Hi, All!
One of the more interesting things about doing this online
column is that I eventually get virtually ALL of the online
rumors, blather and other tripe. I can't even count the number
of times I have received the "fun information" list that states
"A Duck's Quack Doesn't Echo, And No One Knows Why!" Well, I
know why - nobody bothered to check. A duck's quack echoes just
like any other sound, and I can show you a nice, quiet spot on
Lac La Belle in Pewaukee, Wisconsin where you can hear lots of
ducks quacking - and echoing - any lunch hour. The people who
invent this stuff apparently use a research tool called "making
it up." One thing sure, they haven't spent much time around
ducks, except, possibly, the roasted kind.
As writing instructor Harry Cherkinian points out, there are
two main forms nonsense on the web: misinformation and
disinformation. Misinformation is what we used to call
ignorance. Disinformation is its evil twin; deliberate nonsense
that is the work of apologists and spin doctors trying
desperately to prove some point by any means necessary. They
play on the ignorance or credibility of others.
Maybe the Web needs something like the Federal food ratings
for information, where there are various classes of quality
depending on how reliable the source is. One thing is clear:
there are a huge number of Grade A, Choice cuts of information on
the web, but a lot of what gets passed around on the various
lists isn't quite up to the standards of poor-quality dog food.
Where this becomes important is that there is some
misinformation that CAN kill you! In a large number of the
accidents where people drive in front of a train, the train is
moving at less than 25 miles-per-hour. Surprisingly, drivers
most often say that they thought "the train would stop for them."
At least, that's what the survivors say. And the train? Sure,
it will stop -- a few hundred yards after hitting them. It isn't
the things you don't know that will get you; it's the things you
know that aren't so!
Thanks this week all of those folks who keep us well-
informed, especially: Jerry Taff, Caterina Sukup, Jack Gervais,
Tomoko Naito, Carol J. Becwar, Ellen Peterson, Jan Michalski, Tim
McChain, Kerry Miller, Bruce Gonzo, Tomoko Naito, Charles
Beckman, Joshua Brink and Howard Lesniak. There is some good in
all of these silly, bogus information lists that float around the
Web: they will eventually convince you that people will believe
most anything. And look at the bright side - at least you know
who to play poker with.
Have A Well-Informed Week,
--:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)--
"Truth does not change because it is, or is not,
believed by a majority of the people."
- Giordano Bruno
--:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)--
WORD GAMES
----------
CLAIM: "315 Words in Webster's 1996 Dictionary Were
Misspelled"
Several different Email trivia lists make this claim. The
problem is that the item does not specify any particular
dictionary. Saying Webster's is meaningless; anyone who wants to
can put out a "Webster's" dictionary, regardless of quality.
I talked to Jim Lowe, Senior Editor at Merriam-Webster, the
only surviving company that has any direct connection to Noah
Webster, and the one usually associated with the Webster's name.
His reaction was that he found it "Unbelievable that 315 'Entry
words' would be misspelled," though he did concede that in a
1,500 page book with thousands of entries, a few words in the
definition paragraphs COULD possibly be wrong. He gave the
impression that the dictionary editor who allowed 315 entry words
to be misspelled would find that his next job would involve the
cleaning of toilets.
The source of this silly story seems to be the various
"quality consultants" who have copied the story from Syncrude
Canada Ltd's "Insight" newsletter, which published an article
called "If 99.9% Was Good Enough." ( You can find the original
at: http://jewel.morgan.edu/~salimian/humor/humor_277.html )
Among the MADE UP illustrations - IF 99.9% was good enough:
- "Webster's 1996 Collegiate Dictionary would have 315
misspelled words."
Though it is only a tiny, two-letter word, editor Jim Lowe
considers that "if" an important little preposition: 1.) on
condition that, or, 2.) Allowing that; granting that.
--:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)--
THE NOT LINE
------------
You've seen it in so many movies now - in a tense situation,
the President of the United States goes to the red telephone and
is instantly connected with the Soviet or Russian leader on the
"Hot Line."
Except that it isn't so. If the President wants to talk to
the big dogs in the Kremlin, he places a regular phone call over
commercial lines, just like us regular schlubs. Except the line
may be scrambled and secured - no sense airing all the dirty
laundry in public.
The Hot Line is not, and never has been, a telephone line.
The real hot line is a duplex teletype link, from the Kremlin to
the State Department Building in Washington. The cable is routed
through London, Copenhagen, Stockholm and Helsinki, with a backup
radio link via a different route.
Also worth noting at this late date: it was the Soviets who
first proposed the idea, in 1954. At the time, the Americans
suspected it was some kind of sneaky Commie plot, an attitude
that didn't change until we came close to frying each other's
bacon in the Cuban Missile crisis. We signed on to the idea in
June of 1963. Since then, the teletypes have been used numerous
times to keep nervous fingers off the launch buttons. And the
bored operators have exchanged countless chili and borscht
recipes as test messages.
