Image by luvi via Flickr
Image by Martin Cathrae via FlickrThis week marks the anniversary of the "invention" of a classic board game, which is to say the date a mainstream game publisher started distributing the game on a national scale. There are a number of legends and misconceptions regarding this cultural icon, but often overlooked is the board game's role in aiding the Allied victory in World War II -- by supporting prison breaks by captured soldiers.
Image via WikipediaFive years ago, on the 20th anniversary of the Challenger disaster, I wrote this Geek Trivia column. Half a decade later, I modestly pass this bit of history on to my readers again.What notable item of nonscientific cargo survived the Challenger disaster, going on to have its own unique, symbolic career?Read the complete column here.
An American flag on loan from Boy Scout Troop 514 from Monument, CO was onboard the Challenger when it broke apart, and salvage efforts recovered it from the Atlantic Ocean completely intact inside its sealed plastic container.
Now known as the Challenger Flag, it has enjoyed some storied exploits since its discovery during the Challenger wreckage recovery efforts. ... Though explosion all but destroyed the flag's commemorative case and a group of silver medallions along with the Challenger, the flag itself survived to fly at many notable events and locations. ...
NASA returned the flag to Troop 514 in late 1986, but it did not remain with them long. In early 1987, Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court Warren Burger designated the Challenger Flag as the official flag of the U.S. Constitution's Bicentennial celebrations. On Sept. 17, 1987, the Challenger Flag served as a featured part of the Constitutional Parade in Philadelphia, and the following day it flew once again above the U.S. Capitol.
The Challenger Flag then went into semi-retirement for the next 15 years, serving only as an honored artifact in Colorado Boy Scout Eagle Court ceremonies. Then, in 2002, the troop loaned the flag to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints for display in Salt Lake City while the city hosted the Winter Olympic Games.
Today, the Challenger Flag again resides in the possession of Troop 514, awaiting its next call to duty.
Image via WikipediaA mere 53 years ago today -- Jan. 28, 1958 -- the Danish toy company Lego patented their design for interlocking plastic building blocks. In the intervening decades, the Lego brick has become arguably the most popular brand of building block in history, as the company has produced some 400 billion Lego blocks, or roughly 62 bricks for every man, woman and child living today.
Image via WikipediaForty-five years ago today, the US Air Force suffered a real-life Broken Arrow when a hydrogen bomb was lost in a mid-air collision over rural Spain. The so-called Palomares Incident occurred on Jan. 17, 1966 when a KC-135 airborne refueling tanker collided with a B-52G bomber that was carrying four Mk28 hydrogen bombs. The entire crew of the KC-135 was killed, three of the seven men aboard the B-52G died, and all four hydrogen bombs separated violently from the destroyed aircraft.
Image via WikipediaJan. 15 is the 122nd anniversary of the Coca-Cola Company, which is a perfectly good excuse for recycling an old Geek Trivia column rather than writing a new Truly Trivial for this blog. Thus:The Coca-Cola Company took one of greatest media shellackings in history when New Coke debuted on April 23, 1985. The American consumer considered Coca-Cola a cultural icon that was above revision, so Coca-Cola Classic was released on July 10, 1985 (less than three months after being discontinued)...The answer is right here.
Problem is, the Coca-Cola Classic that was released after the New Coke fiasco wasn’t the same as the Coca-Cola released before New Coke. The “logic” behind New Coke was two-fold: First, to make the drink sweeter in order to compete with sweeter-tasting rival drink Pepsi; second, to switch all domestic Coca-Cola bottlers from cane sugar to the cheaper high-fructose corn syrup sweeteners. When Coca-Cola Classic came back on the market, it too was made with corn syrup rather than sugar.
And that was far from the only change to the Coke formula over the years. In 1935, the formula was tweaked to be certified kosher. Moreover, John Pemberton, inventor of Coca-Cola, actually sold several different versions of the formula to different buyers — and that was after he had converted it to a carbonated drink, rather than its original alcoholic cocawine formulation.
One ingredient unique to American Coca-Cola is still used — after a fashion — in the formulation. Coca-Cola can rightly claim this additive as a brand differentiator, as it has received special dispensation from the U.S. government to be the sole American corporation to employ this ingredient in a consumer beverage.
