I’ve been relaxing on a cruise through the Hawaiian Islands. 

I’ve been offline for a while . . . The beautiful scenery is free (pics coming soon), but the internet is not. I’ll write more when I get back next week.

Peace and Aloha!

Rob

CUROSITY CORNER

Dr. Jerry D. Wilson – Emeritus Professor of Physics Lander University

(submitted to Rob’s Megaphone)

Question: Seats on airplanes have lap seatbelts, but not shoulder straps. Why is this? Wouldn’t it be safer if they did? 

Reply: Well, there is probably a combination of reasons. First, the type of restraint needed in commercial aircraft differs from that of an automobile. Shoulder straps are an advantage in sudden stops, which usually don’t occur in aircraft. Also, on an airliner you don’t have the windshield there to contend with. (With the small leg space, the back of the seat in front would act as a bumper if you didn’t have your lap belt on. They don’t give you much space, particularly when passengers in front of you recline their seats.) Another consideration is where shoulder straps would be anchored. With two, three and even five seats across an aisle (in the big ones), there would be a jungle of straps going somewhere above. (You wouldn’t be able to see the in-flight movie.)

          Of course, with airline profits the way they are, there is a cost factor. Not only for the shoulder straps themselves and their installation, but also in excess weight. A shoulder strap may not sound like much, but consider a whole plane times the number of planes that fly, and you get a big bunch that would cost big bucks in fuel over time.

          Evidently, there is no great need for shoulder straps, or we would probably have them. One way to get around the need would be to have the seats face backwards. Then, no problem with sudden stops, and we could watch all the people waiting to get into the restrooms. Maybe a good safety idea, but it probably wouldn’t fly. A lot of people, including myself, don’t like to ride backwards.

Well, that was a relatively short one, so I’ll add a Biblical observation we were discussing the other day. It seems that 40 is a very popular number in the Bible. For example (I hope I get all this right, otherwise I’m in trouble again), it rained for 40 days and 40 nights for the big flood, and Moses went up on Mt. Sinai for 40 days and 40 nights. Elijah spent 40 days and 40 nights in the wilderness, but the Israelites spent 40 years. Jonah gave Nineveh 40 days to repent. Jesus sojourned in the wilderness for 40 days, and Lent is 40 days long.

C.P.S. (Curious Postscript):  Do not worry about avoiding temptation. As you grow older it will avoid you.  ~Joey Adams

Curious about something? Send your questions to Dr. Jerry D. Wilson, College of Science and Mathematics, Lander University, Greenwood, SC, 29649

14 Interesting Words 

How many words are in your vocabulary? The average high school graduate is said to know about 10,000 words. The average 4-year college graduate is said to know about 20,000 words. Do you have room for any more words in your vocabulary?Here are some interesting words, which you may not know.Upon learning an interesting word, if you’re like me, you’ll be tempted to work it into a conversation to improve your vocabulary or just to see the expression on your friends’ faces.

Since this is an online conversation, maybe you’re feeling a little motivated now.If after reviewing this list of 14, you feel up for a challenge, please read through to the Word Power Exercise. 

14 Interesting Words

1. Abligurition  - Spending an inconceivably large amount of money on food.

2. Cereologist  - A person who is unctuous and hypocritical.

3. Jectigation – A movement that’s like wagging or trembling

4. Muculency- Acting very snotty

5. Pulveratricious – Dust-colored

6. Rident - Laughing or cheerful

7. Uliginous - Oozy, slimy, swampy

8. Zoilist – A person who takes joy in finding fault

9. Burgoo – A stew or thick soup

10. Ensorcelled – Bewitched, enchanted

11. Hwyl – A stirring feeling of emotional fervor or energy

12.  Termagant – A harsh-tempered or overbearing woman

13. Vellicate – To irritate

14.  Ullage – The unfilled space in a barrel or wine barrel

Word Power Exercise:

See how many of these 14 Interesting Words you can include in a 100 word (or less) comment. The only two rules are:

1. Your comment must make sense, and

2. You may not use any of the EIWs directly beside another one, such as in a list.

Have fun, and add your blog address, so visitors can stop by and say Hi.

For more word fun, check out my Eight Interesting Words post here.

 1. My wife, a termagant, cow, called me a zoilist yesterday.  Although her remark vellicated me, I was too busy stirring with jectigation the uliginous burgoo I had whipped up into a pulveratricious ullage.  Buying ingredients for it was an exercise in abliguration, but, rident as usual, I countered with muculency the hwyl she projected at me.  “You’re just a cereologist,” I told her, munching corn flakes…………………ian in hamburg: http://lettershometoyou.wordpress.com

 

2. Ensorcelled as I was at first, with rident muculency, by this vellicating challenge, as I begin the task, it feels like a zoilist, or cereologist termagant is over my shoulder looking to cause me hwyl, her pulveratricious jaw jectigating with crtiticsm should I fail, just as she might react to my capacityfor abligurition. (For I have a sick penchant for uliginous burgoos.) However, as I complete this, the last eight of my hundred words seem a mere ullage for others to fill with strange words even my spellcheck does not comprehend…………..David: http://davidweedmark.com

 

3. I was so vellicated that I had an ullage in my brain, but now I’m rident because it is filled with these ensorcelling new words. Now I can act muculent around my friends, even though it’s a little cereologist of me to do so. They’ll have a hwyl and act all termagant towards me, especially my uliginous, zoilist friend, Mike. He’s the one with pulveratricious hair who loves burgoo in the winter. He’s like a dog with a jectigating tail when he smells it. In fact, he’s been known to abligurite on it from time to time…..Auhsoj Sivart: http://webs.calumet.purdue.edu/ifs

