From the Plague-On-Both-Their-Houses Department: It’s come to this…
The Andy Warhol banana that graced the cover of the Velvet Underground’s 1967 debut album has become the subject of litigation between the band and the artist’s estate.
In a nutshell, the estate believes that it holds the copyright, and is licensing the image (for everything from iPad covers to Absolut ads). The band argues that there is no copyright (as the original ran without a notice), but that the image is protected as a trademark of the band– so the estate is infringing. (There’s a more detailed recounting of situation and its background at Final Boss Form.)
One is tempted to launch into a discussion of the case as a symptom of the diseased state of intellectual property law and practice in the U.S.; but your correspondent has already burned pixels doing that, e.g., here, here, and here. Suffice it here to quote the ever-insightful Pop Loser: “This whole story is an excellent metaphor for the world we currently live in and should probably make us all a little bit sad.”
As we re-up our affiliation with Creative Commons and write our Representatives to oppose SOPA, we might recall that it was on this date in 1919 that “The Noble Experiment”– the national ban on the sale, manufacture, and transportation of alcohol that was better known as “Prohibition”– was ratified (the 18th Amendment).
By the time it was repealed in 1933, organized crime had become a major feature of American city life, and the American public had adopted the invented-for-the-occasion word “scofflaw.”
Ku Klux Klan: “Defender of the 18th Amendment” (source)
We’ve got your number…
From the Mathematical Association of America, NumberADay: “Every working day, we post a number and offer a selection of that number’s properties.”
And so they do…
438 = 2 x 3 x 73.
438 is a Smith number because the sum of its digits is equal to the sum of the digits of its prime factors: 4 + 3 + 8 = 2 + 3 + 7 + 3 = 15.
438 is 110110110 in base 2 (binary) and 666 in base 8. It is 3223 in base 5 and 141 in base 19.
The term “438 match” or “438 game” has been used by cricket news media to describe the famous 2006 One Day International in which Australia scored a world record 434 in their innings, only to see South Africa respond in their innings with 438.
And more… which one can find– along with the dope on dozens and dozens of other digits– at NumberADay.
As we resolve to practice on our abaci, we might send elegantly-derived birthday greetings to mathematician Sofia Vasilyevna Kovalevskaya; she was born on this date in 1850. The first major Russian female mathematician, she made important contributions to analysis, differential equations and mechanics, was one the first women to edit a scientific journal, and was the first woman appointed to a full professorship in Northern Europe (Stockholm University). But while (after much lobbying by her admirers) she was granted a Chair in the Russian Academy of Sciences, she was never offered a professorship in Russia.
A dictionary for these turbulent times…
In these times of proliferating online reference resources, what’s a poor scholar to do? Dictionaries can be a particular problem: duelling definitions, eccentric enunciations… all against a backdrop of a language that’s evolving, in both vocabulary and usage, even as we speak…
Enter Wordnik:
Wordnik is a new way to discover meaning… Wordnik shows definitions from multiple sources, so you can see as many different takes on a word’s meaning as possible… We try to show as many real examples as possible for each word. These examples are ranked by how useful we think they are in helping you understand the meaning of a particular word, especially words that may not have traditional dictionary definitions… [Wordnik lists related words.] Our word relationships include synonyms, hypernyms, hyponyms, words used in the same context, a reverse dictionary, and tags…
All this– plus lists, images illustrating entries, recorded pronunciations, and a word-of-the-day at Wordnik.
As we choose our words both more carefully and more confidently, we might fling a fistful of rice in celebration of the nuptials of Sadye Marks (better known as Mary Livingstone) and Benjamin Kubelsky (or Jack Benny, as audiences knew him); they were married on this date in 1927.
Mary co-starred in Benny’s fabulously-successful radio series, and became famous for her occasional flubbed lines, many ultimately as legendary as the deliberately-crafted “illogical logic” of Gracie Allen or the carefully-scripted malapropisms of Jane Ace and (as Molly in The Goldbergs) Gertrude Berg. (Visit here for downloadable examples.)
Proving the obvious…
From Scientific American, “Duh! 11 Obvious Science Findings of 2011“… including such gems as:
Image: Flickr/Judy van der Velden
Pigs love mud
Turns out pigs aren’t just putting on a show when they haul butt around their muddy quarters, diving into the muck. They actually like it. While mud baths keep pigs cool, a review of research reported in 2011 found wallowing may also be a swine sign of well-being. While the review found the strongest reason noted in the past studies for wallowing was to keep cool, the pigs kept it up through winter months.
See them all– smoking pot and driving isn’t safe! unsafe sex is more likely after drinking! plus another eight– here. (And then check out “Doh! Top Science Journal Retractions of 2011“… turns out, for instance, that the MMR vaccine [for measles, mumps and rubella] wasn’t linked to autism after all, and that Chronic Fatigue Syndrome wasn’t demonstrated to be the result of a retrovirus…)
As we polish our paradigms, we might recall that it was on this date in 1863 that Thomas Crapper demonstrated the one-piece pedestal flushing toilet that still bears his name in many parts of the English-speaking world.
The flushing toilet was invented by John Harrington in 1596; Joseph Bramah patented the first practical water closet in England in 1778; then in 1852, George Jennings received a patent for the flush-out toilet. Crapper’s contribution was promotional: In a time when bathroom fixtures were barely mentionable, Crapper, who was trained as a plumber, set himself up as a “sanitary engineer”; he heavily promoted “sanitary” plumbing and pioneered the concept of the bathroom fittings showroom. His efforts were hugely successful; he scored a series of Royal Warrants (providing lavatories for Prince, then King Edward, and for George V) and enjoyed huge commercial success.
What’s Old is New Again: Occupy Language!…
Just in case: from Meagan Hess at the University of Virginia, Slang in the Great Depression.
As we do our best to steer clear of Hooverville, we might recall that it was during this period– on this date in 1932– that Hattie (Ophelia Wyatt) Caraway won a special election and became the first woman elected to the U.S. Senate. An Arkansas Democrat, Caraway had been appointed to the seat two months earlier to fill the vacancy left by her late husband, Thaddeus Horatio Caraway. In 1938, she was reelected.
Although she was the first freely-elected female senator, Caraway was preceded in the chamber by Rebecca Latimer Felton, who was appointed in 1922 to fill a vacancy but never ran for election. Jeannette Rankin, elected to the House of Representatives as a pacifist from Montana in 1917, was the first woman to ever sit in Congress.
Senator Caraway (source)
