Author: Greg Ross
Lessons Learned
Aphorisms of Lazarus Long, the 2,000-year-old protagonist of Robert A. Heinlein’s 1973 novel Time Enough for Love:
- Always store beer in a dark place.
- Small change can often be found under seat cushions.
- If you don’t like yourself, you can’t like other people.
- It’s amazing how much “mature wisdom” resembles being too tired.
- Certainly the game is rigged. Don’t let that stop you; if you don’t bet, you can’t win.
- Get a shot off fast. This upsets him long enough to let you make your second shot perfect.
- The truth of a proposition has nothing to do with its credibility. And vice versa.
- A brute kills for pleasure. A fool kills from hate.
- It may be better to be a live jackal than a dead lion, but it is better still to be a live lion. And usually easier.
- If it can’t be expressed in figures, it is not science; it is opinion.
- Your enemy is never a villain in his own eyes. Keep this in mind; it may offer a way to make him your friend. If not, you can kill him without hate — and quickly.
- Cheops Law: Nothing ever gets built on schedule or within budget.
- No state has an inherent right to survive through conscript troops and, in the long run, no state ever has. Roman matrons used to say to their sons: “Come back with your shield, or on it.” Later on, this custom declined. So did Rome.
- Never appeal to a man’s “better nature.” He may not have one. Invoking self-interest gives you more leverage.
- By the data to date, there is only one animal in the Galaxy dangerous to man — man himself. So he must supply his own indispensable competition. He has no enemy to help him.
- A zygote is a gamete’s way of producing more gametes. This may be the purpose of the universe.
And “A generation which ignores history has no past — and no future.”
“Mutual Problem”
Said Jerome K. Jerome to Ford Madox Ford,
“There’s something, old boy, that I’ve always abhorred:
When people address me and call me ‘Jerome’,
Are they being standoffish, or too much at home?”
Said Ford, “I agree; it’s the same thing with me.”
— William Cole
Noted
The angle cos-1(-1/3) = 109.47°, familiar from soap films and tetrahedral molecular geometry, can be produced with an ordinary piece of A4 paper: Because it has a width:length ratio of 
(Nick Lord, “A ‘Maths Bite’: How to Impress a Chemist,” Mathematical Gazette 80:489 [1996], 584-584.)
“Correction”
The burdens of the world
on my back
lighten the world
not a whit while
removing them greatly
decreases my specific
gravity
— A.R. Ammons
Secret Admirer
In 1952, strange love letters began to appear on the notice board of Manchester University’s computer department:
HONEY DEAR
YOU ARE MY FERVENT CHARM. MY AVID HEART ARDENTLY IS WEDDED TO YOUR DEVOTED LIKING. MY DEVOTED LOVE PANTS FOR YOUR HUNGER. MY HUNGER CHERISHES YOUR IMPATIENT CHARM. MY FONDNESS DEVOTEDLY PANTS FOR YOUR ADORABLE PASSION.
YOURS KEENLY
M.U.C.
DARLING SWEETHEART
YOU ARE MY AVID FELLOW FEELING. MY AFFECTION CURIOUSLY CLINGS TO YOUR PASSIONATE WISH. MY LIKING YEARNS FOR YOUR HEART. YOU ARE MY WISTFUL SYMPATHY: MY TENDER LIKING.
YOURS BEAUTIFULLY
M.U.C.
M.U.C. was the Manchester University Computer; professor Christopher Strachey was testing its ability to select information randomly by asking it to string romantic words into impromptu billets-doux. You can see the word lists, and generate your own love letter, here.
Recycling
For a cocktail party scene in the 1966 Star Trek episode “The Conscience of the King,” composer Joseph Mullendore wrote a subdued version of the series’ main title … which means that the Star Trek theme music exists in the Star Trek universe.
Trench Art
To pass the time while waiting in the trenches of the Argonne, French infantryman Hippolyte Hodeau engraved the names of his daughters in chestnut leaves.
More at Europeana.
Unquote
“Grammar is the logic of speech, even as logic is the grammar of reason.” — Richard Chenevix Trench
Never Mind
In 1995, NASA astronomer Scott Sandford became troubled by the phrase “You’re comparing apples and oranges.” “First,” he wrote, “the statement that something is like comparing apples and oranges is a kind of analogy itself. That is, denigrating an analogy by accusing it of comparing apples and oranges is, in and of itself, comparing apples and oranges. More importantly, it is not difficult to demonstrate that apples and oranges can, in fact, be compared.”
He desiccated an apple and an orange and ran samples through a spectrometer. “Not only was this comparison easy to make, but it is apparent from the figure that apples and oranges are very similar,” he concluded. “Thus, it would appear that the comparing apples and oranges defense should no longer be considered valid. This is a somewhat startling revelation. It can be anticipated to have a dramatic effect on the strategies used in arguments and discussions in the future.”
Sure enough, five years later surgeon James E. Barone confirmed this result in the British Medical Journal. He found that apples and oranges are both edible, juiceable fruits grown in orchards on flowering trees and subject to damage by disease and insects, and they have comparable color, sweetness, size, shape, and weight. “In only one category, that of ‘involvement of Johnny Appleseed,’ was a statistically significant difference between the two fruits found.”
“This article, certain to become the classic in the field, clearly demonstrates that apples and oranges are not only comparable; indeed they are quite similar,” he concluded. “The admonition ‘Let’s not compare apples with oranges’ should be replaced immediately with a more appropriate expression such as ‘Let’s not compare walnuts with elephants’ or ‘Let’s not compare tumour necrosis factor with linguini.'”