Over at London Bananas they have a collected a surprisingly large collection of photos of banana peels spotted laying around the London cityscape.
“I see them everywhere. They’re languishing on doorsteps, hanging out in the middle of the road, dangling off street signs, peeking out of piles of garbage, reclining in the middle of the sidewalk, riding the bus for free. A great number of them are bright yellow as if they’re fresh and have just been dropped, although they appear in all states of decay.”
I have often thought that futurists had a great racket going. They sit around and make up a bunch of random nonsense about what they think the future will be like, and apparently some of them even managed to get paid for it. It usually looks to me like their predictions are based on no more expertise or research than you or I might be able to come up with over a beer at the corner bar, and years later they are of course never held accountable when their predictions are wildly wrong.
In the July (2008) issue of Discover magazine in “Why Laughing Matters” Jim Holt offers a very interesting hypothesis on what they do wrong, “the repeated sins of futurologists is that they often extrapolate from what is new rather than from what is old”.
They have erected a small black fabric fence running along the side of the university campus near us. I naively thought it was a silt fence, used to control sediment flow and erosion from the road construction project beginning there. My son B has corrected me. He informs me that it is actually a “physicist fence” which is used to keep the physicists on campus and prevent them from roaming free in the community and administering random physics lessons to unsuspecting citizens. I am lucky to have an expert around to inform me of these things.
Lately I find myself wondering, if I was going to time travel back to the year 1800 in North America, what could I take with me to use in the place of currency to trade for goods? The tricky part is, ideally I would like to take advantage of inflation to increase the value of my money. For instance, $1 in the year 1800 had the purchasing power of around $14 in the year 2000 (http://www.measuringworth.com/uscompare/). So if I could bring back currency from the year 2000, it would greatly increase in purchasing power from its face value. The problem is of course, I can not bring back modern currency because it is, well, modern. What I need is something that I can bring back that will not stand out as inappropriate and draw attention to me as a time traveler.
The choice of some basic precious metal like gold immediately comes to mind, and while it would work, it unfortunately loses its modern higher value when brought into the past, effectively undoing the advantage. The price of an ounce of gold in December 2000 was around $275 (http://www.finfacts.ie/Private/curency/goldmarketprice.htm), in 1800 that same ounce of gold would sell for about $19. That $19 of 1800 money had the purchasing power of about $170 of 2000 money, so you come out behind.
So perhaps what I should be looking for instead is some basic commodity that is cheap and plentiful in modern times, but was more scarce and valuable in 1800. Maybe even something that can more easily made to a high quality today, like perhaps iron or steel. I am not sure of the current and past prices of steel, and while there might be an advantage to be had on industrial scales, it is not something that could be easily carried and traded at the general store for basic supplies (is it?). Another possible contender would be salt. I have heard that it was sometimes used as a currency in the past. Let’s see, according to http://www.clarkemuseum.com/html/salt_works.html before refrigeration salt was used for preserving meat, and during the early parts of the Civil War the north blockaded salt shipments from England from reaching the south, forcing the the creation of new and expensive means of harvesting salt from springs. It states “Salt prices escalated so high, that workers were paid in salt rather than money. Prices rose from $1.25 per bushel of 50 pounds in 1861 to $50 by the end of the war.” These time periods are a little later target than my 1800, but may still be relevant. I see that a 50lb bag of fine sea salt goes for about $11 wholesale currently, so that might be a reasonable option, if not a little bulky. (As an aside, a good history of salt can be found at http://www.saltinstitute.org/38.html)
So other that salt, what other good options might there be that have not thought of? Maybe something more compact? How about modern metal hand tools? I think they are relatively cheap and high quality, if you chose carefully to avoid items that would be out of place in the past. You can buy some nice knives pretty cheap these days, but stainless steel wasn’t invent until the 1900’s. I wonder how a 1800 merchant would react to stainless steel? Blue Jeans were not invented until the 1870’s, maybe some other clothing items, or even just some good unbleached cotton fabric? I poked around http://minerals.usgs.gov/ds/2005/140/ at other mineral price histories (thought they only go back to 1900) and although I didn’t read every one (there are lots) it looks like most have only gone up in value. Please let me know your ideas. Something that has dropped in value significantly, that would not be out of place in 1800. I chose 1800 somewhat randomly and I think that the answers would change dramatically for other time periods, or geographic locations.
OK, this is weird, this guy not only built a cool machine to shoot 3.5″ floppy disks (which isn’t really so weird), but then made a wacky bizarre video about it. “…transfer files effortlessly to your computer, with extreme prejudice”. “Also effective against squirrels, vegans, clowns, hippies, street urchins, girl scouts, and more!” And I never knew that using a CD to transfer data could be so hazardous.
