Vernor Vinge

Today I learned that sci-fi author Vernor Vinge's last name is pronounced /'vɪndʒi/, or "VIN-jee".  It rhymes with "stingy," not with "hinge."

This is something that I've honestly wondered about for quite some time.  Based on what I've seen and heard, I am far from the only one who's wondered about this.


Source :
http://www.tor.com/blogs/2011/08/a-chat-with-vernor-vinge

Pool film

Film is(was) made on Celluloid, as everyone knows.  But why?

When the film industry began, the very first films were recorded on a thin film made of paper.  This was clearly sub-optimal, because while the thin paper was appropriately transparent, it was also exceedingly fragile.  So they went looking for a synthetic alternative.

At that point, Celluloid (basically a mix of cellulose nitrate and camphor) was one of the primary commercially available plastics.

It had become commercially successful because the billiard industry at that time was running short of ivory for the making of billiard balls (conservation hadn't really taken a bite out of it yet, but they were honestly having trouble getting enough elephants to keep up with demand inspired by a billiard craze). The Brunswick Billiard company ^{1, 2} (probably?) ran a contest to find a synthetic replacement for billiard balls, and the Hyatt Celluloid Billiard Ball (or a variant thereof) was the winner in roughly 1868 ⁴.  I say probably, because apparently Hyatt never got the prize money ⁴, and the Brunswick company website ³ has does not mention the celluloid balls.  Possibly because although it was a much cheaper and easily acquired material than ivory, the balls themselves didn't perform as well.  Stories of the cellulose exploding are probably apocryphal, though.

Anyway, when the photography and then later the film industry went looking for their alternative, this material was no doubt an obvious choice, and the billiard ball factories were more than happy to supply it to a brand new market.

Sources:
¹ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billiard_ball#History
² http://youtu.be/7I0rX7t1J0Q (Adam Savage)
³ http://www.brunswickbilliards.com/our_rich_history/important_events/index.html
⁴ http://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/search/object/nmah_2947

History of Shaving

The whole history is actually rather lengthy.  There is archaeological evidence that mankind has been removing unwanted hairs for much longer than recorded history-- according to the Encyclopaedia Britannica, "Prehistoric cave drawings show that clam shells, shark’s teeth, and sharpened flints were used as shaving implements..."  Razors made of gold and copper have been found in ancient Egyptian tombs (about 6000 years old).  But the one fact that stuck in my head, much to my dismay, is the idea that the more plebeian Egyptians, the ones who couldn't afford the fancy razors, removed their problematic hair via pumice stones.  I have to admit, I'm having trouble finding a really authoritative source for this story, but it seems pretty persistent-- I've seen it on quite a number of non-authoritative sites.  Also, ow.

Sources:
http://www.moderngent.com/history_of_shaving/history_of_shaving.php
http://www.ehow.com/facts_5340337_history-behind-women-shaving-legs.html

Google Books search for "shaving with pumice stone Egyptians":
The Encyclopedia of Hair: A Cultural History (One reviewer suggested that the bibliography is "sparse".)
Cory's Ancient Fragments of the Phoenician, Carthaginian, Babylonian, Egyptian and other authors is a bit better, although a touch random.  At least it feels a little more authentic.

Chicken McShapes

The four canonical shapes for Chicken McNuggets are the Boot (an angle), the Ball (round), the Bone (rectangle), and the Bell (a kind of oval shape). All McNuggets should be one of those four basic configurations, having been formed into those shapes during the manufacturing process.

http://m.flickr.com/photos/jakeisbadman/3721610125/lightbox/
For a picture of the McNugget Extruder and the four shapes.

Cookies

Quick tip for chocolate chip cookies-- try browning some or all of the butter. That is, cook out the water and let the milk solids brown a bit. It adds a nice sort of deep caramel-y flavor to the cookies.

Bordetella

I always (somewhat foolishly, in retrospect) assumed that bordetella, also known as kennel cough, was named that because that's the environment where dogs tend to contract it.  When they're boarded, right?

