THIS IS HALLOWEEN!

 Sorry, I was listening to that song a lot today, and I almost went to find something interesting about it or the Nightmare Before Christmas movie to tell you about. 

I didn't though. This isn't about that. 

But, since it's Halloween, I figured I should cover something related to that. 

I want to talk about Mary Shelley's 'Frankenstein' for just a bit, because there's something that a lot of people have been getting wrong. 

Frankenstein is the name of the Scientist, not the Monster. 

Furthermore, the 'Monster' of that story is just as much a victim as anyone else, and the real monster is the scientist. 

Mary Shelley, author of Frankenstein, was the wife of Percy Bysshe Shelley, wrote the book as an 18 year old and published anonymously to start. The subtitle of the book is 'The Modern Prometheus', which some think refers to a similar title being given to Benjamin Franklin for his electricity experiments, but it could also be because she saw Prometheus as the start of something bad--eating meat, because Prometheus gave us fire--so she could be suggesting that Frankenstein started something that would lead to more horror. 

While you're considering that though, please remember that the monster was basically a baby and had to learn control, among other things. Frankenstein, on the other hand, knew what he was doing (mostly, at least) and did it anyway. 

Sources:

We'll leave that one alone this time because it's mostly stuff I've picked up about things without ever actually reading the book because I just have no interest in that genre. 

 

Nessie's Cousins

 So, everyone knows about Loch Ness and it's 'monster', Nessie. Did you know that there are a lot of others? 

To start with, Canada has a creature in Lake Okanogan that is known as Ogopogo. The legends say that the serpentine creature was once a man, who killed a kindly old Native American on the shores of the lake and was cursed by the gods. There are a lot of other stories and more information about this particular creature in the first of the Sources. 

On the border between Canada and the United States, we also have Bessie in Lake Erie. The Iroquois that lived in the area once called her Oniare, their word for snake, and said she could breathe poison and fire and would eat travelers of the lake. The last documented sightings of Bessie were a while ago, but in the summer of 2001, a new monster in the form of the Lake Erie Chomper showed up. There are suggestions that the bite marks found on swimmers might be from a rather vicious and predatory fish, but also that it could be a baby-Bessie. 

That's a bit better than Lake Ontario, which is said to have an entire group of Sea-Dragons in it at one point. Gaasyendietha was known by the Seneca, who thought that they were serpents that could spit fire and fly. Stories say that the dragons came from a meteor, so they are alien water-dragons. 

More recently in the same lake is Kingstie, who was spotted in 1882, sunning on the surface of the water. When it realized there were people around, it seemed shocked and disappeared under the water. About 50 years later, there was a hoax set up by a few young men to trick the people searching for the hidden monster. Sightings continued after their trick ended though, so they probably weren't as successful as they think. 

Still on the border between America and Canada is Champ of Lake Champlain. Samuel de Champlain, who the lake was named after, was warned about the monster and that it might be deadly to rouse, and was also credited as the first European to spot it. The monster has been spotted several times, and is actually legally protected in the lake now. Some scientists think that it might just be a very old, and therefore large, sturgeon or something, but it's never been studied enough to know for sure and some sightings suggest it's something else. 

In America entirely is Pepie, in Lake Pepin off the Mississippi river, which has been regularly spotted by tourists and natives alike, even up to recent years. There's a 50,000 dollar reward out for anyone that can prove it's existence, but it hasn't been given out yet. 

Back to England, there's also Bownessie, in Lake Windermere, and Morag in Loch Morar in Scotland. There's also Lagarfljót worm in Iceland, in Lagarfljót Lake, which has been known of since the 1400's. 

On top of all of these, there have been occasional rumors about a monster in the Columbia River near me, which was described as being a giant serpentine or fishy thing with eyes the size of basketballs. 

