Euphonia: a mechanical talking machine           

Here's a delicious potted history of the Euphonia, a mid-19th century gadget that could simulate human speech by pumping bellows-fed air over an artificial tongue set in a chamber of weird plates and valves. It had a severe woman's face and coils of hair in ringlets, and spoke in a "weird, ghostly monotone."

By pumping air with the bellows and manipulating a series of plates, chambers, and other apparatus, including an artificial tongue, the operator could make it speak any European language. It was even able to sing the anthem God Save the Queen. The Euphonia was invented in 1845 by Joseph Faber, a German immigrant. A little known fact is that this machine greatly influenced the invention of the telephone.

The best opening paragraph on Wikipedia

 

  The best opening paragraph on Wikipedia

 

Lieutenant-General Sir Adrian Paul Ghislain Carton de Wiart VC, KBE, CB, CMG, DSO (5 May 1880 – 5 June 1963), was a British Army officer of Belgian and Irish descent. He served in the Boer War, First World War, and Second World War, was shot in the face, head, stomach, ankle, leg, hip, and ear, survived a plane crash, tunneled out of a POW camp, and bit off his own fingers when a doctor refused to amputate them. He later said, "Frankly I had enjoyed the war." - Wikipedia

Caturday

1914. "Kittens in costume as bride and groom, being married by third kitten in ecclesiastical garb." Holy catrimony! Photo by Harry W. Frees.

Container ship breaks in half, sinks, burns

                             

Here's a gallery of photos showing an enormous container ship breaking in two at the middle, and then the stern section sinking. The bow of the ship -- the Mitsui O.S.K. Lines's MOL Comfort -- was towed away, but burst into flames and broke free of its tow, off the coast of Gujarat, India.

On June 17, Mitsui O.S.K. Lines’ MOL Comfort began suffering from severe hogging and broke in two while underway from Singapore to Jeddah with a load of 7,041 TEUs. The crew escaped in life rafts and picked up by another merchant vessel... On June 27, the stern section began taking on water and sank with an estimated 1,700 containers and 1,500 metric tons of fuel oil. These photos sent to Captain were taken over a five minute period... On July 2, the MOL Comfort’s bow section broke free from its towing wire while in “adverse” sea conditions. Crews were able to reconnected and continue towing. Four days later, Mitsui O.S.K. Lines reported that on July 6, a fire broke towards the rear of the bow section of the MOL Comfort, and fire fighting efforts commenced.

The whole set is pretty amazing -- container ships are one of my prime fascinations, and to see these huge packetized lumps of consumer good being tossed around like children's blocks is terrifying.

Is this the iceberg that sank the Titanic?

Could this iceberg be the one that caused the Titanic disaster?

 

 

A photo set for an auction that starts on Thursday may contain one of modern history's most famous natural villains.

 

On the evening of April 14, 1912, on a rare calm, clear and moonless night in the North Atlantic, the Titanic's starboard side glanced off an iceberg at 11:40 p.m. The massive ship had been speeding (around 22 knots) dangerously close to an ice field and may have course-corrected away from it and accidentally manoeuvered directly into the path of the deadly berg in the photograph.

 

The vessel, the largest in the world at the time and famously on its maiden voyage from England to the United States, sank two-and-a-half hours later, taking the lives of 1502 people. When rescue ships arrived later that morning, they were stunned to find themselves surrounded by ice. According to the captain of the Carpathia, the ship that was first on the scene, more than 20 large bergs (some estimated at over25 metres tall) were observed.

In the century since the sinking, photos have surfaced of some of the suspected icebergs that Titanic may have collided with. What makes this photo different is that it was captured two days before the sinking — and actually matches up with another iceberg found in the disaster area.

The rare original 25 x 20cm photo of the "blueberg", photographed by Captain W. F. Wood of the S.S. Etonian on April 12, 1912, is being placed on the auction block by RR Auctions. The company expects the shot to go for between $US8000 and $US10,000.