 

4. I woke up groggy, feeling ensorcelled, when my wife, a termagant decided to vellicate me with chores today.With her being a zoilist I was filled with hwyl and got out of bed. As I left, I yelled “Good Morning!” as she ducked under the pulveratricious comforter. I threw a shoe at the bed bump for her muculency and saw her painful jectigation in response. I wasn’t very hungry after her burgoo ,which was uliginous,  the night before. She has abligurtion so I had to eat something. Being a cereologist at times, I felt rident at my comment and ate Cheerios….Shell Harris http://www.toptenz.net

5. These words fill me with hwyl and I’m rather rident to enter these words to fill the ullage of my mind’s dictionary and applying them in coversations like a muculent termagent to vellicate and ensorcell others. Its sort of like abliguration to be using these uliginious words in coversations, like a cereologist speaking. But at least those zoilist acquaintances of mine would be left jectigating their nerve endings  trying to comprehend the meaning of what I speak. Oh pleasure! Like having pulveratricious soup burgoo on a cold winter evening!   Monika Kadam

6. Sitting at my pulveratricious couch after abligurition at the grocery store, I watched tv.  My daughter watched as the cereologist looked in her mirror. While the termigant queen’s attempts vellicate SnowWhite a bit, good triumphs finally.  The woodsman with jectigation finds an impasse via hwyl.  She thought his words were full of muculency but she was wrong.  An uliginous forest left her rident and singing, King Zoilist himself, Grumpy, would prove ensorcelled.  She made a burgoo for the dwarves after work.  Snow White was first Disney’s barrel, since his death many filled the ullage. Damien Riley – http://www.damienriley.com/ 

  

 

 

 

(submitted to Rob’s Megaphone)

By Dr. Jerry D. Wilson, Emeritus Professor of Physics, Lander University

          There are some 400 military and civilian satellites orbiting above us, along with clouds of debris – all traveling at thousands of miles per hour. NASA estimates there are 18,000 objects in orbit larger than a softball, 300,000 larger than a nickel and millions that are even smaller. They all lie in a zone called the Low Earth Orbit (LEO), which is 100 miles to 1,000 miles above the Earth.

          Where did all this space junk come from? We know how satellites got up there, but what about the debris? You guessed it – from satellites. For example, in 2007, the Chinese military shot down one its defunct satellites. (Well, not shot “down.” The pieces are still orbiting up there.) And, as you may recall, in February of this year, a 1,980-pound defunct Russian military satellite collided with a 1,500-pound phone network satellite. This left quite a few pieces “floating” around. The incident took place at an altitude of 490 miles.

          Can this space trash cause problems? Yes. Small pieces of debris might harm orbiting satellites, such as those of the GPS (Global Positioning System). In 1983, a small piece put a gash in a Space Shuttle’s window. Recently, the crew of the International Space Station was forced to take refuge in the escape module because of a close call with a piece of debris.

          Who controls the LEO space? No one, really. The United Nations has a Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space, but they merely maintain a voluntary registry where nations can chose to reveal the orbital parameters of their satellites. The committee has no authority to create or regulate space highways.

          Are pieces of debris going to come raining down? Not likely. Most of the pieces in decaying orbits burn up in the Earth’s atmosphere. The probability of a piece getting through and hitting someone is very, very low. There is one recorded instance of a piece of debris hitting a person. In 1997, a woman in a park in Tulsa, Okla., was hit by a piece of metal mesh from a spent Delta rocket, but there was no injury.

          This is all something to think about, but you needn’t wear a hard hat yet.

Update. One of the topics of a previous column was how rice put into saltshakers counteracts the humidity so the salt flows freely. I received a note from a column reader with another suggestion. Lisa Brown Price, who is originally from Saluda and reads the Curiosity Corner in the Saluda Standard-Sentinel, now lives in Central Florida, which she describes as the capital of humidity. She found that rice grains would sometimes escape from her large kitchen saltshaker, adding a bit of unwanted crunch to certain dishes. The solution: replace the rice with an egg noodle. Eureka! Rice escape problem solved along with no clumping of salt. (I haven’t tried this, so check it out. My salt-substitute doesn’t clump.)

C.P.S. (Curious Post Script):  Whenever man comes up with a better mousetrap, Nature comes up with a better mouse.  ~James Carswell

Curious about something? Send your questions to Dr. Jerry D. Wilson, College of Science and Mathematics, Lander University, Greenwood, SC, 29649

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I can see:
the 6,000 patriots who died in the Revolutionary War in our first struggle for independence.
the 500,000 who perished in the Civil War who fought and died in defense of liberty.

I can see the Star spangled banner as it was hoisted in a dramatic expression of pride by brave American soldiers at Iwo Jima .

I see the 116,000 Americans who fell in WWI and the 405,000 who perished in World War II.
the more than 54,000 who lost their lives in the Korean Conflict
and the 58,000 soldiers who died in the jungles of Vietnam.

I see the 293 Americans killed in Desert Storm
the 1,672 Americans who lost their lives in Operation Iraqi Freedom
and the 190 killed in Enduring Freedom

I remember each soldier who paid the ultimate price for our nation. Though they died; they were not defeated for the Stars and stripes continues to wave. They rest in peace while we enjoy the freedom they secured for us.

A few racey remarks in this one