Enjoy!
For the last few weeks these two crazy cardinals have been repeatedly intentionally flying in to all the windows across the back of our house. It goes on for hours at a time and can get a little maddening. We usually love to catch sight of the Cardinals in our yard as they are not nearly as common in Minnesota as they were at our previous home in Indiana, but these guys are starting to get on my nerves. A little online research reveals that when Cardinals do this they are probably try to scare away the other Cardinal (their reflection) from their breeding area. I edited down this video to the action parts, but everything you see happened within the 2 and a half minutes of the original video.
And yes that is what Minnesota looks like sometimes at the end of April.
At least they are not skunks, and I am not supposed to shoot at them.
I have just had the displeasure of attending an (otherwise pleasant) orchestra performance which contained the 28 minutes of cacophony known as “Apotheosis of this Earth” by Karel Husa. This composition is meant to express the composers displeasure with the terrible way in which man was / is treating the planet earth. It included a number of unusual devices such as instruments playing quarter stepped notes to be deliberately out of tune with others instruments, and sections of the score which direct to play some unspecified notes for a certain amount of time. These devices seemed to be most often realized at high pitches and high volumes which frequently became physically painful to listen to. It did not help matters that it was being performed in a relatively small “recital hall” space and not a large concert hall which may have been better able to handle the intense sound levels. While I do appreciate the technical skill involved in composing 28 minutes of music while completely avoiding anything resembling conventional musical melodies and maintaining a continuously difficult listening experience for the audience for the entire time, as a member of the audience I found it to be a (not surprisingly) somewhat unpleasant experience. Before the music began I had high hopes for something interesting as they brought out 2 marimbas, 2 glockenspiel, 2 xylophones, 2 gongs, tom toms and a set of concert bells, but alas that was before I knew they would be used for evil instead of for good. I could see how this piece would make a very interesting soundtrack for a movie of some kind, maybe an avant-garde art film, or even creatively used for a space science fiction, but it was not well suited as a concert piece. One kind of cool thing I enjoyed was when sections of the orchestra would speak the words “this beautiful earth” in quiet breathy voices during lulls in the noise, but that might have also been due to the momentary pause in the loud cacophonous discord. The conductor stated that this was a piece you would not often hear in a concert, alas he apparently did understand why that was.
Last week I pulled out a box of my old college class notes. I was looking for my notes from a introduction to digital logic class to use to teach B about basic logic gates, boolean algebra and TTL logic chips. Along with the material I was looking for we also discovered the ‘doodle sheets’ I had interspersed throughout my class notes. B was very amused by all my little faces, creatures and celtic inspired tangled snakes and such, but the one gem (which I have no memory of writing), ever so neatly printed on the page, reduced him to uncontrollable laughter for a long time and will no doubt become a part of our family lexicon for some time to come.
I explained that college freshmen frequently do not get enough sleep.
p.s. He also had fun repeating “NAND!” -giggle- -giggle- “NAND!” -giggle- -giggle- “NAND!” -giggle- -giggle-
Argentine-born, Montreal-based artist Cesar Saez’s latest project is an ambitious one: at the cost of approximately one million dollars, he plans to inflate a gigantic banana with helium and float it over Texas—specifically, 20-30 miles above the Earth. He and his team of scientists, engineers and volunteers have been at work for years and plan to float the massive fruit sometime next summer.
Today while browsing the very fun and informative retro pop culture site Duck Soup Retro I discovered the world of TV Lamps. Apparently when TV’s started getting popular in homes in the 50’s there was concern that watching TV in a dark room would cause eye damage, so the TV lamp was born. These decorative lamps were made to sit on top of the TV to provide some ambient light in the room (long before the Phillips Ambilight TV) and came in a wide variety of styles. These were probably purchased for their decorative value as much as for health concerns. The cool one at Duck Soup includes a painted mountain scene behind what appears to be a small fish tank. Upon some further searching I found www.tvlamps.net which includes more historical information and many photographs of a wide variety of TV lamps.
With all the troubling news of dangerous products being exported from China, from poisonous toothpaste to lead paint covered toys, at least it is comforting to know they won’t be making any more straws. I know this because I happen to have, “The last straw made in China”.
I have always encouraged make believe play and an active imagination in my son, but sometimes I find he is too absorbed in his make believe and has to come back to reality for something. I once told him, “sometimes you get lost in your own little world” and his answer was, “sometimes it isn’t so little”, which I thought was a pretty good answer.
