This is a natural "rainbow swamp"

If I saw something like this in the woods, I would assume that some idiot had dumped old oilcans in the pond.  Nope.  It's a natural phenomenon.

Years ago, when I was leading swamp walks at Clyde Butcher’s Big Cypress Gallery, I noticed what looked like an oil slick on the surface of the water. One of the swamp walk leaders with much more experience, Jeff Ripple, explained that the natural oils from the cypress cones disbursed once they dropped in the water.

Top photo via the Pics subreddit.  The quoted text and the photo below are from Florida Hikes.

Princeton student, 1983

Found in the Old School Cool subreddit.  Identity of the young woman at the link.

The myth of the value of diamonds

Do you think diamonds are intrinsically valuable?  Read these excerpts from a superb article at The Atlantic:

The diamond invention—the creation of the idea that diamonds are rare and valuable, and are essential signs of esteem—is a relatively recent development in the history of the diamond trade. Until the late nineteenth century, diamonds were found only in a few riverbeds in India and in the jungles of Brazil, and the entire world production of gem diamonds amounted to a few pounds a year. In 1870, however, huge diamond mines were discovered near the Orange River, in South Africa, where diamonds were soon being scooped out by the ton. Suddenly, the market was deluged with diamonds. The British financiers who had organized the South African mines quickly realized that their investment was endangered; diamonds had little intrinsic value—and their price depended almost entirely on their scarcity. The financiers feared that when new mines were developed in South Africa, diamonds would become at best only semiprecious gems.

The major investors in the diamond mines realized that they had no alternative but to merge their interests into a single entity that would be powerful enough to control production and perpetuate the illusion of scarcity of diamonds. The instrument they created, in 1888, was called De Beers Consolidated Mines, Ltd., incorporated in South Africa...

De Beers proved to be the most successful cartel arrangement in the annals of modern commerce. While other commodities, such as gold, silver, copper, rubber, and grains, fluctuated wildly in response to economic conditions, diamonds have continued, with few exceptions, to advance upward in price every year since the Depression...

The diamond invention is far more than a monopoly for fixing diamond prices; it is a mechanism for converting tiny crystals of carbon into universally recognized tokens of wealth, power, and romance. To achieve this goal, De Beers had to control demand as well as supply. Both women and men had to be made to perceive diamonds not as marketable precious stones but as an inseparable part of courtship and married life...

Mitochondrial DNA sometimes is inherited from fathers

"A piece of high school genetics, relied on for many sorts of genetic testing, has been found to have exceptions. Although mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) is normally received from the mother, three families have been identified where people received some of their mtDNA, three-quarters in the most extreme case, from their father. The finding may change the way we treat mitochondrial diseases and brings genetic testing for maternal ancestry into question...

Some plants, algae, and yeast get their mtDNA from their fathers, but the relevance to humans is questionable. Cases of partially paternal mtDNA have been seen in fruit flies, and more relevantly mice and sheep. Claims of paternal mtDNA inheritance have been made before, but most turned out to have been errors caused by mislabeling of samples or contamination in the lab. Reflecting the extraordinary nature of her claims, Luo had all sequencing independently conducted at two labs using different techniques and separate blood samples."

Further information at IFL Science.

Big Knickers

YouTube link.

Caveats and technicalities discussed at CNN, the Washington Post and The Guardian.

Is your phone unlocked by your fingerprint?

If so, it can be unlocked by fake fingerprints, as explained in Vice's Motherboard:

Known as DeepMasterPrints, these artificially generated fingerprints are similar to the master key for a building. To create a master fingerprint the researchers fed an artificial neural network—a type of computing architecture loosely modeled on the human brain that “learns” based on input data—the real fingerprints from over 6,000 individuals. Although the researchers were not the first to consider creating master fingerprints, they were the first to use a machine learning algorithm to create working master prints...

The master prints generated by the researchers were specifically designed to target the type of fingerprint sensors found in most modern smartphones. These capacitive fingerprints scanners usually only take partial readings of fingerprints when they are placed on the sensor. This is mostly for convenience since it would be impractical to require a user to place their finger on the sensor the exact same way each time they scan their print. The convenience of partial fingerprint readings comes at the cost of security, which is convenient for a sneaky AI. 

So, basically, just assume that nothing you ever do is secure.  Ever.

Via Neatorama.

Recorded NASA livestream of the Mars landing

YouTube link.

The countdown gets more intense beginning at about the 45 minute mark of the recording.

Wouldn't you love to be one of these people for a day, to share their joy and sense of accomplishment.

Here is the InSight homepage.

Pet Cemetery

YouTube link.

"Filmmaker Sam Green was just about to fly out of Columbus, Ohio when his friend offered to make a quick detour. “She asked if I wanted to see a little pet cemetery that's across the street from the airport,” Green told The Atlantic. Armed with his camera, Green captured the tombstones of a menagerie of dearly departed animals...

Green said that he finds graveyards for pets especially moving because the headstones tend to be much more emotive than those found in human cemeteries. “You can say, ‘Buster was the best parakeet who ever lived,’” said Green. “With human graves, everything is so much more constrained.

Via The Atlantic.  Best viewed full-screen.

"Dugnad" explained

This is “dugnad”, a word which literally means help or support in Norwegian, a custom of communal work in Norway that dates back centuries, and one that has existed in some form or another in most agricultural societies around the world.

In Norway, dugnad was traditionally a way of getting big tasks like roofing, haymaking and house-building done, usually followed by a big meal or a feast. In a nation of farmers and fishermen, it functioned as a kind of community insurance scheme. People helped others out and as a result knew that they could always call on the community in their time of need.

Today dugnad has come to mean unpaid voluntary work done in a group, for local, national or international causes. And it’s become so entrenched in contemporary Norway that in 2004 dugnad was voted Norway’s word of the year.

“Last week I had four different dugnads, because of my kids’ football teams. Next week we’re going to have a garden dugnad at work,” says Hanne Hoff, who is one of the organisers...

Surveys show that the number of volunteers in Norway and the amount of time they spend volunteering are high and increasing in some areas. A total of 61% volunteered for at least one organisation in 2014, figures from Statistics Norway show...

He says dugnad is a good opportunity for new people to make connections in the community such as refugees, immigrants and also unemployed people or people without an established social network. He says that while the main reason for taking part in a dugnad is to contribute to a good cause, doing so also boosts self-esteem and can even help develop new skills or connections useful for the job market.  

More at the BBC.

If they offer to pay you with $10 rolls of quarters...

Your tax money at work

Consider for a moment the content of textbooks used by many tax-funded charter schools:

... students who learn from these texts are taught that God wanted Protestantism to flourish in North America and that Catholicism is not a true faith; that it was better Africans to be enslaved and come to "know Christ" than to be free but not Christian; that evolution is untrue; that humans and dinosaurs lived together (and that Noah brought baby dinosaurs on the ark); that the Loch Ness monster is real; that "abortion, gay rights and the Endangered Species Act" are part of a "radical social agenda"; that nonwhites are inferior (60% of the tax-funded scholarship students at charter schools come from racialized minorities and are thus taught that they are racially inferior to their white schoolmates).

