Blog Posts

A Weird Invention: The Electronic Nose

The Electronic NoseOne of the most talked about public pranks last April Fools Day was Google’s announcement of a new service called Google Nose, a tool that would let users search the Internet for smells. It was a joke, of course. But while online smell searching isn’t real, artificial noses are quite real. A California company called Cyrano Sciences is working on a prototype electronic nose that will recognize a preprogrammed array of scents. The company claims their “nose” could help supplement the limited capacity of the human nose. Dangerous, undetectable gas leaks could be picked up by an artificial nose, for example. It could even help doctors diagnose pneumonia and other maladies with distinctive smells. An earlier model, the Cyrano 320, a “portable electronic odor detector” has been used in the food and chemical industries since 2000. NASA also uses a similar device to track down problems on the International Space Station.

Want more weird inventions? Check out our latest book, Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader Weird Inventions.

Bathroom Reading Month: Writer for a Day Winner

Congrats to Perry P. for winning our fourth and final weekly giveawayof the month of June. The response was very diverse to our question this week: “If you were to write a book about a subject, what would you write about and why?” Here are the highlights:

• Non-military history of the renaissance

• Firsthand experiences of living through Hurricane Katrina

• Strange medical conditions as well as emergency room patients with wierd things wrong

• Is the moon landing really a hoax?

• The modern-day Seabees (Navy Construction Battalions) and their place in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

And a couple of personal stories we want to highlight:

“I am a triple amputee. 14 years ago I hit a moving train while riding my motorcycle. So I would travel and get other stories of those in America who have amputations, and the things they do to accommodate in a two handed world.”

“I would write a book about a fictional character who has Developmental Coordination Disorder which is the same disability that I have. I would write about the character’s struggles in areas such as writing neatly and in gym class with basic skills such as catching a ball or trying to hit a badminton birdie. I would also write about the character’s successes such as finally mastering shoe tying or learning to skate.”

Thank you everyone for entering our weekly giveaways and helping us celebrate June as Bathroom Reading Month. Have a great weekend and don’t forget to enter our awesome June is Bathroom Reading Month Giveaway. You could win the ENTIRE in-print library of our books. Deadline is June 30!

Word Origins: Meet Your New Words

Dictionary New WordsThe Oxford English Dictionary is the de facto official record of the English language. Like every living language, English is constantly evolving, with new words seemingly entering the vernacular everyday—most of them slang phrases, computer and Internet terms, or portmanteaus, which are new words combined out two or more existing words.

Whenever the OED is updated, usually each June, editors announce the newest words added to the 800,000 word-plus dictionary. They’re not super-new—they’re generally words that have been around for about 10 years and are still common. This year, OED editors added more than 1,200 new words to the dictionary, and, by extension, officially to English. Here are some notable additions.

My Body Lies Over the Ocean: Let’s Dig Up Jimmy Hoffa (Again)

Jimmy HoffaJimmy Hoffa was a well-known union leader in the 1960s and ’70s, but he’s far more famous for being a missing person (and maybe for his ties to organized crime). On July 30, 1975, Hoffa had dinner at the Raleigh House Restaurant in suburban Detroit. Then he completely disappeared. After no trace of him showed up for seven years, he was declared legally dead in 1982. But nearly 40 years later, federal agents—and conspiracy theories—are still looking for him. Here’s a brief timeline of the very long search.

Life After Death: Finding Out Who Is Inside the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier

tomb of the unknown soldierThe Tomb of the Unknown Soldier is both a moving tribute to those who have died in American wars and a reminder of how war steals human dignity. An unidentified soldier from each of the major American conflicts of the 20th century have been laid to rest in the monument at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia. Represented are World War I, World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War.

The remains of the Vietnam War veteran were placed in the Tomb on Memorial Day 1984 in a ceremony attended by President Reagan, who awarded the unidentified soldier a posthumous Medal of Honor. But CBS News reporter Vince Gonzalez thought it would be more honorable to find out the unknown soldier’s identity of the latest unknown.

