Comments on: Teach Me Something Tuesday #1

By: David

David — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 16:54:17 +0000

I remember reading about the space elevator a while back.

“A man, a plan, a canal, Panama” is one of my favorite palindromes. Another, “Able was I ere I saw Elba,” is attributed to Napoleon.

By: Sven

Sven — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 16:08:14 +0000

In 1959, Walt Disney owned the largest atomic submarine fleet in the world.

By: Doug

Doug — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 13:27:58 +0000

“the whole nine yards” is attributed to unloading an entire machine gun belt which is 27 feet long.

I’ve also heard it as a refernce to concrete. Apparently at some point the typical load for a cement mixer was 8 yards, but it held 9, hence the saying “give me the whole nine yards”.

By: Andrew J

Andrew J — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 22:43:33 +0000

If you write about someone getting their “just deserts,” and some know-it-all comes along and says you spelled it wrong because it should be “just desserts” (like dessert after a meal), that know-it-all doesn’t, in fact, know it all.

“Just deserts” is the correct spelling.

cf. http://www.snopes.com/language/notthink/deserts.asp

I’m less of a dork, more of a language nerd. We’re our own kind of dorks, I guess.

By: Burner

Burner — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 22:11:30 +0000

Interesting fact # 2:

If I still lived in Nevada and was reading this site yesterday, I probably would have been arrested after seeing that picture of Dave S’s abs yesterday.

By: Polt

Polt — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 22:06:43 +0000

Back in the early 80′s, there was an issue of the Legion Of Superheroes that dealt with some of them getting trapped on the “space elevator” that traveled between the earth and the moon.

Yeah, even as a early teenager myself, the physics of having an elevator between the earth and the moon just ruined the story for me.

And really, what kind of super heroes get stuck on an elevator anyway?

*I was gonna use teh Voyager episode, but someone beat my to that!*

HUGS…

By: Anne Glamore

Anne Glamore — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 21:59:17 +0000

Barnacles are considered a delicacy in some parts of the world, like Portugal, where my boys and I ate them.

The part you eat is called the peduncle. A peduncle is “a flexible, contractile stalk that attaches the barnacle to floating objects.” The peduncle contains muscles and ovaries.

If you can’t get to Portugal, no worries. You can approximate the taste and texture by soaking a rubberband in salt water for about a week and then eating it.

Bon appetit!

By: NefariousCarrot

NefariousCarrot — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 19:45:13 +0000

The word “deer” comes from the Old English word “deor” which actually referred to wild animals in general, not just Bambi.

By: Dave S.

Dave S. — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 18:01:04 +0000

>Oh, and if the cable broke, would the elevator burn up on reentry?

Hi-larious. I actually laughed out loud on that one.

By: cb

cb — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 17:49:30 +0000

The Grateful Dead once did an 18 hour jam version of Aslo Sprach Zarathrustra (the 2001 theme), so that might work for the muzak.

Oh, and if the cable broke, would the elevator burn up on reentry?