I’VE GOT (MORE THAN) ONE LITTLE LIST
LEPORELLO’S LIST in Mozart’s Don Giovanni got me thinking about other lists of people. Who are they? How did they get on the list? This clearly calls for some research, … Continue reading
BRISTOL 450—FROM WIND TUNNEL TO STICKY-TAPE
THE BRISTOL 450 legacy sends something of a mixed message of art versus science. Twice victorious in their class at Le Mans in the mid-1950s, the Bristol 450s evolved through … Continue reading
PUT IT IN THE MONITOR-TOP
“IT IS almost like having an Aladdin’s lamp,” the manual read, “and not knowing the right way to rub it.” The year was 1927; the event was introduction of the … Continue reading
MYSTERIOUS MALAY MAMMAL SHOWS ITS SPOTS
THE LEOPARD, Panthera pardus, is found from Russia’s frozen north to southern Africa’s scorching Kalahari Desert. It is the world’s most widely distributed large cat as well as a keystone … Continue reading
EARLY SEA-GOING AVIATION
SAMUEL PIERPONT Langley demonstrated that his 1896 Aërodrome No. 5, an unpiloted model aircraft, could be spring-catapulted aloft from a boat. Two later attempts with a larger version tossed both … Continue reading
A GRAPHIC NOVEL FROM 1930
THE MODERN term “graphic novel,” especially Japanese manga, conjures up vibrant images of mayhem, graphic in both the pictorial sense and also in explicitness. I offer here a historical counterexample, … Continue reading
ON THE VIRTUES OF (HIGHLY SELECTIVE) CONNECTIVITY
WE LIVE in a highly connected world. (Otherwise, of course, SimanaitisSays wouldn’t exist.) But a couple of happenings suggest we have reached a tipping point. The two I have in … Continue reading
WHA’ CHA’ M’ CALL IT
LIKE DOOHICKEY and gizmo, wha’ cha’ m’ call it (also rendered whatchamacallit) is a placeholder, a word referring to things the names of which are irrelevant, unknown or temporarily forgotten. … Continue reading
ON EARLY SLEUTHING
MANY CONSIDER Sherlock Holmes the world’s first detective. With more than a little hubris, a while back I proposed otherwise in noting that Kumedera Danjō, the hero in the Kabuki … Continue reading
MAZDA LAUNDRY GOES “HMMMMMM”
BACK IN the 1970s, Mazda made the excellent point that conventional engines went “boing boing boing,” whereas its rotary powerplant went “hmmmmmm.” Today, high-efficiency laundry facilities may go “hmmmmmm” as … Continue reading
Simanaitis Says 