The Artistic Mystery...!

Once in a while, we have to divert away from the typical murder mysteries and such to take a look at others in fields such as art. Never considered art as being mysterious? Here is an article from Listverse that may change your mind a tad.

David’s Secret Weapon

Photo via Wikimedia

Controversy surrounds the question of whether Michelangelo’s David was holding a secret weapon, a fustibal, in his excessively large right hand. A fustibal was a sling to hurl stones as far as 180 meters (600 ft).

According to the Bible, David had his sling, five stones, and a shepherd’s staff with him when he fought Goliath. Only the sling is visible in Michelangelo’s sculpture from the early 1500s. But some scholars argue that the straps of the sling connect to an unidentified item in David’s hand, believed to be a handle for the staff which would function like a golf club.

The statue was originally meant to be placed on top of the Florence Cathedral, where the weapon would have been hidden from view. David’s fustibal was visible in other artists’ paintings of the time, which these experts believe influenced Michelangelo’s rendering of his famous sculpture.

However, they think that the staff wasn’t mounted on the handle for political reasons. “A shepherd staff wasn’t fitting with the political meaning of the statue, which became the first public Italian monument,” said art historian Sergio Risaliti. Not all experts agree with this theory, so the mystery of the object in David’s hand remains unsolved.

I reckon we can always find a mystery if we look hard enough. I just honestly never thought of how such a thing of beauty could be part of a mystery, did you ?

Coffee out on the patio again today!

What A Way To Wake Up...!

Sometimes folks can be their own worst enemy, I believe. Take the very act of waking up, for instance.

Before Alarm Clocks, People Nearly Wet Their Beds To Wake Up

There were a lot of ways to wake up before the alarm clock was invented. People living in towns had the chimes of the church bells, and people living on farms had roosters to crow them awake. But not everybody kept it that simple. In some places, people made getting up in the morning a much stranger experience.

Native Americans would make sure they got up early by drinking as much water as physically possible before falling asleep. That way, the water would fill up their bladders while they were sleeping. Pretty soon, they’d be so full that they felt like they were going to burst. So they’d either get up early and get a head start on the day—or else just burst.

In England, it was a bit easier. You could pay a “knocker-upper” to get you up in the morning. Your knocker-upper would come to your house first thing in the morning and bang on your window with a long stick. And if he wanted to make his shilling, he’d keep banging until you got up and shared with him the customary curse words of morning.

Ya know, when I was working I often had trouble getting up. However, since I've been retired, I find myself waking up at the same time every day...even though I could sleep in! I wonder why that is?

Coffee out on the patio this morning!

This Saved Nintendo...?

Believe it or not, the company we all know as Nintendo didn't always make video games. In fact, they had tried so many different products, they almost went broke as a company. Here from Listverse is their story, or part of it.

The Ultra Hand

Photo credit: beforemario.com

The Ultra Hand might not sound like much, but it was a big deal for Nintendo. It was one of those extendable toy claws you can use to grab things, sort of like that stick you use to reach things at Walmart when you don’t feel like getting off your scooter. And believe it or not, it saved the company in the late 1960s.

Nintendo sold more than a million of these things, right at a point when their stocks were dive-bombing straight into bankruptcy. It was the invention that put the company back in the black and that, in time, would lead Nintendo to make video games.

The inventor, Gunpei Yokoi, who started off as the company’s janitor, made the Ultra Hand for fun in his spare time. After he brought it to the CEO, the company made so much money that they made it a policy to green-light any idea Yokoi proposed. That was a huge moment for the company—because that former janitor would end up pitching the Game & Watch system, Nintendo’s first video game system. He would also create the Nintendo Game Boy.

That was the turning point in the company’s history: an extending claw that let you grab things from high shelves. And if Nintendo hadn’t sold it, they never would have made a single video game.

Sometimes the best ideas come from the most unlikely sources, right? Just show it pays to listen to all input, just in case.

Coffee out on the patio this morning!

What Would We Do Without It...?

Now here is a product that I know we all have used at one time or another...Scotch Tape. However, did you ever wonder how it was invented? Here's the scoop on that from Listverse.

3M

A conglomerate corporation owning popular adhesive products such as Post-It Notes and Scotch Tape, 3M didn’t see much success in its early years. It started off as five men setting up the Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company, or 3M for short. They began work at Crystal Bay in the 1900s to mine corundum, a mineral rumored to be very tough. Instead, they discovered it was a very soft mineral with weak abrasive properties.

