
This article originally appeared in mental_floss magazine. Want a free six-month subscription? Get the details here. |
| 7:05 pm | Cheetah vs. Leopard: What’s the Difference?
Editor’s Note: Earlier this week, reader Caitlin Rogers asked, “I was planning on being a cheetah for Halloween and I’ve come up with a cheetah print dress, leopard print ears and tail, and a cheetah print clutch. The spots look the same to me. What’s the difference between a cheetah and a leopard?” To prevent a Halloween faux pas, Matt Soniak is here with a special edition of ‘What’s the Difference?’ The Dilemma: You want to be a cheetah for Halloween. You do NOT want to be confused for a leopard. People You Can Impress: Biologists, African tribes. The Quick Trick: It’s all in the spots. Cheetahs have simple black spots, while leopards have a more complex pattern. The Explanation: Both cats can be found across Africa, the Arabian Peninsula and southern Asia, and when encountered, both really just look like a scary mass of spots and teeth. When viewed from a safe vantage point, though, there are a number of physical and behavioral characteristics that set them apart.
A cheetah, at left, and a leopard. Cheetahs have solid black round/oval spots and black “tear lines” that run from the corner of their eyes down the sides of their nose to their mouth (the lines keep sunlight out of the cheetahs’ eyes while hunting). They’re also lankier than rest of the big cats and have smaller jaws and longer tails. They hunt during the day and rely on bursts of speed (up to 75mph over short distances). When walking and running, they pace, moving their two left legs and then their two right legs. Unlike leopards and other big cats, they can purr while they inhale, but can’t roar. Leopards have more complex spotting pattern of clusters of black and brown spots which look like roses, called rosettes. This pattern simulates shifting plants and shadows, providing camoflage as the leopards stalk their prey from tall grass and underbrush. Leopards in eastern Africa have circular rosettes, while their southern African brethren have square rosettes. Leopards are also noticeably bulkier looking than cheetahs. They’re not built for speed, but surprise attacks. The extra strength helps leopards drag their prey up trees, where hide the kill to feed on at their leisure. Leopards walk using their legs in diagonal pairs (i.e. left front and right back leg, then right front and left back leg). Like the rest of the big cats, leopards can roar but can’t purr except while they’re exhaling. |
| 7:29 pm | The Quick 10: 10 Stories About the Real Dracula
Happy Friday!! To celebrate the end of the week, today’s Q10 will be part three of my sporadic Halloween series. Since you’re mental_floss readers and lovers of all things knowledge, I’m sure you already know that there was a real Dracula. He probably wasn’t a vampire and he definitely couldn’t turn into a bat, but he did do some really horrible things. We’ll discuss them, but first a little history: Vlad Tepes was the son of Vlad II Dracul. He became known as Vlad Dracula because the suffix tacked on there makes the surname mean “son of Dracul.” He ruled Wallachia three times – 1448, 1456-1462 and 1476. A lot of the horrible stories are hard to verify, because some of what we know about Vlad’s cruelty is based on German stories – which, of course, would make him out to be a terrible man. As a counterpoint, most Romanian stories about Vlad portray him as heroic and one of the greatest leaders they’ve ever had. Anyway, the terrible tales:
4. Let it be known that Vlad had a sense of humor – a dark, terrible sense of humor. When some Turkish ambassadors refused to remove their caps in his presence, he asked why they would dishonor him like that. They replied that it was their custom to not remove the caps in public; only in the privacy of their homes. So Vlad helped them out by having their hats permanently nailed to their heads (that’s one of the German stories, I believe). 5. We know Vlad liked to impale people, but he was particularly sadistic about it. Not that impaling someone could probably not be sadistic, but you know what I mean. Here’s how he did it – if you just ate lunch, maybe go ahead and skip to #6. First, the victim would have a horse attached to each of his legs. I suppose for stability, but I’m not totally sure on that one. Wouldn’t tying the victim to stakes or something have worked just as well? Anyway, then a seim-sharpened stake would be forced into the body from below – usually through the anus, with the desired end effect being the other end of the stake coming through the mouth. The stick couldn’t be too sharp, though, because then the victim might die quickly, and what fun would that be for Vlad?