According to the listing, there is reason to believe this iceberg might be the culprit, based on drawings by surviving members of Titanic's crew — as well as another photo taken from another angle from the German ship Prinz Adalbert on the morning of the sinking. Seaman Joseph Scarrott, who spied the berg once the ship had passed it, said it resembled in shape "the Rock of Gibraltar" with its highest point to the right.

 

"The fact that the particular iceberg in the Etonian image offered here is known to have been photographed at a position arguably two to three days' iceberg travel time to Titanic's foundering position, and that it substantially matches both the sketches drawn by Titanic's crewmen and the photo taken after the ship went down, allows noted Titanic experts to establish this photograph as capturing the iceberg everyone has been talking about for the past century," the listing says.

 

Spaced out UFO fan deep froze 'alien'

A CHINESE man has posted photographs of him posing next to an 'alien' which he claims to have trapped after it crash landed. 

 

         

The pictures of Mr Li standing next to the rather crude looking extra-terrestrial have sparked a frenzy of speculation social networking sites across China.

Mr Li claims he saw a formation of UFOs buzzing across the night sky along the Yellow River in Binzhou Shangdong province.

Suddenly, one of the crafts plummeted to earth and soon afterwards Mr Li discovered the charred remains of the visitor from outta space in a rabbit trap, he claims.

Mr Li insists he took the bizarre looking creature back to be stored in a freezer at his home after the crash-landing in March, the Daily Mail reports.

However, the outlandish claims were quickly brought back to earth.

Police issued a statement saying the rather unconvincing figure at the bottom of a chest freezer was, in fact, not another life form but high quality rubber.

'The alien purported electrocuted and discovered by a man in Binzhou is a high quality imitation,' the Jinan Police posted on their Sina microblog. 'The body is made up of high quality rubber.'

Undeterred by the police attempts to pour scorn on the possibility the alien is real, Chinese bloggers are busy trying to connect the Shandong alien to a purported UFO siting in Hubei province.

 

Man tries to sell Mercedes on eBay using 'more to love' wife as model and son in the boot

IT'S the most extraordinary ad for what is a very ordinary car.

 

 

 

 

 

A British man, with an obvious sense of humour, has posted his Mercedes E320 Cdi on eBay         using pictures of his full-figured wife draped over the bonnet to help the sale.

And to demonstrate the boot space, he's posted photos of people in it, including the wife.

The tongue in cheek ad, from eBay user camibanks, which starts: "If you are looking for an immaculate, well maintained example of a Mercedes e320 CDI ... you have come to the wrong place ..." is obviously working, though.

Since the ad was posted on June 11, it's attracted 47 bids (at time of writing) and the price has soared to Pound152,000 ($A251,000).

The ad goes on: "If however, you are low on self esteem, with a strapped budget, but shooting for the stars, welcome to my auction. May I present to you, one of the finest feats in Germanic engineering politely modelled by my 'more to love' missus.

"As you can see from the photos this car has seen things ... things it cannot forget. I have owned this car for 3 years, and up to then it had been lovingly cared for and maintained. Since owning the vehicle, it has been thrashed, raced, rallied, and the interior has been smashed up in a domestic, not to mention the time my wife booted the wing because I suggested she eat a salad or two."

It continues ...

"The good bits. Boot is big enough for 2 small or 1 big person (see pictures).

"This car is well admired and often stopped by members of her majesty's police, who give out FREE advice concerning your drinking habits and whether or not your tyres need replaced.

"The stereo system is suited to playing Russian Techno, Polish house, Bulgarian dubsteb, Romanian hard house, and Turkish trance at full volume, while not detracting from the over glamour of the avian fecal mattered roof and rusty panels. Seriously now gentlemen. Ladies flock to this car."

An original ad for the car was taken down by eBay for "not complying with a few of their rules".

In that first ad, the seller had even offered his wife and son as part of the deal, The Sun reports.

