Renerdssance Man

Today I learned about the Indigenous Comic Con, being held for the first time this November in Albuquerque, NM. From their website:

Featuring Indigenous creators, illustrators, writers, designers, actors, and producers from the worlds of comic books, games, sci-fi, fantasy, film, tv, and graphic novels. The Indigenous Comic Con seeks to highlight the amazing work that brings understanding about the Indigenous experience to the world of popular culture!

Sounds like a great event. They don’t have many details on their website yet about guests or programming, but we’re still just under two months out and they seem like a small-ish outfit.

Boston Flag Redesign (Sept. 27, 2016)

Today I learned about this proposed redesign for the flag of the City of Boston, as envisioned by redditor jabask. In the designer’s words, “There's nothing more Bostonian than the history of the country's inception, and the rebellion against the British. The uniform of Washington's army is reimagined as a white saltire on a field of blue and red. It's simple, iconic, and bears witness to the city's legacy as the birthplace of the revolution.”

I really, really like this design. It’s clean, simple, and extremely evocative of the subject matter that inspired it. It’s appropriate to the city’s history, and it’s all in all very solid. A flag we could be proud of. And, as a bonus, it’s way better than our current “flag”:

The worst. Well, not the worst. But pretty bad. Just no imagination. No design. No adherence to the most basic rules of good vexillological practice.

Today I learned that Joseph Stalin installed special toilets so that he could collect Mao Zedong’s feces for... analysis.

When I contacted Mr. Atamanenko, he told me what the Soviet scientists had been looking for in feces.

"For example, if they detected high levels of amino acid Tryptophan," he explained, "they concluded that person was calm and approachable. "But a lack of potassium in poo was seen as a sign of a nervous disposition and someone with insomnia."

Mr. Atamanenko claims that in December 1949, Soviet spies used this system to evaluate the Chinese leader Mao Zedong who was on a visit to Moscow. They had allegedly installed special toilets for Mao, which were connected not to sewers, but to secret boxes.

For 10 days Mao was plied with food and drink and his waste products whisked off for analysis. Once Mao's stools had been scrutinized and studied, Stalin reportedly poo poo-ed the idea of signing an agreement with him. 

[quote edited to Americanize some words so spell check wouldn’t yell at me]

Today I learned where every NFL team playing against the Packers in Green Bay has stayed since the early 1990′s: at the Radisson Paper Valley in Appleton, Wisconsin, nearly 30 minutes away.

This is the most peculiar hotel situation in the NFL. While there are numerous fine hotels within spitting distance of Lambeau, teams choose to stay a ways away at what is not exactly a luxury establishment. “A 30-minute drive from the hotel to the stadium is pretty commonplace in other NFL cities,” Aaron Popkey, the Packers’ director of public affairs and former travel manager, told me, and, in places like Dallas or San Francisco teams frequently stay more than 30 minutes away from the stadium. But according to Rich Ryman, the Packers business reporter for the Green Bay Press-Gazette, it’s the only situation where a visiting NFL team stays in a different city—not just a suburb or adjacent metropolitan area—from the home team.

“We’re not as sexy as those hotels,” [Hotel general manager Jay] Schumerth told me, referring to the Ritz-Carlton, the Four Seasons, and other high-end resting places where teams stay. To get the Vikings and Lions and Bears to keep coming back, he says, he needs to provide the best customer service in the NFL. “One of the things I preach to my staff is, we don’t take anything for granted,” Schumerth says. “Most of the guys will say, ‘This is our easiest trip of the year. We don’t have to worry about anything, we just show up. You guys do things before we even have to ask. You guys ask questions that nobody else asks.’ ”

I asked him to give an example. Imagine if a player has a stalker, he volunteered—we’d ask about that beforehand and have the appropriate security measures in place. It was a subject, I gathered, about which he had more than passing knowledge. “Hey, so-and-so always shows up on these road trips. It drives us crazy. … This guy or girl always shows up and asks for him in every city we go to,” he said, briefly impersonating one of the travel managers he works with on a regular basis. “If you’ve never hosted a team, you wouldn’t think of those things.”

[...]

Today I learned about the yearly Scavenger Hunt at the University of Chicago. It sounds ridiculous. Think GISHWHES, but somehow with more inside jokes, over a weekend, harder, and with people with more disposable income. The MIT Mystery Hunt, but building and doing crazy shit instead of solving puzzles.

