DEW Consulting

August 25, 2018

Fake News

On this day in history, August 25, 1835, the first in a series of articles announcing the supposed discovery of life on the moon appears in the New York Sun newspaper.

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Known collectively as “The Great Moon Hoax,” the articles were supposedly reprinted from the Edinburgh Journal of Science. The byline was Dr. Andrew Grant, described as a colleague of Sir John Herschel, a famous astronomer of the day. Herschel had in fact traveled to Capetown, South Africa, in January 1834 to set up an observatory with a powerful new telescope. As Grant described it, Herschel had found evidence of life forms on the moon. Included were such fantastic animals as unicorns, two-legged beavers and furry, winged humanoids resembling bats. The articles also offered vivid description of the moon’s geography. It was complete with massive craters, enormous amethyst crystals, rushing rivers and lush vegetation.

The New York Sun, founded in 1833, was one of the new “penny press” papers. It appealed to a wider audience with a cheaper price and a more narrative style of journalism. From the day the first moon hoax article was released, sales of the paper shot up considerably. It was exciting stuff. Readers lapped it up. The only problem was that none of it was true. The Edinburgh Journal of Science had stopped publication years earlier. Grant was a fictional character. The articles were most likely written by Richard Adams Locke, a Sun reporter educated at Cambridge University. Intended as satire, they were designed to poke fun at earlier, serious speculations about extraterrestrial life. In particular, Locke took aim at Reverend Thomas Dick, a popular science writer who claimed in his bestselling books that the moon alone had 4.2 billion inhabitants.

Readers were completely taken in by the story, however. They failed to recognize it as satire. The craze over Herschel’s supposed discoveries even fooled a committee of Yale University scientists, who traveled to New York in search of the Edinburgh Journal articles. After Sun employees sent them back and forth between the printing and editorial offices hoping to discourage them, the scientists returned to New Haven without realizing they had been duped.

On September 16, 1835, the Sun admitted the articles had been a hoax. People were generally amused by the whole thing. Sales of the paper didn’t suffer either. The Sun continued operation until 1950 when it merged with the New York World-Telegram. The merger folded in 1967.

August 24, 2018August 25, 2019

Vesuvius

This day in history, 79 AD: Vesuvius erupts.

Re-posting from History.com from a year ago in honor of the anniversary of the eruption. Also in honor of the Vesuvius exhibit at the Getty Villa. That’s just a mile up the coast from where we’re staying in our own Airbnb villa right now. Hopefully the Big One holds off in California a little while longer, thus allowing us to visit this afternoon. And if not? Well, hey, it’s been nice knowing you!

Crater of volcanic Mt. Vesuvius, aerial view.

After centuries of dormancy, Mount Vesuvius erupts in southern Italy. The prosperous Roman cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum are devastated. Thousands die. The cities, buried under a thick layer of volcanic material and mud, are never rebuilt. They remain largely forgotten in the course of history until the 18th century, when Pompeii and Herculaneum are rediscovered and excavated. This provides an unprecedented archaeological record of the everyday life of an ancient civilization, startlingly preserved in sudden death.

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The ancient cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum thrived near the base of Mount Vesuvius at the Bay of Naples. In the time of the early Roman Empire, 20,000 people lived in the area. Merchants, manufacturers, and farmers exploited the rich soil of the region with numerous vineyards and orchards. None suspected that the black fertile earth was the legacy of Mount Vesuvius’ earlier eruptions.

Herculaneum, a city of 5,000 and a favorite summer destination for rich Romans, was named for the mythic hero Hercules. It housed opulent villas and grand Roman baths. Gambling artifacts and a brothel unearthed nearby attest to the decadent nature of the cities. Smaller resort communities in the area included the quiet little town of Stabiae, just across Naples bay.

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At noon on August 24, 79 A.D., all this pleasure and prosperity came to an abrupt end when the peak of Mount Vesuvius exploded. A 10-mile mushroom cloud of ash and pumice flew into the stratosphere. For the next 12 hours, volcanic ash and a hail of pumice stones up to 3 inches in diameter showered Pompeii. Most of the city’s occupants fled in terror. Some 2,000 people stayed behind, holed up in cellars. They hoped to wait out the eruption. Big mistake.