"SERIOUS BIDS ONLY. NO TIME WASTERS! The chubber in the photos can be negotiated, the kid in the boot goes with the car, this is non negotiable, he came with the car he stays with it."

But camibanks is adamant he needs to get rid of it. His listing ends with the plaintive: "Please no false bids. WE actually want to sell the car."

Read the full ad for the Mercedes on eBay

The girl who cries tears of blood

 

          

DOCTORS have been left mystified after a 20-year-old woman in Chile started crying blood.

Yaritza Oliva developed the condition earlier this month, and now bleeds from her eyes several times a day.

 

Miss Oliva, who lives in Purranque, Chile, said that the pain is ‘indescribable’, The Sun reported.

When she visited the doctor no infection was found so she was sent home with eye drops.

But, her parents, who cannot afford to send her to an appropriate medical expert, have asked friends and neighbours to help them raise funds for her.

 

Father, Jose, made an appeal on a local news programme.

The carpenter said: ‘Please put your hands over your hearts, see our situation and help my daughter.’

Some experts have suggested that Miss Oliva has a condition called haemolacria.

The rare condition causes sufferers to cry tears of blood.

 

Haemolacria can indicate a more serious illness, such as a tumour and can be caused by high levels of hormones in women.

A teenage boy was diagnosed with haemolacria in 2009 after he cried blood three times a day.

Calvino Inman, 15, from Tennessee, said that he had no warning when the tears were about to occur.

He said that sometimes he could not feel them, and others it was like a burning sensation.

He and his mother appeared on television to appeal for help, but they did not find a cure.

Very little is known of the condition.

 

We are ready to transplant a human head, says neuroscientist

Actors Bela Lugosi as the monster and Boris Karloff as Doctor Frankenstein in scene from the 1930s film. Source: Supplied

            

GOT your head screwed on right? This may become a pertinent question if this neuroscientist gets his way - he wants to begin transplanting heads.

Doctor Sergio Canavero of the Turin Advanced Neuromodulation Group has outlined a medical procedure which he says will successfully connect a brain to a spinal chord - the major challenge for any such operation.

"It is my contention that the technology only now exists for such linkage," he writes in the Surgical Neurology International journal.

But how much would such a procedure cost?

 

Dr Canavero says you would have to put aside some $15 million for the operation alone.

 

WHOSE BODY WOULD YOU WANT YOUR HEAD ATTACHED TO?
TELL US IN THE COMMENT BOX BELOW

Dr Canavero says his procedure is derived from successful head transplants of animals from experiments dating back to the 1970s.

The head of a rhesus monkey was transplanted to the body of another in 1970 in an experimental procedure.

The head was quickly cooled to about 12C and quickly transferred to a chilled new body.

Once the head was reconnected to the circulatory system, the body's heart was restarted and work initiated to connect the nervous system.

Dr Canavero argues that a "clean cut" by an ultra-sharp cutting implement was the key to success as it would allow the severed nerve cells to fuse with each other.

Late last month, scientists at Case Western Reserve University proved they could now restore some neural connectivity in the spinal cords of rats.

Perhaps all those people who have had their heads cryogenically frozen weren't out of their minds after all.

My erection wouldn't deflate for 240 days

AN imperfect penile implant left a truck driver with an erection that wouldn't deflate … for eight months.

 

 

Daniel Metzgar's delicate predicament has led to a malpractice lawsuit being heard in a Delaware court.

Wherever the 44-year-old New Jersey truck driver went, his condition got in the way, said Metzgar's attorney, Michael C. Heyden. Retrieving the morning newspaper became a problem. So was riding his motorcycle. Family events presented embarrassing situations because, as Heyden put it: "Dan is stuck in this position."

According to the court papers and testimony at New Castle County Superior Court. the initial procedure was done in 2009 by a Wilmington urologist, Dr. Thomas J. Desperito, Delaware Online reported. The surgery involved placing an inflatable penile implant inside the shaft of the penis, a fluid reservoir under the abdominal wall and a pump inside the scrotum.