The tidbit that caught my eye was that in 1999, two students built a working, plutonium-producing nuclear reactor as part of the hunt:

''It's kind of scary how easy it was to do,'' said Mr. Niell, assuring onlookers that there was only a trace of plutonium -- nothing harmful. ''It only took us about a day to build it. We've been thinking about it for a few days and we gathered the parts, and last night we assembled it. In Justin's room -- he lost the coin toss.''

Today I learned about Matt White, who had a totally undistinguished baseball career. He pitched a grand total of 9 2/3 innings in seven major-league games over a nine-year American pro career, with a 16.79 career ERA.

In 2003 he bought about 50 acres of mountain land in Cummington, MA from his aunt for $50,000, giving her the money to enter a nursing home. He eventually discovered that his land was 24 million tons of nearly solid Goshen stone, worth approximately $2.5 billion (minus the cost of getting it out of the ground.

Today I learned that September is National Potato Month. Thanks, New York Times monthly bonus crossword puzzle!

Seriously, if you have an NYTXW subscription, check out the bonus puzzle. It’s easy, but like 50% of the clues are potato-related. It’s a pretty impressive feat of puzzle construction.

Today I learned about the longest regularly-scheduled non-stop flight ever.

Singapore Airlines Flight 21 (and the return flight, SQ22) traveled between Newark International Airport in New Jersey and Singapore’s Changi Airport. SQ22 (the return trip, SIN-EWR) was slightly longer, clocking in at 16,600km (9,000 nautical miles) as opposed to 15,344km (8,285 nautical miles) for the EWR-SIN leg.

The route traveled a great circle route passing over Asia and Alaska, coming within 130km of the North Pole. Both flights traveled the distance over approximately 18 hours - it would leave Newark at 11:00pm ET and land in Singapore at just after 4pm ET the next afternoon.

From wikipedia [emphasis mine]:

The airline said that this route would save four hours off a one-stop service. However medical experts expressed concerns regarding the 18-hour flight, in which passengers would breathe recycled air with a greater chance of picking up viral infections such as flu and colds on board. Furthermore, the heart and lungs would come under increased strain from a lower than usual supply of oxygen, with an enhanced risk of deep vein thrombosis (DVT) among people who fail to exercise frequently on board. The airline had installed special lockers on the aircraft to store the corpses of any passengers that died en route, since the flight's routing over the Pacific Ocean and the North Pole meant that there were few, if any, possible unscheduled stops.

THE FLIGHT WAS SO LONG THAT THE PLANE HAD CORPSE LOCKERS.

Today I learned that Iceland occasionally makes minor public policy decisions that are based on the fact that there is a non-zero portion of its populations believes in elves.

Iceland has been forced to bow to pressure from elves and uncover a supposedly enchanted elfin rock after highway workers accidentally buried it - infuriating the mythical creatures, reports said on Tuesday.

The angry elves were suspected of causing a series of mishaps after the rock was covered over when workers cleared away the debris from a landslide, the Morgunbladid daily reported.

Iceland is no stranger to bending to the will of its elfin population.

Construction sites have previously been moved so as not to disturb the creatures and fishermen have refused to go to sea because of their warnings: in Iceland, elves are part of every day life.

Today I learned about Allan McLane Hamilton, a late 19th-century American psychiatrist. Things you need to know about this guy:

He specialized in suicide and the effects of trauma and accidents on mental health.

He frequently gave expert testimony in court regarding criminal insanity pleas. Most notably, in 1881-1882 he gave testimony against Charles Guiteau in his trial for the assassination of President James Garfield.

He was Alexander Hamilton’s grandson.

Perhaps that last fact gave him a touch of bias against those who try to kill public figures?

Antibacterial Resistance (Sept. 12, 2016)

Today I learned just how quickly bacteria can evolve to develop resistance to antibiotics: it’s pretty fucking fast. Check out this video from a lab at Harvard – it’s a very compelling visual demonstration. Here’s the story about the lab and the video from the Harvard Gazette.

Today I learned about a free iOS app that can help you register to vote.

The app scans the barcode on the back of your state-issued ID to grab your name and address and such, and then you manually fill in some other information. If your state supports online voter registration (AZ, CA, CO, CT, IL, LA, MA, MD, MO, NM, PA, and UT), it will securely transmit your information directly to the state registrar of voters’ server and you will receive official confirmation via email or postal mail.

If you don’t live in one of those states, the app now supports the national voter registration form, so it is usable in every state except Wyoming (I assume because your reg form apparently needs to be notarized) and North Dakota (ND does not require voter registration).

Two important things to note:

The app’s FAQ claims that it does not store your personal information, but I can’t independently confirm that.

Be careful if you use this app to register other people to vote, because your state may have laws regulating 3rd party registration drives.