the good old days

Well, there’s actually no such thing, officially. However, today marks the centennial anniversary of a big explosion near the Tunguska River in Siberia, Russia. The remote location and lack of scientific observation of the occurrence have led to a number of silly theories; however, established theory is that it was a very big meteor that exploded very close to the surface of the planet.

But reality is dull. Let’s amuse ourselves with a bit of ridiculous nonsense instead! Namely, that the explosion caused hyperfertility in local flora, now captured for the modern world in a nutritional supplement (originally found via Bad Astronomy Blog).

Rather than making a desert of the area, the event created a kind of Garden of Eden, an oasis of fertility resulting in “miracle harvests” of the plants grown there.

Oh, it gets better… with their the Tunguska Timeline.

1927-1930 … lush, green vegetation is emerging from beneath felled trees and charred earth.

ZOMG! The plants are growing back!

1931-1949 … While the world is in the throes of war and Russia suffers the oppression of Communism, the Tunguska plants are quietly thriving.

Amazing! Communism usually kills plants!

1950s … As WWII ends and the Cold War begins, Tunguska research becomes the passion of courageous scientists around the world whose curiosity can be slowed but not stopped by the Communists.

OH NOES! Communism also tries to kill scientific curiosity!

1980s … Menotti Galli of Bologna, Italy, visits Tunguska and determines that embedded in the Tunguska vegetation are unusual concentrations of essential minerals known for their ability to conduct energy.

Actually, Galli didn’t physically visit Tunguska until 1991. When he did, he learned that the trees picked up “unusually high levels of elements like copper, gold, and nickel”. (I am fairly sure this only applies to trees around in 1908 which got showered with bits of exploding rock.) At least one of these essential minerals can be introduced to your body by drinking Goldschläger, which is probably cheaper.

2000-2005 … From among thousands of plants reborn from the ashes of Tunguska, scientists identify the ten most concentrated with therapeutic properties.

I totally want to throw a groaning party if I ever have another child. (It’s a million times more cool than eating a placenta, which is, um, really disgusting and weird. Not even the new-ageiest of my birth class buddies was able to go through with that.)

…the visitors and attendants might also be offered groaning cake, groaning pie, groaning bread or groaning cheese, depending on local tradition. In some areas a groaning cake would be offered to the groaning woman (as if she would be interested!)…. Another variation of tradition was that when the woman was going to be ‘churched’ after the birth (to be ceremonially ‘cleansed’ and welcomed back to the flock) she carried a piece of the groaning cake to give to the first person that she met along the way.

I’m not actually going to throw this party while I’m in labor, of course. Not only is that probably a breach of etiquette, but really, the last thing on my mind would be “has everybody had enough cake”? But it’d be great fun to be thrown one, perhaps a few days after the kid arrives. Better than a baby shower in which you’re given goofy, cute, useless chachkes — instead you get cake/pie/cheese and all the women can complain about childbirth!

And writing that, I realize that female bonding can be incredibly weird…

Thanks to The Old Foodie for the inspiration

One out of three accidents occur at intersections, so watch this 1973 drivers’ ed film to teach you how to deal with it. Or, just watch it to laugh at the weird juxtaposition of the gangsters in 1920’s clothing driving a 1970’s getaway car. There are a few sequences with stop-motion photography, but it’s nowhere near as well-done as in Live and Let Live; overall, very dull. Are we really surprised that it’s hard to make intersection right-of-way rules exciting, though?

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One thing they mention is that you’re supposed to travel in the passing lane(s) on the interstate, and stay out of the entry lane (unless entering or exiting). I’m going to have to watch more drivers safety films, because I always learned to stay as far right as possible unless you’re passing. Or, this might simply be advice more applicable to places like Chicago (where I think this was filmed) where on-ramps are found every half-mile, rather than places where I grew up like Middle O’Nowhere, Ohio, which have ten mile stretches between exits.

In a recent post from the Feminist Finance blog, describing the artificially inflated price of diamonds.

DeBeers, which controls the vast majority of diamond sourcing around the world, has spent the last several decades bottlenecking the diamond trade to create an artificial global sense of diamond scarcity and thereby to inflate prices…. Truly: who would buy these rocks at these prices if they knew just how common they were, when there are adequate, in some cases identical, substitutes that are less pricey? Why?

