micropsychy
n. faint-heartedness
abulia
n. an inability to act decisively
quakebuttock
n. a coward
Unquote
“Heresy is the side that loses.” — J.V. Fleming
Charge!
Horses are difficult to manage onstage, so in 1901 music hall performer Alexander Braatz invented this ingenious alternative. The actor’s own legs masquerade as those of his horse, and a system of levers and cords moves the hind legs as well.
False human legs are attached at each side to give the appearance that the performer is mounted; his real feet “are advantageously covered by large clumsy hoof-like coverings.” I suppose you could even race these things between rehearsals.
A Point of Law
A gentleman, who had been described as a ‘Pettifogger,’ accused another gentleman, whom he had styled a ‘Fish-fag,’ with an assault. It being a very intricate point, it was of course referred to the Lord Mayor. It stood as follows: — ‘Whether puffing a cloud of tobacco-smoke in a man’s face constituted an assault?’ After some grave consultation with that encyclopaedia of wisdom, Mr. Hobler, the decision ran thus — The Lord Mayor: ‘There has been no assault; nothing but words, words.’ — Complainant: ‘I beg pardon, my Lord.’ — The Lord Mayor: ‘Well, then, all smoke, if you please, or words and puffs. There have been no blows.’ — Now we beg his Lordship’s pardon. Pray what is a puff but a blow?
— The Age, Aug. 8, 1830
Pointing Fingers
Only one of these statements is true. Which is it?
A. All of the below
B. None of the below
C. One of the above
D. All of the above
E. None of the above
F. None of the above
Advice
More wisdom from Poor Richard’s Almanack:
- Thirst after desert — not reward.
- Gifts much expected, are paid not given.
- Children and princes will quarrel for trifles.
- Praise little, dispraise less.
- The Child thinks 20 Shillings and 20 Years can scarce ever be spent.
- Industry need not wish.
- ‘Tis great Confidence in a Friend to tell him your Faults, greater to tell him his.
- Neglect kills Injuries, Revenge increases them.
- Observe all men; thyself most.
- Do not do that which you would not have known.
- He that resolves to mend hereafter, resolves not to mend now.
- The honest Man takes Pains, and then enjoys Pleasures; the knave takes Pleasure, and then suffers Pains.
- All would live long, but none would be old.
- Nothing more like a fool, than a drunken man.
- As often as we do good, we sacrifice.
- There is much difference between imitating a good man, and counterfeiting him.
And “Cut the Wings of your Hens and Hopes, lest they lead you a weary Dance after them.”
Podcast Episode 14: The Unsinkable Violet Jessop
Stewardess Violet Jessop was both cursed and blessed — during the 1910s she met disaster on all three of the White Star Line’s Olympic class of gigantic ocean liners, but she managed to escape each time.
In this episode of the Futility Closet podcast we’ll accompany Violet on her three ill-fated voyages, including the famous sinkings of the Titanic and the Britannic, and learn the importance of toothbrushes in ocean disasters.
We’ll also play with the International Date Line and puzzle over the identity of Salvador Dalí’s brother.
Art Appreciation
When James Thurber tried to improve his drawings, E.B. White told him, “Don’t do that. If you ever got good you’d be mediocre.”
Milestones
A conundrum by French puzzle maven Pierre Berloquin:
Caroline leaves town driving at a constant speed. After some time she passes a milestone displaying a two-digit number. An hour later she passes a milestone displaying the same two digits but in reverse order. In another hour she passes a third milestone with the same two digits (in some order) separated by a zero.
What is the speed of Caroline’s car?
A New Commute
In 1914, Russian physicist Boris Weinberg proposed an electromagnetic vacuum train that could move an individual passenger from New York to San Francisco in half a day. Reasoning that air resistance and friction are the greatest enemies to speed, Weinberg envisioned using electromagnets to suspend a car in a tube from which the air had been partially exhausted. An individual passenger would lie prone in a 300-pound iron cylinder drawn along by a series of solenoids. New passengers could be introduced into the system through an airlock at a rate as high as 12 per minute, “the whole proceeding being not unlike that of feeding cartridges from a belt or clip to a machine gun.”
Weinberg estimated a maximum speed of 500 mph. “Think what that means!” he wrote in The Popular Science Monthly. “New York would be no more distant from Chicago than it is now from Philadelphia, so far as relative times are concerned. Florida might easily become a kind of winter Coney Island for all New York.”
He built a model of the system at the Technological Institute of Tomsk, but the project never got off the ground (so to speak). One reason may have been the cost: In order to slow the cars gradually, each station would have to be 2 miles long.