More at BoingBoing, with a link to the source article.

The world's longest reverberation

YouTube link.

Tat

I have a similar scar where my Achilles tendon was severed and reanastomosed to lengthen it to correct a polio-related contracture.  Never thought about having it tattooed.  Clever.

Via the Tattoos subreddit.

Wattles

A wattle is a fleshy caruncle hanging from various parts of the head or neck in several groups of birds and mammals. A caruncle is defined as 'A small, fleshy excrescence that is a normal part of an animal's anatomy'. Within this definition, caruncles in birds include wattles, dewlaps, snoods and earlobes. Wattles are generally paired structures but may occur as a single structure... known as a dewlap.

Turkeys' wattles often take a turn for the redder when they feel enlivened, overwhelmed, fearful, angry or alarmed. Whether something good or bad gets their attention, that rush of feeling often makes their wattles temporarily switch color. Apprehension also sometimes makes their wattles bluish.

Although female turkeys do indeed possess wattles, they're easy to miss. This also is the case with several other turkey physical features, namely both snoods and caruncles. Snoods are extremely easy to see right above male turkeys' beaks. Caruncles are noticeable on the males' lower necks, as sizable mounds. These things are simply a lot less apparent in female specimens. The wattles specifically are much lighter and less striking in females.

The word dates to the 1500, but it's origin is uncertain.

Photo via.

The business of Interstate Highway signage

All you need to know (and more) about these omnipresent highway signs is explained at Jalopnik.

Called interstate logo signs or specific service signs, these ubiquitous big blue billboards are godsends to weary travelers searching for gas, food, or lodging close to the highway. Unsurprisingly, the signs aren’t solely there to help out motorists, as they also provide monetary benefit to businesses and, crucially, to the state...

But not everyone is eligible to display their firm’s logo; that’s because the state’s requirements are rather strict, specifying things like distance from the highway, operating hours, required amenities, and number of parking spots available...

The six main types of businesses found on logo signs—local attractions, pharmacies, camping, lodging, food, and gas—are often placed along the highway in that order (in other words, you’ll see the big blue “attractions” sign first and “gas” last), and are usually within one mile of the exit...

Add the annual fee to the cost of making the sign, and any removal/change fees (usually around $100), or fees for additional trailblazer signs (typically about $50), and businesses in some areas could end up spending close to ten grand per year for the advertising for a pair of signs (though most businesses will likely end up spending just a couple of grand).

More at the link, via Neatorama.

Divertimento #157

"Heat lightning" explained by the National Weather Service.

A man in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin has eaten 30,000 Big Macs. "Through more than four decades, he's gone about eight days total, without eating a Big Mac. The first day missed was the hardest, Gorske said, and that was in 1982, when he drove in a snowstorm to get his sandwich, and the restaurant was closed.

A teacher saves lives by rescheduling her classes.

A (humorous) review of the Chernobyl sarcophagus.

Unusual neon sign outage.

A recent book explains that "companies frequently try to persuade and mobilize their employees to support politicians and policies beneficial to the corporation."

"An Ontario woman is looking for an apology from the Georgia police officer who arrested, handcuffed and charged her because she was driving with a Canadian licence."

Track runner gets tangled in a pole vault crossbar.  You need to see the video to understand how.

Conjoined twin fawns.

Bad stock photos annotated.  Funny.

"The first comprehensive study of the massive pay gap between the US executive suite and average workers has found that the average CEO-to-worker pay ratio has now reached 339 to 1."

Yanny-Laurel explained (sample at the link to listen for yourself).  "The secret is frequency. The acoustic information that makes us hear Yanny is higher frequency than the acoustic information that makes us hear Laurel. Some of the variation may be due to the audio system playing the sound, Reicke says... Older adults tend to start losing their hearing at the higher frequency ranges, which could explain why Riecke could only hear Laurel, but his eight-year-old daughter could hear Yanny."

"A gun dealer that sells firearms to the CIA has been shopping for napalm — but won’t reveal the customer or how it will be used." 

Star Wars viewed as terrorism (thought-provoking).

"Apparently, the “Penis Facial” really is a new skincare fad."

The red liquid that oozes out after cutting an undercooked steak isn't blood.  It's myoglobin.

ELI5: Why are arrest records and mugshots made publicly available before a guilty conviction is determined by the courts? (answered at the link)

A congressman opines that erosion is the cause of sea-level rise (by deposition of rocks, sand, gravel into the ocean).  This man is on the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology, for fox ache.

"Hackers possibly working for an advanced nation have infected more than 500,000 home and small-office routers around the world with malware that can be used to collect communications, launch attacks on others, and permanently destroy the devices with a single command."

Derechos explained.

Turn your car's AC off when you go through a car wash (video at the link).

"Urethral coitus is a rare type of sexual practice, usually due to vaginal agenesis or hymeneal anomalies. We report a case of urethral coitus in a healthy couple who were evaluated for infertility. The female partner had cribriform hymen and dilated urethral orifice but did not report any problems except infertility and her genital anatomy was normal. The male partner reported concerns over his penile size but was otherwise healthy. After incision of hymen, they were able to have vaginal coitus and successfully conceived. While urethral coitus is rare, it should be suspected in women presenting with infertility and a dilated urethral orifice."

Amazing:  "Four in 10 Americans are unable to cover an unexpected expense of $400 or more without resorting to borrowing money or selling some of their possessions, a Federal Reserve annual economic survey has found."

"For more than 1,000 years, a rare reddish-purple seaweed known as dulse has fed coastal communities in Northern Ireland. Now, it’s making waves as a trendy superfood."

Shocking hate crime at a Florida McDonalds.

A senior sports columnists incisively destroys the NFL's policy banning players kneeling during the national anthem.

"... the 77-year-old man who was driving the school bus involved in last week's deadly crash has held a driver's license since 1975 and had a total of 14 license suspensions and eight speeding tickets, a careless driving ticket and a ticket for an improper turn in 2010."

Your three-year-old son did not say this.  (with funny comments in the thread)

"Normally, you only see cotton candy in two forms: dry or dissolved. When you dip it into liquid nitrogen, however, it comes out as something else entirely."  Unexpected.  It's because sugar doesn't dissolve in nitrogen.

Speculation about why Mormons give their children such unusual first names.

"More than 120 pregnant whales were slaughtered in the latest Japanese whale hunt in Antarctica’s Southern Ocean...  Japan claims the whaling is for scientific research, yet also allows the sale of the whale flesh in markets and restaurants. The documents show Japan characterised its latest killings as "biological sampling" that aims to investigate "the structure and dynamics of the Antarctic marine ecosystem”."  I call bullshit.

The maker of Ambien defended its product against Roseanne Barr's claim that it caused her to behave improperly.

"The family of a 30-year-old man who was shot dead by a US sheriff's deputy have been awarded $4 (£3) in damages following a wrongful death lawsuit."