8. According to the stories, when Vlad came to power the second time, he invited a lot of the nobles who were responsible for the cruel deaths of his brother and father to a huge, luxurious feast. Once there, he had the older nobles impaled. The younger nobles and their families were forced to march to the ruins of a castle in the mountains and forced them to rebuild it. The stories say the prisoners worked until their tattered clothes fell off, and then were forced to keep working in the nude. Once it was completed, Vlad used the Poenari Castle as one of his fortresses. 9. His first wife supposedly killed herself when that same castle was raided by the Turkish army in 1462. Vlad’s own half-brother, Radu the Handsome, led the siege on the castle. When word got back that the Turkish army was getting close, Vlad’s wife apparently threw herself out of the tower into the water below, saying that she “would rather have her body rot and be eaten by the fish of the Argeş than be led into captivity by the Turks”. That body of water, a tributary of the Argeş, is called Raul Doamnei – the Lady’s River (or the Princess’s River). 10. It’s generally thought that The Impaler finally met his end in a battle against the Ottoman Empire in December, 1476. But other stories abound, including several that have him being felled by his own men. One of the stories also says that when he was killed, the Turks cut his head off, preserved it in honey and had it sent to Istanbul. The sultan proudly displayed his trophy on – what else – a stake. |
| 4:21 pm | Friday Happy Hour: How’d You End Up Where You Are? I’ve got four questions for you today. Answer one, answer all, whatever you’d like. Cheers!
We had the car towed, found shelter, hit up the hotel bar and waited for the diagnosis. When the bartender asked to see our IDs, he nonchalantly said, “You guys hail from my neck of the woods. I’m from Morristown” (the next town over from our native Denville, NJ). When pressed, he said he was driving to Los Angeles in 1981. His car broke down in Silverthorne. He couldn’t afford to fix it. He never left. At a time in my life dominated by job fairs and interviews and uncertainty—I was just about to begin my senior year—the idea that this man’s whole life was determined by a faulty alternator and the high price of auto repair in Summit County, Colorado, was more than I could process. The next morning, our car miraculously started. We didn’t break down again until Denver, 70 miles later. But eventually we made it home, and didn’t have to permanently settle in any of the places we stalled. If there’s a lesson in this story, I never found it—though I do make sure my alternator is in working order before any major journeys. But perhaps some of you have a similar story. How’d you end up where you are? 3. My local Walgreens has stopped carrying Pure American Sparkling Water. This (absolutely) does not matter to anyone but me. I was slightly addicted to this Splenda-laden beverage, and even discussed it in a previous mental_floss newsletter (which probably explains why we don’t have more newsletter subscribers). What discontinued product do you miss most? 4. In my head—and when I’m watching alone—I’m great at Wheel of Fortune. But whenever I watch with other people, my ability to solve the puzzle seems very much in line with the general public. On what game show (or reality show) do you think you’d do the best? And this isn’t so much a question as a reminder and a plea: The Mental Floss History of the World has slipped to #29 on the Amazon bestseller list. Though compared to #145,714, where we were last weekend, that’s still pretty good. It’s not too early to cross a few names off your holiday shopping list… |
| 3:30 pm | Lunchtime Quiz: TV Theme Songs
If you played along during our last How Did You Know? you already have a head-start on today’s TV Theme Song Quiz. Get your nostalgia on by turning up those speakers and seeing how many of the classic theme songs you know by ear. |
| 3:01 pm | The Myth of Multitasking
For some people, multitasking isn’t just a skill — it’s a kind of addiction. My wife, for instance, finds it nearly impossible to read a book without the television on. I’ll often find her with a magazine in one hand, typing on a laptop — writing something and instant messaging simultaneously — while the TV blares. According to numerous new studies (I keep telling her), this may feel like an efficient way to be, but it’s not — in fact, “extreme” multitasking can mimic the same brain patterns as ADD. A Vanderbilt study described the effects of problem multitasking in the brain as a kind of anti-productive “response selection bottleneck,” which leads to lost time as the brain decides which task to perform. Another noted that extreme multitasking “contributes to the release of stress hormones and adrenaline” which can lead to long-term health problems and short-term memory problems. Yet another found that multitasking adversely effects the way we learn: “if you learn while multitasking, that learning is less flexible and more specialized, so you cannot retrieve the information as easily,” according to UCLA psychology professor Russell Poldrack. What we don’t know is how this will effect the current generation of teenagers, who are far and away the most inveterate media multitaskers the world has known. “They develop a more superficial style of study and may not learn material as well,” said cognitive scientist David Meyer. “What they get out of their study might be less deep. The belief [among teens] is that they’re getting good at this and that they’re much better than the older generation at it and that there’s no cost to their efficiency.” We’ll see about that! I’m the first to admit, I’m not immune to the multitasking bug. Right now I’m fighting a very serious urge to check my email and look at the top stories on Digg. But there’s some sort of latent Puritanical voice in my head that counsels me to do the work until it’s done. Sometimes the voice wins out, sometimes it doesn’t. [Update: I have no new messages in my inbox.]
