"Cordwainer" explained

The word came up during a dinner conversation the other night.  It brought to mind the penname ("Cordwainer Smith") of the famous Wisconsin-born science fiction writer Paul Myron Anthony Linebarger, but I didn't  know the term referred to the occupation of leatherworking.

Cordwainer is the English term for a shoemaker who makes shoes from new leather. The word is derived from "cordwain", or "cordovan", the leather historically produced in Moorish Córdoba, Spain in the middle ages. Medieval cordovan leather was used for the highest quality shoes, but English cordwainers also used domestically produced leathers and were not solely producers of luxury footwear.

The terms cordwainer and cobbler are not interchangeable. A cordwainer is someone who makes new shoes using new leather, and a cobbler is someone who repairs shoes. In the historic London guild system the cobblers and cordwainers were separate guilds, and the cobblers were forbidden from working in new leather. Historically cobblers also made shoes but only using old leather recovered from discarded or repaired shoes

Forty years ago

YouTube link.

You're a teaser, you turn 'em on -
Leave them burning and then you're gone.
Looking out for another, anyone will do
You're in the mood for a dance,
And when you get the chance...

You are the Dancing Queen, young and sweet, only seventeen.
Dancing Queen, feel the beat from the tambourine.
You can dance, you can jive, having the time of your life.
See that girl, watch that scene, digging the Dancing Queen...

It's hard to believe this song is 40 years old.

"Dancing Queen" is a pop song recorded by Swedish pop group ABBA.  It was released in August 1976, and is commonly regarded as one of the most successful singles of the 1970s. In 2011, Rolling Stone magazine listed it as one of the greatest songs of all time...

The recording sessions for "Dancing Queen" began on 4 August 1975... After having been premiered on German and Japanese TV during the spring of 1976, "Dancing Queen" saw its first live and domestic performance, televised on Swedish TV on 18 June 1976, during an all-star gala staged by Kjerstin Dellert at the Royal Swedish Opera in honour of King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden and his bride to be, Silvia Sommerlath, who were to be married the next day...

"Dancing Queen" became a massive worldwide hit, topping the charts in more than a dozen countries including ABBA's native Sweden (where it spent 14 weeks at the top), Australia, Belgium, Brazil, West Germany, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Mexico,[citation needed] the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway (where it charted for 32 weeks (VG-lista Top 10), making it the 11th best-performing single of all time in that country), South Africa and Rhodesia. "Dancing Queen" also topped the charts in the United States, ABBA's only #1 on the Billboard Hot 100, and was a Top 5 hit in Austria, Canada, Finland, France and Switzerland.

Pioneer life in the Boundary Waters

Several brief excerpts from Woman of the Boundary Waters, an autobiography by Justine Kerfoot, who moved to the Gunflint Trail in 1928 with her family and lived there for 50 years, setting up the famous Gunflint Lodge:

Invariably our loose dogs encountered porcupines, which always presented a challenge to them... The only effective method I found to remove quills was stringing the dog's hindquarters to the rafters, but low enough so the shoulders were on the floor, placing a stick through the dog's mouth for it to clamp down on and pulling out the quills one by one with pliers.  If the dog's hindquarters weren't lifted off the floor, there was no way of holding him steady."(p.38)

"The [telephone] line was as frail as a gossamer thread.  It became customary when traveling up and
down the Trail to watch for fallen trees on the line and stop to chop them or push them off.  We caried spare wire, pliers and an axe in our car at all times...

The first resorter to come along always patched a break.  To pull the wire ends together we hooked one end of the wire to the bumper of our car and drove ahead to stretch that side taut.  Then we would drag the other end by hand as close  as we could to the attached end and fill the remaining gap with a wire splice.  Later we would return with come-a-longs, sleeves, crimpers and a ladder to replace the makeshift patch and retie the line to the insulators... (p. 94)

Our 50-mile single circuit telephone line became efficient when everything was frozen during the winter months.  Once when Mother and I were coming back from town we found a break.  We had no wire along, so we filled the gap with an old tire chain.  The chain transmitted messages, both local and long distance for several weeks until we repaired the break. (p.97) 

"Sea silk" and "byssus" explained

Sea silk is an extremely fine, rare, and valuable fabric that is made from the long silky filaments or byssus secreted by a gland in the foot of [bivalve molluscs]...

The cloth produced from these filaments can be woven even finer than silk, and is extremely light and warm; however, it attracts clothes moths, the larvae of which will eat it. It was said that a pair of women's gloves made from the fabric could fit into half a walnut shell.

Ancient Egyptian burial customs, byssus cloth (linen) was used to wrap mummies. 