"A crayfish who sacrificed its own limb to survive a boiling pot of spicy soup at a restaurant in China has become an online hero."

The embedded images for this linkfest are from a larger gallery posted by the BBC of entries to the Royal Society of Biology annual photo competition.  Identifying information and photographer credits at the link.

Girl explains to her little sister "what people do when they get married"

YouTube link.

Carrot

An heirloom variety called the Turkish Black (via).

More info at the World Carrot Museum.

How your gut bacteria may affect your weight and health

Two articles in recent weeks detailed some new and significant findings about the human gut microbiome.  First from NPR:

Moving to the U.S. can seriously mess with immigrants' microbiomes, according to a new study that tracked the digestive health of refugees coming to Minnesota from Southeast Asia. "We found that when people come to the U.S.A., they almost immediately begin losing some of their native microbes," says Dan Knights, a quantitative biologist at the University of Minnesota and the study's senior author. Some of the strains they lose are ones that help them break down and glean nutrients from fibers found in Southeast Asian staples like wild greens, coconut and tamarind...

Among that group of 19 refugees, researchers noticed that a Western bacteria strain called Bacteroides began to displace the non-Western strain Prevotella within their first six to nine months in the U.S. But they lost more microbes than they gained — "so the diversity in their microbial communities decreased," Knights says. "And some of the Prevotella bacteria they lost were the ones that helped them digest fiber from plants and greens."

Some of the bacteria in our guts feed, and survive, on particular fibers found in grains and greens — and die off when they don't get enough. But changes in diet didn't explain all — or even most — of the change in immigrants' microbiomes. "It could be that other factors, like exposure to different medications, especially antibiotics or changes in the quality of water they're drinking, are also affecting their microbiomes...

"In speaking with community members, we also realized that for them, the biggest concern was obesity," says Vangay. "Because they had observed in themselves and their relatives and friends that when they moved to the U.S., they gained a lot of weight. And in some cases, they hadn't really changed too much about their diet."

Fascinating.  Now this from Harvard Magazine:

A. Sloan Devlin, an assistant professor at Harvard Medical School, and her team have discovered that altering a single gene in a single type of bacteria can even change the metabolism of the host organism...

During the 32-day study, the mice that could not process bile, for instance, had more fat in the liver and gained weight much more slowly than the other group. They also used proportionately less fat and more carbohydrate for energy...

“It’s a bacterium,” she points out, “and a single enzyme in a bacterium, that’s causing a change in whether the host is using fats versus carbohydrates.”

Control of body weight used to be conceptually so simple: calories in minus calories expended.  Now it appears to be much more complex than that.

Related: Fecal transplant to treat C. difficile colitis.

Introducing the pyrosome

YouTube link.

I've never heard of such a creature before.  This one filmed off the coast of New Zealand.  Via.

Pyrosomes, genus Pyrosoma, are free-floating colonial tunicates that live usually in the upper layers of the open ocean in warm seas, although some may be found at greater depths. Pyrosomes are cylindrical or cone-shaped colonies made up of hundreds to thousands of individuals, known as zooids. Colonies range in size from less than one centimeter to several metres in length. They are commonly called "sea pickles."

Pyrosomes are brightly bioluminescent, flashing a pale blue-green light that can be seen for many tens of metres. The name Pyrosoma comes from the Greek (pyro = "fire", soma = "body"). Pyrosomes are closely related to salps, and are sometimes called "fire salps". Sailors on the ocean occasionally observe calm seas containing many pyrosomes, all luminescing on a dark night.

You learn something every day.

Blue dot in a red state

Here's the county-by-county voting pattern in the Minnesota governor's race last week.  You wouldn't know from this image that the candidate who won was a Democrat (blue).  The explanation lies in the closeup of the Twin Cities area:

It's the same here in Wisconsin.  I live in Madison, which is one of several "blue dots" in a state whose counties are almost all "red."  You can find many other examples if you search Google Images for "blue dot" "red state."

This degree of polarity is not healthy.  It was discussed at length in an Atlantic article in 2012:

The new political divide is a stark division between cities and what remains of the countryside. Not just some cities and some rural areas, either -- virtually every major city (100,000-plus population) in the United States of America has a different outlook from the less populous areas that are closest to it...

The voting data suggest that people don't make cities liberal -- cities make people liberal...The gap is so stark that some of America's bluest cities are located in its reddest states. Every one of Texas' major cities -- Austin, Dallas, Houston, and San Antonio -- voted Democratic in 2012...

In due course, these populous bastions of urban liberalism have helped spur state legislation and court rulings to create new laws, such as those permitting same sex marriage, that are often in direct conflict with federal laws and with the majority of fellow state counties...

These state laws are the foundation for potential future federal laws, but the sudden, radical divergence between laws from state to state is leading to a dizzying decentralization...

A mass murderer speaks through Instagram

"... the gunman who killed 12 people at a country music bar, posted on social media during the deadly rampage, according to law enforcement officials.

The first call to law enforcement came in at 11:19 p.m. Wednesday, officials said. The authorities arrived at the Borderline Bar and Grill in Thousand Oaks, California, three minutes later. They entered the building at 11:25 p.m.

[redacted], 28, first posted on Instagram at 11:24 p.m: "It's too bad I won't get to see all the illogical and pathetic reasons people will put in my mouth as to why I did it," the military veteran said in the post. 

"Fact is I had no reason to do it, and I just thought.... life is boring so why not?" [redacted] posted, according to ABC News and Buzzfeed.

Three minutes later [he] posted, "I hope people call me insane (two smiley face emojiis) would that just be a big ball of irony? Yeah... I'm insane, but the only thing you people do after these shootings is 'hopes and prayers'...or 'keep you in my thoughts'."

He added, "Every time...and wonder why these keep happening... --(two smiley face emojis)."

"I'm alone. I'm scared."

There are countless tragedies arising from the California wildfires.  As I get older I have increasing empathy for senior citizens who not only lose all their possessions in floods and fires, but who also have no close family or established support group to fall back on.

Marilyn Pelletier got a knock on her door in Paradise as the Camp Fire raged and was told she had five minutes to leave. She grabbed her medicine bag and her small dog, and when she left "the whole sky was pink."

"You could see the fire coming," she said. "It was devastating. It's horrible. The worst thing I've ever experienced in my life. I was just — I'm grateful I got out with my life."

Pelletier moved to Paradise two years ago after her husband passed away, and bought a house in the town which was destroyed in the fire, she said.

"It’s a beautiful home — it was. It was real pretty,” Pelletier said. "I'm devastated. I'm heartbroken, I'm alone, I’m scared."

The screencap and quote come at the end of a two-minute video on this page.

This is an interesting book

Jonathan Rauch is a highly-respected journalist (New York Times, Washington Post) and contributing editor of The Atlantic.  After enduring and overcoming a mid-life stressful period, he extensively researched the psychosocial and behavioral science literature on happiness, and summarized it in this book.  I had seen several favorable reviews, but wasn't expecting much new insight into an admittedly nebulous concept of happiness/unhappiness.  I was wrong; this was a good read.