Metzgar said he had hoped the prosthesis would help his love life with his wife, Donna, where other solutions had failed. Unfortunately, it did just the opposite, making him feel like less of a man.

"I could hardly dance, with an erection poking my partner," Metzgar told jurors Monday when he took the witness stand. The procedure caused him to shink from much of life, and he took up wearing long baggy sweatpants and a long shirt to hide his situation.

After the surgery, he claimed his scrotum grew to the size of a volleyball. Attorneys for the urologist claim that Metzgar, at that point — four months after the surgery — should have realized something was wrong.

Desperito's attorney, Colleen D. Shields, insisted that the urologist told Metzgar the prosthesis had to be removed four months after the surgery when the patient complained of an infection and that the erection wasn't going down. Metzgar, according to Shields, didn't do anything for months following the visit in late April 2010.

The prosthesis was eventually removed by another doctor in August 2010 and replaced, but Metzgar said that the scar tissue from the first surgery left him about 50 percent smaller and that he does not experience the same level of sensation.

Metzgar and his wife are seeking unspecified damages from Desperito and his medical group.

Hairy stockings to keep perverts away trending online

 

The image purporting to show hairy stockings.    

      

LADIES, a new trend has arrived that promises to keep you warm in the winter months and safe from perverts when you're out and about. 

         

An image going viral on Sina Weibo - the Chinese equivalent of Twitter - purports to promote 'hairy stockings'.

The picture shows a pair of legs hairy from thigh to ankle but non-hairy feet - leaving the gender of the subject open to debate.

''Super sexy, summertime anti-pervert full-leg-of-hair stockings, essential for young girls going out,'' the post reads, according to trend watcher ChinaSMACK.

The leg trend has attracted a mixed public response.

''Essential for the subway?'' asks one person.

Another is not convinced the trend will take off: ''If it has come to this, why not just wear pants?''

Read more: http://www.news.com.au/weird-true-freaky/hairy-stockings-to-keep-perverts-away-trending-online/story-e6frflri-1226665411086#ixzz2YRjkBG3b

Lord of the Husk: Meet Tamale Jesus

I've seen Jesus on a lot of strange items - but this one's a first: A Californian says Jesus has appeared to him on a tamale.

"Holy tamales! On June 4, 2013, we were heating tamales for dinner when we saw an apparition of Jesus Christ staring back from one of the husks!" an eBay seller named mattrick subtext writes.

"After examining the husk, we also noticed the outline of a body and hand beneath His face... goose bumps!"

The tamale husk has been dried out and locked in a Ziploc. In another miracle, it hasn't decayed after nearly three weeks.

As of this writing, Tamale Jesus has an opening bid of 10 bucks - and no takers.

Cool Photos of Ants

Amazing macro photography by talented Russian artist Andrey Pavlov.

20 Probably Of Real Weird Accidents

 

 

China's new millionaires on a breast-milk binge

Breast milk drinking by rich adults provokes outrage in China

 

BEIJING: Rich adults in south China's Shenzhen city hiring wet nurses to drink breast milk has provoked

disgust and outrage over the Chinese internet with thousands of micro blog users lashing out at this "latest game" of people who came to wealth overnight. The wet nurses are provided by an agency, which scouts for poor women who have recently given birth and would be happy with some financial support. The new mothers offer their services for a few days to weeks in a month with prices varying from $2,000 to $4,000. 

 

"This adds to China's problem of treating women as consumer goods and the moral degradation of China's rich," wrote Cao Baoyin, a writer and regular commentator in Chinese media, on his blog

Friendship with Crocodile

Deep in the Costa Rican jungle, a fisherman named Chito discovered a crocodile that had been shot in the eye by a cattle farmer and left for dead. Chito was able to drag the massive reptile into his boat and bro...ught him to his home, where he stayed by his side for months, nursing him back to health.