Wisconsin is sadly a long way from the ocean; I had a hard time visualizing the "filaments" by which molluscs attach themselves to rocks (I thought they just glued themselves on...).  This image - cropped for emphasis from the original - helped:

The byssus is the tuft of filaments at the far left of the mollusk.

There are still a few remaining craftsmen who weave byssus into cloth:

I was ready to meet Chiara Vigo, the only woman in the world who still works the byssus, better known as the silk of the sea, the same way women in ancient Mesopotamia used to weave it...  The lab where Chiara works is also the only Museum of the Byssus in the world, and it sits on top of a little hill in downtown Sant’Antioco.

Once dry, Chiara combs it with a wool card and finally twists the fine filaments together with a spindle made of oleander, forming the gilded thread. The yarn is spun quite a few times in order to make it strong enough to be employed in the loom and woven with her slender fingers.

More details and photos at Sardinia Innovation.

With a tip of the blogging hat to reader Stuart Moulder, who sent me the link in response to my post about... what? I can't remember. I'm getting old...

Photo credit for both images to John Hill.

Res ipsa loquitur

Via imgur.

Massive ball of squid eggs

YouTube link.

Never seen or photographed before...

On July 9th, 2015 a group of lucky divers happened upon something truly remarkable–A 4-meter-wide clear sphere floating off the coast of a small town in Turkey. The sphere was 22 meters below the sea surface, and even up close, it appears almost invisible.

These egg masses are likely found much deeper in the ocean and only occasionally drift to shallow water. Another factor is time. Dr. Staaf and colleagues found that the developing squid in the giant mass took just three days to hatch. That’s a pretty small window to find such a well-hidden target.

Rare albino raven

Murdered.

Albino ravens are some of the rarest birds in existence; the bird Bennett found at the CWC was believed to be one of just four albino ravens in the entire world. “These kind of creatures are more mythology than reality,” Bennett says. ..

A bullet had pierced her humerus, back quarters, and likely, says Bennett, a lung. Even though there wasn’t much blood, Pearl died on the way to the vet.

What should be done with wildlife poachers ?

Police in Bangladesh killed six poachers during a gun battle:

The gunfight was reported two weeks after the census was released revealing that the number of the Sundarban’s famous Bengal Tiger population was far fewer than it was previously thought, sparking an uproar among environmentalists, who demanded intensified anti-poaching campaigns. 

Redditor Egg-imitations offered the following suggestion:

"They should capture poachers, put them in a special enclosure and then let dentists pay to hunt them. Everyone wins!"

NDXOXCHWDRGHDXORVI

Can you decipher these letters?

A medieval sword that carries a mysterious inscription has baffled historians for centuries. Little is known about [the] double-edged weapon, least of all the meaning behind a cryptic 18-letter message running down the central groove which reads: NDXOXCHWDRGHDXORVI.

Now The British Library have appealed for the public’s help in cracking the conundrum...

The weapon was found at the bottom of the River Witham in Lincolnshire in 1825, but it’s believed the 13th century sword originally belonged to a medieval knight...

The indecipherable inscription is inlaid with gold wire and experts have speculated the letters are a religious invocation since the language is unknown...

Anne Robertson reckons the letters may be the first from each line of a poem – something that’s been seen on other medieval artefacts. A number of people have picked out certain letters which had particular meanings in Latin at the time, such as ND standing for ‘nostrum dominus’ meaning our Lord, and ‘X’ for Christ. Harrison thinks this is the most probable idea so far 'but then it gets more complicated'. 'It's been suggested in the past that it's a relgious inscription and the sword may have been dropped in the river on purpose [for religious reasons] which was not uncommon...'

More details, pix and a video at the link.  I should probably carve TYWKIWDBI on something...

Addendum:  Some good discussion at Language Log.  As ofl Feb 2024, no new info on the internet re possible solution.

Doing a good deed for a stranger

Before

Excerpts from a story published by the Union Pacific Railroad:

Josh Cyganik has waved to 75-year-old Leonard Bullock every morning for the past four years.

Bullock's house sits across the street from a portion of the Union Pacific main line in Pendleton, Oregon, where Cyganik meets his co-workers every day to begin his work maintaining tracks across UP's western region. "He sits on that front porch all day long," Cyganik said. "I never talked to him. Not until I heard what those two kids said."

It was a sunny day in July when Josh overheard two teenagers comment that the house should be burned down because it was in such bad shape. "I saw the look on Leonard's face. I could tell the comment bothered him," Cyganik said. "I don't think any elderly person should have to endure what I heard from those two kids' mouths. I kind of stewed about it for a couple days before I decided to do something."

Determined to right the situation, Cyganik asked a few fellow railroaders to help out. He also asked his friend, Brian Christensen, manager of Tum-a-Lum lumber, if he could donate some paint. "Brian was more than happy to donate supplies. After we had it all figured out, I went and asked Leonard if it would be all right if we painted his house," Cyganik said. "He was ecstatic."