WHAT INGREDIENT HAS THE U.S. GOVERNMENT GIVEN COCA-COLA SOLE AND UNIQUE PERMISSION TO USE IN CONSUMER BEVERAGES?
Few and far between are the denizens of the industrialized world who can escape the secular trappings of the Christmas season, perhaps best exemplified by Santa Claus and his loyal team of nine enchanted (or, at least, telekinetic) reindeer: Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner, Blitzen, and Rudolph — the latter also sporting the superpower of a hyper-illuminated red nose.
Eight of Santa’s flight-capable caribou can trace their origins to a poem: “A Visit from Saint Nicholas.” Better known by its revised title, “The Night Before Christmas,” the earliest version of this poem first appeared on Dec. 23, 1823 in New York’s Troy Sentinel newspaper. ...
Rudolph ... didn’t appear until copywriter Robert L. May dreamt him up in 1939 — and Santa’s red-nosed team leader almost received a different name.
WHAT NAMES BESIDES RUDOLPH DID WRITER ROBERT L. MAY CONSIDER FOR HIS FAMOUS RED-NOSED REINDEER?Get the complete Q&A here.
Image via WikipediaTron: Legacy opens in US theaters today, and with it ends 25 years of computer geek anticipation of a sequel to the cult-hit 1982 cinema classic about a programmer being pulled into the metaverse of a computer mainframe. First word of the movie broke at Comic-Con in 2008, when Disney showed off test footage of lightcycle combat to an unsuspecting crowd. Grainy, cellphone-captured footage of the promo soon linked to the Internet, and the raucous and approving crowd reaction assured the filmmakers the project was worth pursuing.
Image via WikipediaIn case you missed it, Dec. 5 was the Day of the Ninja, the geeky alt-holiday counterpart to Talk Like A Pirate Day (which occurs on Sept. 19). Perhaps appropriately, Day of the Ninja has a much lower profile than Talk Like A Pirate Day, largely because Day of the Ninja hasn't enjoyed national promotion by humor columnist Dave Barry. Talk Like a Pirate Day, however, was highlighted by Barry in a 2002 column, and the holiday's founders appeared on a 2006 episode of Wife Swap as a "family of pirates." Thus, in the never-ending faux-war between pirates and ninjas, pirates have undoubtedly won the mainstream holiday PR battle. |
| Windows 1.0, the first version, released in 1985 (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
Image via WikipediaIn 1882, the Edison Electric Illuminating Company began supplying direct-current electrical power to 59 customers in lower Manhattan, NY -- all of them within a square mile of inventor Thomas Edison's generator plant. This was the glaring drawback of Edison's proprietary DC system: it could not efficiently transmit bulk power over distances of more than a mile. While the "Wizard of Menlo Park" used his considerable fame, money and influence to promote adoption of his DC technology -- and the associated patent royalties Edison enjoyed -- it was a vain effort.
Image via WikipediaOn November 12, 1981, the space shuttle Columbia launched its second mission -- the first and last shuttle flight with an all-rookie crew. Neither Commander Joe Engle nor Pilot Richard Truly had ever flown in space before mission STS-2; NASA hadn't sent an all-space-novice team into orbit since Skylab 4 in 1973 and has never sent one since.
Image via WikipediaHere's a fun fact for you: I am approximately 56 attoParsecs tall. Contrary to what Han Solo would have you believe, a parsec is a unit of distance. One Parsec is roughly 3.26 light years, or 3.085 x 1016 meters. The prefix atto describes 10-18 Parsecs. Carry the math and you get 3.085 x 10-2 meters, or 3.085 centimeters. Thus, at 5'8" I am roughly 56 attoParsecs tall.
Image via WikipediaI'm overloaded this week, despite it being the 31st anniversary of the publication of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Thus, today's truly trivial is another recycled Geek Trivia with a Douglas Adams bent:The "formal" search for a 10th planet (to abuse the term loosely) began in the early 1900s when none other than Percival Lowell — the astronomer who basically bankrolled the search for the eventual discovery of Pluto — predicted that another Jupiter-esque gas giant must reside at the edge of the solar system. ... It turns out Lowell and his contemporaries just didn't have good data on Uranus and Neptune. When Voyager 2 finally did flybys of these orbs in the late 1980s, suddenly all the mathematical basis for Lowell's "Planet X" disappeared. Nonetheless, the Planet X concept was now a part of public consciousness, and an untold number of writers set about to use the "10th planet" as a plot device in their stories. ...
