16) There is also the Ferris wheel, one of my favorites. Also gerrymander, from Elbridge Gerry, governor of Massachusetts, and (sala)mander.
My son and I have a running joke where we will comment on something being ironically named after it's inventor. For example, Dr. Blunt Instrument died after being struck with one. Anyway, I mentioned the Ferris wheel and my son thought I was joking until I insisted that he Google it.
We also pretend that "shenanigans" is named for an Irish family who were always up to no good, Mr and Mrs. Shenanigans and all the little shenanigans.
9) Thanks for this. I always heard that slipping on a banana peel was a gag used in silent movies to sanitize the real gag, which was slipping on dog poop. Audiences (at least adult audiences) understood that this was code. But I guess I heard wrong.
It's pretty simple to empirically demonstrate the effect - if you put an empty peel so that the inside of the peel is facing the floor (on a regular smooth floor) and step on it, it is indeed very slippery!
My cat once vomited on my favorite keyboard, which I had used for many years. I put it through the dishwasher (which I've heard people do successfully), but the keyboard never worked again.
Some of my favorite things-surprisingly-named-after-people are three biological techniques: Western Blot, Southern Blot and Northern Blot, only ONE of which is actually named after a person.
i love to hear this: "Before I started a blog, I thought I would write a post like 'How to like more things' and I never did, and now I’m glad because Sasha Chapin recently wrote a better version: How to Like Everything More"
“It’s that we live in a world where the folks around us are usually acting normal and doing reasonable things, and it would be impolite, weird, and annoying to second-guess them all the time, so we generally don’t.”
I grew up with a very different lesson: Question Everything. Consequently, people feel like I’m impolite, weird, and annoying, but I was far from the only one who practiced this in ‘70s-‘80s Jewish (or Jewish-ish) New York. Over and over again, an honest skepticism (look at the facts, think things through without emotion or special pleading) was taught to me as the best way to approach the world. Carl Sagan’s final book *The Demon Haunted World* is a good representative of this philosophy, towards the end of that era, as the title suggests (Feynman is also a classic).
It brings up a question that you might have thought about: How did this annoying philosophy come to, if not predominate, gain a large foothold (at least among “elites”*) during this era? Is there any precedent for it?
* I don’t consider myself “elite” despite going to a gifted school, followed by a non-Ivy League college. I suspect many others like me feel the same way, despite being in a pretty small percentage of the overall population. I think the problem people don’t want to admit when they rail against this kind of hypocrisy is that if I and similar others *did* see ourselves as elite, it would go very badly for everyone (see: Elon Musk)
If you express your honest skepticism often and aloud, chances are that you will collect a lot of personal enemies. Which may not matter in your personal life/career, but might be destructive for people in more cabal-like environment, such as the academia.
You could argue that the ancient Greeks more or less covered all the bases when it came to most literary themes. From then on we've just been coming up with clever ways to retell the same stories. Gotta say though I'm so tired of Disney's ever decreasing cycles of regurgitating the same properties over and over again (Snow White!!) I have a lot of resistance these days when it comes to watching anything produced by Disney.
Prefacing by acknowledging that this is an unkind thing to say: science is a strong-link problem, but that doesn't help if the mediocre masses swallow up all the funding and opportunities. In other words, it is absolutely possible for the best researchers to get crowded out.
There's an interesting story about your 3), the kid who was born with a golden tooth to save christendom or whatnot:
I had first heard of it because it is mentioned by Fontenelle, a French 17th c. philosopher, who used it as a reminder that, you need to check there's really an effect before you come up with a nice explanation for it. You see, here's the full story, as he tells it:
"Let us be assured of the Matter of fact, before we trouble ourselves with enquiring into the Cause. It is true, that this Method is too slow and dull for the greatest part of Mankind, who run naturally to the Cause, and pass over the truth of the matter of fact, but for my part, I will not be so ridiculous as to find out a Cause for what is not.