Bathroom Reading Month: Writer for a Day

Every week during Bathroom Reading Month, we will host a giveaway for a book of your choice from the Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader collection. Just to spice it up, we will ask you to answer a question on the blog. At the end of the week, we will pick a random winner from the answers and post it on the blog along with our favorite answers. Remember that this is in addition to our “mother-of-all” contest: enter to win the entire in-print library of Uncle John’s Bathroom Readers.

Week #4: Writer for a Day

QUESTION: If you were to write a book about a subject,
what would you write about and why?

Answer the question in the comments section of this post to be entered to win a book of your choice from the Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader library. Answers must be posted by June 26, 2013, midnight PST to be eligible to win. A winner will be announced on Friday, June 28, 2013. Open to US residents, 18 year + only.

Would you write about hoaxes? Need a little inspiration? Here are a few classics from Uncle John’s Unstoppable Bathroom Reader.

Bathroom Reading Month: At the Library Winner

Congrats to Amanda for winning our third weekly giveaway of the month of June. Surprisingly none of your chose the bathroom as the section of the library that you would spend the most time in. The favorite was the Fiction section. Here are some of our favorite answers.

Graphic novels

Biographies

Knowledge and Trivia

Comedy

And, of course, several of you noted that you would go directly to the section that holds Uncle John’s Bathroom Readers. Awww, shucks! We truly have the best fans.

Have a great weekend and don’t forget to enter our awesome June is Bathroom Reading Month Giveaway.

Giant Rubber Duck News: Power to the People

In May, we told you about a public art event very close to our hearts here at the BRI: Dutch artist Florentijn Hofman’s unveiling of a 54-foot-tall giant rubber duck in Hong Kong’s Victoria Harbor. It looks just like the rubber ducky seen on the covers of all of our books…only much, much bigger. On June 4, 2013, the duck made news in China—and around the world—again.

June 4th is the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre. In 1989, thousands of protestors occupied Beijing’s Tiananmen Square, protesting China’s Communist government. The government responded by sending in 300,000 troops to quell the protests. Six thousand protestors were killed. The tragedy spawned a lasting, powerful image: a single, Chinese man, standing in front of a row of tanks.

In China, publicly commemorating the massacre (officially known as “The June 4th Incident”) is forbidden, so many people protest online. But criticizing the government online is also illegal in China. So what do protesters do? This year they made pictures.

Giant Rubber Duck ChinaOne person recreated the famous photo (the original of which is illegal to distribute in China) entirely with Lego blocks. Another person doctored the photo and replaced the tanks with images of the Giant Floating Duck.

Once the Internet-regulating authorities figured out what was going on, the Giant Floating Duck-as-tank photo was banned. Nevertheless, the duck is now a symbol of quiet protest in China.

The real duck, fully inflated, is scheduled to arrive in Pittsburgh in September.

3 Real-Life Statues Commemorating Fictional Characters

Robocop. Detroit has had some hard times lately, but there’s one bright spot on the horizon: construction and placement are nearly completed for a statue of Robocop. The original 1987 film, Robocop, was about the half-man, half-robot, all-violent policeman saving a futuristic, crime-destroyed version of the city. The kooky project was dreamt up by a group called Imagination Station Detroit. In 2011, they raised $57,000 via Kickstarter to make the 10 foot-tall statue honoring a favorite son a reality.

Optimus Prime. A 32-foot tall, 21-ton statue of the leader of the Transformers stands proudly in a square in Shenyang City, China. And, like how Transformers are vehicles that can rapidly transform into giant robots, “transforming” parts from 21 abandoned cars and trucks created this Optimus Prime statue. It’s the biggest Optimus Prime model on Earth…which means it’s not the only one. There’s another Optimus Prime statue in Beijing.