Links: The Atlantic, The New Atlantis, Washingtonpost.com. |
| 1:34 pm | The Weird Week in Review Iowa Teen Abandoned in NebraskaA new law in Nebraska states that any child can be relinquished by anyone at a hospital without incurring abandonment charges. The broadly-worded law was meant to protect children from parents who could not care for them. A couple in Council Bluffs, Iowa took advantage of the law by driving their granddaughter over the state line and leaving her at a Omaha hospital. The 14-year-old girl was the first child relinquished from out of state. The girl was returned to her family in Iowa after the grandparents changed their minds. Since the law was passed, 17 children have been relinquished at hospitals in Nebraska, including a group of nine siblings and one 15-year-old boy. Woman Spends £10,000 So Cat Can Meow
1847 Law Keeps Cabbies from BathroomCab driver David Finnegan was confronted by a council officer in Darlington, England when he parked his cab to use a public restroom nine feet away. The officer cited an 1847 law that says, “If the driver of any hackney carriage leave it in any street or at any place of public resort or entertainment, whether it be hired or not, without some one proper to take care of it, any constable may drive away such hackney carriage and deposit it.” Finnegan, who has driven a cab for twenty years, objected to the law, saying it would prevent him from ever leaving his cab for any reason. As the regulation was intended for horse-and-carriage drivers, the Darlington Council said they would dispose of the matter informally. National Debt Clock Runs Out of Digits
Swimming the Palace Moat NakedJapan’s Emperor and Empress live in a palace in Tokyo surrounded by 12 moats. On Tuesday, a man who later identified himself as a British tourist jumped into the moat naked and led police on a chase that lasted an hour and a half. At one point, he left the water to chase police with a pole and throw rocks at them. He also scaled the 8 meter palace wall before returning to the water. The man was finally arrested and later released. Couple Saw Home in Half
Python Tried to Eat Zoo Owner’s HeadRenate Klosse runs a zoo in Uhldingen, Germany. Last weekend, she was cleaning out the cage of a Tiger python named Antonia when the snake attacked her! ‘The jaws of the snake opened so wide that, with one lunge, she was able to completely cover the woman’s face,’ said a police spokeswoman. ‘She feared that with a few more gulps her head would be inside.’ Klosse stuck her thumbs into the snake’s jaws while her coworkers sprayed the snake with a water hose. The snake then let go, and Klosse was treated at a hospital for bite wounds and shock. |
| 2:20 pm | History of the World: Witnessing a Supernova
On July 5, 1054, people all over the world must have been pretty stunned when a giant star bit the dust. The star had burned up its energy, collapsed in on itself and burst from the pressure. It was so bright that it could be seen all over the world - Irish, Japanese, Chinese, Arab and the Anasazi Indians in the New Mexico/Arizona area all have documentation referring to a similar incident during the same time frame. The Europeans almost definitely saw it as well, but documentation is markedly scarce - either they didn’t really care or were so scared that they just didn’t want to refer to it. The explosion was so massive that scientists were able to study it 600 years later when the telescope was invented - gas and dust about seven light years from Earth could still be seen. In 1774, it was finally given a name - the Crab Nebula. Apparently someone thought it looked like a crustacean.