Considering how many of these monsters have popped up, and considering that many of these go back a few hundred years, including roots in native cultures that couldn't have met up much, I have to ask--is it better to assume that humans all over the place just come up with the same idea for whatever weird thing they see? Or should we start wondering if they're onto something because they're coming up with the same thing in so many places, independently? 

Either way, Happy Halloween. 

Sources:

LA Times Ogopogo info

Great Lakes- Bessie

Gaasyenietha

Nessie's Cousins

Pepie

Sattinger's Law

 Just to keep it simple today. 

Sattinger's Law: It works better if you plug it in. 

This comes in handy for IT rules, and comes up more than you'd think. 

No Hunting Sasquatch

So, since we have Halloween coming up, I figured you might like this law. 

Skamania County, Washington, has a law against hunting Bigfoot/Sasquatch. 

It's one of their claims to fame and has led to Bigfoot shaping some of their culture. Multiple local businesses use Bigfoot as a mascot or inspiration, and local artisans use him to sell more of their products or tie him in to novelty items. There is a festival specifically for him, but he does show up at more than just that one. He's something that is used as a tourist draw in many ways, and that can be fun to talk about, but that's not what I'm focusing on right now. 

There is a law, an actual law in the books, that makes it illegal to hunt Bigfoot/Sasquatch. Ordinance 1969-01, which was later altered with Ordinance 1984-02.

Before you think it's just a stunt, like I once did, there's actually a really good reason behind it. The law was created on April first, but it's not a joke. The first reason for it is a claim to fame and getting tourists, so we need to make sure no one shoots him and ends the tourist attraction. The second reason is that, with tourists pouring in to find him, someone might want to pull a prank and wander around in a Bigfoot Costume and cause problems, so no shooting idiots. 

Putting aside the tourists though, one of the arguments for this law is that, basically, if Bigfoot is real, then he's probably either a human or close enough that it would count as murder, which is something that no one wants to do on accident. So no hunting Bigfoot or you might end up getting charged with murder, even if you don't consider him human. And, frankly, I don't think I'd feel comfortable with someone claiming they'd killed Bigfoot anyway, because he's too humanoid for me to not consider it homicide.

Bigfoot is protected in Skamania County, and they've got a ton of forests for him to hide in, so I hope he knows he's welcome there. And that people respect the law. 

Sources: 

Washington Laws Make It Illegal to Kill Bigfoot 

Skamania County Chamber of Commerce

KUOW Bigfoot Law

Fear of Long Words

If you have this phobia, please skip over this post and move on to something else. 

So, hippomonstrosesquippedaliophobia is the fear of long words. It's suggested that this might come from mispronouncing words and therefore being anxious or unable to face long words when they come up again. If you tried to take the whole phobia name on at once, you might get it also, so be careful there. Triggers could be long words overall, or obscure words, or even longer common words. 

Some consider this to be a 'joke phobia' because the name is something that those with the phobia wouldn't be able to face, and also because it isn't a recognized phobia medically. Or if it is, then it's only very recently. Studies show that somewhere between 3-15% of people have this phobia to some degree, feeling embarrassed or nervous when faced with a new long word, and I can understand that, but it's also something of a marvel to me because I like words, and finding new ones. 

I want to close this out with something I came across a while ago: There should be a hotline we can call to try pronouncing new words we've read for the first time, with a nice person on the other side to tell us what it's supposed to be. 

Sources:

Healthline

Wiktionary

Very Well Mind

Pen Tailed Tree Shrew

 Ok, to start with, this is the only nocturnal tree shrew we know of, and they're rather lethargic during the day. I, personally, think that it's because one of the interesting eating habits of the Pen-Tailed Tree Shrew. They are the only known mammal that consumes alcohol regularly. Humans and a lot of other mammals like alcohol and getting drunk sometimes, but Pen-Tailed Tree Shrews are one of the main 'pollinators' of Bertram Palms, since they eat the fermented fruit, get drunk, and poop out the seeds somewhere else. They don't tend to show signs of inebriation, but some scientists think it had a positive psychological effect on them. 