The book begins with several introductory chapters exploring the definition of happiness and unhappiness, discussing the measurement tools and the strengths and weaknesses of survey data, and examining the effect of various life experiences.

"All the evidence says that on average people are no happier today than people were fifty years ago... Yet at the same time average incomes have more than doubled... how you feel about your life does not necessarily reflect how one might suppose you should feel, at least by the materialistic standards of homo economicus... People who are in very fast-growing economies are less happy than people in slower growing economies... Rapid change makes people very unhappy... the paradox of frustrated achievers and happy peasants."

The U-shaped curve featured on the book cover has been recognized for decades and reproduced in a multitude of studies.  The reason for that shape is less clear, and is the focus of Rauch's book.  If you are in a hurry with little time to read, I recommend skipping to chapter 6 - "The Paradox of Aging: Why getting old makes you happier."

"Stress declines after about age fifty... trying to explain what caused stress to decline so sharply, they adjusted for about twenty variables... The pattern didn't change.  In fact, it grew stronger, as if age itself were reducing stress... Emotional regulation improves... part of the reason emotional weather tends to settle down with age may be the accumulation of life experience... "I don't let that stuff bother me anymore"... Older people feel less regret... healthy aging helps people accept what they can't control..."

There's way more to discover in the book, which can be read in a couple evenings, but I think it is deserving of a more leisurely perusal, leaving oneself time for self-reflection.  If nothing else, just the knowledge that the axioms "this too shall pass" and "things will get better" have some statistical validity is rather reassuring.

Lest we forget

via.

Riding full circle on a paternoster

YouTube link.

"A paternoster or paternoster lift is a passenger elevator which consists of a chain of open compartments (each usually designed for two persons) that move slowly in a loop up and down inside a building without stopping. Passengers can step on or off at any floor they like. The much smaller belt manlift which consists of an endless belt with steps and rungs but no compartments is also sometimes called a paternoster.

The name paternoster ("Our Father", the first two words of the Lord's Prayer in Latin), was originally applied to the device because the elevator is in the form of a loop and is thus similar to rosary beads used as an aid in reciting prayers.

The construction of new paternosters was stopped in the mid-1970s due to safety concerns, but public sentiment has kept many of the remaining examples open. By far most remaining paternosters are in Europe, with 230 examples in Germany, and 68 in the Czech Republic. Only three have been identified outside Europe: one in Malaysia, one in CEB Sri Lanka and another in Peru."

Performing a fecal transplant at home

Excerpts from an interesting case report:

I’d had intestinal distress before, but never like this. I was excreting not just waste, but blood and bits of my colon’s lining — up to 30 times per day. My abdominal pain hit deeper and felt less productive than the pain of giving birth, epidural-free, to my second child. Even shingles, which stung like a dental drill against my face, paled in comparison. Such was the agony of Clostridium difficile...

Things started innocently enough. In early 2013, my doctor diagnosed me with a bacterial infection and prescribed an antibiotic. I had lived antibiotic-free for nearly four decades — a streak I was not inclined to break. But my doctor insisted on antibiotics, and I reluctantly complied.

Soon after, my stomach turned against me. I went to an emergency room and was sent home with a prescription for vancomycin, an antibiotic reserved for serious bacterial infections. But the drug proved little match for the microbes that had bum-rushed my colon. My weight and fluid loss accelerated. My colon risked perforation.

Because C. diff. spores can live for months on bedrails, doorknobs, and linens and easily shrug off common detergents and sanitizers, my master bathroom became my biohazard containment unit. There, I alternated between sitting on the toilet and lying on the floor. My husband, Esteban, brought me supplies and emotional support...

So, when I called around about the possibility of treating my C. diff. with a fecal microbial transplant, a sensible doctor might have offered to refer me to one of those approved practitioners. Instead, everyone I talked to refused to even entertain the idea, seemingly out of disgust.

“Yuck, you don’t want that. Just stay on the vancomycin,” my first doctor told me. A second, a gastroenterologist, simply substituted “gross” for “yuck.” A third, more tactful, expressed relief that FDA policy absolved him from having to offer the procedure...

And so it happened that when my C. diff. roared back, worse than before, after the end of my 10-day vancomycin course, my doctor’s response was to simply prescribe more vancomycin. With each subsequent treatment, however, my likelihood of recovery dropped dramatically. I started the ordeal with an approximately 70 percent chance of recovery. After months of failed antibiotic treatments, my chances had sunk below 10 percent.

My last trip to the emergency room was a grim formality. The C. diff. battle now raged beyond my colon. “You may want to tell loved ones about your dire circumstances,” my gastroenterologist said. It dawned on me that my doctor would sooner let me die than discuss a fecal transplant. That’s when I decided to do the transplant myself...

A New England Journal of Medicine article offered some procedural clues. For instance, my ideal donor would have a microbiome that was untainted by antibiotics. That ruled out Esteban, who had recently been administered antibiotics during an eye surgery. Ultimately, I turned to my 11-year-old daughter.

She responded openly and inquisitively, asking more questions than any of my doctors had. “Is this like in Clash of Clans when you have no troops left in your clan castle and you need someone else to donate some?” she said, referring to a popular multi-player video game.

Yes, it’s exactly like that.

She agreed to do it, and at around 10 pm on a Tuesday, Esteban collected the sample. He dropped it into a blender, added saline, blended it, strained it, and poured the concoction into an enema bottle, as I lay depleted on the floor. My gut drank up the infusion as if it were dying of thirst. My colon, after five months of near-constant spasms, recovered in one transformative instant. Overnight, I went from having 30 bowel movements a day to having one. For breakfast the next morning, I ate a quesadilla loaded with black beans, cheese, salsa, lettuce, and guacamole. I’ve had no recurrence of C. diff. since. 

There's more at the link.

Watch Mr. Wizard

 
YouTube link. 

This is a half-hour television episode from 1954. You'd have to be 60 years old or more to have seen this segment live, but younger visitors may remember later episodes or the Canadian revival in the 70s, or the updated Mr. Wizard's World of the 1980s.

For many baby boomers, this was our introduction to "hard science" and the concept that science could be interesting (and comprehensible). I suppose it would be different now; the teacher probably wouldn't be allowed to place a hand on Johnny's shoulder, and they probably couldn't make something explode on live camera by aerosolizing lighter fluid and igniting it.

Reposted from 2008, because Mental Floss has just posted an excellent history of the program:

Watch Mr. Wizard, which aired on NBC from 1951 to 1965, featured host Don Herbert performing a series of science experiments using everyday objects—glass bottles, cans, aquariums, matches—to illustrate the amazing world of physics. Eggs were sucked into bottles; water was boiled using an ice cube. They were pseudo-magic tricks, but instead of obscuring his method, Herbert satisfied the audience’s curiosity by explaining how science made them all possible...