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| 11:30 am | Brain Game: Evil Live Veil Vile
We’re hoping that you can come up with the answer to today’s Brain Game. Regular fans know that we love anagrams, and recently, we began to wonder which word has the most one-word anagrams. The number of letters makes a difference, so let’s set the standard at four letters. The first one that came to mind was:
Five words using the same four letters. But we feel confident that you can do better with four different letters of your own. Give it a shot - let’s keep those four-letter words clean, folks - and add your entries via comment to this post! |
| 7:15 am | Morning Cup of Links: Crazy Corn Mazes There are so many different stories about the Three Stooges’ origin. Here’s one that sounds good. |
| 1:48 am | International Renaissance Man: Nicholas Roerich
On this day in 1874, Nicholas Roerich was born. The Russian artist (1874-1947) is often described as a “Renaissance man” due to his many activities and contributions to Russian culture. 1. Like many parents, Nicholas Roerich’s father didn’t feel painting could be a valid vocation for a “responsible member of society” and wanted his son to pursue law instead. The two managed to reach a compromise, though, that resulted in Roerich simultaneously attending art school and law school, and earning degrees from both. 2. Roerich became involved in pretty much every branch of the arts over the years. In addition to producing some 7,000 paintings and drawings, he wrote many books and articles and was heavily involved in ballet. Not only did he design scenery, sets, and costumes for ballets, but he co-wrote the libretto for The Rite of Spring (1913) with Igor Stravinsky. Around the world, a total of ten Roerich Halls were established, in Paris, Belgrade, Riga, Benares, Bruges, Allahabad, Zagreb, Buenos Aires, Kyoto, and Praha. 3. After spending his youth in Russia, Roerich spent his adult years in varied locations around the globe. He lived in Scandinavia, England, and the United States and traveled extensively through Asia. From 1925 to 1928, he trekked with his family through Ladakh, Chinese Turkestan, the Altai Mountains, the Gobi Desert, and Tibet. Eventually, he arrived in the Kulu Valley of India, in the Himalayan foothills, where he remained for the rest of his life. 4. Roerich advocated the international protection of art and culture, which led to the signing of the Roerich Pact on April 15, 1935. The United States and at least 20 other members of the Pan-American Union signed the pact, agreeing to protect cultural property. For this and other efforts, Roerich was nominated three times for the Nobel Peace Prize (in 1929, 1932, and 1935). 5. Roerich’s relationship with his wife Helena was one of great mutual support and collaboration. Roerich described Helena as his “inspirer” and “friendess,” and their son later wrote, “Collaboration of Nicholas and Helena Roerichs was a most rare combination of full sound consonance on all planes. Supplementing each other, they seemed merged in a richest harmony of intellectual and spiritual expression.”
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| Thursday, October 9th, 2008 | |
| 9:58 pm | History of the World: Pop Quiz #1
To get you guys excited for The Mental Floss History of the World, we’ll be posting occasional pop quizzes featuring material pulled from the book. Today’s inaugural quiz is of the potpourri variety. Take the quiz, then preorder your copy of History of the World from Amazon and get six free months of mental_floss magazine. We’ll be obsessively refreshing the Amazon page to see if we can crack the Top 15. |
| 10:24 pm | A Brief History of the October Surprise
An October surprise is any bit of news that breaks right before an election that has the capability to help determine the outcome of the race. Since voters are often swayed by these revelations, the right October surprise can swing a losing campaign right into White House. Although we haven’t seen such a story break this year, they’ve profoundly impacted past elections. Here are a few notable ones: 1968: LBJ calls off the bombs.
1972: Peace is at hand. Again.
The announcement gave Nixon’s already stout lead another bump, though, and he ended up winning a landslide victory with almost 61% of the popular vote. You may recall that peace wasn’t quite at hand; the war continued for another two and a half years. 1980: The Iran hostages remain in captivity.Prior to the 1980 election the yearlong saga of Iran hostage crisis held the nation’s attention. If incumbent Jimmy Carter could somehow get the hostages freed before voters headed to the polls, he’d gain a serious leg up on challenger Ronald Reagan. Unfortunately for Carter, it didn’t happen. In fact, the Iranian government decided right before the election that the hostages wouldn’t be freed until the voting was over, and Reagan won the White House.