These tree shrews look a lot like squirrels, but they aren't. They're about the same size and do a lot of the same things, so tourists probably call them squirrels a lot, but they aren't. They're found in southern Asia, in Thailand, Malaysia, and Borneo, among other islands. Unlike the other tree shrews in the area, the pen-tailed shrew has a naked tail with just a tuft at the end. Since it's so different from the others, the pen-tailed tree shrew is in it's own branch of the family tree, and is considered possibly the evolutionary predecessor of all the other tree shrews. 

Some call these guys the party animal, or the frat boys of the animal world, because of their love of alcohol, and I just thought you all needed to know. 

Here's a picture from Animal Diversity. 

Sources:

House of Apple Jay-- Pen Tailed Tree Shrew

Thai National Parks-- Pen Tailed Tree Shrew

Brittanica- Pen Tailed Tree Shrew

Animal Diversity-- Pen Tailed Tree Shrew

Godwin's Law

 Everyone knows about Murphy's law, and probably another one or three. This particular one is Godwin's Law, or Godwin's Rule Of Hitler Analogies. 

In short, the rule is that, as a conversation thread grows, it becomes inevitable that someone will compare someone else to Hitler. 

It hasn't been proven, but, frankly, that could just be because the conversations didn't continue long enough. Also, considering how common this rule is, they could be avoiding things on purpose. 

Sources:

Tech Target- Godwin's Law

OED- Godwin's law

Slate-- Godwin's law Disproven

History of the Pogo Stick!

 Ok, so, the first thing I want to say is that there are two different legends about the origin of pogo sticks. 

The first one, the one that I heard, was that pogo sticks were originally used in Borneo as part of ritual sacrifices. Or just rituals. That one came from QI and I liked, but there apparently isn't much evidence on that one. Darn. 

The second I heard is about a guy from Burma who was so poor he couldn't buy his daughter, Pogo, slippers, so she used a jumping stick to get to the temples to pray without bringing in a lot of mud. 

Both of these sound like awesome stories, but there isn't a lot of evidence about either. 

In the realm of things that can be proved and known, we know that the first ones with springs in them came from George Herrington in the late 1800's, then the ones with double footrests instead of  having one for each foot, came about because of a German in 1920, and the double handle came about a year later. The official patent happened even later, in the 1950's, when someone decided that they should probably be made out of metal instead of wood. That's when we got the Pogo Stick as we know it. 

Since then, the Pogo Stick has been used to set several world records and to do a lot of things I don't think the creators thought this would do. Among those are that there is a record of the highest number of consecutive jumps, achieved in the 1990's and holding today, at over 177,000. There is a record of someone using the pogo stick to travel over 37 kilometers. There were a few couples that got married while pogo-ing, and I have no doubts that there are more at the Pogopalooza, an annual festival somewhere in the United States that celebrates people's extreme love of pogo sticks, will do so in the future. 

More recently than 1950's though, the Pogo Stick got powered up so people can do 'extreme pogo' and do tricks. You might look that up for the interesting acrobatics they can do, among other things. They've had a record set at the highest jump being over 9 feet up, one guy jumped over a taxi cab on the David Letterman show, and often do a lot of tricks similar to those of bicycles, during the time they have in the air. 

Sources: 

Hopping Stilts and Chorus Girls - a History and Etymology of "Pogo" Sticks

10 Things You Didn’t Know About Pogo Sticks

US Fads: History of Pogo Sticks

How Pogo became an extreme sport

The Original Moonwalker

Ok, before you run off, I'm not referring to Michael Jackson. He's not even on the list of people that invented the moonwalk, to me. First up is Bill Bailey--Not the comedian, but a jazz player who was filmed doing it in the 1950's. Was he the original? Probably not. Was it called a moonwalk? No. But because I like the comedian, I find great amusement in someone sharing his name being one of the creators of the moonwalk. 