Don Herbert Kemske was born July 10, 1917 in Waconia, Minnesota. He developed an interest in science while in the Boy Scouts and later obtained a degree in English and general science from the University of Wisconsin–La Crosse (then known as La Crosse State Teachers College) in 1940. But Herbert didn’t pursue a teaching career. Instead, he followed his interest in drama and theater to New York City, where he worked as a pageboy for NBC, acted opposite future First Lady Nancy Reagan, and was cast in a Broadway show...

Like a lot of television of the era, it was live, not taped. The pace was leisurely, with Herbert walking through general principles over the course of a half-hour. Crucially, he refused to wear a lab coat or conduct his experiments in a laboratory setting. Instead, he wore short-sleeved shirts and used common household items while broadcasting from a garage or kitchen...

Within a few years, Watch Mr. Wizard was being carried in more than 100 markets and was reaching between 1 and 3 million weekly viewers... After viewing a pilot, Nickelodeon agreed to fund 26 half-hour episodes of Mr. Wizard’s World for a 1983 premiere.

Following Herbert's death at age 89 in 2007, a National Science Foundation official claimed that, more than anyone, Herbert may have been the person most responsible for getting people interested in science. In the 1960s and 1970s, applicants to The Rockefeller University—a science research center based in New York City—were asked what inspired them to get into science. In the space allotted for an answer, half of them wrote: "Mr. Wizard."

What I didn't know in the 1950s was that Don Herbert was related to one of my high-school classmates.  Posted for Steve, currently enjoying retirement in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Train rides in Norway

 
YouTube link.

YouTube link. 

With a tip of the blogging hat to reader Drabkikker.

Driving in California yesterday

YouTube link.

World Championship magic performance

YouTube link.

Via Neatorama. (best viewed fullscreen)

The eyes of Chris Christie

Excerpts from what is undoubtedly the funniest political commentary I have encountered during this election cycle.

Chris Christie spent the entire speech screaming wordlessly. I have never seen someone scream so loudly without using his mouth before. It would have been remarkable if it had not been so terrifying.

Sometimes, at night, do you still hear them, Clarice? The screaming of the Christies?

His were the eyes of a man who has gazed into the abyss, and the abyss gazed back, and then he endorsed the abyss...

He looked as if he had seen a ghost and the ghost had made him watch Mufasa die again.

He had the eyes of a man who has looked into the heart of light, the silence. A man who had seen the moment of his greatness flicker, and seen the eternal footman hold his coat, and snicker.

And, in short, he looked afraid.

He had the face of a man who has used his third wish and realized too late that “may my family never starve” could be twisted to mean that the genie should murder his entire family...

“When are they coming to airlift me out?” Chris Christie’s eyes are pleading. “Please tell me that they are coming and that it is soon.” But then his expression hardens. Chris Christie knows that they are not coming back for him...

Soon he must return to the small cupboard under the stairs where he is kept and occasionally thrown small slivers of metaphorical raw meat...

Chris Christie has seen things. Things you wouldn’t believe. Things that would make your hair fall out and turn grey all at once. But he cannot speak of them. He can only stand there...

Chris Christie has the glazed and terrified look of someone who has traded his inheritance for no pottage at all, who has watched his credibility dry up and is about to be led back to his basement cage, having lost Winterfell for good...

Chris Christie has no mouth, but he must scream.

More at Alexandra Petri's Washington Post article.   Photo via Matt Viser.

Reposted from March 2016 (has it been that long??) because recent buzz suggests Trump may be considering Christie to be the next Attorney General.

I'll close the comment thread.  Posted for humor, not for political commentary.

A marble run accelerated by rubber bands

YouTube link.

See also: Marble runs and A marble run incorporating a dozen antigravity mechanisms.

Finally - bipartisan agreement on something

Results of a non-binding referendum in Wisconsin as to whether marijuana should be legalized.  The percentages are those in favor of legalization; the red and blue show how those counties voted on the candidates for governor.

Groundhog day

Jeffersontown, Kentucky earlier this week and Pittsburgh yesterday.

Addendum:  Marine combat veteran kills 12 in California bar.  And there is still No Way To Prevent This.

Ostrich leather

Ostrich leather is distinct in its appearance and is characterized by raised points that are localized to the center of the hide. The portion with these bumps is called the "crown". It's actually the back of the ostrich where the animal's neck meets its body. The bumps are quill follicles where a feather used to reside. On the left and right side of the diamond shaped crown the skin is quite smooth. In fact, only about 1/3 of the whole skin has quill bumps. Since the crown is the most sought after portion and since it constitutes such a small area of the skin, "full quill" ostrich products are considerably dearer when compared to bovine leather. This, along with the fact that it is one of the strongest commercial leathers, leads ostrich leather to be seen as a luxury item.

Most designer brands have at least one purse made with ostrich leather. Footwear is another way in which designers showcase the material. But, by far the most widely used application is for ostrich leather boots. Just about every bootmaker uses ostrich and the demand for ostrich boots is higher than any other ostrich leather product... Car seats, dashboards, motorcycle seats, and door panels can all be covered or accented with ostrich leather.

New to me.  You learn something every day.

Daisy chain ?

The Christmas catalogue for the Metropolitan Museum of Art arrived in the mail this week. 

Ride a streetcar through Leipzig in 1931

YouTube link.

If you're going to watch, I recommend clicking the "fullscreen" icon for best effect.  Some will find this boring and give up after a minute or two.  I watched the full 30 minutes, with the video at fullscreen and my face close to the monitor, and felt like I was in a different world.  I imagined what it would have been like to be one of these people on the street, and how radically their lives would be transformed in the following twelve years.

Addendum:  The original embed is down - not sure if that is permanent.  In the meantime you can use this link to access the same video (in I think a lower resolution), but it autostarts beyond the midpoint, so you would need to click the timeline to backtrack.

Mephisto spiral illusion

YouTube link.

It looks like 2 interlocking wire spirals. In your hands, the two spirals seem to wind together or wind apart, completely effortlessly. However when you hand the Mephisto Spiral over to someone else, they find that they cannot replicate the action – the two wire spirals are completely rigid.

Alternatively, by simply moving your hands in one direction, you can make the two spirals appear to unwind, yet however many times you repeat the action, the two spirals never come apart.

From another discussion:

For those who still don't get it: the guy is only moving his hands along the rod. He's also rotating the rod at the same time so that the part of the rod that's "coming out" of his hand is also at the same angle, to create the illusion that he's firmly holding the "rods" with his fingers.

Ronald Reagan reacts to a popped balloon two months after having been shot

YouTube link.

Divertimento #156

Yet another gif-fest (plus some short videos that seem better linked here rather than in separate posts)

Lollipop holder (an example of things you didn't realize you need)

North Carolina road after the hurricane.

Powerwashing a tile roof

Powerwashing a wooden deck chair (instructive comments in the thread)

Powerwashing is so satisfying to watch (and do, speaking personally)

Keeping snails away from your tomato plants.