He named the croc Pocho. “I stayed by Pocho’s side while he was ill, sleeping next to him at night
Pocho is roughly 5.18 meters (17 feet) long. He and Chito play, wrestle and hug on a daily basis. That bond, Chito said, took years to forge.

Video: Snake eats snake

A baby king cobra dines on a water snake...Uh Oh!

What it’s like to order a pizza online in Japan

 

 Sharla is a Canadian college student living in Japan. Here's a video she took that goes through the process of ordering a pizza to be delivered. It turns out you get a free gift when you order a pizza!

"Candy Crush teaches me nothing and steals my time and money. I can’t stop playing it."

"In the last 10 days, I’ve spent $21, repeatedly drained my phone battery, and blown a deadline for the first time in years—all so I could play a game for which I have absolutely no aptitude. I’ve been tapping away at Candy Crush Saga on the subway (like half of New York), in front of the television, and, yes, in the bathroom for countless hours, and despite all that expense and devotion, I’m stuck at Level 38."

Doug Engelbart (RIP): "The Mother of All Demos"

 

In memory of computing pioneer Douglas Engelbart, who died last night, please watch this 1968 video of his "Mother of All Demos." Thank you Doug for helping augment human intellect.

Buddy Holly vs Sullivan: Oh Boy as speed-metal

 

Charlie sez, "Ed Sullivan didn't want Buddy Holly to perform Oh Boy! on his show. He wanted a ballad. Holly refused to obey. This performance is poetic justice in regards to how awesome Buddy Holly was. Buddy was one of the few defiant rock acts at the time to get into an artistic scuffle with Ed. Sullivan mispronounces a rock legend's name, cuts his guitar line by 50% and Buddy begins screaming his lyrics, checking volume and goes into a 50's speed metal chorus while banging his head in energetic defiance with the hard drum beat. His show was so electric that Sullivan was forced to invite Buddy back. Buddy declined."

The real reason Google wants to kill RSS

RSS represents the antithesis of this new world: it’s completely open, decentralized, and owned by nobody, just like the web itself. It allows anyone, large or small, to build something new and disrupt anyone else they’d like because nobody has to fly six salespeople out first to work out a partnership with anyone else’s salespeople.

That world formed the web’s foundations — without that world to build on, Google, Facebook, and Twitter couldn’t exist. But they’ve now grown so large that everything from that web-native world is now a threat to them, and they want to shut it down. “Sunset” it. “Clean it up.” “Retire” it. Get it out of the way so they can get even bigger and build even bigger proprietary barriers to anyone trying to claim their territory.

Well, fuck them, and fuck that

Boozy ice-cream man banned

Ice cream man is banned for drink driving after having his van towed from outside school after parents complain

• Paul Hewlett was more than twice the limit when he was stopped by police
• The ice-cream man was then arrested just yards away from a junior school
• Concerned parent tipped off police officers after smelling alcohol in his van

Ice-cream van man Paul Hewlett, 49, has been banned from driving for 20 months after being caught behind the wheel at more than twice the limit

 

An ice-cream man has been banned for drink driving after being arrested while out on his round serving the school run.
Paul Hewlett, 49, was more than twice the limit when a worried parent tipped off police. His van was seized and towed away.
He was banned for 20 months after Croydon Magistrates’ Court, south London, heard he had four previous drink-driving convictions
Hewlett, of Stafford Road, Waddon, Croydon, was arrested yards away from Parish Church Junior School in Warrington Road,  on June 17.
It is understood police had been tipped off by concerned parents, who reported smelling alcohol at the van earlier in the week, and pulled over Hewlett around 4.30pm.
A roadside test found 79mg of alcohol per 100ml of his breath, more than double the legal driving limit of 35mg.
District judge Karen Hammond told Hewlett that, although his alcohol levels were relatively low, the nature of his vehicle put children more at risk.
She said: 'I have to take into account the van was acting as a magnet to children. It is a serious aggravating factor.'
Hewlett, who pleaded guilty to drink-driving and driving without insurance, claimed he had not been selling ice creams on the day of his arrest and had been moving the van 120 yards for a friend.
But Ms Hammond said: 'The fact remains you were driving an ice-cream van outside a primary school. It is an unquestionably serious offence.'
She banned Hewlett - who has four previous drink-driving convictions - from driving for 20 months and handed him a community supervision order until January.