I'm actually not even referring to them, or any other human. I'm referring here to the moon-walking bird in Central and South America. Specifically, a red-capped manakin. 

This bird can be found from southern Mexico to norther Ecuador, in the humid forest and rainforest. It's mostly quiet, aside from a mating call, which has been described as brief and explosive. The birds are only about 4 inches tall, and eat fruit. The females are a drab green, with lighter undersides. The males, on the other hand, are black with bright red caps. 

One of the things the males do to attract mates is a rapid backwards shuffle along a branch, which is rather similar to the human moonwalk dance. There's a link below with that, and for more information about Manakin birds. There is probably a lot of interesting things about them, but I was just going for the basics and to tell you about this particularly interesting thing. There are links below to investigate these birds more if you want. 

Here's a picture of one, from iNaturalist. I'm never sure how many pictures I should put in, or if I should, so please leave notes about what you think.

Sources:

History Cooperative- History of the Moonwalk

Video of the Moonwalking Bird Online

eBird-- Red-Capped Manakin

Dallas World Aquarium- Red-Capped Manakin

iNaturalist-- Red Capped Manakin

Animalia-- Red-Capped Manakin

She Sells Sea Shells By The Sea Shore

 Try saying that 5 times fast. 

Actually, you've probably tried that already, so we'll skip that part. 

The fun thing is that the 'She' mentioned in the tongue-twister might be a very specific and very real person. A person named Mary Anning, who was a female paleontologist in the early 1800's, and pioneered a chunk of the science of the time, including being part of the creation of the science of Geology. 

She didn't have a formal education, since she was a woman in 17th century England, but that didn't stop her. She wandered the shores around her home-town, where there were several cliffs, and discovered fossils in the rocks there. She was one of the first to figure out that some of them were fossilized poop, known as coprolites. Because she was a woman and working class though, none of this got through the boy's club of the Paleontology Society in London. If she'd been rich, she might have been accepted to have this as a hobby--or could at least have paid a guy to take credit for her work, like Beatrix Potter did for her book about mushrooms. As it is, historians tend to go back and forth on whether she was respected or not for her brains--Several male scientists took credit for her discoveries, but she was also highly praised in personal journals and may have had a reputation. The problem is that her credit for things wasn't made public as much as the scientists that published her findings. 

Despite being born poor, she was also born lucky because the area she once searched for fossils in is now known as the Jurassic Coast because of how many fossils are found there. She was able to find a wide variety of things that she cleaned up and sold, including being the first known Ichthyosaur, the first full skeleton of a plesiosaur, the first pterosaur outside of Germany, a ton of ammonites, belemnites, and a lot of others. Scientists came from far and wide to buy her fossils, study them, and take credit for them. The number of fossils she found led to a lot of interest in the subject, and museums struggled to keep up with the public interest. Some of the fossils that were put in museums are actually still in museums now. 

She died at age 47, and was forgotten for a while, until someone brought her story back into the light, then everyone has rushed to learn more about the mother of geology and paleontology, an uneducated woman that showed up several heavily-educated men of the time, who spent her life learning things that many of the time thought was impossible or insane. 

If nothing else, she's proof that women can do just as well as any man, so...maybe let one be in charge of the United States for a bit? 

Sources:

Library of Congress Blog

Natural History Museum

National Geographic Kids

Lyme Regis Museum

Museum Of Earth

Charles Darwin's Interesting Study Trend

Everyone knows about Charles Darwin and the theory that he came up with to explain evolution and how that works, but there are a lot of other things that he did that were interesting. 

In this case, I'm particularly interested in that Darwin travelled the world and discovered a lot of new species to tell everyone about--but one of the things he was most interested in, was how the new animals tasted. He was a member of the Glutton Club while at Cambridge, a club that he formed with several of his friends so that they could try eating a lot of unusual meats, including several birds that aren't normally on the menu, such as bittern and hawk. 

