Confab

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Martian_face_viking.jpg

The Viking 1 orbiter brought some surprised attention to the Cydonia region of Mars in 1976 when its cameras discovered what appeared to be an enigmatic face staring up into the heavens.

The “face on Mars” has since been explained as an optical illusion, but it recalls a project conceived 30 years earlier by the American artist Isamu Noguchi. Sculpture to Be Seen From Mars, below, was proposed as a massive earthwork to be constructed in “some unwanted area,” perhaps a desert, at an enormous scale, so that the nose would be 1 mile long. When seen from space, the face would show that a civilized life form had once existed on Earth. Noguchi had been embittered by his experiences as a Japanese-American during World War II and the development of atomic weapons; he had originally called the piece Memorial to Man.

noguchi, sculpture to be seen from mars

If those two don’t have enough to talk about, there’s a newcomer to join them: In 2013, face recognition software discovered the image below in a photo of the moon’s south pole taken by NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. Who’s next?

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:FaceOnMoonSouthPole.png

| Art · Oddities

Podcast Episode 71: Godless in Missouri

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sky-church-steeple_-_West_Virginia_-_ForestWander.jpg
Image: http://www.ForestWander.com

In 1880, freethinking attorney George Walser tried a new experiment in the American heartland — a community dedicated against Christianity, “the only town of its size in the world without a priest, preacher, saloon, God or hell.” In this week’s episode of the Futility Closet podcast, we’ll tell the story of Liberal, Missouri — its founding, its confrontations with its Christian neighbors, and its ironic downfall.

We’ll also puzzle over how a woman can suddenly be 120 miles away in just a few minutes.

See full show notes …

| Podcast · Religion

Dizzy

https://archive.org/details/FigureForFunStoriesAndConundrums

Russian science writer Yakov Perelman asks: How many times must an 8-toothed cogwheel rotate on its axis to circle around a 24-toothed cogwheel?

Click for Answer
| Puzzles · Science & Math

“A Large Turtle”

Captain Augustus G. Hall and the crew of the schooner Annie L. Hall vouch for the following: On March 30, while on the Grand Bank, in latitude 40° 10′, longitude 33°, they discovered an immense live trunk turtle, which was at first thought to be a vessel bottom up. The schooner passed within twenty-five feet of the monster, and those on board had ample opportunity to estimate its dimensions by a comparison with the length of the schooner. The turtle was at least 40 feet long, 30 feet wide, and 30 feet from the apex of the back to the bottom of the under shell. The flippers were 20 feet long. It was not deemed advisable to attempt its capture.

— Scientific American, May 12, 1883

| Oddities

Man Handling

date

In 1946, sociologist Mirra Komarovsky asked American undergraduate women whether they had “played dumb” on dates. Some of their responses:

  • I am engaged to a southern boy who doesn’t think too much of the woman’s intellect. In spite of myself, I play up to his theories because the less one knows and does, the more he does for you and thinks you “cute” into the bargain. … I allow him to explain things to me in great detail and to treat me as a child in financial matters.
  • When my date said that he considers Ravel’s Bolero the greatest piece of music ever written, I changed the subject because I knew I would talk down to him.
  • One of the nicest techniques is to spell long words incorrectly once in a while. My boyfriend seems to get a great kick out of it and writes back, “Honey, you certainly don’t know how to spell.”
  • Once I went sailing with a man who so obviously enjoyed the role of a protector that I told him I didn’t know how to sail. As it turned out he didn’t either. We got into a tough spot, and I was torn between a desire to get a hold of the boat and a fear to reveal that I had lied to him.
  • I am better in math than my fiancé. But while I let him explain politics to me, we never talk about math even though, being a math major, I could tell him some interesting things.
  • I was once at a work camp. The girls did the same work as the boys. If some girls worked better, the boys resented it fiercely. The director told one capable girl to slow down to keep peace in the group.
  • On dates I always go through the “I-don’t-care-anything-you-want-to-do” routine. It gets monotonous but boys fear girls who make decisions. They think such girls would make nagging wives.
  • I am a natural leader and, when in the company of girls, usually take the lead. That is why I am so active in college activities. But I know that men fear bossy women, and I always have to watch myself on dates not to assume the “executive” role. Once a boy walking to the theater with me took the wrong street. I knew a short cut but kept quiet.