Caught: Hewlett was arrested and his van towed away, pictured, after a concerned parent smelt alcohol on him and alerted police

 

She also imposed a six-week curfew that means Hewlett will be electronically tagged and ordered to remain at home between 8pm and 8am.  He was ordered to pay £85 costs and a £60 victim surcharge.
Parents of Parish Church pupils expressed shock at Hewlett’s conviction. Mother-of-four Jennifer Bentsi-Enchill said she was 'horrified'.

 

The 42-year-old said: 'The van is here almost every day, even when the weather is not that nice. It is scary to think what could have happened with all these children around.'
Another parent, who has a seven-year-old son at the school but declined to be named, said: 'My son has had ice creams from there a few times. It is not good news.'
The van driven by Hewlett was impounded by police after his arrest. It is believed to belong to his friend, thought also to sometimes sell ice-creams outside the school.
Barry Watkins, of Waddon, who saw the van towed away, said: 'I thought it was funny at first, then I found out what happened. It is terrible really, to think a kid could have been walking around the back of it.

Updated: Bolivian President's plane diverted on flight from Russia over suspicions Snowden was on board

L: Bolivian President Evo Morales. R: NSA leaker Edward Snowden.

Bolivian officials say President Evo Morales' private plane was rerouted to Vienna, Austria last night after France and Portugal refused to allow it into their airspace over concerns NSA leaker Edward Snowden was on board. Italy shut the door, too. By various reports, the plane was searched, and Snowden was nowhere to be found. A Bolivian official said the South American nation is outraged, and they "have the suspicion" the US is to blame for the unprecedented decision to close airspace to the president's plane. The flight was eventually allowed to continue, after Spain granted them permission to refuel in the Canary Islands. As of 10am ET, the plane is en route over the Atlantic, and you can track it here.   The Guardian has a liveblog with good coverage. Less than a week ago, US President Barack Obama said "I'm not going to be scrambling jets to get a 29-year-old hacker." As many Twitter comedians have pointed out, Snowden just turned 30, so that may explain last night's drama. If the story is as it appears, the United States has the power to compel other nations to ground a plane carrying a head of state, on the suspicion that it is carrying a whistleblower who says he exposed unjust secrets in an act of conscience. But the story may not be as it appears. Here's the official statement from the Bolivian government, denouncing what it describes as an unprecedented act of "imperialist" aggression, and the effective "kidnapping" of its president, in violation of international law. Morales calls on the leaders of the countries that denied his plane to explain their "repressive policies."  Earlier in the day, Morales had hinted that Bolivia was ready to offer the former US security contractor asylum, and compared Snowden to historic US hero Paul Revere. Reuters quotes Bolivian Foreign Minister David Choquehuanca as blaming the forced plane diversion on "unfounded suspicions that Mr. Snowden was on the plane," adding, "we don't know who invented this lie....we want to express our displeasure because this has put the president's life at risk."Austrian Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Schallenberg said Snowden was not with Morales. From all accounts, it appears that Snowden is still stuck in (or near) an airport in Moscow.

How Science Helped Write the Declaration of Independence

 

   

Franklin Drawing Electricity from the Sky: Benjamin West

On July 4, 1776, representatives of thirteen colonies on the eastern shores of North America signed a Declaration of Independence from England. Winning independence was still a bloody war ahead, an unlikely outcome. Declaring independence was rashness, potentially carrying a death sentence for treason. Not, perhaps, what you would expect of well-educated men, many of them gentlemen steeped in the most sophisticated culture of their time. But steeped they were, and some of them really knew their philosophy and their science. The declaration they signed was no rough, back-woods piece of work.