This bad news, coupled with the fact that the hostages were finally freed on the day of Reagan’s inauguration the following January, leads some people to believe that the Reagan camp made some sort of backdoor deal with the Iranian government in order to secure the election. In return for hanging onto the hostages to prevent an October surprise in Carter’s favor, the Iranian government would receive weapons from the Reagan administration. Although two congressional investigations found these claims to be groundless, conspiracy theorists insist Reagan cut the deal. 1992: Iran-Contra scandal makes a comeback.
2000: George W. Bush takes a tipple.
See also…Our Scandalous Vice Presidents |
| 8:02 pm | Let Public Radio Talk You Through the Financial Crisis Over the past few months, some exciting (perhaps heart-stopping) action has played out on the world financial stage. There’s a credit crunch, a mortgage crisis, commercial paper is frozen, banks are failing, and T-notes are the new mattresses. What does it all mean? I admit, I know nothing about finance, and hearing the increasingly dire news reports wasn’t really helping to break it down in terms that I could follow. Until I discovered what’s happening over at National Public Radio and Public Radio International. If you’re wondering about the financial situation, I’ve got links below to help you learn about it — in a way that human beings can understand.
Last week, This American Life followed up with Another Frightening Show About the Economy (here’s a direct MP3 link). This show explained the US market bailout/rescue plan, and delved further into topics like credit default swaps, commercial paper, regulation (or the lack thereof), and toxic assets. Honestly, this episode was even more interesting than the previous explanation of the global economy — probably because it’s so topical; we all want to know exactly what the Paulson Plan is, whether it’s a good idea, and exactly how bad the whole situation is. Changes are coming fast and furious, and the information in this program is less than a week old. Now is the time to listen.
Note that if you don’t want to subscribe to the podcast, you can browse through the episodes using iTunes and just double-click an episode to listen to it. So where do you get your news on the financial situation? Or are you just hiding in a bunker, waiting for it all to pass? Share your finds and fears in the comments. (Keep in mind that you can post URLs as long as you leave off the ‘http’ business.) |
| 7:26 pm | The Quick 10: 10 Famous People and Their Drug Habits
New book recommendation! Assuming you’ve already pre-ordered the mental_floss History of the World, that is. It’s called Genius and Heroin, by Michael Largo, who is the same guy that wrote Final Exits. It’s also a super-interesting read, if you haven’t heard of it. Genius is full of stories about famous people and what they were addicted to – drugs, sex, work, food. It’s really fascinating, and it’s perfect Quick 10 Material. I’m going to stick to drugs today… ummm… that didn’t come out quite right. Today’s list will focus chiefly on drug addictions, but don’t be surprised if there’s a Quick 10 around the corner about non-drug addictions. Errol Flynn was apparently a sex fiend. Anyway. On with the list!
2. Andy Warhol – Obetrol. Obetrol isn’t really uncommon – it’s actually marketed today as Adderall. But Andy popped them like Paulie Bleecker popped Tic Tacs. The difference between Adderall and Obetrol seems to be time options – Adderall is made and sold in immediate-release tablets and time-release tablets, but Obetrol comes only in an immediate release option. 3. Miles Davis – Heroin. Miles was hooked on heroin for about four years, but managed to kick the habit because he was inspired by Sugar Ray Robinson’s dedication. 4. Balzac - Caffeine. Bad. I mean, lots of us say we’re addicted to caffeine – I certainly get a headache if I don’t get a Diet Coke or a coffee soon enough in the morning. But that’s nothing compared to Balzac. It wasn’t uncommon for him to write for 48 hours nonstop, aided by cup after cup after cup of coffee. He drank so much caffeine that it enlarged his left heart ventricle, which possibility contributed to his death. These days, that kind of addiction is called caffeinism. It can result in lots of not-fun effects, including nervousness, irritability, anxiety, insomnia, headaches, heart palpitations, ulcers, esophagitis, muscle twitching and respiratory alkalosis. So, I’m totally reconsidering my mid-morning cup of coffee right now.
