Michael Bates: February 2021 Archives
Groucho Marx - You Bet Your Life - OUTTAKES (Complete!) - YouTube
"These hilarious outtakes from YBYL have been posted around YouTube before, but scattered around in pieces. Here are all the known surviving outtakes together in one video, 90 minutes of Not-Safe-For-1950s-TV Groucho. Sometimes the material is so tame it's hard to figure out what prompted it to be removed, but it's all side splitting!
"Lots of pure gold in these clips. These survive only because the film editor on YBYL saved them. As I understand it, they would play these outtakes at the annual YBYL Christmas party."
MORE:
St. Nicholas: The Riddle Box: August 1895
A page of word puzzles, including "Central Syncopations" (remove the middle letter of a word to make another word), "Double Acrostic" (the first letters and final letters of the answers to the set of clues solve two further clues), "Rhomboid" (a small crossword puzzle, but without the diagram), "Word-Square," "Numerical Enigma" (something like the Transogram puzzles that National Review used to run; solutions to clues are transcribed letter by letter into a numbered series that spells out a quotation). Found while researching future Tulsan Louise Towle (later Louise T. Ward), who was acknowledged for submitting solutions to the previous month's puzzles. Solutions to the August puzzle box are here.
The riddle for the month:
"I AM both useful and ornamental, and am found on the table, under the table, and on your father's head. I am one of twins noted in Grecian history. I am a plant yielding an oil more wholesome than palatable."
From the collection of the Baldwin Library of Historical Children's Literature at the University of Florida.
Texplainer: Why does Texas have its own power grid? | kvue.com
"The separation of the Texas grid from the rest of the country has its origins in the evolution of electric utilities early last century. In the decades after Thomas Edison turned on the country's first power plant in Manhattan in 1882, small generating plants sprouted across Texas, bringing electric light to cities. Later, particularly during the first world war, utilities began to link themselves together. These ties, and the accompanying transmission network, grew further during the second world war, when several Texas utilities joined together to form the Texas Interconnected System, which allowed them to link to the big dams along Texas rivers and also send extra electricity to support the ramped-up factories aiding the war effort.
"The Texas Interconnected System -- which for a long time was actually operated by two discrete entities, one for northern Texas and one for southern Texas -- had another priority: staying out of the reach of federal regulators. In 1935, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Federal Power Act, which charged the Federal Power Commission with overseeing interstate electricity sales. By not crossing state lines, Texas utilities avoided being subjected to federal rules. "Freedom from federal regulation was a cherished goal -- more so because Texas had no regulation until the 1970s," writes Richard D. Cudahy in a 1995 article, "The Second Battle of the Alamo: The Midnight Connection." (Self-reliance was also made easier in Texas, especially in the early days, because the state has substantial coal, natural gas and oil resources of its own to fuel power plants.)"
8.01x - MIT freshman physics lectures by Walter Lewin
Walter Lewin was for many years the lecture for the freshman physics courses at MIT, and recordings of his entertaining and enlightening lectures were provided with the MIT Open Courseware version of 8.01: Classical Mechanics. MIT deleted Lewin's lectures from the OCW website, but they live on on his own YouTube channel, which also has supplemental help sessions for 8.01x. The 8.01 videos are also available on the Internet Archive. (NOTE: I did not have entertaining Prof. Lewin as my freshman physics lecturer. I had boring Prof. Kleppner for the advanced Physics with Calculus track, and we used Prof. Kleppner's boring and expensive textbook. I survived, drowsed through many of the lectures, but wised up second semester and had a much better experience in 8.02: Electricity and Magnetism.)
The Renaissance Neighborhood History Project
Arena Mueller posts her research into the history of homes of the 1/2-square mile between Lewis and Harvard Avenues, 11th and 15th Streets, just south of the University of Tulsa, and the people who lived in them. The most recent entry is a story about a fatal 1942 drag race on 11th from Peoria to Elgin.
Tulsa People profiled Arena and her neighborhood history project in the March 2019 issue, along with Rachel Shoemaker, who has identified over 30 Sears kit homes in Tulsa.
If you're interested in house history that's a bit more exotic, visit the case files of Marianne Taylor, The House Detective, based in Brisbane, Australia. Her Facebook page is full of interesting stories.
How can I type macrons? - Latin Language Meta Stack Exchange
Macrons (long vowels) are used in Latin language instruction, but typing them using a standard English keyboard involves complicated Alt codes or point-and-click to select symbols. Here's a method that works surprisingly well: Add the Maori language pack, and switch to the Maori keyboard. To type a vowel with a macron, type the backtick (left single quote symbol, usually to the left of the 1 key), followed by the vowel. Easy: ĀĒĪŌŪÄÄ“Ä«ÅÅ«.
In HTML, you can use special HTML entity codes, e.g., ā to produce ā, Ē to produce Ē, etc.
More: HTML entities for UTF-8 Latin-1 Extended (Roman alphabet with diacritical marks)
The Pierce Pennant Tavern - Miami, Oklahoma History
From the May 11, 1929, issue of Tavern Talk, a description of the main entrance of the soon-to-open Pierce Pennant Tavern in Miami:
"Upon alighting from his automobile under a massive white pillared canopy and entering the spacious doors of the terminal, the visitor will be immediately impressed by the depth of the main waiting room. Depending upon the season, his senses will react to its cool coziness or satisfying warmth. In the chill days of late spring or early fall, he will find an open fireplace at the end of the room, logs blazing merrily, just the tang of wood smoke redolent of the Ozark backwoods hanging in the air, inviting a relaxing "stretch" before its hearth. Summer, with its heat and glare and dust, is quickly transformed by the refreshing coolness of the well ventilated lounge, huge ceiling fans silently wafting synthetic lake breezes to the massive and comfortable divans and easy chairs. This room is 50 feet long and 35 feet wide, backed by a soda fountain for soft drink and sandwich service, with tables and chairs to accommodate 50 guests."
The building later served as the administrative building for the Royal Air Force flying school during World War II and as home of Winart Pottery in the 1950s.
MORE: The Pierce Pennant chain and the Tulsa location, later known as the Bates Tourist Hotel.