In all, 60 percent said they had “concealed some academic honor, pretended ignorance of some subject, or allowed the man the last word in an intellectual discussion.” “And the funny part of it is that the man, I think, is not always so unsuspecting,” one said. “He may sense the truth and become uneasy in the relation. ‘Where do I stand? Is she laughing up her sleeve or did she mean this praise? Was she really impressed with that little speech of mine or did she only pretend to know nothing about politics?’ And once or twice I felt that the joke was on me: the boy saw through my wiles and felt contempt for me for stooping to such tricks.”

(Mirra Komarovsky, “Cultural Contradictions and Sex Roles,” American Journal of Sociology 52:3 [November 1946], 184-189.)

| Society

In a Word

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Gen._Andrew_A._Humphreys_-_NARA_-_528076.jpg

thersitical
adj. abusive, foul-mouthed, reviling

In his Recollections of the Civil War, Charles Anderson Dana called Union general Andrew Atkinson Humphreys “one of the loudest swearers that I ever knew.” “The men of distinguished and brilliant profanity in the war were General Sherman and General Humphreys — I could not mention any others that could be classed with them. General Logan also was a strong swearer, but he was not a West Pointer: he was a civilian. Sherman and Humphreys would swear to make everything blue when some dispatch had not been delivered correctly or they were provoked.”

In Rex v. Sparling (1722), a leather dresser named James Sparling was alleged in the course of 10 days to “profanely swear fifty-four oaths, and profanely curse one hundred and sixty curses, contra formam statuti.” His conviction was overturned because the charge sheet had failed to list them. “For what is a profane oath or curse is a matter of law, and ought not to be left to the judgment of the witness … it is a matter of great dispute among the learned, what are oaths and what curses.”

When in 1985 a man named Callahan called a California highway patrolman a “fucking asshole,” California Court of Appeal Justice Gerald Brown referred to this phrase as the “Callahan epithet” to avoid having to repeat it continuously, “which arguably would assist its passage into parlor parlance.” And he reversed Callahan’s conviction:

A land as diverse as ours must expect and tolerate an infinite variety of expression. What is vulgar to one may be lyric to another. Some people spew four-letter words as their common speech such as to devalue its currency; their repetition dulls the senses; Billingsgate thus becomes commonplace. Not everyone can be a Daniel Webster, a William Jennings Bryan or a Joseph A. Ball. …

Fifty years ago the words ‘damn’ and ‘hell’ were as shocking to the sensibilities of some people as the Callahan epithet is to others today. The first word in Callahan’s epithet has many meanings. When speaking about coitus, not everyone can be an F.E. Smith (later Earl of Birkenhead) who, in his speech in 1920 in the House of Commons on the Matrimonial Causes Act, referred to ‘that bond by which nature in its ingenious telepathy has contrived to secure and render agreeable the perpetuation of the species.’

| Crime · Language · Society

Spirit Reading

https://www.google.com/patents/US1767820

During Prohibition, an enforcement agent had a tough job: If he infiltrated a speakeasy and ordered a drink to confirm that it was alcoholic, his oral testimony could easily be attacked in court, and, ironically, once he admitted that he drank alcohol regularly then defense attorneys could question his reliability.

Robert Tetro patented this solution in 1930. Instead of drinking your drink, you’d discreetly clip a tube over the rim of the glass, reach into your pocket and squeeze a bulb, drawing off a sample. Then you’d pay your tab and leave. If the sample proved alcoholic then the feds could raid the place, which had no warning that it was under surveillance. And now the authorities had physical proof that alcohol was being served.

In the patent application, Tetro says his invention “has been used to a considerable extent, proving its value.” He was based in Michigan; I don’t know how widely it was used.

| Crime · Society · Technology

Nobody Home

pooh and piglet

A puzzle by S. Sefibekov:

Winnie-the-Pooh and Piglet set out to visit one another. They leave their houses at the same time and walk along the same road. But Piglet is absorbed in counting the birds overhead, and Winnie-the-Pooh is composing a new “hum,” so they pass one another without noticing. One minute after the meeting, Winnie-the-Pooh is at Piglet’s house, and 4 minutes after the meeting Piglet is at Winnie-the-Pooh’s. How long has each of them walked?

Click for Answer
| Puzzles