This kind of Misfortune happened so pleasantly at the end of the last Age, to some Learned Germans, that I cannot forbear speaking of it. In the Year 1593, there was a Report that the Teeth of a Child ofSilesia of seven Years old, dropp'd out, and that one of Gold came in the Place of one of his great Teeth. Horstius , a Physician in the University of Helmstad, wrote in the Year 1595 the History of this Tooth, and pretends that it was partly natural, and partly miraculous, and that it was sent from God to this Infant, to comfort the Christians who were then afflicted by the Turks. Now fancy to yourself what a Consolation this was, and what this Tooth could signify, either to the Christians or the Turks. In the same Year (that this Tooth might not want for Historians) one Roland us wrote a Book of it : Two Years after, Ingolsteterus , another Learned Man, wrote against the Opinion of Rolandus concerning this golden Tooth ; and Rolandus presently makes a Learned Reply. Another Great Man, named Libavius, collected all that had been said of this Tooth, to which he added his own Opinion, In fine there wanted nothing to so many famous Works, but only the truth of its being a golden Tooth. For when a Gold-Smith had examined it, he found, that it was only a thin Plate of Gold fixed to the Tooth with a great deal of Art. Thus they first went about to compile Books, and afterwards they consulted the Gold-Smith.
Nothing is more natural than to do the same thing in all other cases. And
I am not so convinced of our Ignorance by the things that are, and of
which the Reasons are unknown, as by those which are not, and for which we yet find out Reasons. That is to fay, as we want those Principles that lead us to truth, fo we have those which agree exceeding well with error and falsehood."
Also named after a person: German chocolate cake.
Upsetting
Coconut is not a notably German ingredient!
16) There is also the Ferris wheel, one of my favorites. Also gerrymander, from Elbridge Gerry, governor of Massachusetts, and (sala)mander.
My son and I have a running joke where we will comment on something being ironically named after it's inventor. For example, Dr. Blunt Instrument died after being struck with one. Anyway, I mentioned the Ferris wheel and my son thought I was joking until I insisted that he Google it.
We also pretend that "shenanigans" is named for an Irish family who were always up to no good, Mr and Mrs. Shenanigans and all the little shenanigans.
Even weirder: gerrymandering is named after Elbridge Gerry and a salamander.
9) Thanks for this. I always heard that slipping on a banana peel was a gag used in silent movies to sanitize the real gag, which was slipping on dog poop. Audiences (at least adult audiences) understood that this was code. But I guess I heard wrong.
It's pretty simple to empirically demonstrate the effect - if you put an empty peel so that the inside of the peel is facing the floor (on a regular smooth floor) and step on it, it is indeed very slippery!
I put my waffle iron (and its cord) in the dishwasher this weekend. I do it all the time.
My sister does it with her entire Foreman grill. 😎
My cat once vomited on my favorite keyboard, which I had used for many years. I put it through the dishwasher (which I've heard people do successfully), but the keyboard never worked again.
I always loved the irony of a bridge located at the outer end, i.e., the southern end of Staten Island named:
The Outerbridge Crossing
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outerbridge_Crossing
Some of my favorite things-surprisingly-named-after-people are three biological techniques: Western Blot, Southern Blot and Northern Blot, only ONE of which is actually named after a person.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_blot
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_blot
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_blot
Hey, what about Thomas Crapper?
I've heard this one is a coincidence! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Crapper
dear adam,
thank you for this as always!
i love to hear this: "Before I started a blog, I thought I would write a post like 'How to like more things' and I never did, and now I’m glad because Sasha Chapin recently wrote a better version: How to Like Everything More"
and this is fascinating:
"THINGS UNEXPECTEDLY NAMED AFTER PEOPLE:
PageRank (Larry Page)
Taco Bell (Glen Bell)
shrapnel (Henry Shrapnel)"
thank you for sharing all of this!
love
myq
“It’s that we live in a world where the folks around us are usually acting normal and doing reasonable things, and it would be impolite, weird, and annoying to second-guess them all the time, so we generally don’t.”
I grew up with a very different lesson: Question Everything. Consequently, people feel like I’m impolite, weird, and annoying, but I was far from the only one who practiced this in ‘70s-‘80s Jewish (or Jewish-ish) New York. Over and over again, an honest skepticism (look at the facts, think things through without emotion or special pleading) was taught to me as the best way to approach the world. Carl Sagan’s final book *The Demon Haunted World* is a good representative of this philosophy, towards the end of that era, as the title suggests (Feynman is also a classic).
It brings up a question that you might have thought about: How did this annoying philosophy come to, if not predominate, gain a large foothold (at least among “elites”*) during this era? Is there any precedent for it?