Kinetic bistable optical illusion.

Another optical illusion.  The dots do not change color.

This is called a "donut roller cutter."

Magnetic putty eats a metal ball.

Man who saves homeless cows.

"So, a horse walks into a bar..."

Not sure how to describe this.  It may be preparation for a traditional dance.

15,000 dominos fall.

Yin-yang soup.

Two men steal a French Mastiff puppy from someone's yard.  The puppy was returned. 

Augmented reality mask for firefighters.

Home-made pole-climbing shoes.

The proper way to put out a kitchen fire.

A 50+ year graph of world GDP growth.

Animals

Two pythons fighting in a home in Australia.  This video has intelligent commentary.

When a cat hiccups, its pupils dilate, reflecting parasympathetic activity.

Video filmed by camera on the back of a soaring raptor.

Rhinoceros with an awesome horn.

Baby sloth.

Squid changing color.

How a cheetah uses its massive tail for balance during a chase.

Why they are sometimes referred to as "trash pandas."

Twenty oysters filter water in a tank in a 5-hour timelapse.


Sports

Awesome throw in Ultimate Frisbee.

Excitement at a high-school football game.

Nike honors an unconventional athlete.

Cross-country runners descend a muddy hill.

Impressive

Firenado pulls a firehose

Vintage razor blade sharpener.  I didn't even know such things existed.

Professional hedge trimmer at work

Try to guess what's chasing this boat before it surfaces.

Police dog at fullspeed.

Man jumps over eight chairs.

Industrial-scale frog farm.

Avalanche coming.

Soil liquefaction during the Indonesian earthquake.  Also here.

SpaceX launch.  I think that's the equivalent of noctilucent clouds.

Use a glove to put primer on a fence.

New LED bulbs resemble flames.

Removing moss from a sidewalk.


Fails

A man pushes his stalled car.

How not to slice a watermelon.

Cheerful

Lady in restaurant gets a surprise birthday cake

Girl throws a ball for her cow.

Be careful as you go through the door.

Man finds his dog that has been lost for three years.

Dog gets new wheels.


Humor

If your friends say you HAVE to sing in a karoke bar, you could always choose this song.

An accurate portrayal of life as a parent of small children.

The Loyal Order of Water Buffaloes go for a drive.

Embedded photos are selections from a gallery of 30 images in The Atlantic's A Photo Trip to Croatia.  Identifying information and photo credits at the link.

Hnefatafl - "Viking chess"

"In central and eastern Sweden from 550 to 793 CE, just before the Viking Age, members of the Vendel culture were known for their fondness for boat burials, their wars, and their deep abiding love of hnefatafl.

Also known as Viking chess, hnefatafl is a board game in which a centrally located king is attacked from all sides. The game wasn’t exclusive to the Vendels—people across northern Europe faced off over the gridded board from at least 400 BCE until the 18th century. But during the Vendel period, love for the game was so great that some people literally took it to their graves. Now, a new analysis of some hnefatafl game pieces unearthed in Vendel burial sites offers unexpected insight into the possible emergence of industrial whaling in northern Europe.

For most of the game’s history, its small, pebble-like pieces were made of stone, antler, or bone from animals such as reindeer. But later, starting in the sixth century CE, Vendels across Sweden and the Åland Islands were buried with game pieces made of whale bone [image below, cropped for size].

The rest of the story is at Hakai magazine.

Addendum:  A tip of the blogging hat to a reader who has posted a link where you can play this game online.

I like the "Lieutenant Dan" outfit

Jenny and Forrest are good too   Context, for the culturally deprived.

Ahmed explains how random selection works

Via.

"Developmental Topographical Disorientation" (DTD)

YouTube link.

I had never heard of this before.  You learn something every day.   It makes you wonder how many other people are similarly afflicted and just labeled as "stupid."

Via The Atlantic, where there is a TLDR.

Five more Sir Henry Merrivale mysteries

This is the eighth in a very long and just-begun series of posts about the mystery novels of John Dickson Carr (aka Carter Dickson).  In July I covered the first four Henry Merrivale novels; continuing in chronological order, today I tackle the next five (focusing as always on the language, not the plot):

The Punch and Judy Murders (1935)
Although the two deaths occur in locked rooms, the method of death is not complicated (both victims have taken poison and locked themselves in the rooms).  The fiendish part is trying to figure out the perpetrator before the last chapter.  There are only about a dozen characters in the story, and if I had listed them in order of my suspicions, the true killer would have been very near the bottom.

"Now of course, H.M.'s conduct at its mildest can seldom be described as homely or commonplace..."  Interesting use of homely in its strictest sense of being ordinary.  Carr uses the word elsewhere to describe a person's visage as being unremarkable.  Modern usage of course implies that a "homely" person is unattractive or ugly.

"Outside [Torquay railway station] I was looking for a station-wagon for the Imperial Hotel..."  This term originated as a designation for vehicles used to transport people and supplies from a train station, long before it was applied to extended-length automobiles.

"This is a telescopic jemmy; finest thing made; a yard long extended, and its got a powerful leverage."  An alternative spelling of "jimmy" (crowbar).  Not sure how the word came to be used for that tool. 

"From the outer room I could hear the sergeant still droning on the telephone; and through the open window to the rear yard, somebody was commenting on the lascivious habits of carburetors."  

Clever and humorous bowdlerization.  And again later:

"Why don't you look where you're going," I snarled.  "Laundry!" I added, and thrust the bundle at him.  This was too much.  "I don't want the sanguinary copulating laundry," howled Dennis, who had been under a great strain that night."  

We know those are not the words Dennis used...

"I glanced down, and found myself looking into the frosty gaze of a genuine Anglican clergyman.  He did not seem to be the dominie for your money."  Alternate spelling of domine (clergyman or schoolmaster).

"And apparently it's a big ugly turnip-ghost; nothin' else."  Halloween jack-o-lanterns were once crafted out of turnips.  I presume this usage is related.

"Now that the little digression's over," he pursued almost cheerfully, "we can go back to horses and beans again."  Idiom, presumably.  Anyone ever heard it before?

"He got a whole coruscating whirl of nasty shocks."  Sparkling, from the Latin for "flash."

"Yet the car sped us out again, and down into an effulgent Whitehall."  Shining, radiant (from the Latin).

The Peacock Feather Murders (1936)
A concise summary (without spoilers) is at the Wikipedia  page.   Also of interest is a brief explanation by the author (via Henry Merrivale) of the reasons why a murderer would create a locked-room scenario.  In addition to the expected ones (to fake a suicide, because of a series of accidents), he adds here "a fourth motive, the neatest and most intelligent of all... if he can really create an impossible situation, he can never be convicted for murder no matter if all the other evidence is strong enough to hang a bench of bishops.  He is not tryin' to evade the detecting power of the law so much as to evade the punishing power."

"Why in the afternoon, anyway?  There's somethin' fishy about the sound of it.  I don't mean it's a hoax or a have; only that there's a queer and fishy element about it."  I don't know this phrase, and don't know how to look it up.  Is it familiar to any reader?