Why the red telephones in the movies? Probably because
having some underpaid staffer typing messages to the Russkies on
a clunky old teletype didn't have anywhere near the dramatic
power of yelling at the Reds directly on a red telephone. After
all, Batman had a red phone, why not the president?
--:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)--
FUNNY MONEY
-----------
There are a rash of trivia lists lately that claim to see
various weird things on money. Some of these are even true, like
the owl on the US one dollar bill. That said, there are many
goofy claims about money that don't hold up. Many people still
believe that the gold in Fort Knox is what "backs up" US money.
On a really good day, when gold prices are high, the value of the
gold in Fort Knox, all 147.3 million ounces, is a maximum of just
over $74 billion dollars. According to the Treasury Department,
total U.S. currency in circulation amounts to $486,291,684,565
(as of February 28, 1999). That only includes paper money, by
the way, not the billion and a half dollars in coins churned out
by the U.S. Mint every year. We better hope that it isn't backed
up by the Ft. Knox gold, or someone's bound to figure out that
our account is a few hundred billion overdrawn.
Our neighbors to the north have their own rumor going that
has been around the web for a number of years. "On a Canadian
two dollar bill, the flag flying over the Parliament Building is
an American flag," according to the usual version of the story.
Too good to be true? Sure it is - the flag on the Great White
North's two-spot is a Red Ensign, the official flag of Canada
before 1965, when the present Maple Leaf flag was adopted.
Though the ensign had a blue field in one corner, it did not
closely resemble a US flag.
Another story circulating recently on the web says that "All
50 states are on the Lincoln Memorial picture on the back of a $5
bill." There are a couple of problems with this. One is that
the Lincoln Memorial was started in 1911 and finished in 1921.
In 1911, there were only 47 states (Arizona didn't join the Union
until 1912). Since Alaska wasn't admitted as a state until 1959,
it leaves you wondering if they used the Psychic Connection or a
Ouija board to figure out which states to carve on the memorial.
A quick look at a fiver shows that it has exactly 26 states
named in two lines on the upper part of the memorial.
The states listed are:
(Top Row) - Arkansas, Michigan, Florida, Texas, Iowa,
Wisconsin, California, Minnesota, Oregon, Kansas, West
Virginia, Nevada, Nebraska, Colorado, North Dakota.
(Lower Row) - Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Georgia,
Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maryland, Carolina, Hampshire,
Virginia, New York.
Leaving 24 states missing in action (23 if you count North and
South Carolina together). Still, wagering that the name George
Dubya's home state of Texas is printed on a $5 bill makes a
pretty good bar bet, even though you'll need a good magnifying
glass to collect. Remember, my usual take of the winnings is
10%.
--:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)--
THAT DARNED ELECTION AGAIN
--------------------------
Some people are never satisfied. It wasn't more than a few
days after George the Second won the election that a "news item"
began to circulate claiming that Bush had "actually won the
popular vote."
"According to respected news analyst Mary
Mostert," the story goes on, "a report sent to her by
reader Don Boyd showed that Gore got a total of
50,753,172 votes nationwide while Bush got 52,685,804
giving him a winning margin of 1,932,632.
"Wrote Mostert 'While I have not checked all 50
states with the Secretary of State official returns, I
have checked all the big states and a number of the
smaller states. All the ones I have checked are
accurate' ... "
It then goes on to list a long list of states, with the only
really interesting entry being Michigan, Which shows Gore with
1,953,139 and Bush 4,232,501.
"Can we now expect the media which is busy
counting votes in Florida to take a look at these
figures and report the results should they prove that
Gore lost the popular vote by nearly two million
votes?"
Mary probably should have checked all 50 states. Since even
the Republicans admitted a loss in Michigan, the very fact that
George suddenly won by exactly the difference in votes FOR THAT
ONE STATE should have seemed suspicious. It took me a whole 3
minutes on the Web to find the official results at the Michigan
Secretary of State's Office website:
http://www.sos.state.mi.us/election/results/00gen/01000000.html
Whoever read the numbers for the Web story transposed them
and didn't bother to double-check. In an election that was
decided by 1/2% of the votes, that might have been a good idea.
Whoever provided the info for the Web story accidentally credited
Bush with the TOTAL number of votes cast in Michigan - for all
presidential candidates. True numbers: Bush - 1,953,139, Gore -
2,170,418.
So, no, the media won't correct the results because they
aren't wrong. Bush still wins the electoral college, but Gore
still won the popular vote. And not only that, I'll bet they
take away Mary's key to the "respected news analyst" washroom,
too.
--:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)--
COLA NUTS!
---------
"Coca-Cola was originally green, dissolves teeth within two
days, has a super-secret formula," etc, etc, etc...
It may call itself "The Real Thing," but more nonsense
surrounds Coca-Cola than any other product you can name. Coke
takes pains never to deny any of the silly, cloak-and-dagger
rumors that circulate about it's "secret formula." A good food
analysis lab can give a very close idea of everything that is in
Coke. And there are formulas in books that produce very
convincing duplicates. Fat lot of good they would do anyone; you
can't sell it as Coca-Cola, and the economies of scale that a
mega-billion buck corporation like Coke can use mean that you
would have to charge more for the same product. And the "New
Coke" fiasco should be enough to prove to anyone that taste has
almost nothing to do with Coke's popularity.