It’s all about PR. Mikimoto, cultured pearl king, didn’t become a success by announcing, “Hey, look at this, I’ve got a manufactured pearl,” and then sit back while “real” pearl sellers touted theirs as better because they were natural. He plastered them everywhere. He sewed them by the thousands onto gowns worn by celebrities. He made fabulous jewelry worn by celebrities. He made a Liberty Bell replica for the 1926 World’s Fair coated in, guess what, cultured pearls. He even destroyed, with great public fanfare, pearls made by his oyster farms which didn’t meet quality standards — showing just how many pearls he had and just how high his standards for beauty and perfection were. He also was quite canny to call them cultured pearls instead of manufactured, manmade, or any less-fancy word.

If today’s diamond makers want to have any chance of challenging the international diamond cartel, they need to get a good marketing team together to combat the vast publicity power of the diamond miners. Of course, they could always specifically target the nerd market. The only reason I’ve got a real diamond on my engagement ring is that it’s an antique, passed on to my husband by his grandmother. Otherwise I’d probably be happier with a manufactured diamond, because I’m weird like that and like technological sciency stuff. Besides…

they can also be cultured in different shapes–like flat, as for a window of a spaceship.

Who wouldn’t want diamond windows in their house? (Or diamond windows in their hydrogen-powered car, while I’m fantasizing…)

Men wanted just one thing from her.

Wonder what that one thing was. Dance lessons? Stock tips? Cookie recipes? The secret to how she keeps that dress from falling off?

9/11 conspiracy theory discussion going on, one cubicle over…

… just a quick note to say how much I hate those fucking idiots!

Speaking from personal experience: this is totally what women in a factory look like.

Well, nowadays you really have to wear steel-toed leather boots for safety, but other than that… totally.

But, uh, seriously — it very well may cause that. I can’t guarantee it won’t. I hereby refuse to accept any liability if you’re reading this on an airplane and suddenly get eaten by Gorgo.

Go have some fun yourself at the Warning Sign Generator.

Comic books weren’t the only source of questionable (or ridiculous) advertisements back in the day. See page 2 of an article about photography in April 1930 Popular Science…

Yeah, birdhouses. That’ll make you rich.

That’s a modern equivalent $48 to $72 an hour. (I found this one extra funny because my father worked in a lawnmower repair shop while he was in high school. Even though it was the 50’s, I still don’t think he was making $4 an hour…)

At least this stuff is funny, because you can think, “Poor sap, buying instructions on how to make hundreds of dollars building birdhouses!” and laugh a bit at his expense. The modern version is endlessly repetitive “stock tips” and “business secrets” cramming my inbox…

Office Courtesy: Meeting the Public (1952) reminded me slightly of why I quit a job years ago — I wasn’t willing to put up with the bullshit Barbara has to, although it’s her job to do so and it wasn’t mine.

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I’m amused by the mild undercurrent of familiar touching between the two roommates. I really doubt it’s the impression Encyclopaedia Britannica Films intended to portray, but hey, it’s 1952, an open-minded time that accepted everyone’s sexuality. But we’re here to learn about secretarial attitude, not lesbians!

It’s mildly fun to see Barbara and Ruth sitting there sniping about Mr. Franklin’s secretary (who, frankly, deserves it). Apparently future secretaries were best educated by showing them snarky bitchery. But it also drives home how annoying it really is to be a secretary. Do everything, be cheerful and friendly to everyone… jeez, you even need to swallow your gum whenever the boss walks in the room.

When I worked at a small company, I was eventually moved to a office by the front door. It’s a 30-person company, so I was asked to “chip in” by answering the door and greeting guests (when I objected, I got a lecture on my lack of team spirit). It was incredibly annoying; I constantly having my work interrupted, and it didn’t make it more “fun” if I had a cheerful, positive attitude towards whatever strange visitor was dropping by. (And I did have a cheerful, positive attitude, at least on the outside.) I’m an engineer, not a secretary, and so it was infuriating to be put in that position; it was one of the reasons I was happy to leave.

Shortly after I did move on, they hired a receptionist (who doubled as an HR something) for that office, but had an impossible time finding another manufacturing engineer to do the many things I had done… teaching another valuable lesson, prioritize your employees’ workload based on what you really need. They lost a lot more man-hours by having an incompetent engineer and a cheerful receptionist.