"He had been in such a fettle of triumph after winning this argument..."  Condition; unusual to see it used without "fine."

"She had, like that which has been vulgarly attributed to a certain danseuse, a glance that could open an oyster at sixty paces."   Not sure what female dancer he's referencing, but the phrase is directly borrowed from P. G. Wodehouse's description of Roderick Spode.

"Gor," he said.  "Burn me, son, I always regarded you as rather a tough walnut to crack."  An oath, more often seen as "gor blimey or cor blimey" (corruption of God blind me!)

"She is the last woman in the world who would throw her bonnet over the windmill; of that I can assure you."  To act in a deranged, reckless, or unconventional manner (refers to Don Quixote, who tossed his hat over a windmill as a challenge).  In context here, noting that the woman is virtuous.

"You will have observed," said Derwent, smiling gravely, "that no moths have settled on me.  Good night, gentlemen."  (there were some moths at the scene, but I don't know the implication of the phrase - maybe it means "I've been active and moving.")

"He strode out after her.  This passage-at-arms had been so brief and unexpected that nobody knew what to say..."  In this context a brief conversation involving an exchange of terse comments.  Classically apparently refers to a chivalric battle.

"But how are we to explain the fact that, whoever took [the teacups] there, we find no mark on them at all?  Somebody must have touched them, if only to range them on the table."  For "arrange".  Also used to mean to place in a row, rank, or classify.

"My father - made mistakes.  That I admit.  There were times when we were in very low water." Financial insecurity implied; interesting that both being in deep water and in very low water are bad situations (the low water probably implies the person is in a boat).

"That was also why he scattered so many clews - scattered 'em lavishly - scattered 'em like a paperchase."  A cross-country race ("Hare and Hounds") in which a trail of torn-up paper marks the trail.

"I had reason to think that somebody was deliberately maneuvering me into a snare which should end with a well-soaped rope and a ten-foot drop."  I used to lecture about death by asphyxiation, including the physiology of hanging, but don't recall any mention of the nooses being lubricated.  I'm guessing that doing so would facilitate the noose tightening on the neck rather than getting stuck on its own internal friction.  Interesting.

"Which is just as good as an alibi.  But on one point their apparent good sense seemed to go skew-wiff."  Out of alignment - obviously related to "askew."   I finally found skew-whiff: "The expression 'skew weft' dates at least from the 18th century as a term used by handloom weavers, typically in northern England. It was used originally to describe fabric which was out of alignment... The modern spelling comes from a corruption of 'skew-wift' whose sound developed colloquially in spoken English from the original. Bow weft also exists."

[why didn't they coordinate their alibis]... It would have been aes triplex, which no amount of batterin' would be able to break in court."  Literally "triple brass" = indestructible.

The Judas Window (1938)
The deceased is found in a study that has bolted steel shutters on the windows and a heavy door locked from the inside with a large sliding bolt.  In the same room a man lies unconscious; his fingerprints are on the murder weapon.  The best locked-room mystery so far.  Interestingly the action takes place in a courtroom only, with H.M. as the attorney for the defense of the man falsely accused.  Three parts to the book: "What Might Have Happened (first chapter)," "What Seemed to Happen (18 chapters)," and "What Really Happened (last chapter)."  Totally the last person I would have suspected as the murderer; I defy anyone to solve it before the name is revealed in the last two words of the penultimate chapter.  This PocketBook edition offers a schematic floorplan at the beginning.

In a poll of 17 mystery writers and reviewers, this novel was voted as the fifth best locked room mystery of all time. The Hollow Man, also by John Dickson Carr, was voted the best.

"Those arrows are trophies of the grand target, or annual wardmote, of the Woodmen of Kent."  A meeting of the inhabitants of a ward.

"He took silk before the war, but Lollypop told me herself he hasn't accepted a brief in fifteen years."  The award of Queen's Counsel is known informally as "taking silk."

"He was a member of the Royal Toxophilite Society and of the Woodmen of Kent."  From Toxophilus, the title of a 1545 book by Roger Ascham intended to mean ‘lover of the [archery] bow’, from Ancient Greek.

"With an effect like a Maskylene illusion, a little man thrust himself out of the crowd..."  John Nevil Maskelyne was an English stage magician (and the inventor of the pay toilet)

"There is insanity in the family, you know... Nothing much, of course.  Only like a touch of the tarbrush a few generations back."  A derogatory term implying real or suspected African or Asian distant ancestry in a person of predominantly Caucasian ancestry.

"Y'see, I'm the only feller who'd believe him.  I got a fancy for lame dogs," he added apologetically."  Helping a lame dog over a stile is an idiom for assisting a helpless or needy person.

"You remember the way the lines swing in John Peel?  'From a point to a check: from a check to a view: from a view to a kill in the morning.'"

The original title "From A View to a Kill" was taken from a version of the words to a traditional hunting song "D'ye ken John Peel?": "From a find to a check, from a check to a view,/From a view to a kill in the morning".
[Foxhunting glossary:
A Find: Discovering the fox's trail;
A Check: Losing the trail again (when the hounds lose the scent);
A View: Visually spotting the fox;
A Kill: Self-explanatory.]
So the truncated title basically means having the prey in your sights before killing it.

"... and then she mentioned that the one thing in prison Jim Answell hated most was the Judas window.  And that tore it, you see."  I think I'll not explain what a Judas window is, because it might give away an essential clue to solving the mystery.

"Her method of putting her hands on the edge of the box was to grasp it with both arms extended, as though she were on an aqua-plane."  Surfboard or bodyboard towed behind a motorboat.

"I thought you'd probably run straight to your friend Tregannon, and gone to earth among the bedclothes and the ice-caps in his nursin'-home."  An icepack worn on the head, according to Wiktionary.  Hypothermia cap used for chemo wouldn't have been relevant in the 1930s.

"He got out his watch, a large cheap one of the turnip variety, and put it on the table."  Slang for a timepiece that's big and awkward.  Apparently Winston Churchill's watch was referred to in these terms.

"I had to put that whole crowd under oath: I had to have a fair field and swords on the green: I had to have, in short, justice."  I'll need help with this idiom.

"So [redacted] was laid by the heels," I said, "all by perverting the pure rules of justice..."  Shackled or imprisoned.

Death in Five Boxes (1938)
Not really a locked-room mystery, but a clever murder mechanism perpetrated by the absolutely last name you would choose from a list of the principal characters.  I'll say no more.

"... and if the man who killed him isn't hanged higher than Haman, it won't be for lack of help I can give you."  From the book of Esther: "A gallows 50 feet high stands by Haman's house. He had it made for Mordecai, who spoke up to help the king."  The king said, "Hang him on it!"  So they hanged Haman on the gallows he had prepared for Mordecai.

"For pure perverted cleverness, their ways of wriggling out of things with explanations are as good as anything I ever heard.  Oh, they're mustard, all right!"  One British slang dictionary says the word can be used to mean "excellent."  Also carries the connotation of "hot stuff." "People and things weren't just like mustard, they were mustard."