Another common rumor states that Coke was originally green.
Even Coke's earliest version admitted to Caramel Color, the same
ingredient that makes Coke brown today. Without it, Coke would
be about the same color as 7-Up. The dark color is merely a
tradition, a holdover from the copper kettle days when the murky
color helped hide any impurities. The old glass Coke bottles did
use a very slightly green glass, which may account for the rumor.
Finally, there are the rumors about Coke's astonishing acid
powers in dissolving nails, teeth, meat and the occasional Chevy
Suburban. A little chemistry 101 is enough to show that the
concentration of phosphoric acid in Coke is far too small (a mere
11 to 13 grams per gallon of syrup, or about 0.20 to 0.30 per
cent of the total formula, to have much effect on anything.
Overall, Coke is only about half as acidic as orange juice, only
more expensive and stickier.
--:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)--
CAPTAIN, MAY I?
--------------
Another "true fact" that everyone has heard is that the
captain of a ship can legally marry you. He can, just as the
maitre d' of a restaurant or a drunken cab driver can - if they
just happen to be a properly ordained minister, judge, or justice
of the peace. Otherwise... Well, let's just say there will be
some extremely unhappy in-laws waiting for you.
The legend probably came from the days of sailing vessels,
when it wasn't unusual for a young couple to, as the old timers
used to say, get in a family way without the benefits of a legal
marriage. On a trip that was many months long, having the
captain tie the knot made things at least sound legal.
You want proof? See the Code of Federal Regulations, Title
32, Subtitle A, Chapter VI, Subchapter A, Part 700, Subpart G,
Rule 716 (I looked it up). It explicitly states that the
commanding officer cannot perform a marriage on board "his ship
or aircraft," nor can he permit a wedding to be performed on
board when the craft is outside US territory unless the wedding
is both in accordance with local laws and there is a diplomatic
or consular official of the US present. So much for that.
Virtually all other countries have similar rules, but there are
just enough exceptions to muddy this a little. Captains of ships
registered in the Bahamas can perform marriages only in
international waters. That is, not in the Bahamas. You want
that sneaky little loophole to pass for legal, have at it.
Japanese captains can marry people on Japanese registered ships,
but only if they are also Japanese citizens. Chances are the
ceremony would be in Japanese, too.
The only captains that can marry legally are the captains of
Liberian registered ships, a fact that at least one US-based
cruise ship (Princess Cruises' Grand Princess) takes advantage of
with its own chapel. Other ships offer marriages on board, but
only while the ship is docked and with a shore-based minister or
judge. Most people don't mind this. After all, going on your
honeymoon on the same ship with your minister, family and guests
might be a little inhibiting.
--:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)--
FACE THE FACTS
--------------
"There is a face on Mars that could only be the monument of
a higher civilization."
There's a lot of stuff on Mars, but none of it has gotten as
much publicity as the face. Seen in one shot, from one
particular angle, there is a mountain range that casts a very
humanoid shadow. Better, closer views from later passing
spacecraft don't much, something that isn't true of a real
monuments like, say, Mt. Rushmore or Japan's Osaka Castle.
But who's to say that it isn't a face - just like the man in
the moon is. Or maybe a rabbit which is how ancient Chinese
astronomers the same view of the moon. Look at enough random
shapes for long enough and you'll start to see something. The
pictures you see in clouds aren't really there either.
Most interesting are the much clearer images of other
distinctive "monuments" on Mars. The website at:
http://members.aol.com/tbskep/Mars_face.html
shows unmistakable Martian portraits of: Senator Ted Kennedy, a
valentine heart-shaped crater, the face of a panda, a crater that
is a perfect, 130-mile-wide smiley face, and Kermit the Frog(!).
--:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)--
CELEBRITY SALAD
---------------
CLAIM: "Dr. Seuss and Kurt Vonnegut went to college
together. They were even in the same fraternity, where Seuss
decorated the fraternity house walls with drawings of his
characters."
This is one of the odder bits of netlore making the rounds,
and one that seems to have no clear motive.
Dr. Theodore Geisel, better known by his pen name "Dr.
Seuss," was born in 1904. He attended Dartmouth College in the
1920's and did graduate work at Oxford.
Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. was born in 1922 and attended Cornell
University, then, after World War II, did he graduate work in
anthropology at the University of Chicago.
The fact that Seuss and Vonnegut were born 20 years apart
and attended schools on different continents makes them being in
the same fraternity sound pretty remote. There's no evidence the
two authors ever even met.
So don't believe anything you read on the Web without
checking first - unless you read it here in SUNDAY FUNNIES, of
course.
--:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)--
© 2001 by Bill Becwar. All Rights Reserved.
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