Clik here to view.
THE 2023 IG NOBEL PRIZES
IT’S IG NOBEL PRIZE time again! Officially the “33rd First Annual Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony” rewards researchers in ten categories for presenting “things that make people laugh, then think.” I like the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
HOW’S YOUR LOREM IPSUM DOIN’?
YESTERDAY, WE MENTIONED jamais vu, the familiar becoming peculiar through extreme repetition. (Try saying “table” 30 times.) Speaking of Which. I’m reminded of an opposite word game, the one starting...
View ArticleClik here to view.
THE THEATRICAL PRINTS OF THE TORII MASTERS
“CREDIT FOR THE BEGINNING OF KABUKI,” Howard A. Link recounted, “goes to a female shrine dancer from Izumo named Okuni. Around 1600, the very year of Hideyori’s defeat by Ieyasu, she performed a...
View ArticleClik here to view.
OLDEN GAMES
CURIOUSLY, JAMES HALLIWELL’S DICTIONARY OF ARCHAIC WORDS proves to be an entertaining source for games of old. My source as well is archaic: Though published in 1989, it’s a facsimile edition of a...
View ArticleClik here to view.
TIN PAN ALLEY
NEW YORK CITY’S TWENTY-EIGHTH STREET between Fifth and Sixth Avenues is the legendary Tin Pan Alley, the center of American popular music at the turn of the century. (That old turn, not the recent...
View ArticleClik here to view.
DETROIT RACES 1901
WHEN THE SECOND MOTOR CAR was built, its driver likely challenged the first. Thus came motor sports. According to Motoring in America: The Early Years, so it was in Detroit in 1901. Motoring in...
View ArticleClik here to view.
OVERDOING IT
IS THERE BETTER LIVING THROUGH OPTIMIZATION? Not necessarily, posits mathematical modeler Coco Krumme in her new book Optimal Illusions. In their review of the book in Science, September 14, 2023, Dov...
View ArticleClik here to view.
OLDS CUTLASS SALON—EQUAL TO EURO LUXURY SPORT SEDANS AT A BARGAIN PRICE?
FIFTY YEARS AGO, IMPORTS WERE FIRMLY ESTABLISHED in the U.S. market. Not just sports cars and VW Beetles, but even at the luxury end of the market. In February 1973, R&T had comparison-tested...
View ArticleClik here to view.
ON CANINE AUDITORY PROCESSING
“WHO’S A CUTE PUPPY?” ASKS AAAS Science, September 15, 2023, in a Research item titled “Auditory Processing.” The item is based on a paper by Anna Gergely et al. published in Communications Biology:...
View ArticleClik here to view.
AUTOMOTIVE BRAKING 101
CABLES ACTUATED THE EARLIEST CAR BRAKES. Indeed Ford continued with them until 1939. As you might imagine, maintaining equal actuation at all four wheels was a non-trivial matter. Replacing cables...
View Article