podpolia

Ran across two interesting videos today. The first is the explosion of a fireworks factory somewhere, which seems to have been filmed from a nearby rooftop. (I’m not sure what the announcer says at the end — I suspect it’s Dutch, so if there are any Dutch speakers out there, feel free to leave a comment with a translation.) The second is an event that Dave Barry made famous in one of his columns — the saga of the exploding whale. A bit grainy, but entertaining nonetheless.

There are a number of lessons that can be learned from this particular story that I read today in an old newspaper:

“A BEAR FIGHT.
A Gentleman from Cayuga county, between the Seneca and Cayuga lakes, relates that a Mr. Wayborne, a farmer in Ovid township, went out one afternoon through the woods in search of his horses, taking with him his rifle, with the only load of ammunition he had in the house. On his return home, about an hour before dark, he perceived a very large bear crossing the path; on which he instantly fired, and the bear fell, but immediately recovered his legs, made for a deep ravine, a short way a head. Here he tracked him a while by the blood; but night coming on, and expecting to find him dead in the morning, he returned home. A little before daybreak the next morning, taking a pitchfork and hatchet, and his son, a boy of ten or eleven years of age, with him, he proceeded to the place in quest of the animal — The glen or ravine, into which he had disappeared the evening before, is eighty or ninety feet from the top of the banks to the bottom of the brook below: down the precipice a stream of three or four yards in breadth is precipitated in one unbroken sheet, and forming a circular bason or pool, winds away among thick underwood below.
After reconnoitering every probably place of retreat, he at length discovered the bear, who had made his way up the other side of the ravine, as far as the rocks would admit him, and sat under a projecting cliff, steadfastly eying the motions of his enemy.
Wayborne desiring his boy to remain where he was, took the pitchfork and descending to the bottom, determined to attack him from below.
The bear kept his position until he got within six or seven feet, when, on the instant of making a stab with the pitchfork, he found himself grappled by Bruin, and both together rolled down towards the pond, at least twenty or twenty-five feet, the bear munching his left arm and breast, and hugging him almost to suffocation — By great exertion he forced his right arm partly down his throat, and in that manner endevoured to strangle him, but once more hurled headlong down through the bushes, a greater distance than before, into the water. –Here, finding the bear gaining on him, he made one desperate effort, and forced his head partly under water, and repeated his exertions, at length weakened the animal so much, that calling to his boy, who stood on the other side, in a state little short of distraction for the fate of his father he sunk the edge of his hatchet, by repeated blows, into his brain.
Wayborne, though a robust muscular man, was with great difficulty able to crawl home, where he lay for upwards of three weeks, with his wounds, his arm being mashed from the shoulder to the elbow into the bone, and his breast severely mangled. The bear weight upwards of FOUR HUNDRED and TWENTY pounds.
N. Y. paper.”

Lesson #1 – Do NOT attack a bear with a pitchfork. It just isn’t a good idea.
Lesson #2 – In 1804, America was in the midst of a terrible shortage of periods. As a result, brave frontiersmen of this area were forced to grow their own commas and use them instead. It is quite possible that the young boy in the story had said that very day, “Father, how long must we continue using these commas, how soon will we have periods again? I am forced to talk and talk, unable to come to a full stop, and the only way I am able to rest is to come up with another way to end my statements, and despite our best efforts we are unable to find a replacement;– even the semicolon-and-hyphen does not allow me to rest long enough, and I am forced to continue speaking, until I can bring my sentence to a close in another way;– are you not tired as well, Father?”
To which his father probably replied, “Shut up and get the pitchfork” and simply omitted the period. Those early Americans were a resourceful lot.
Lesson #3 – We have learned a lot from our insane ancestors with their sharp garden implements. I was discussing this post with Steph, and when I explained what I was writing, she said, “I knew something retarded was coming out of that” — but notice, she didn’t use a period either! That is the story of the American spirit. We have gone from a nation of tough pioneers who would rather go after a threatening enormous bear with things they found in the garage to a nation that actually occasionally pays attention to what Sean Penn, Tom Cruise and Barbra Streisand have to say.
Lesson #4 – Despite all that, it is now considered impolite to jam your arm down their throat in an attempt to strangle them.