6. Edith Piaf – everything? Poor Edith Piaf. In 1951, she was in a car accident that left her with a broken arm and two broken ribs. She had two more car crashes afterward, and all of the resulting medication proved to be a bad thing: she got hooked on morphine, various pills, and alcohol. She refused to stop performing, though, and pushed herself to carry on with the show no matter what. She even spit up blood while singing at the Waldorf Astoria. 7. Did you guys know Faulkner was a drunk? And so was Fitzgerald? And Hemingway? And Dylan Thomas? And Poe? And Sinclair Lewis? Yeah, of course you did. Seems like alcohol was the drug of choice for a lots of writers. Not just men, either – Dorothy Parker and Edna St. Vincent Millay were also known for their love of the drink.
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1. Robert Lucas, winner of the 1995 Nobel Prize in Economics for his work on the theory of “rational expectations,” split his $1 million prize with his ex-wife. If there were a Nobel Prize for Foresight or Timing, I’d nominate her, based on a clause in their divorce settlement from seven years earlier: “Wife shall receive 50 percent of any Nobel Prize.” The clause expired on October 31, 1995. Had Lucas won any year after, he would have kept the whole million.
4. DNA expert Kary Mullis – 1993 winner of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry – was scheduled to be a defense witness in O.J. Simpson’s murder trial. However, Simpson lawyer Barry Scheck felt the prosecution’s DNA case was already essentially destroyed, and he didn’t want Mullis’ personal life to distract jurors (read: he’d expressed an affinity for LSD and surfing.)
14. Alfred Nobel – inventor of dynamite – may have been inspired to create the Nobel Prize after a premature obituary in a French newspaper called him a “merchant of death.”
Fire Scout: The Looming Menace
yet, military officials believe they will be invaluable on the front lines. In fact, the Army is spending billions of dollars to deploy hundreds of MULES to war zones.
1. Vlad Tepes first ruled in 1448 after his father was assassinated. His older brother was also horribly killed – blinded with hot pokers and then buried alive. Vlad Tepes was immediately put on the throne so Wallachia’s political enemies wouldn’t think the position was free for the taking, but Vlad was ruler pretty much in name only. After all, he was only 17 at the time.
6. Another method was to impale the person through the abdomen or chest and then post them around the city as a warning to others. There is a memoir that exists that documents the “forest of the impaled”, where Vlad would line the roads with tons of Turkish soldiers he had impaled. If that didn’t intimidate the enemy, I don’t know what would. 
1. Last Saturday, my daughter took an extremely long nap, which allowed me to tear through most of Chuck Klosterman’s Downtown Owl. I’m not a very fast reader—at least, I’m sure, compared to most of you. If you challenged me to a speed reading contest, I’d fake an eye injury. So the list of books I finished in one (or, in this case, two) sittings is not very impressive. How about you? What books have you polished off in a single day?
For years, the conventional wisdom on multitasking has been that it’s a valuable skill necessary when competing in today’s mile-a-minute world of 24-hour news, e-commerce and portable everything. It’s difficult to find a help wanted ad that doesn’t list “multitasking” among the skills an employer demands of its ideal candidate. And to some degree, certainly, multitasking is essential — back in the stone age when we had to hunt for food while fending off sabre-toothed tiger attacks, it came in awfully handy. But you can take anything too far. If I were posting a help wanted ad today — depending on the job — I would include “the ability to focus deeply on one task for extended periods of time” as an essential requirement; which today is becoming a rarer skill than “multitasking.”
Jean Kelly of Olney, Buckinghamshire, England noticed her cat Cadbury was quiet -too quiet. She took him to the vet and found he had a 
The 
A couple in Cambodia have separated from each other by 
It’s the greatest deal in the history of history books! Our first hardback, The Mental Floss History of the World: An Irreverent Romp Through History’s Best Bits, hits stores later this month, and we’re so excited that we’ve teamed up with the fine folks at Amazon.com to give you a special deal. Pre-order the book before October 27th and we’ll throw in 6 FREE MONTHS of mental_floss magazine! Just 
The 1968 race between Richard Nixon and Hubert Humphrey looked like it would be an electoral rout. Nixon successfully ferreted away Southern Democrats who weren’t too keen on Humphrey’s support of civil rights, and liberal Democrats were disgusted with Democratic incumbent Lyndon Johnson’s handling of the Vietnam War. Furthermore, third-party candidate George Wallace eroded some of the historical Democratic base that Humphrey would normally have won. Late in the campaign, Humphrey appeared to be doomed.