With not much more to lose, 3M went into supporting experimental products by adopting the mantra “listen to anybody with an idea.” They made a breakthrough with Scotch tape in 1923 after hearing the woes of a car engineer who wanted a tape that didn’t react with paint on a car. Along with other creative inventions, 3M slowly built into the company we know of today.

I wish I knew just how many miles of this tape I've used over the years wrapping gifts. More than I can imagine, I'd bet!

Coffee out on the patio again today!

Ride That Pony, Mailman...!

Believe it or not, it was in 1860 that the Pony Express came into being. Although it never made a profit, it was a ground-breaking experience for the delivery of mail.

Pony Express debuts

On this day in 1860, the first Pony Express mail, traveling by horse and rider relay teams, simultaneously leaves St. Joseph, Missouri, and Sacramento, California. Ten days later, on April 13, the westbound rider and mail packet completed the approximately 1,800-mile journey and arrived in Sacramento, beating the eastbound packet’s arrival in St. Joseph by two days and setting a new standard for speedy mail delivery. Although ultimately short-lived and unprofitable, the Pony Express captivated America’s imagination and helped win federal aid for a more economical overland postal system. It also contributed to the economy of the towns on its route and served the mail-service needs of the American West in the days before the telegraph or an efficient transcontinental railroad.

The Pony Express debuted at a time before radios and telephones, when California, which achieved statehood in 1850, was still largely cut off from the eastern part of the country. Letters sent from New York to the West Coast traveled by ship, which typically took at least a month, or by stagecoach on the recently established Butterfield Express overland route, which could take from three weeks to many months to arrive. Compared to the snail’s pace of the existing delivery methods, the Pony Express’ average delivery time of 10 days seemed like lightning speed.

The Pony Express Company, the brainchild of William H. Russell, William Bradford Waddell and Alexander Majors, owners of a freight business, was set up over 150 relay stations along a pioneer trail across the present-day states of Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, Nevada and California. Riders, who were paid approximately $25 per week and carried loads estimated at up to 20 pounds of mail, were changed every 75 to 100 miles, with horses switched out every 10 to 15 miles. Among the riders was the legendary frontiersman and showman William “Buffalo Bill” Cody (1846-1917), who reportedly signed on with the Pony Express at age 14. The company’s riders set their fastest time with Lincoln’s inaugural address, which was delivered in just less than eight days.

The initial cost of Pony Express delivery was $5 for every half-ounce of mail. The company began as a private enterprise and its owners hoped to gain a profitable delivery contract from the U.S. government, but that never happened. With the advent of the first transcontinental telegraph line in October 1861, the Pony Express ceased operations. However, the legend of the lone Pony Express rider galloping across the Old West frontier to deliver the mail lives on today.

We certainly have come a long way since those days. Communications in all forms has improved so much, it's almost unbelievable!

Coffee out on the patio again this morning!

A Scary Health Fact For Ya...!

I've been thinking about this issue for quite a while now, and the more I study it, the more disturbing it seems.

Medical error is estimated to be the 3rd biggest killer in the US. Researchers at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine concluded that over a quarter of a million people died in 2013 due to mistakes made by health care professionals. That number, which was based only on people who died inside a hospital, is more than double the number of suicides, firearm deaths, and motor vehicle fatalities combined.

If you want to read more about these findings, check out this link.

Coffee out on the patio again today!

What The Heck Is This...?

So often items are found in places that certainly they don't belong in. Such is the case of this piece from Russia found in a piece of coal.

The Russian UFO Tooth Wheel

A Russian man found a strange piece of machinery from Vladivostok, the administrative capital of the Primorsky Krai area. The object resembled a piece of tooth wheel and was embedded in a piece of coal he was using to light a fire. Although discarded pieces of old machines are not uncommon in Russia, the man became curious and showed his find to some scientists. Testing revealed that the toothed object was almost pure aluminum and almost certainly artificially made.

Also, it was 300 million years old. This raised some interesting questions, as aluminum of this purity and shape can’t form naturally and humans didn’t figure out how to make it until 1825. Curiously, the object also resembles parts that are used in microscopes and other delicate technical devices.

Although conspiracy theorists have been quick to declare the find a part of an alien spaceship, the scientists researching it are not willing to jump to conclusions and wish to run further tests in order to learn more about the mysterious artifact.

I'd like to know just what the thing is myself. Just curious, ya know?

Coffee out on the patio in the sun this morning. It's cool, but we can handle cool...right? BTW...APRIL FOOL'S DAY !!