From there, Darwin got on the HMS Beagle and travelled the world, studying and eating animals. He made notes about all of the animals he found, their traits, their looks, their diets, and their taste. An example would be when he tried Puma and said it tasted like veal. He also tried some kind of 20 pound rodent, which is guessed to be a capybara, and said it was the best meat he'd ever had. (That might explain why the Pope ruled that it's a fish and can be eaten on Fridays too, if they're that good.) There was also a problem about the Giant Tortoises that Darwin found, which there were problems transporting back to England to show them because the tortoises were just too tasty. Amusingly, his description of an owl that he'd eaten was 'indescribable'. 

This actually led to two rather interesting things. One, there's a feast for gluttons called the Phylum Feast, where they try to eat as wide a variety of things in one meal. Two, scientists keep eating their subjects. Mostly biologists, but also some other scientists. You might have heard of a scientist eating mammoth meat and saying it tasted a lot like beef, or the really old wine found in a burial site, or the ancient honey. 

My other favorite thing from Darwin is the Darwin Awards, given out to people who have managed to remove themselves from the gene pool doing something astronomically stupid. Some of them are ridiculously funny. The award only goes to those removing themselves from the gene pool by dying or otherwise making sure they can't have children, but there are more than a few 'runner ups' that are a bit hilarious. An example there is the guy that shot himself in the foot because he was curious about what that feels like, went to the hospital and healed up, then shot himself a second time to see if it always hurts that much. 

Sources:

British Food History 

NPR- Dining Like Darwin

Britannica-- One Good Fact about Charles Darwin

Darwin Awards

Vulpeculated

 Vulpeculated: Robbed by a Fox.

Example: If a fox steals a hen from your hen house, you were vulpeculated. 

This is an entirely legit word in the English Language, though it's now considered obsolete because it only showed up in the 1600's for a bit. There were only a few times that it actually got used, but I still love it as a word. It was introduced to me as being mugged by a fox and while I know this is/was/can be a big problem, I couldn't help that think of a fox in a Zorro mask holding someone up. 

I hope you find this word as amusing as I do. 

Sources:

OED Vulpeculated

Zen Mischief Word Definition

Lexicophilia Vulpeculated

Australia: The Place that Wants To Kill You

I wanted to post this before anyone grumbles about me being mean to Australia. I like Australia. It's awesome in a lot of ways. It's got beautiful sights and a variety of creatures that only exist there. It's got Aboriginals that speak awesome languages, including one that doesn't have a left or right because they just use the cardinal directions for everything, and a few people that are still mostly untouched by the outside world. It's got some great things, and is definitely worth a visit. 

I just also like to joke about Australia being the place that wants to kill people, because of some of the things about it. 

They have crocodiles. Enough said there. 

They have sharks, including but not limited to the Great White Shark. Notably, they have the sharks that can walk on land, and the Bull Shark, which can survive in freshwater for a while. 

They have at least 3 of the top ten most deadly snakes in the world, which is more than any other single country. The Eastern Tiger Snake, Coastal Taipan, and Inland Taipan. There are also a lot of other snakes that can kill you there, on land and in the water. 

They have about half of the top ten most deadly fish in their waters and there are a few others that aren't too far off. Stonefish don't kill many, but they're there. Lionfish are pretty dangerous too. And the Box Jellyfish. And the Blue Ringed Octopus. Irukandji Jellyfish are pretty dangerous too, but not quite the top ten list. 

They have at least 3 of the top ten most deadly spiders--The Funnel-Web Spider, the Brown Widow Spider, and the Redback Spider,  

And, in some ways more terrifying, there's the Gympie Gympie tree. It's like a stinging nettle times a thousand. One guy who got stung by it, said that he'd rather get shot again. Another said it was like being burned by acid and electrocuted at the same time. It's one of 6 types of stinging tree and considered the worst. Terrifyingly, it actually can spread it's stingers in a cloud that can reach a few miles away. So, you don't even have to worry about touching it, it can still find you. 