Rocky and Bullwinkle. And now here’s something we hope you’ll really like: This 15-foot tall fiberglass statue of the cartoon “moose and squirrel” was constructed in 1961 to promote the premiere of The Bullwinkle Show on NBC. Actress Jayne Mansfield presided over the unveiling, which took place along the Sunset Strip in LA and drew 5,000 spectators. The statue can be found at 8218 Sunset Boulevard in front of Hollywood Hounds, a grooming salon for pets.

 

Nice Stories: Play Ball!

Cory Hahn drafted by Arizona Diamondbacks

Cory Hahn could have been a professional baseball player right out of high school. In 2010, at Mater Dei High in Santa Ana, California, he had a .411 batting average and also pitched a 14-1 record. He was also named “Mr. Baseball,” as the state’s best high school player of the year.

But Hahn skipped going pro in favor of a college education, a lifelong goal. He attended Arizona State, and joined the baseball team there. Tragically, in just his second game with the team in 2011, he collided with the second basemen while trying to steal second base and suffered a spinal injury that left him paralyzed from the waist down.

That was the end of Hahn’s baseball career, but not the end of his baseball story. In early June, Major League Baseball had its annual player draft. With the 1,020th overall pick, in the 34th round, the Arizona Diamondbacks drafted Hahn. It’s significant not just for the Arizona connection, but because Hahn wore #34 at Arizona State. And while it may have been a nice gesture, it wasn’t an empty gesture. Diamondbacks president Derrick Hall promised Hahn a job in the team’s front office or as a talent scout, should he want it, upon his graduation.

Bathroom Reading Month: At the Library

Every week during Bathroom Reading Month, we will host a giveaway for a book of your choice from the Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader collection. Just to spice it up, we will ask you to answer a question on the blog. At the end of the week, we will pick a random winner from the answers and post it on the blog along with our favorite answers. Remember that this is in addition to our “mother-of-all” contest: enter to win the entire in-print library of Uncle John’s Bathroom Readers.

Week #3: At the Library

QUESTION: If you were stuck in a library,
what section of would you spend the most time in and why?

Answer the question in the comments section of this post to be entered to win a book of your choice from the Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader library. Answers must be posted by June 19, 2013, midnight PST to be eligible to win. A winner will be announced on Friday, June 21, 2013. Open to US residents only.

Need a little inspiration? Read all about one of the nation’s most famous libraries from Uncle John’s Plunges into History Again.

Bathroom Reading Month: In a Kids Book Winner

Congrats to Ken for winning our second weekly giveaway in the month of June. It was loads of fun reading about your favorite children’s book characters. Here are the highlights.

There were several Harry Potter fans. Although, we have to admit, our favorite was:

Probably Harry Potter (although its not a kids book, really) only cuz I love the fact that I could turn my hubby into a toad :)

We hope her hubby doesn’t read our blog.

Lorikeets and the Upchuck Thing

BRI Thom here, still on assignment in Australia (they told me it was only going to be two weeks!), with a quick note.

Four lorikeets have been coming to our veranda the last few days. We give them apple slices – they make a big mess eating them up.

Here are two of them, surrounded by described mess:

They all look pretty much the same, but while two of them will grab apple right out of your hand (and sit in your lap to eat it, if you let them, as we’ve happily learned in the past), two of them seemed very shy and skittery.

Just found out why:

E.T.: The Long-Awaited Follow-Up! (Sort Of)

E.T. Video GameAtari’s 1982 E.T. video game, based on the smash hit movie E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial is probably the most spectacular failure in video game history.

Here’s what happened. E.T. the movie was released in June 1982. The tender story of a lonely boy befriended by a lost alien creature was an unexpectedly massive hit, spending its first six weeks at #1 at the box office. It was late July by the time Atari, the most popular video game brand in the world at the time, secured the rights to make an E.T. video game. However, the company gave designer Howard Warshaw just six weeks to create the product, so it could be on store shelves by Christmas. End result: a terrible, nonsensical game, even by early 1980s standards. Bearing little resemblance to the movie, players had to control a thing that sort of looked like E.T. as it collected pieces of a phone to “phone home.” E.T. mostly fell in holes, or encountered one of the game’s many bugs.

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