* I don’t consider myself “elite” despite going to a gifted school, followed by a non-Ivy League college. I suspect many others like me feel the same way, despite being in a pretty small percentage of the overall population. I think the problem people don’t want to admit when they rail against this kind of hypocrisy is that if I and similar others *did* see ourselves as elite, it would go very badly for everyone (see: Elon Musk)
In our US 7 letters are FIGHTIN WORDS:
"based on?"
Let's collaborate?....Let's zoom 8am-8pm PDT
Pls pick some times
If you express your honest skepticism often and aloud, chances are that you will collect a lot of personal enemies. Which may not matter in your personal life/career, but might be destructive for people in more cabal-like environment, such as the academia.
https://www.americaamerica.news/p/can-america-ever-overcome-the-shame/comment/97184395
The law requires "us" to ask each other:"Do you want to kill?"(see below)
https://www.americaamerica.news/p/can-america-ever-overcome-the-shame/comment/97189877
https://www.americaamerica.news/p/can-america-ever-overcome-the-shame/comment/97186825
You could argue that the ancient Greeks more or less covered all the bases when it came to most literary themes. From then on we've just been coming up with clever ways to retell the same stories. Gotta say though I'm so tired of Disney's ever decreasing cycles of regurgitating the same properties over and over again (Snow White!!) I have a lot of resistance these days when it comes to watching anything produced by Disney.
for more (much, much more) about slipping on banana peels, see Pretty Good: youtube.com/watch?v=p8W5GCnqT_M
If Ed Conway had spent about 5 minutes searching the internet he probably would have come across various posts and even a book (https://www.amazon.com/No-Breakfast-Fallacy-running-minerals-ebook/dp/B00YHTIMHS ) by Tim Worstall that explain why we are in no danger of running out of any mineral resource
Not so fast on the miracle of the smallpox vaccination: the real story is different. https://www.midwesterndoctor.com/p/what-can-the-smallpox-vaccine-disaster
Prefacing by acknowledging that this is an unkind thing to say: science is a strong-link problem, but that doesn't help if the mediocre masses swallow up all the funding and opportunities. In other words, it is absolutely possible for the best researchers to get crowded out.
There's an interesting story about your 3), the kid who was born with a golden tooth to save christendom or whatnot:
I had first heard of it because it is mentioned by Fontenelle, a French 17th c. philosopher, who used it as a reminder that, you need to check there's really an effect before you come up with a nice explanation for it. You see, here's the full story, as he tells it:
"Let us be assured of the Matter of fact, before we trouble ourselves with enquiring into the Cause. It is true, that this Method is too slow and dull for the greatest part of Mankind, who run naturally to the Cause, and pass over the truth of the matter of fact, but for my part, I will not be so ridiculous as to find out a Cause for what is not.
This kind of Misfortune happened so pleasantly at the end of the last Age, to some Learned Germans, that I cannot forbear speaking of it. In the Year 1593, there was a Report that the Teeth of a Child ofSilesia of seven Years old, dropp'd out, and that one of Gold came in the Place of one of his great Teeth. Horstius , a Physician in the University of Helmstad, wrote in the Year 1595 the History of this Tooth, and pretends that it was partly natural, and partly miraculous, and that it was sent from God to this Infant, to comfort the Christians who were then afflicted by the Turks. Now fancy to yourself what a Consolation this was, and what this Tooth could signify, either to the Christians or the Turks. In the same Year (that this Tooth might not want for Historians) one Roland us wrote a Book of it : Two Years after, Ingolsteterus , another Learned Man, wrote against the Opinion of Rolandus concerning this golden Tooth ; and Rolandus presently makes a Learned Reply. Another Great Man, named Libavius, collected all that had been said of this Tooth, to which he added his own Opinion, In fine there wanted nothing to so many famous Works, but only the truth of its being a golden Tooth. For when a Gold-Smith had examined it, he found, that it was only a thin Plate of Gold fixed to the Tooth with a great deal of Art. Thus they first went about to compile Books, and afterwards they consulted the Gold-Smith.
Nothing is more natural than to do the same thing in all other cases. And
I am not so convinced of our Ignorance by the things that are, and of
which the Reasons are unknown, as by those which are not, and for which we yet find out Reasons. That is to fay, as we want those Principles that lead us to truth, fo we have those which agree exceeding well with error and falsehood."