Shiny Things

11:42 am - Penguin

What's the origin of the word "penguin"? Is it related to "pinguescence", an obscure English word meaning "the process of becoming fat" (featured in this week's World Wide Words)?

08:50 am - Coffee Makers

How does a coffee maker get the water from the reservoir up to the drip basket?

09:28 pm - Tusken Raiders, Hookahs

From conversations I've had with bushi7 recently:

1. Since she's building a house in Second Life on Tuscany Island, I suggested that she should include statue of a Tusken Raider. Then I wondered, what's the difference between a Tusken Raider and Sand People?

2. We've noticed that hookah bars are increasing in popularity, perhaps in response to municipal smoking bans. So how does a hookah work?

01:45 pm - Kaleidoscope, Pepitas, Three Sisters

1. Where does the word "kaleidoscope" come from?

2. What are pepitas, which I found in some snack mix a colleague brought in today?

3. What are the Native American agricultural "three sisters", which I read about while looking up "pepita"?

07:47 pm - Nautilus, Gewurtztraminer, XKCD, Big Mac

1. What is a nautilus, and are they extinct?

2. How do you pronounce Gewurtztraminer?

3. What does the name of the webcomic XKCD mean?

4. How is the middle slice of bread in a Big Mac created?

07:53 am - Indigo, Sand Dollars, Comedogenic

1.  Why is there a seventh color-indigo-in the rainbow, that isn't discussed in optics? What does indigo look like, anyway?

2. Where do sand dollars come from?

3. We have some skin lotion that says it is "non-comedogenic". Does that mean that it won't start something funny?

12:36 pm - Sail Sledges

In Around the World in Eighty Days, Jules Verne describes sail-powered sledges being driven across the snow-covered prairies of western America. I have to wonder if this was ever remotely commonplace, or just something Verne made up out of whole cloth. I know that people do land sailing now (looks like fun), but they are using wheels, on especially flat places such as dry lake beds and beaches. I especially doubt the part of his account that the sledge sailor had no concern over crossing creeks and rivers, because they were frozen over. That may be so, but they would still have banks, which often drop steeply.

Online research hasn't revealed much, except references to the novel itself. Anyone have any thoughts or information on the subject?

04:05 pm - The Eponymous Bearcat

The bearcat is the mascot of numerous colleges and high schools. A car was named for it. A plane was named for it. A line of police scanners was named for it. But what is it, and where does it live?

10:54 am - Downtown and Uptown

Where did the designations "downtown" and "uptown" come from?

04:27 pm - Guinea Pigs: Recovered

This is the post I lost earlier today: I was able to salvage it from my web browser's cache files.

1. I don't know that I've ever heard of any actual research being performed with guinea pigs, so why is the term "guinea pig" synonymous with "research subject"? 

2. Are they pigs? If not, what are they? 

3. Are they from Guinea? If not, where are they from? 

4. Where is Guinea, anyway? 

5. Why were British pounds sometimes referred to as guineas? 

09:35 am - Plutonium

Yesterday I was helping Brandon study for chemistry. The question came up, where does plutonium come from?

10:31 am - ?allow

1. What does callow mean?

2. What does sallow mean?

3. What does wallow mean?

4. What does mallow mean?

09:58 am - Bacon Numbers

Yesterday a requirements meeting at work had a sidebar in which one of the managers was calculating Bacon numbers for a few different actors (no, I don't recall what started it). Someone mentioned that there was an online tool for calculating the Bacon number of any actor in IMDB, so this morning I went looking for it, and I found it from a link on the Wikipedia page.

1. One actor that came up in the meeting was Luciano Pavarotti, which seemed like a real challenge. The manager came up with a Bacon number of 6, but I stumbled across a bit of information on the Wikipedia page that showed it was only 2. What single actor connects Pavarotti and Bacon?

2. Bacon is not actually the most-connected actor in IMDB. Who is?

05:28 am - Mobius Strip

Brandon was playing with my mom's adding machine on Saturday and it somehow got stuck, continuing to spew out tape for several seconds. After getting it stopped I demonstrated how you could use the tape to create a mobius strip by giving one end a half twist and then taping the ends together. Then I demonstrated what happens when you cut a mobius strip down its center line, only the result was not what I'd expected. What was it?

11:06 am - Solar Eclipse

Karen and I were discussing yesterday, while driving out to my parents' farm for Thanksgiving, that we'd like to see a total solar eclipse. When is the next total solar eclipse in the continental US?

10:37 am - African Pineapple Peanut Stew

Happy Thanksgiving!

Among other things we're having for Thanksgiving dinner today (because of various dietary restrictions of our guests) is a recipe called African Pineapple Peanut Stew. Karen and I were looking at the ingredients this morning and wondering, "How is this African? Aren't pineapple and peanuts New World plants?"

So, what continent is each of the ingredients from?

1. 1 cup chopped onions
2. 2 garlic cloves, minced or pressed
3. 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
4. 1 bunch kale or Swiss chard (4 cups sliced)
5. 2 cups undrained canned crushed pineapple (20-ounce can)
6. 1/2 cup peanut butter
7. 1 tablespoon Tabasco or other hot pepper sauce
8. 1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro
9. salt to taste
10. crushed skinless peanuts
11. chopped scallions

10:02 am - The Dangers of Toner

One of my first jobs was maintaining printers in a university print center. My boss there told me to be very careful about the toner, because it's highly toxic. He even told a story of someone who killed his neighbor's annoying dog by putting toner in its food. So how dangerous is toner, really?

07:14 am - Turning Leaves

What triggers the color change in autumn leaves? What benefit does the change in colors provide to the tree, since the leaves are about to fall off?

07:09 am - Stardust

Yesterday's comic on my Far Side calendar made a reference to the song "Stardust". How does the song go?

08:52 pm - Cultural Education

Where might you have heard someone say "I'm a fiddler crab! Why don't you shoot me? It's fiddler crab season?