Westerly winds protected Herculaneum from the initial stage of the eruption. Then a giant cloud of hot ash and gas surged down the western flank of Vesuvius. The city was engulfed and all were asphyxiated or burned outright. The lethal gas cloud was followed by a flood of volcanic mud and rock. The city was buried. In Pompeii, all unlucky souls who remained behind died the following morning. That’s when a cloud of toxic gas poured into that city. A flow of rock and ash followed. Roofs and walls collapsed, burying the dead.

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Much of what we know about the eruption comes from an account by Pliny the Younger. He was nearby on the coast when Vesuvius exploded. In two letters to the historian Tacitus, he tells of how “people covered their heads with pillows, their only defense against a shower of stones.” He also describes how “a dark and horrible cloud charged with combustible matter suddenly broke and set forth. Some bewailed their own fate. Others prayed to die.”

Pliny the Younger escaped catastrophe and later became known as a writer and Roman administrator. His uncle, Pliny the Elder, was less lucky. A celebrated naturalist, he commanded a Roman fleet in the Bay of Naples. After Vesuvius exploded, he took his boats across the bay to Stabiae. He hoped to investigate the eruption and reassure terrified citizens. But after going ashore, he breathed toxic gas, collapsed, and died.

According to Pliny the Younger’s account, the eruption lasted 18 hours. Pompeii lay buried under 14 to 17 feet of ash and pumice. The nearby seacoast changed drastically. Herculaneum ended up with more than 60 feet of mud and volcanic material. Some residents later returned to dig out destroyed homes, hoping to salvage their valuables. But many treasures remained behind, totally forgotten.

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In the 18th century, a well digger unearthed a marble statue at Herculaneum. The local government excavated some valuable art objects, but they abandoned the project soon after. In 1748, a farmer found traces of Pompeii beneath his vineyard. Since then, excavations have continued without interruption until the present. In 1927, the Italian government resumed excavations at Herculaneum. They retrieved numerous art treasures. Bronze and marble statues and paintings were among the trove. Some of them are now on display at the Getty.

The remains of 2,000 men, women, and children lie buried at Pompeii. After perishing from asphyxiation and covered in ash, their bodies decomposed to skeletal remains. This process left behind a kind of mold. Archaeologists filled in the hollows with plaster, revealing in grim detail the death pose of Vesuvius’ victims. How cool is that, eh?

The rest of the city remains likewise frozen in time. Ordinary objects tell the story of everyday life. This is as valuable to archaeologists as the great unearthed statues and frescoes. The first human remains were found at Herculaneum in 1982. Hundreds of skeletons bear ghastly burn marks, testifying to horrifying deaths.

Today, Mount Vesuvius is the only active volcano on the European mainland. The last eruption was in 1944. The last major eruption occurred in 1631. Another will almost certainly happen soon, a devastating event for many living in the “death zones” nearby.

Word to the wise: Get out while you can!

Not Vesuvis, but San Diego — Last known photo of revelers prior to eruption. Oh, no, wait, sorry: This was last night @Baja.Rockin’.Lobster in San Diego.

August 23, 2018May 29, 2019

Linguistics

For those of you who subscribe to my linguist-daughter-in-China’s blog – okatherinemykatherine – this will come as a repeat. For the rest of you, enjoy. Her comment when I asked if it was OK to post this: “Go for it – I’m all for growing an audience that doesn’t care if I only post once every two years.” My reply: “I’m all for growing an audience reading other people’s stuff that I find interesting.”

In Which the Gap between Test Results and Actual Ability is an Overwhelming Industrial Meltdown

In Which the Gap between Test Results and Actual Ability is an Overwhelming Industrial Meltdown

Thanks, Kate!

August 20, 2018

Apologies

The webmaster and me.

My apologies to all commenters whose comments previously were not getting through. This, from the webmaster (AKA Ben Wolf) – “Fixed now – one of the security plugins was being a bit too aggressive and tossing them. I’ve changed that filter and restored 3 comments that had been blocked. Looks like it’s working properly now” – and a pledge from me to do better going forward.