Recently he asked me, “What universe do you want to be in?”.
Choices included Harry Potter, Pokemon, Star Trek, Dungeons and Dragons, Runescape and others.
Wanting to perhaps talk about something in real life for a change, I said, “how about this one?”
His answer, “That is like having a time machine and always setting the date for today!”
huh. . . okay, that one gave me something to think about. Here we have the amazing power of imagination, why not use it.
I told him what an excellent answer that was, and we proceeded to compare and contrast many aspects of our home planets including flora, fauna, family stuctures, diets and more.
So those little aliens from Space Invaders decided that the reason everyone is always shooting at them must be an image problem. The name “Invaders” just seems to invoke all kinds of negative images. So they got together with the PR department and made a focus group to see what they could do to solve the problem. Hmmm what should it be? Travelers? not positive enough, Heroes? not not quite right, how about Protectors! yea, thats the ticket! Space Protectors! Now there is name, get it down to the boys in marketing and have them whip up some new product to get the name out, how about a nice line of mouse pads to start…
Living in Reykjavik, Iceland I was not surprised to find whale meat at the meat market. I raised an eyebrow at the salted horse meat and reindeer meat, but I was aware that people ate those too. I was however slightly surprised to see kangaroo meat at the local grocery store, I guess I am just an over sheltered American.
In October of 2006 Iceland began commercial whaling again. They had been doing only scientific whaling since 1986. They harvesting of whales is done in a controlled sustainable way with strict quotas, but many organizations including environmental groups and the whale watching industry are still opposed to it. Only 1.1% of Icelandic adults actually eat whale once a week or more. As seen in the whale Kebab ad above, some people are able to approach the subject with a sense of humor. Below is a clip from the local paper, “The Grapevine”.
Living in a foreign land, in a small apartment without all my usual distractions and entertainments of home, it can take some creativity to fill those long cold, dark nights when the one computer is being used by the one employed person to do work (I already figured out the combination to the bike lock I found by using trial and error) so I was happy when I found a intact Trivial Pursuit game thrown out by a neighbor (woot!) - but when I got it home and opened it I discovered it was in danish (doh!), not even the language of the country I am living in (Iceland). So how do you entertain yourself with a Trivial Pursuit game in a foreign language? Well, I started by making card houses from the cards.
B used the little wedges and circles to invent a cool new game with various rules and moves (like switch, send and forfeit) in which you rearrange the wedges between the holders and a pool to try to get each holder filled with the correct color wedges.
What else….how about a little stop motion animation with the card deck?
I hate to destroy an intact game, even though I did find it in the trash, but maybe in time I will move on to folding or cutting the cards for some interesting craft creation. Maybe one of those chains people made from gum wrappers would be fun….
Last week I moved to Reykjavik, Iceland (where I will be spending the next 4 months). It is a beautiful and friendly city. One of the things I was curious to find out was the accuracy of various reports on the web (like here, here and even here) that it is illegal to own a dog in Reykjavik. My second day here my question was answered when I passed someone walking a dog down the street. I have since seen many other pet dogs about. I asked a local about it and they got a good laugh to hear that the internet has sites saying it is illegal to own a dog in Reykjavik. There are strict leash, licensing and vaccination laws (like a lot of places), and apparently there used to be some even stricter laws, but let me state, it is not illegal to own a dog in Reykjavik, Iceland. Imagine that, incorrect information on the internet, this has got to be first
At the co-op the other day my wife and son decided to try out some hand lotion samplers. She went down the line pumping out small samples of several different smells like “Peaches and Creme” or “Lavander and Shea Butter”, and holding them out for my son to sniff. Then she got to a bottle labeled “Peaceful Patchouli” and instead of dispensing a small blob in her hand like the others it instead shot out a line of lotion which landed as a white stripe running from just above my sons eyebrow, down across his (thankfully closed) eye and cheek and continued down his chest. He looked down at himself then commented, “whats so peaceful about that?”
When my son came home from school he had little colored marks on the tip of his nose. I asked him how he got them. He started to answer, “well…..they had these scented markers…”
Enough said.
The other day my son was listing some unusual foods he would like to try someday, and along with snake meat, frogs legs and an insect of some kind, he included camel cheese. I did not know if there was such a thing so I looked in to it a little. Turns out that cheese is not one of the otherwise many functions and products usually provided by camels. For some reason camel milk does not react well with the bacterial starter they usually add to milk to get it to curdle. But now, thanks to modern science they have come up with a different starter solution that allows one to make cheese from camel milk. Learn more about it at The Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations.