 

He posted his project on Facebook, and more than a hundred people stopped by to help.

"It was just a good vibe! Everybody was happy and excited," Cyganik said. "We received a lot of additional donations from people who didn't come but wanted to help. People were dropping off food and drinks all day long. Starbucks even donated six gallons of water and iced tea."

The formerly white, blue and turquoise house now is a uniform warm beige, and thanks to more help from Tum-a-Lum Lumber, construction of a new porch is underway. Additional volunteers have purchased new outdoor furniture, and Cyganik and crew are looking for a roofer willing to donate time to complete the project.

Throughout this process, Cyganik learned quite a bit about Leonard Bullock. Bullock is a retired forklift driver. He met his wife, Dorothy, at a church in Walla Walla, Washington. They married in 2000. Bullock retired in 1995, but even with his monthly stipend he and Dorothy didn't have the funds to fix up their house. "They're great people," Cyganik said. "You never know about someone unless you get to know their struggles.

More details at the link.  Commentary at Reddit.  Those readers who have grown weary of the unending grim news they encounter exploring the internet will be relieved to know that there is an Uplifting News subreddit.

This is a "Stockbridge damper"

A Stockbridge damper is a tuned mass damper used to suppress wind-induced vibrations on slender structures such as overhead power lines and long cantilevered signs. The dumbbell-shaped device consists of two masses at the ends of a short length of cable or flexible rod, which is clamped at its middle to the main cable. The damper is designed to dissipate the energy of oscillations in the main cable to an acceptable level. Its distinctive shape gives it the nickname "dog-bone damper".

Photo credit: Craig M. Story, via Slate.

New conspiracy theories

I've posted before that I love reading conspiracy theories, because they are so much more interesting than real life.  A recent Reddit thread presented some new (to me) theories:

That the government started the whole tin-foil hat idea because tin foil hats actually amplify, not block, signals.

Michael Jordan did not "retire" from basketball to play baseball for a couple of years. He was suspended by the commissioner for gambling on the sport, but they mutually agreed to not announce it because he was the game's biggest star, and it didn't do either of them any good to expose him.

Those funny "What is your Star Wars name?" type games on Facebook are used to collect your private information, especially answers to your security questions (mom's maiden name, childhood pet, etc...)

New Coke was a maneuver by Coca Cola to reinvigorate their sales by introducing a subpar product and then reintroducing "Coke Classic" to inspire nostalgia. Or it was a clever method to hide the switch from sugar to corn syrup.

That PETA is run by someone in the meat industry to paint animal rights activists as crazy people. They release massive campaigns over ridiculous topics to draw attention away from real issues and make real activists less credible.

Lost cosmonauts. The Russians lost men in space. Gagarin was just the first to return.

That laundry detergent companies put the line over where it needs to be so you'll run out faster.

Magic Johnson never had AIDS. He was paid by the government and insurance companies to say he had aids since he was the height of invincibility and admiration of youngsters at the time.

Trophy hunter rids the world of a dangerous giraffe

“Everybody thinks we’re cold-hearted killers and it’s not that,” Corgatelli said in the nationally televised interview. “There is a connection to the animal and just because we hunt them doesn’t mean we don’t have a respect for them.

“Giraffes are very dangerous animals. They could hurt you seriously, very quickly.”

Text from The Guardian.  Photo from Sabrina Corgatelli's Facebook page,

Humane behavior

"This woman comes to my local humane society and sits in front of the dog's cage and reads books to the dogs."

Discussed at Reddit.  Image cropped for size from original at imgur.

Divertimento

GIF of a baby who gets glasses and sees clearly for the first time.

Wikipedia has a page for non-human electoral candidates.

There is a line of clothing styled especially for children with autism.  "...some common features on clothing — things like buttons, zippers, tags, and lace — can make it difficult for children with autism to get dressed by themselves... and without a clear front or back so that kids can put them on whichever way they please... includes tracking technology in several of its items..."

John Oliver asks why the American public keeps paying for lavish sports stadiums to benefit the wealthy owners of the teams.

"A newly discovered bound collection of All the Year Round, a magazine edited by Dickens, shows the Great Expectations author’s own handwriting. His annotations indicate that previously anonymous short stories, poems and articles were written by North and South author Elizabeth Gaskell, Alice in Wonderland creator Lewis Carroll and The Woman in White author Wilkie Collins."

How politicians artificially inflate the sales of their books.

Dog escapes from an enclosure.