Nixon’s reelection campaign in 1972 is infamous for giving birth to the Watergate break-in and ensuing scandal, but it’s easy to see why Nixon would have been a bit nervous about his electoral chances. After all, voters elected him on a platform of ending the Vietnam War, which was still raging on. Although Nixon was probably going to beat challenger George McGovern anyway, an October surprise certainly didn’t hurt his chances. Just like four years earlier, this one involved Vietnam. National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger appeared at the White House on October 26 and announced to reporters that “peace is at hand” in Vietnam. It was quite an announcement, and apparently not one that Nixon scripted. On White House tapes, he can be heard telling Chief of Staff H.R. Haldeman, “I wouldn’t have said that.” 
Although it may be difficult to remember now, the 1992 race was a fairly heated one. Incumbent George H.W. Bush faced two challengers, Democrat Bill Clinton and independent Ross Perot, and both seemed capable of winning the election. (Perot may now be little more than a footnote in our minds, but at points in 1992 he actually led all candidates in national polls.) Four days before the election, though, the surprise showed up. Caspar Weinberger, who had been Reagan’s Secretary of Defense, was indicted for lying to the independent counsel that had investigated the Iran-Contra scandal. Since Bush had served with Weinberger and had so far managed to avoid much of the Iran-Contra taint, this development seemed to be a blow to his reelection chances. Obviously, it didn’t help, and Clinton won the election handily. Bush gave Weinberger a lame-duck pardon the next month. 
Any race as tightly contested as the 2000 election between Al Gore and George W. Bush is bound to have an October surprise. In fact, though, this election’s stunner didn’t break until November. Less than a week before voters headed to the polls, a Fox News report surfaced that Bush had been arrested for driving under the influence in Maine in 1976 following a night of boozing with former world tennis champion John Newcombe. Instead of trying to fight the accusation, Bush confirmed the story and told reporters, “I’m not proud of that. I made some mistakes. I occasionally drank too much, and I did that night. I learned my lesson.” And, well, you know the rest. 
The first salvo from public radio’s crisis-explaining squad came on May 9. On that evening’s All Things Considered program, PRI’s This American Life Producer Alex Blumberg (who sounds uncannily like Ira Glass, but isn’t) teamed up with NPR Business and Economics Correspondent Adam Davidson to deliver a thirteen-minute piece called 
In addition to the aforementioned hour-long programs, Blumberg, Davidson, and friends have created a blog and podcast called 
1. Sigmund Freud – cocaine. At first, his interest was medical. He wrote papers about the feelings associated with the substance, saying that it provided exhilaration and euphoria just minutes after taking cocaine. His buddy, Ernest von Fleischl, had a pretty bad morphine habit – to help him kick it, Freud prescribed cocaine and said it was a safe alternative. Fleischl became addicted, of course, and started spending more than $10,000 a month on the drug. Like any good scholar, Freud recorded his friend’s increasingly negative side effects (the feeling of bugs crawling under the skin, hallucinations, etc.). In 1891, Freud’s friend became the first person in history (that we know of) to die of a speedball when he mixed heroin and cocaine. But enough about him. Back to Freud. He was more or less a casual user but during a three-year period in the mid 1880s, he wrote so many papers about the drug that it’s easy to assume he was using pretty regularly.
5. Lewis Carroll – Opium. Well, at the time it was called Laudanum, and lots of people took it for tiny little ailments like headaches. It’s no surprise that lots of people got addicted to it – including Lewis Carroll (AKA Charles Dodgson). He suffered terribly from migraines, and some people thought he took it because it relaxed him and helped ease his stutter. Whatever the reason, he was hooked. And he also liked to partake in magic mushrooms and weed, too. But come on, look at Alice in Wonderland. Are you surprised? 
8. Maria Callas – Quaaludes. She used to be a zaftig woman, and then suddenly lost a ton of weight at the height of her career. It’s rumored that she got hooked on Quaaludes because they helped her keep her weight down, but she always said her weight loss was due to a sensible diet (don’t they always say that?). 