I calculated the other day that if I were to work for the better-paying of the two districts that employ me as a substitute teacher for every single school day of the year, I would still make less than $15,000 a year before taxes. Then while reading the Carlisle Gazette today, I came across this advertisement:

“SAMUEL TIZZARD.
Continues to teach Reading, English Grammar, Arithmetic, &c. at his house opposite to Judge Brackenridge’s. He will wait on parents having children of either sex to educate, and show them specimens of his own writing, and the progress of some of his scholars; or any gentleman or lady calling at his house may view the same.
Young females may be taught Needlework, by his wife and daughters, part, or the whole of the day.
On Monday the 1st of October he proposes opening a Night School for such persons of either sex as not having leisure & opportunity during the day, wish to be taught Reading, Writing Arithmetic, Geometry, Trigonometry, Measuration, Surveying, Gauging and Algebra. If required a separate room will be appropriated for the females.
Night School hours, from 7 till 9 — Tuition 2 Dollars per Quarter.
12th September, 1804.”

Now, $2.00 isn’t a lot, even taking account for the fact that in 1804 it could purchase the equivalent of $24.58 today (at least according to The Inflation Calculator). I suppose that I’m comparatively well paid today, considering that was tuition for one student for an entire quarter. But then again, Samuel Tizzard and I had something else in common — neither of us was represented by a teacher’s union.

PS- I took out all of the old scripty ’s’es that look like ‘f’s from the advertisement. Af much fun af it would be to ufe them exclufively for the letter f, it makef it much more difficult for me to type, much leff for everyone elfe to read.

I was watching an episode of the BBC show Horizon the other day about terraforming Mars. They were arguing about whether or not nuclear weapons would have to be planted under the surface of Mars to warm the planet enough to release water and make the planet warm enough to be habitable for plants. I’ve come up with a better idea.
Mars doesn’t really have tectonic activity, largely because there aren’t any major tidal forces acting on the planet’s core. The earth generates quite a bit of internal heat because of the tidal forces created by the moon. So, why not build Mars a moon? Using Newton’s gravitational equations, you would have to put a 7.91 x 10 ^ 21 kg moon into orbit around Mars at a distance of 41,302 km to give it the equivalent gravitational pull of the Earth’s moon on the Earth.
It would be fairly difficult to build a moon for Mars, yes, but if you towed Phobos and Deimos into the right orbit, you’d be more than 1 / 63000th of the way there! Besides, if you managed to jam 3 or 4 of the larger asteroids together, you’d already have one. They’re just sorta floating out there between Mars and Jupiter anyway — it’s not like anyone is using them.
Far-fetched as this plan sounds, it’s actually less bizarre than some of the ones professionals seem to have come up with.

I was reading up on the Gallipoli campaign today on Wikipedia, and ran across an interesting character. I decided to read about him after he was described as performing “a one-man diversion” on the day of the landing at Anzac Cove. His name was Bernard Freyberg, and despite the large number of posh abbreviations behind his name, he was not the type of guy you wanted to pick a fight with. Have a read through his biography, it’s definitely interesting.

I’m experimenting with the templates on my blog. I’ve been trying to get my sitemeter working properly, but it kept saying that I was only getting two visits a day, on average. This conflicted somewhat with the ~900 that the server’s statistics have been saying. To try to get the two to compromise and find a happy medium, I’ve added the sitemeter script to the template I’m using, so that theoretically, no matter which entry someone looks at, they will show up on the sitemeter. This probably isn’t going to work for the RSS feed (which may cut into my stats significantly), but it’s the best I can come up with at the moment. If you happen to think of any other great ideas about how to get this to work properly, PLEASE let me know.

UPDATE 6/20/06 4.38PM: That didn’t seem to help any. I’m now trying out the non-javascript tracker, to see if that helps any.