Still, one name seems to appear more often than most when authors and screenwriters christen a fictional Planet X. Inspired by the traditions of naming local worlds after figures from Greco-Roman mythology, several notable science-fiction scribes — including Douglas Adams, Arthur C. Clarke, and Larry Niven — coincidentally managed to "agree" on this planetary moniker.
WHAT NAME FOR A 10TH PLANET DID AUTHORS DOUGLAS ADAMS, LARRY NIVEN, AND ARTHUR C. CLARKE COINCIDENTALLY "AGREE" ON?Get the answer here.
Image via WikipediaOn Oct. 4, 2004, SpaceShipOne completed flight 17P, its second manned spaceflight in five days, thereby securing the Ansari X Prize as the first viable private manned spacecraft in human history. To get there, SpaceShipOne first had to get US Federal Aviation Administration approval to fly -- which was somewhat complicated given that there was no existing registry category for a private passenger spaceplane.
Image via WikipediaExactly 105 years ago today -- Sept. 27, 1905 -- Albert Einstein published his paper "Does the Inertia of a Body Depend Upon Its Energy Content?" in Annalen der Physik, introducing the world to his famous equation, E = mc2. Except E = mc2 didn't actually appear in Einstein's original paper; Uncle Albert described his formula in prose, using different variables to express both energy and the speed of light. Translating from the original German, Einstein wrote:If a body gives off the energy L in the form of radiation, its mass diminishes by L/V2.The V in this case is the 1920s-era standard variable for the speed of light (which Einstein argued was constant). Thus, if you wrote out the mass-energy equivalence equation as Einstein originally described it, you'd get m = L/V2.
Image via WikipediaI'm totally hosed with work, so I'm copping out again and recycling a Geek Trivia column rather than writing a new Truly Trivial. Luckily, Nintendo was founded 121 years ago this week, so I've got an easy topic to milk. See below.Mario first appeared as the ladder-climbing, barrel-dodging, gorilla-enraging protagonist of Donkey Kong, which made its arcade debut in 1981. ... It wasn't until 1983 that Mario would rate his own name on the game marquee, when he enjoyed three title releases: Mario's Cement Factory, Mario's Bombs Away, and Mario Bros. The latter introduced the world to Mario's brother, Luigi. (It was also the first time Mario squared off against evil turtles.)
...In an industry where an ever-increasing number of complex and hyper-real — and in some cases, hyper-violent — characters and concepts grab headlines and zeitgeist, it's nice to think that a simple Italian plumber named Mario still carries a lot of weight with avid game consumers. Of course, this world-famous character has come a long way from his humble roots — when his name wasn't Mario, and his gorilla-free day job was something besides a plumber.
WHAT WAS THE ORIGINAL NAME OF THE NINTENDO VIDEO-GAME CHARACTER MARIO, AND WHAT WAS HIS OCCUPATION?Find out here.
Image via WikipediaA mere 34 years ago this week -- Sept. 17, 1976 -- the Space Shuttle Enterprise was revealed to the public with a Star Trek-themed press event. Gene Roddenberry and much of the original Star Trek series' principal cast were present, which was appropriate since it was a mass write-in campaign by Star Trek fans that prodded NASA into naming the original shuttle orbiter after the famous fictional starship.
A mere 44 years ago this week -- Sept. 8, 1966 -- the first episode of Star Trek aired on CBS. The debut of "The Man Trap" was the culmination of six years of work for series creator Gene Roddenberry, who had been developing and shopping his show concept since 1960.
Image by tantek via FlickrTwelve years ago this week -- Sept. 4, 1998 -- Google was founded by Stanford students Larry Page and Sergei Brin. What began as a project to improve academic paper citations has since become arguably the most powerful media company on earth. No small part of Google's monstrous growth was the loyalty of the tech community, which the company won over with its upstart idealist motto "Don't Be Evil."