Oh, and also, a Rabbi/Priest joke (courtesy of WhyEvolutionIsTrue) in honor of National Bacon Lovers Day today.

Feel free to comment!

A priest and a rabbi were, by coincidence, sitting next to each other on a long flight.

About an hour passes and not a single word was exchanged by the two men. Finally, the priest turns to the rabbi and says, “Rabbi, do you mind if I ask you a personal question”? The rabbi said, “Of course you may.”

“I understand that many of you Jewish people, especially rabbis, keep kosher and, as such, don’t eat things like bacon or ham”. The rabbi acknowledged that. “Haven’t you ever even tasted bacon or ham?”, asked the priest.

The Rabbi explained, “Many years ago, I was a visiting rabbi in a small town in the middle of nowhere and found myself in a diner one Sunday morning. There was no one around so I ordered bacon and eggs. It was quite good but that was the only time that ever happened.”

After some time, the rabbi turned to the priest and said, “Father, do you mind if you ask you a very personal question”? The Priest said, “okay.”

“You priests take an oath of celibacy, right”?, asked the Rabbi. “Why, yes”, answered the priest, wondering where this was going.

“Well, haven’t you ever had sex since you’ve become as priest”?, asked the rabbi. The priest looked about nervously, leaned toward the rabbi and answered very softly, “Well, as a young parishioner I once met a lovely woman who was much taken with me. One thing led to another and, well, I wound up having sex with her. But that’s the only time it ever happened.”

A few moments pass and the rabbi leans over to the priest and says, “A lot better than bacon, isn’t it?”

August 19, 2018

Brickyard

On this day in 1909, the first race is held at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. It is now the home of the world’s most famous motor racing competition, the Indianapolis 500.

Built on 328 acres of farmland five miles northwest of Indianapolis, Indiana, the speedway was started by local businessmen as a testing facility for Indiana’s growing automobile industry. The idea was that occasional races at the track would pit cars from different manufacturers against each other. After seeing what these cars could do, spectators would presumably head down to the showroom of their choice to get a closer look.

The rectangular two-and-a-half-mile track linked four turns, each exactly 440 yards from start to finish, by two long and two short straight sections. In that first five-mile race on August 19, 1909, 12,000 spectators watched Austrian engineer Louis Schwitzer win with an average speed of 57.4 miles per hour. The track’s surface of crushed rock and tar proved a disaster. It broke up and caused the deaths of two drivers, two mechanics and two spectators.

The surface was soon replaced with 3.2 million paving bricks, laid in a bed of sand and fixed with mortar. Dubbed “The Brickyard,” the speedway reopened in December 1909. In 1911, low attendance led the track’s owners to make a crucial decision. Instead of shorter races, they resolved to focus on a single, longer event each year, for a much larger prize. That May 30 marked the debut of the Indy 500. It was a grueling 500-mile race that was an immediate hit with audiences and drew press attention from all over the country. Driver Ray Haroun won the purse of $14,250, with an average speed of 74.59 mph and a total time of 6 hours and 42 minutes.

Since 1911, the Indianapolis 500 has been held every year, with the exception of 1917-18 and 1942-45, when the United States was involved in the two world wars. With an average crowd of 400,000, the Indy 500 is the best-attended event in U.S. sports. In 1936, asphalt was used for the first time to cover the rougher parts of the track. By 1941 most of the track was paved. The last of the speedway’s original bricks were covered in 1961, except for a three-foot line of bricks left exposed at the start-finish line as a nostalgic reminder of the track’s history.

August 18, 2018

Queen

Of Soul.

Aretha Franklin, a pillar of postwar American music, died Thursday, from pancreatic cancer. She was seventy-six. A few hours later, the artist Kadir Nelson sent a sketch to The New Yorker which drew inspiration from “Folksinger,” a 1957 ink drawing by Charles White. “I wanted to draw her in a choir,” he said. “She was a preacher’s daughter. And so much of what she gave us came from the church even after she moved beyond gospel.”

