In retrospect, having Surprise! dental surgery this week was not a good plan to pair with trying to complete information gathering. And yes, Surprise! is what happened. I had a benign growth about the size of a unshelled peanut pulled out of my jaw last Thursday. It had been a small thing we'd been monitoring for years, and in the last X-ray it had gotten to the point where it was pushing on the root of another tooth, and so its days were numbered. Still I went into the surgeon assuming we'd be 1) spending this appointment figuring out what the hell it was and 2) setting up a date to remove it. The surgeon, rightly, figured if we don't take it out now, there's a good chance the county would be back on lockdown before we'd get another chance. I just wish he had delivered the line "I can get that" in a different fashion from the way my wife says that about a toy in a crane game. So the twilight anesthetic may mean I have hallucinated those large metal jaws coming down to "Turkey in the Straw", but maybe I didn't.
So I lost two days of work on the list, and I'm behind, and I’m nursing a bruise that looks like I was kicked by a mule. But I'm hitting two improvements to my methods which should yield some additional names. I'll go into those next time.
Stuff to Watch
All the numbers in a handy Euler diagram:
The Open University covers six movements in design in six animated videos
And a video to explain the origins of many pasta shapes.
Stuff to Read
The main takeaway of this article is an accounting of the acts of Parliament which led to the American Revolution….
Leading us into The Battle of Bunker Hill
The Articles I Learned From This Week
This accounting of the coal strike during Teddy Roosevelt's presidency contains enough nuggets of late 1800's and early 1900's labor history to complete a few bonus questions.
As much as I really shouldn't think about chisels going into flesh shapes this week, this recounting of the best butts in art is pretty amusing.
The Articles You Can Learn From This Week
While the discovery of possible volcanic activity on Venus is nice, stay for the account of the probes which were launched to Venus for the quiz bowl knowledge.
Gargoyles in Gothic Architecture
The Centennial of Rosalind Franklin's birth is honored by Rosalind Franklin University
Didn't You Learn Anything from Last Time?
1
Zoologist Charles Wyville Thompson convinced the Royal Society to undertake a voyage of discovery, leading to this ship being commissioned for the task.
A. Name this British Navy ship, namesake of a Space Shuttle, whose 1872-76 voyage was to explore the biology of the oceans.
answer: HMS Challenger
B. The Challenger's captain, George Nares, earned a reprimand and unofficial congratulations by sneaking ahead of the French Imperial yacht to become the first vessel to traverse this waterway, opened in 1871.
answer: Suez Canal
C. The Challenger Deep, named for the ship is a particularly low point in this Pacific Ocean feature, which Challenger noted by finding the southern end during a sounding.
answer: Marianas Trench
2
JMW Turner used Scheele's Green, an arsenate compound of this element in the 1830's until he switched to viridian.
A. Name this transition element which combines with tin in bronze and zinc in brass.
answer: copper
B. Another copper-based green pigment in painting is this copper acetate compound which has decomposed and oxidized in Renaissance paintings due to exposure to light.
answer: verdigris
C. Copper chloride in fireworks gives a turquoise tone, but most copper compounds are used for blue fireworks. Green fireworks typically use this alkaline earth metal with a notable green flame test.
answer: barium
3
Among the books he defaced in the London Library were "The Book of Were-Wolves", and "An Account of the Principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia", which were sources he used in constructing his supernatural tales.
A. Name this author.
answer: Bram Stoker
B. Stoker's notes which recorded from these books were used in the creation of this vampire novel.
answer: Dracula
C. Other books cited by Stoker include Gerard's "The Land Beyond the Forest", Charles Boner's book on this area, and an account of the birds of this area of Romania
answer: Transylvania
4
In June 2020, this state voted to remove the Confederate battle flag from its state flag.
A. Name this state governed from Jackson.
answer: Mississippi
B. Mississippi's new flag design will incorporate this four word phrase, by law found on all American currency.
answer: In God We Trust
C. This other state removed the Confederate battle flag from its state flag in 2003, having added it in 1956.
answer: Georgia
5
A major part of the unraveling of this script came when syllables from a Cypriot Greek script were plugged in to it and matching place names on Crete resulted.
A. Name this script which remained untranslated from clay tablets until this advancement by Michael Ventris.
answer: Linear B
B. Ventris' work established Linear B as a written form of Mycenaean Greek and not the language of this culture which predated Mycenae on Crete.
answer: Minoan civilization
C. This palace complex where Sir Arthur Evans found preserved samples of Linear B was also the capital of Minoan civilization, and the place name first found by Ventris which unlocked the script.
answer: Knossos