Porcupine grass covers most of the country and is just a prickly as the creature it's named after, forming impenetrable barriers made of grass stiffer than you. 

And if that all wasn't enough, they've got giant spiders that aren't dangerous, Kangaroos that like boxing, the fires that are ravaging everything, and who knows what that I don't know about yet. 

So, overall, Australia is great, I love the pictures that get out, but Dude. It's tryin' ta kill ya. 

Sources:

Australian Geographic, most dangerous Animals

List of Deadly Snakes

Lists of Fish

https://www.jagranjosh.com/general-knowledge/top-deadliest-fish-in-the-world-1674047480-1

https://oysterdiving.com/top-10-most-dangerous-fish-in-the-world/

https://britannica.com/list/10-of-the-worlds-most-dangerous-fish

Britannica- Deadly Spiders

Porcupine Grass

Gympie Gympie Trees

Land-Walking Sharks

 Yeah, you read that right. 

There are a few species of shark that have managed to evolve to be able to walk on land. Their ability comes from their pectoral and pelvic fins, that have gotten a larger range of motion and can now be used to let the shark walk along the floor of the ocean, shallow water, or even dry land. They also have the ability to survive for a while with very little oxygen, up to 2 hours, so they can walk outside of the water, going up to 30 meters onto shore according to some records. These sharks tend to live among shallow reefs, where the tide can sometimes pull back enough to leave shallow pools on the top full of various prey for the sharks, but they also go onto shore for the tidal pools there.

There are 9 species total that have been known do this so far. It's considered a recent evolution only seen among the newer species of this genus. These sharks, known as epaulette, carpet, bamboo, or walking sharks, can be found in Indonesia, New Zealand, Australia, and Papua New Guinea. (When I found out about this, I just added it to the long list of reasons how Australia can kill someone. I'll post about that later.)

Before you freak out too much though, these sharks are tiny, only about 3 feet long or so, and rather slender, weighing only a few pounds apiece. They're also slow on land, so you can outwalk them if you're worried about that, and they wouldn't bite you even if they could because humans don't taste good to sharks, and they mostly eat worms and small crustaceans. Since you're reading this, I assume you aren't one of those. 

Some scientists think that the 'walking' action these sharks use is similar to how our ancestors once left the ocean to become land-dwellers, and others say it's a reaction to climate change. So I suppose I should say that you shouldn't worry about them right now, but if we don't work on slowing down climate-change, we might be able to see larger sharks going after land-mammals a lot more. There have already been times when sharks have managed to eat moose, and a recent first-time event where a tiger shark threw up an echidna, so I'd rather not risk it too much if you don't mind. 

If you follow the links below, you can find pictures of them, and some videos of them 'walking', along with more information about them if you want to know more. 

Sources:

Ocean Society- Sharks That Walk On Land

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution- Scientists Discover Crafty Shark that Can Walk

The Smithsonian Magazine- Shark Can Walk On Land To Survive It's Extreme Habitat

The Aquarium Of The Pacific- Epaulette Shark

The New England Aquarium- Epaulette Shark

The Seattle Aquarium- Epaulette Shark

And an episode of QI, where I heard about this the first time a while ago. 

Greetings and Salutations

 Hello everyone! 

I want to start by introducing myself. I'm a long time lover of Jeopardy and QI and random trivia, so when I decided I needed to start a blog to work on my writing skills some, I thought that maybe you'd like to know the random facts I love digging up. If you've got a request for a subject you want to hear about, let me know and I'll see what I can do. 

Since this is my blog to do with as I please, I plan to do random information about random subjects, 'creative writing' reports about things if I come up with them, and whatever else comes up. Feel free to comment and let me know what you think. 

I also want to say that I don't know how often I'll be posting, but I'm going to try for at least once a week. Hopefully more. 

Thank you for taking the time to read this, taking the time to read the posts, and for being awesome people. 

-Amanda