Yeah, I know.  It's actually named after Jules Bordet, a Belgian microbiologist.  And strictly speaking, it's not even the name of the disease-- it's actually the genus of bacteria containing one of the culprits that cause kennel cough.  So I was wrong in all sorts of clever ways.  Huzzah!

Mouth-peeing

Bear with me, this is actually science.  

Chinese softshell turtles (Pelodiscus sinensis) spend a certain amount of their life in extremely brackish waters.  So much so, in fact, that their kidneys can't handle all of the salt that would accumulate if they processed the water in the usual biological method (peeing uses up water, so they'd have to drink more salty water to rehydrate, and all of a sudden you die from kidney failure).  So to compensate, they have an alternative.  Instead of passing the ammoniac urea out their hind end, they dunk their heads into a nearby pool, and gargle.  They're not drinking, you see-- they're using the water to rinse out the concentrated urea that they're secreting into their mouths.

Scientists are very excited about possible medical implications for people with kidney problems.  People with kidney problems are telling the scientists not to bother.  Ew.

Primary Source : http://jeb.biologists.org/content/215/21/ii.full

To sleep, perchance to zzxxxnnnn...

A week or so ago, I switched out my alarm clock for my phone.  Yes, I'm becoming one of Those people.  For one thing, it lets me easily set different times for my alarm for the days where my morning schedule is different.  For another, instead of having to try tune the clock to an empty band to get static for white noise (something that's getting more and more difficult), I can now use an actual white noise app, that will generate (among other things) wave sounds, rainstorm sounds, fan noise, or my personal favorite, Airplane Cabin.  No, seriously.

And that leads in turn to the Thing I Learned.  You see, I've always felt like I had trouble falling asleep.  I turn off the light, lay down, and proceed to thrash and flop around for a while until I finally go out.  But now I have verifiable evidence!  The white noise app has a timer on it, and I can now say, much to my surprise, that a fair number of nights I have absolutely no recollection of the app shutting itself off after about 15 minutes.  So I'm falling asleep much faster than I thought.

Unexpected gender dimorphism

Male mice do not have nipples.  Neither do stallions.  Pretty much every other male mammal does, because... well, they just do.  No one really seems to have a really solid answer for why, distinct from the simple apparent fact of their existence, and that translates to a lack of good explanation for why not in the case of the rare exceptions.  All babies (in most mammalian animals) are born with them, and in typical males they just develop differently.  Note that it's not fair to say that they don't develop at all-- there's still a bunch of nerves and blood vessels and stuff back there.  It's just not expressed the same way or to the same degree.  As far as an explanation for the mice/rats/horses/possibly platypi goes, the Straight Dope (for example) simply says that nipple development is suppressed in mice by the male hormones.  Which, ok?  I guess?  But a little unsatisfying.

Word for the Day -- Izzat

"Izzat" is a Hindi term, taken ultimately from Arabic, meaning (variously) "honor" or "dignity," or in some cases "prestige."

As Kipling says, in William the Conquerer,
'Scott spoke forcefully to Faiz Ullah and the two policemen, and bade them capture goats where they could find them.  This they most joyfully did, for it was a recreation, and many ownerless goats were driven in.  Once fed, the poor brutes were willing enough to follow the carts, and a few days' good food- food such as human beings died for lack of- set them in milk again.
'But I am no goatherd,' said Faiz Ullah. 'It is against my izzat.'
'When we cross the Bias River again we will talk of izzat,' Scott replied. 'Till that day thou and the policemen shall be sweepers to the camp, if I give the order.'"

So there you go.  And next time someone asks you, "What izzat?", you'll know!

Mew

Kitten heels supposedly got their name because the small thin heel resembles a kitten's claw.

Supposedly.

Also, I appear to be on a shoe kick right now.  So to speak.

Heels

It appears that my shoes, having more or less "a heel extending from the back of the shoe to the front of the shank and a tread formed by an extension of the sole," are technically wedges, despite being basically bog standard men's shoes.  I feel like either I or the dictionary definition are missing something, but there you go.

I'm a wedge wearer.