What I Learned Today

Jigsaw puzzles are an interesting type of object – once you’ve completed one, you don’t really want to keep it around. Would you ever want to re-do the same puzzle? But it’s probably in perfectly good condition. So, you can donate it to a charity, or if you are fortunate, you might be able to take it to a puzzle swap, like this one held at our local library on January 11, 2025. Bring as many as you want, take as many as you want!

I think this is a brilliant idea. I got to take 3 puzzles in and came home with two, one of which I’ve already eagerly started working on. “America’s National Parks” is a fantastic 1000-piece puzzle, complex enough to have interesting detail but no huge stretches of black/boring areas. I think it would be fun to do in a group since each person could have their own quest to fill in a particular park’s poster.

If you don’t know of a puzzle swap nearby, maybe you could suggest it to your library or a community center. Enjoy!

Recently I enjoyed working through Coursera’s Rocket Science for Everyone taught by Prof. Marla Geha.

The course reminds us that achieving orbit is all about going horizontally fast enough that you “miss” the Earth’s surface. For our planet’s mass, to achieve low Earth orbit, that speed is about 7.6 km/sec. I was interested to learn that given our available chemical propulsion options, we almost didn’t make it to orbit.

The rocket equation defines the change in velocity (delta_v) that you get from a given fuel and rocket design:

delta_v = v_exhaust ln(rocket mass [initial] / rocket without fuel mass [final] )

Exhaust velocity (v_exhaust) is how fast material is pushed out of the rocket, given the fuel you are using. This value for our propellants is about 2-3 km/sec, which means you need something greater than 95% fuel in order to get to 7.6 km/sec and achieve low Earth orbit! (By making that natural log of the mass ratio large enough)

Fortunately, smart people figured out that you can work around this limit using multiple stages and discarding spent containers to improve your mass ratio as you go. But if our planet had been more massive, we would have had to get a lot more creative to find something that would work.

Another bonus: launching near the equator and west to east gives you 0.5 km/sec for “free” (if you want an equatorial orbit). But Vandenberg Air Force Base (not equatorial) is a good launch site if you want a polar orbit instead (no freebies).

I also learned that GPS satellites are not out at geostationary orbit (which would allow them always to be in view, and only require three total to cover the Earth) because they didn’t want to have to build ground stations for them all over the Earth (i.e., in other countries) but instead just in the U.S. Interesting.

Great class – I recommend it!

I just discovered this delightful example of a holorime, which is a sequence of sounds that can be formed by different choices of underlying words, leading to completely different meanings. This one crosses languages. Although it is written in French, if you pronounce it out loud, you’ll soon discover that it sounds like you’re reading “Humpty Dumpty” in English but with a strong French accent:

Un petit d’un petit
S’étonne aux Halles
Un petit d’un petit
Ah! degrés te fallent
Indolent qui ne sort cesse
Indolent qui ne se mène
Qu’importe un petit d’un petit
Tout Gai de Reguennes.

From “Mots d’Heures: Gousses, Rames”, shared by Elly on Bluesky.

Wow! It tickles my brain. Wikipedia notes that holorimes are related to mondegreens, which are alternative hearings of song lyrics. The first one that comes to my mind is hearing about a fan asking John Prine to play the “Happy Enchilada” song, which left him at a loss, until the fan continued, “You know – it’s a happy enchilada and you think you’re gonna drown!” Then he figured out that she was asking for his song titled “That’s the Way the World Goes Round”, which includes the line “It’s a half an inch of water and you think you’re gonna drown.”

It’s a marvel that our brains can translate sound waves into words at all, and these are fun examples that play with the edges of that ability. Picking out words from one language to assemble the sounds of real words in another language is genius!

Recently I got to experiment with USPS’s Media Mail. I shipped myself some books during a move and paid just $10 for a 7-lb package. Today I shipped a book to a friend (15.70 oz) which was $4.63, the starting price for any Media Mail. It would have been $13.45 to ship via Priority Mail or $9.00 by Ground Advantage.

What counts as Media Mail? Basically anything readable (books but nothing with advertising in it) or watchable (DVDs, film, VHS) or listenable (CDs, tapes, albums, player piano rolls (!!)). Here is the official specification of Media Mail. I also found this handy, much more readable chart, although it is from 2013 so I would welcome learning if there is any update out there.

I did run into a snag. The specification and chart say you can include a personal note or card with the item. When I presented my package for mailing, the clerk asked if I had a card inside. I cheerfully said yes. She then charged me an additional $0.73 for the first-class postage for that card. I noted that it was supposed to be included in the Media Mail charge. She said it had to be an “add on”. I noted it was a postcard so at least I should get the postcard rate. Nope.

At home, I looked again at the specification, which states:

6.4 Incidental First-Class Mail Attachments and Enclosures
Incidental First-Class Mail matter may be enclosed in or attached to any Media Mail or Library Mail piece without payment of First-Class Mail postage. An incidental First-Class Mail attachment or enclosure must be matter that, if mailed separately, would require First-Class Mail postage, is closely associated with but secondary to the host piece, and is prepared so as not to interfere with postal processing. An incidental First-Class Mail attachment or enclosure may be a bill for the product or publication, a statement of account for past products or publications, or a personal message or greeting included with a product, publication, or parcel. (my italics)

I support the USPS and I have no desire to harass them, but this is irritating. I paid more for this shipment than if I’d sent the postcard separately, and by their own rules, it should not have had an additional charge at all. Next time I’ll bring a printout of the spec with me. An education opportunity!

While visiting Montreal, I found this fascinating American typewriter on display at the small museum tucked into a grand Bank of Montreal building:

The compact size and unusual key layout caught my eye. I looked it up later and found out that it’s a Blickensderfer typewriter, invented in 1892 by George Canfield Blickensderfer. (Note that the caption says 1884 but I’m guessing this is a typo, since the Model 5 was not introduced until 1893, and the Model 7, which is what appears in the photo, was introduced in 1897.) It featured a lot of innovations compared to existing typewriters, including a much more compact size, fewer parts, lighter weight, the careful choice of keyboard layout, and a rotating typewheel that contained all of the letters and symbols in one place, in contrast to the individual key-arms with one letter per arm! The typewheel meant that you could change the machine’s entire font by swapping it for another typewheel.

The keyboard layout was carefully chosen. “Blickensderfer determined that 85% of words contained these letters, DHIATENSOR,” (Wikipedia) and so those letters were used for the home (bottom) row of the keyboard. The earlier QWERTY layout (1874) was designed to minimize the chance of the key-arms hitting each other, something the Blickensderfer model did not have to worry about.

I’d love to get to type on one of these machines. I’d have to re-learn touch typing with the different layout, but what a marvelous machine, packed with ingenuity!