Other tributes to the Queen of Soul:

“Prayer, love, desire, joy, despair, rapture, feminism, Black Power—it is hard to think of a performer who provided a deeper, more profound reflection of her times. What’s more, her gift was incomparable. Smokey Robinson, her friend and neighbor in Detroit, once said, ‘Aretha came out of this world, but she also came out of another, far-off magical world none of us really understood. . . . She came from a distant musical planet where children are born with their gifts fully formed.’ ” — David Remnick

“When Aretha sings ‘Amazing Grace’ in that church, it’s suddenly not a song anymore – or not really – the melody, the lyrics, they’re rendered mostly meaningless. A few bits of organ, some piano. Who cares? Congregants yelling ‘Sing it!’ None of it matters. I’m not being melodramatic – we are listening to the wildest embodiment of a divine signal. She receives it and she broadcasts it. ‘Singing’ can’t possibly be the right word for this sort of channeling.” — Amanda Petrusich

And this from deep in the Denver Post archives…

“Franklin always demanded to be paid in cash on the spot or she would not go onstage. The cash would go into her handbag, which would either stay with her security team or come on stage with her. The reason: She grew up in an era when Ray Charles and B.B. King would get ripped off.”

Red Rocks after the riot…

Denver Post Archives

…and Red Rocks in happier times.

August 17, 2018

Who knew?

Charles F. Kettering — A Self-starter who Gave us the Self-starter

This Day in History… 1915.

Charles F. Kettering, co-founder of Dayton Engineering Laboratories Company (DELCO) in Dayton, Ohio, is issued U.S. Patent No. 1,150,523 for his “engine-starting device”–the first electric ignition device for automobiles – on August 17, 1915.

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In the early years of the automobile, drivers used iron hand cranks to start the internal combustion process that powered the engines on their cars. In addition to requiring great hand and arm strength, this system was not without certain risks. If the driver forgot to turn his ignition off before turning the crank, the car could backfire or roll forward, as at the time most vehicles had no brakes. Clearly a better system was needed. In 1911 Cadillac head Henry M. Leland gave Charles Kettering the task of developing one.

Before founding DELCO with his partner Edward Deeds in 1909, Kettering had worked at the National Cash Register Company, where he helped develop the first electric cash register. He drew on this experience when approaching his work with automobiles. Just as the touch of a button had started a motor that opened the drawer of the cash register, Kettering would eventually use a key to turn on his self-starting motor. The self-starter was introduced in the 1912 Cadillac, patented by Kettering in 1915. By the 1920s it would come standard on nearly every new automobile. By making cars easier and safer to operate, especially for women, the self-starting engine caused a huge jump in sales, and helped foster a fast-growing automobile culture in America.

United Motors Corporation (later General Motors) bought DELCO in 1916. Kettering worked as vice president and director of research at GM from 1920 to 1947. Other important auto-related innovations developed during Kettering’s tenure were quick-drying automotive paint, spark plugs, leaded gasoline, shock absorbers, the automatic transmission, four-wheel brakes, the diesel engine and safety glass. He helped develop the refrigerant Freon, used in refrigerators and air conditioners. The Kettering home in Dayton was the first in the country to be air-conditioned. In the realm of medicine, Kettering created a treatment for venereal disease and an incubator for premature infants. In 1945 he and longtime General Motors head Alfred P. Sloan established the Sloan-Kettering Institute for Cancer Research in New York City. Kettering died in 1958.

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“An inventor fails 999 times, and if he succeeds once, he’s in.

He treats his failures simply as practice shots.”

—Charles F. Kettering

August 16, 2018May 29, 2019

Gone fishin’

On This Day in History… 1896 – Gone fishin’.

The Backstory

Hoping to cash in on reported gold strikes in Alaska, Carmack had traveled there from California in 1881. After running into a dead end, he headed north into the isolated Yukon Territory, just across the Canadian border. In 1896, another prospector, Robert Henderson, told Carmack of finding gold in a tributary of the Klondike River. Carmack headed to the region with two Native American companions, known as Skookum Jim and Tagish Charlie. On August 16, while camping near Rabbit Creek, Carmack reportedly spotted a nugget of gold jutting out from the creek bank. His two companions later agreed that Skookum Jim – Carmack’s brother-in-law – actually made the discovery.