 

The era was “The Enlightenment,” the “Age of Reason.” Science had become part of a cultured man’s way of thinking. Like their educated European contemporaries, signers of the Declaration, holding degrees from Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and William and Mary, regarded science as a wondrously valuable tool for acquiring knowledge, and viewed its achievements as the clearest manifestation of reason. Isaac Newton’s discoveries represented, for them, human intellect operating at its best.

 

Thomas Jefferson, only a few years out of university, was chosen by his more seasoned colleagues to draft the Declaration. They altered very little in his draft. During Jefferson’s seven years at William and Mary, beginning at age 16 in 1760, he had read law and also been mentored by a fine scientist, William Small. “It was my great fortune, and what probably fixed the destinies of my life that Dr. William Small of Scotland was then professor of mathematics, a man profound in most of the useful branches of science, with a happy talent of communication, correct and gentlemanly manners and an enlarged and liberal mind.” Jefferson had encountered Newton’s Principia and Opticks, and Newton’s calculus, in which he was to prove himself highly proficient. Jefferson played violin and cello and called music the “favourite passion of my soul,” but “the tranquil pursuits of science,” he wrote later,  were his “supreme delight.” Public responsibilities left far too little time for them.

In the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson proclaimed, “We hold these truths to be self-evident….” In an earlier draft, he had written, “We hold these truths to be sacred and undeniable.” Whether it was Jefferson or Benjamin Franklin who introduced the change (scholars now favour Jefferson), “self-evident” sounds more blunt, more down-to-earth, as in, “It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to recognize that these things are true, King George.”

 

Pondering what “self-evident” meant to Jefferson, and why the words seemed appropriate to him, scholars have traditionally pointed to the influence of philosophers such as John Locke. The celebrated 20th-century science historian I. Bernard Cohen, in a book titled Science and the Founding Fathers,  argued persuasively that we should look to science. In that context, “self-evident” suggests “axiom.” The encyclopaedist John Harris (Jefferson had a copy of Harris’ encyclopaedia in his personal library) spoke of science as founded on “self-evident principles.” Harris defined “axiom” as “such a common, plain, self-evident and received Notion, that it cannot be made more plain and evident by Demonstration.” Many of the educated founders (certainly Jefferson) studied Euclid, the ancient Greek known as the “father of geometry,” and encountered the words “self-evident” with regard to the “axioms” of geometry in the same textbook that Newton used. Locke himself wrote an essay on self-evident axioms in mathematics.

What did “self-evident” mean to Jefferson? Science historian I. Bernard Cohen argued persuasively that we should look to science.

However, since Euclid, the meaning of the word “axiom” had become less clear cut. By the time of Jefferson and his teacher William Small, people used “axiom” and “self-evident” in two senses, connoting either something like the “axioms” of geometry (unarguable Truth), or things that would be accepted as truth by people thinking in a new and corrected way. Thomas Aquinas in the 13th century had insisted that learned men can recognize some truths as self-evident that ignorant men cannot.

Nicolaus Copernicus, in the 16th century, promised his readers that if they would grant him “some postulates, which are called axioms” he could explain the apparent motions of the planets “with fewer and much simpler constructions than were formerly used.” Most scholars of Copernicus’ day regarded his “axioms”—such as, “all the spheres revolve about the sun as their mid-point, and therefore the sun is the centre of the universe”—as anything but unarguable and self-evident. Johannes Kepler in the early 17th century used “axiom” for truths arrived at by experiment. One of Kepler’s axioms in his book Dioptrice was that “The refraction of crystal and of glass are very close to identical.” Unarguable, yes…but self-evident only to those who were aware of those experimental results. Isaac Newton, who studied these writings of Kepler, based his Opticks on eight “axioms” arrived at by experiment, not by basic, everyman observation. Thomas Jefferson surely had both meanings of the term “self-evident” in mind.