An essay in the Economics column of The Guardian argues that capitalism has ended and we are now entering the postcapitalist period:

Postcapitalism is possible because of three major changes information technology has brought about in the past 25 years... information is corroding the market’s ability to form prices correctly. That is because markets are based on scarcity while information is abundant. The system’s defence mechanism is to form monopolies – the giant tech companies – on a scale not seen in the past 200 years, yet they cannot last... we’re seeing the spontaneous rise of collaborative production: goods, services and organisations are appearing that no longer respond to the dictates of the market and the managerial hierarchy...

Someone has developed a drone that fires a handgun.  The FAA says it's illegal.

A Facebook image of a Filipino boy doing his homework by the light of a McDonald's window [cropped at right] went viral.  "Nine-year-old Daniel Cabrera will now be able to fulfil his dream of becoming a policeman after donations of cash, school supplies and a college scholarship poured in."

Some startling facts about income inequality.

The really, REALLY big earthquake fault that will destroy cities and kill millions is not the San Andreas one.  It's the one in the Pacific Northwest.

An argument that Germany (not Greece) should exit the Euro.

While people were standing by at a Chevron gas station in Beaverton, taking video of a woman trapped inside of her burning car, a 19-year-old came to her rescue...  what surprised Bittar wasn't the flames, it was the crowd of people he said standing around, taking video of what he found to be a woman trapped in her burning car. "There was like six bystanders just videotaping like oh man she needs to get some help." That's when Bittar took the situation into his own hands. "I told her, hey I'm going to pull you out, get away from the window because I have to break it and she's like okay," he described.  The woman was taken by medic crews to a nearby hospital.

Krebs on Security analyzes the hack of AshleyMadison, which has some 37 million users.  Some have speculated that the hack threatens national security because of the high probability that people in the upper echelon of the American political establishment have made use of the service. "Washington, D.C., had the highest rate of membership for the site of any city."

Suggestions for those who would like to start reading contemporary comic books.

"Hollywood actor George Clooney launched an initiative on Monday to track down and help bring to justice those funding and profiting from Africa’s deadliest conflicts, in a bid to fight corruption in war zones.  Clooney joined forces with US human rights activist John Prendergast in a project called The Sentry that aims to investigate the flow of money in and out of conflict zones and give policymakers the tools to take effective action.  Using data collection, field research and analysis technology, the initiative plans to expose how conflict is financed and profits laundered, with a website encouraging people to anonymously submit leaks and tips."

A Kiwi has won the French-language Scrabble world championship, reportedly without speaking a word of French.

"An anti-gay political party in Kenya plans to protest against U.S. President Barack Obama by greeting him with 5,000 "totally naked" protesters for his "open and aggressive support for homosexuality."  The Republican Liberty Party's "main objective is for him to see and understand the difference between a man and woman," according to a party statement..."

A video explains how to repair a broken wing on a butterfly.

Charles Darwin and his friends terraformed Ascension Island.

"In his speech in Tallahassee, Florida, on Monday denouncing the influence of lobbyists, Jeb Bush neglected to mention one critical detail: The event was organized by a powerful corporate lobbying group that has helped financially support his White House bid."

A local news anchor spontaneously offers his personal opinion as to why Amazon has surpassed Walmart in market cap.  LOL.

An extended article about Ursula Le Guin and her views of contemporary literature, speaking truth to power:

“I think she’s gotten more daring, more feminist, more political,” says the Portland novelist Molly Gloss, a onetime student of Le Guin’s who has been her friend since the 1980s. “She’s more willing to rattle cages. At the National Book Awards, there’s a whole table full of Amazon folks, and she looks right at them and tells them what she thinks of how they’re trying to take over publishing. And then she looks right at her own publishing house and says their policies are making it impossible for libraries to lend e-books. These aren’t the kinds of things you imagine other writers being willing to say out loud.”

George McGovern did father a "secret child."  It could have affected his national campaign against Nixon:

“Somehow, the material ended up with President Richard Nixon’s re-election campaign – possibly leaked by the bureau’s longtime director, J. Edgar Hoover – but it was never disclosed during the campaign.”... Nixon didn’t need the Fort Wayne story to beat McGovern. After Thomas Eagleton, McGovern’s running mate, revealed he had been treated for depression and left the ticket, defeat was already in the air.

Ophidiomyces ophiodiicola, a fungus that normally affects dead snakes, is now attacking the scales of live snakes.

"On Monday’s edition of “Fox & Friends,” Elisabeth Hasselbeck speculated that an “irritated” Sandra Bland could have “attacked” Officer Brian Encinia with her cigarette, because the co-host is “sure someone has, in the history of this land, used a cigarette against a police officer.”... “What if, I mean, there are times, I’m sure, someone has, in the history of this land, used a cigarette against a police officer,” Hasselbeck said. “Maybe chucked it at him — pushed it at him?” “Absolutely,” former New York Police Department officer John Rafferty replied."

The top image is a coneflower - a favorite nectar source for butterflies in our garden.