Regardless of who spotted the gold first, the three men soon found that the rock near the creek bed was thick with gold deposits. They staked their claim the following day. News of the gold strike spread fast across Canada and the United States. Over the next two years, as many as 50,000 would-be miners arrived in the region. Rabbit Creek was renamed Bonanza, and even more gold was discovered in another Klondike tributary, dubbed Eldorado.

“Klondike Fever” reached its height in the United States in mid-July 1897. That’s when two steamships arrived from the Yukon in San Francisco and Seattle, bringing a total of more than two tons of gold. Thousands of eager young men bought elaborate “Yukon outfits” (kits assembled by clever marketers containing food, clothing, tools and other necessary equipment) and set out on their way north. Few of these would find what they were looking for. Most of the land in the region had already been claimed. One of the unsuccessful gold-seekers was 21-year-old Jack London, whose short stories based on his Klondike experience became his first book, The Son of the Wolf (1900).

Epilogue

For his part, Carmack became rich off his discovery. He left the Yukon with $1 million worth of gold. Many individual gold miners in the Klondike eventually sold their stakes to mining companies, who had the resources and machinery to access more gold. Large-scale gold mining in the Yukon Territory didn’t end until 1966. By that time the region had yielded some $250 million in gold. Today, some 200 small gold mines still operate in the region.

August 15, 2018

The 20th

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/ct-met-alderman-willie-cochran-guilty-plea-20180815-story.html

This one from the Chicago Tribune caught my eye because of Alderman Cochran’s immediate predecessor in the 20th ward, Arenda Troutman. Her defense in an earlier corruption trial was that, although she did accept payments from developers for her influence in approving plans for their shopping mall, in fact – since the site of the proposed development was across the street from the edge of her district – she didn’t actually have jurisdiction. So, the joke was on them! Guess the jury didn’t appreciate this classic line of South Side legal reasoning. Go figure.

Gotta love Chicago – “The City That Works.”

Also gotta love the 20th, which soon will boast nearly as many jailed former aldermen as there are jailed former Illinois governors. How many is that, you ask? The correct answer is “4.” Bonus points if you can name any of them other than the immortal Rod Blagojevich. (Answer, for those that just can’t contain their curiosity, here.)

August 14, 2018

Blame it on Ohio

On this day in 2003…

….a major outage knocked out power across the eastern United States and parts of Canada. Beginning at 4:10 p.m. ET, 21 power plants shut down in just three minutes. Fifty million people were affected, including residents of New York, Cleveland and Detroit, as well as Toronto and Ottawa, Canada. Although power companies were able to resume some service in as little as two hours, power remained off in other places for more than a day. The outage stopped trains and elevators, and disrupted everything from cellular telephone service to operations at hospitals to traffic at airports. In New York City, it took more than two hours for passengers to be evacuated from stalled subway trains. Small business owners were affected when they lost expensive refrigerated stock. The loss of use of electric water pumps interrupted water service in many areas. There were even some reports of people being stranded mid-ride on amusement park roller coasters. At the New York Stock Exchange and bond market, though, trading was able to continue thanks to backup generators.

Authorities soon calmed the fears of jittery Americans that terrorists may have been responsible for the blackout, but they were initially unable to determine the cause of the massive outage. American and Canadian representatives pointed figures at each other, while politicians took the opportunity to point out major flaws in the region’s outdated power grid. Finally, an investigation by a joint U.S.-Canada task force traced the problem back to an Ohio company, FirstEnergy Corporation. When the company’s EastLake plant shut down unexpectedly after overgrown trees came into contact with a power line, it triggered a series of problems that led to a chain reaction of outages. FirstEnergy was criticized for poor line maintenance, and more importantly, for failing to notice and address the problem in a timely manner–before it affected other areas.

Despite concerns, there were very few reports of looting or other blackout-inspired crime. In New York City, the police department, out in full force, actually recorded about 100 fewer arrests than average. In some places, citizens even took it upon themselves to mitigate the effects of the outage, by assisting elderly neighbors or helping to direct traffic in the absence of working traffic lights.

In New York City alone, the estimated cost of the blackout was more than $500 million.