Most scholars of Copernicus’ day regarded his “axioms”—such as, “all the spheres revolve about the sun as their mid-point”—as anything but self-evident.

The Declaration does not say, “These truths are self-evident,” but, “We hold these truths to be self-evident.” King George certainly would have scoffed at the idea of Jefferson’s truths being self-evident! What do you and I make of the two meanings? Are equality and the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness self-evident in the sense that they are unarguable by anyone’s standards? If not, then who or what are the corrected, enlightened beings—the we—who see them as such? It seems rather shockingly self-evident that neither Nature nor God (at least in this world) respects these ideals of equality and rights. People are not born physically or mentally equal. Their rights to pursue happiness are curtailed in ways that can’t be blamed on human activity alone.

The signers of the Declaration of Independence had high hopes that birthing their new nation could—like the leading-edge science of their age—represent human endeavour and reason operating at their best. That hope mirrored the optimism and newness of the age. The world is older now.

 

Science and mathematics themselves have shown that “self-evident” truths of earlier science and mathematics are not Truth with a capital T. Euclid, so firmly established as bedrock, has yielded to non-Euclidean geometries. Different ancient religious traditions find that the received Truth of one does not agree with that of another. Post-modernism questions the possibility of objective truth.

We’ve left the world of “self-evident” and entered the world of “counter-intuitive.” Is anything self-evidently true…or good? Who will dare now shake a fist at rulers, nature, God, and ourselves, declaring, “We hold these truths to be counter-intuitive and not the way the world looks, but nevertheless true in some fundamental way, that all men and women are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” Do we believe that? If so, why do we so often leave this rhetoric hanging in the wind?

YouTube footage of LGBT hate crime goes viral

I'm looking forward to the arrest and prosecution of these jackasses.

One of the men loudly threatened to rape a gay man, and another physically assaulted the woman filming. Concerned bystanders repeatedly ask her if she’s OK. One man gets in between the youth and the other assailant and asks him to calm down, but he points at the woman filming and continues his tirade.

Russian rocket crashes after launch in fiery cloud of toxic fumes that now threatens residents

 

 

 

At the Baikonur Cosmodrome today, the most notable spaceflight accident in some time: a Russian Proton-M rocket crashed shortly after take off. The rocket was hauling three GLONASS navigation satellites for a navigation system that Russia is in the process of building. The resulting fiery, toxic orange smoke stretched into a cloud that hovered over the nearby city of Baikonur, where some 70,000 people live. Residents were told to shelter in place to avoid exposure.

Here's the official statement from KazCosmos, the National Space Agency of the Republic of Kazakhstan. “According to the preliminary estimates from the Russian side, there was no destruction or casualties,” reads part of the statement.

Seventeen seconds after take off, the rocket swerved to one side, tried to correct itself, but instead veered in the opposite direction. It then flew horizontally and started to come apart with its engines in full thrust. Making a huge arch in the air, “the rocket plummeted back to the territory of the cosmodrome "Boykonur", about 2.5 kilometres from the launch site,” said spokesperson of Roskosmos, Anna Vedishcheva. The rocket exploded on impact close to another launch pad used for Proton commercial launches

 

New York Times Report:

By midday in Kazakhstan, however, photographs posted online showed an ominous, elongated and orange-hued horsetail cloud stretching over the city of Baikonur, which has a population of 70,000. The city government posted fliers asking residents to take shelter in their homes. “Because of the failed launch at the cosmodrome a cloud of unburned fuel is moving near Baikonur,” a photograph of a flier posted online said. “We recommend that you don’t leave home, shut your windows and doors tightly and don’t use air conditioning.”

Spaceflight Now reports that the rocket was 19-stories tall, weighed close to 1.5 million pounds at launch, and its first three stages were loaded with unsymmetrical dimethylhydrazine and nitrogen tetroxide propellants... the upper stage [were] filled with kerosene and liquid oxygen." The technical term for those toxic fumes is a BFRC, Spaceflight Now's Steven Young tells us.