voluntaryXchange

Rainbow + Queen = Nothing Gay Here At All

Didja’ ever think there’s a way to combine the concepts of rainbow and queen and not coming up with something LGBT?

Anyway, I don’t know why, but I thought this was really cute:

Via I Love Charts.

Technorati Tags: queen,elizabeth,rainbow

Connect the Dots: Zipcode Edition

Zipscribbles: what if you put a dot on the map for every zip code, and then connected the dots in order, and shaded them by state?

Via Gongol via Wired Science via Robert Kosara of Eagle Eyes.

Technorati Tags: zip,code,scribbles,colors,connect,dots

What Is It Like to Have a Trophy Wife?

A sweet, interesting, and very human discussion.

Via Marginal Revolution.

Technorati Tags: trophy,wife

Rooftop Watertower Trivia

New York is filled with rooftop watertowers/cisterns. Did you know that the metal bands holding them together are distributed symmetrically?

The distance between the metal bands holding the cylindrical structure together decreases from top to bottom because the pressure the water exerts increases with depth. The top band only needs to fight against the water at the very top of the tower but the bottom bands have to hold the entire volume from bursting out.

Barrelmaking is in my family tree, so here’s what I wonder: why don’t you see the same thing on wooden barrels?

Via Kottke.

Technorati Tags: watertower,cistern,rooftop,new york

The Things Kids Say

The 9-year old vXgirl used the word “aglet” correctly in conversation the other day. She said she’d heard it on Phineas and Ferb.

Here’s 25 other things you probably don’t know the names of (I knew 9 of them … including aglet).

Via bookofjoe.

Technorati Tags: 25,things,know,names

Why Don’t We Eat Cow and Raise Beef?

Because of the Norman Invasion and takeover of England in 1066.

Most of our words for the animals are of Anglo-Saxon origin.

Most of our words for the meats are of French origin, through the Norman nobility.

The Anglo-Saxon ceorls raised the animals, while the quasi-French nobility added the names of the meats to the evolving English language.

Read the whole thing, fascinating throughout, about why English is such a versatile language.

Technorati Tags: cow,beef,pig,pork,deer,venison

Safe Sex In Romance Novels

Only about 1 in 9 romance novels mentions condoms, and mostly those are about choosing not to use one.

Read the whole thing. Via Marginal Revolution.

Technorati Tags: condom,romance,novel,safe,sex

Inactivity by County

What’s up with folks in Minnesota and Colorado? They need to stay in more.

I’ve lived in four places extensively: Buffalo (3rd group), Tuscaloosa (4th), Salt Lake City (1st), New Orleans (3rd), and Cedar City (2nd). These rankings seem about right to me.

Oh … and I can’t count either.

Via Bookofjoe.

Technorati Tags: inactivity,county,map,chloropleth

Skunk Cabbage*

Some plants can generate heat:

Some emerging herbaceous plants, like those growing from bulbs, produce heat to melt snow in order to more easily break through it in the springtime,” she said. “This is most famously true of skunk cabbage, Symplocarpus foetidus, likely our earliest-blooming herbaceous native.

Who knew?

* Skunk cabbage is my old nemesis. When 7 or 8 I received a plastic sword. I charged down into the ravine in front of our house and attacked the biggest leaves I could find … skunk cabbage. The smell did wash off my sword, but the skunk cabbage has been safe from  my ravages for 40 years or so now.

Technorati Tags: skunk,cabbage,heat,snow

Trivia: The Pilcrow

Pilcrow is the name of the paragraph mark — you know, the one on the Microsoft Word ribbon.

A lesser used name is the “alinea”, and I’d actually heard that one before.

Technorati Tags: pilcrow,paragraph,mark