... and just how in lum's name he figures in this case anyway..."  I couldn't find this one.

"I'm afraid you'll have to give me a lift home in your Black Maria or police car or whatever you call it."  Slang for a police wagon, but the origin of the phrase is uncertain.

"... oranges, apples, lemons, Brazil nuts, greengages, and bananas."  A type of plum.  However, not all gages are green, and some horticulturists make a distinction between the two words, with greengages as a variety of the gages...  Apparently Gage was the name of an English botanist.

"As soon as we get to the nearest A. A. box, I'll see that the damage is attended to."  Automobile Association boxes.

"Especially a re-fained long-legged prude like Bonita Sinclair?"  I have no idea, unless a mocking term for "refined."

"He could not in honesty deny that Marcia was very good-looking, but he suspected her of certain pawky humors, moods, and artistic tempers."  Shrewd, sly (Scottish).

"... he produced a half-flagon bottle of Ewkeshaw's Pale Ale."  A flagon is about a liter.  Etymology related to "flask" and to the practice of wrapping bottles in a straw casing.

"Hand the lady a cokernut," said H.M.  "That's idyllic, that is.  Do you honestly believe all that?"  Archaic form of coconut.

"What in the flamin' acres of Tophet do you expect to prove by it?"  Tophet was a location in Jerusalem in the Gehinnom where worshipers influenced by the ancient Canaanite religion engaged in the human sacrifice of children to the gods Moloch and Baal by burning them alive. Tophet became a theological or poetic synonym for Hell within Christendom.  So H.M. is asking "what in hell do you mean?"

"I can't be mixed up in any cloth-headed monkey-business like that."  Stupid (?), like soft-headed?

"He had devoted himself to his studies with the earnestness of one swotting for an examination..."  To study, from the Old English word for sweat.

"Heavy shutters were on the windows, backed with thick rep curtains to exclude every chink of light."  A silk, wool, rayon, or cotton fabric with a transversely corded surface.  Couldn't find the etymology.

"It's the draw of the town, like the Blackpool illuminations."  An annual lights festival.

"Mrs. Bartlemy, Sanders's landlady, was in the offing.  They heard her puff along the passage outside, and knock at the door like a steam hammer."  Foreseeable future, on the horizon.  A nautical term referring to distant sea but visible from shore.

"All that's worrying you is a social convention. 'They eat and drink and scheme and plod, And go to church on Sunday.  And many are afraid of God, But more of Mrs Grundy.'"  The poem from which this is taken is here, and the interesting history behind it is at Word Histories.

"Mrs. [redacted] and Mr. [redacted] were pull-baker, pull-devil every second of the time."  Anyone know this idiom??

"If a solemn lie is used to cheat an honest man, or sell some useless claptrap... then, say I, blow it higher than Boney's kite."  I found an old print mocking Napoleon flying a kite.  There must be a story (or an allegory) behind it.  I leave that up to my curious readers.

"Most of us, a' course, grow out of that.  Things get adjusted, and we come to accept necessary humbug lento risu."  In a Google book on the odes of Horace, the phrase was translated to mean "with a quiet smile."

"His worst moment was when [redacted] suddenly appeared in the bedroom, and began takin' an energetic dekko through the door to the living-room."  A look or glance. From the Hindustani, dekho. [1890s].

The Reader is Warned (1939)
Apart from the detectives there are only six characters in the book, and two of those are killed, but it's still not clear who the murderer is until the denouement.  S.T. Joshi considers this to be the best of the Merrivale novels, not for plot, but for character delineation.

"Sanders judged her to be very fashionably dressed, though her hat was put on anyhow."  The meaning is obvious, but the usage is odd.

"Colonel Willow, I believe, kept a straight bat and a stiff upper lip..."  Obviously a cricket reference.  Apparently used to refer to honest, honorable behavior.  Not sure what it means on the pitch.

"What I mean is that he's maybe got a new, simon-pure, fool-proof way of polishing people off..."  Absolutely pure.  From the phrase "the real Simon Pure", from the character Simon Pure (who is impersonated by another, and obliged to prove his identity) in Susanna Centlivre's 1717 play A Bold Stroke for a Wife.

"... he began to lumber back and forth with his thumbs hooked in his waistcoat pockets and his corporation, ornamented with a large gold watch-chain, preceding him in splendor like the figure-head of a man-'o-war."  John Dickson Carr uses this term frequently to refer to a protuberant abdomen. 

"I was just thinkin' -- where do you get the material for all these reelin' mysterious deaths?"  Not sure - maybe in the sense of shocking (send someone reeling)?

"As for your challenges... make 'em or not, but it's waste effort."  Modern usage would be "wasted."

"They waited in the dining-room, under huge dropsical pictures..."  Dropsy, from Latin hydrops, is dependent edema or anasarca.  Odd to apply it to paintings hung on a wall.  In one of the mysteries I reviewed earlier, he referred to walls as being "dropsical."

"They saw him get out of his car and waddle in through the rain, in a large transparent oilskin with a hood..."  Oilskins were waterproof raincoats.  Didn't know they could be transparent (would look like a condom).

"But people are believing it!"  "Oh, yes.  Pennik's mustard." [later] "Sort of astral projection.  I told you he was mustard." (see one possible explanation in Death in Five Boxes above)

"... it was the dozenth time he had told it, but he omitted nothing."  Apparently a perfectly good word, but the first time I have ever seen it used.

"I hope you noticed that? But oh, no. Down went the gage of battle on the floor, and I hope you're feelin' proud of yourself."  The giving of gage, or pledge, for trying a cause by single combat, formerly allowed in military, criminal, and civil causes, and finally abolished in 1819. In writs of right, where the trial was by champions, the tenant produced his champion, who, by throwing down his glove as a gage, thus "waged", or stipulated, battle with the champion of the demandant, who, by taking up the glove, accepted the challenge.  (Gage is from Old French)

"Put it down on the table and let's have a dekko at it."  (see above)

"Steady on!" advised Dr Sanders, in genuine concern.  "You'll have him chewing the carpet in a minute."  "Chew, or chewing, the carpet is not in the OED but it is in Jonathon Green's Dictionary of Slang. Green describes it as being US slang from the 1950s and defines it as 'to lose emotional control, to have a temper tantrum'."  [obviously the usage dates back well before the 1950s since this book was written in 1939].

"Is there a kind of judge, or court of appeal, or something like that, that an take back our verdict and say it's n.b.g.?"  Maybe "no bloody good"?

"... helping tend the lares and penates of an admirable house."  Guardian deities of the home.

"Darling, what on earth is the matter?  I never saw such an absolute juggins!  Is anything wrong?"  Someone very credulous or easily fooled.

Whew.  Lots of colloquial terms.  I'm exhausted.  But before i go, here is a useful link for those interested in mysteries:  99 novels for a locked room library.

Today I listed all five of these books on eBay, as a single lot.