Category: fun things

Getting grown-ups back into their bodies

There’s an old joke that I’ve heard attributed, in one form or another, to numerous religious groups. It goes: “Why do Baptists (or Methodists, or Mennonites, or Jews, or whatever) prohibit premarital sex? Because it could lead to dancing.” The implication, obviously, is that the group’s taboo against dancing is so strong that it overshadows the moral principle that gave rise to it in the first place; dancing becomes not just a potential path to evil but an evil in and of itself. One of the theological views that sometimes motivates this position is that the body (or “flesh”) is inherently sinful or corrupt, and must be ruthlessly subjugated to the purer values of the spirit. This was certainly the view of the religious tradition in which I grew up. Any activity that even suggested carnal pleasure outside strictly delimited boundaries was an immoral concession to humanity’s fallen nature.

Although this sort of thinking may be an extreme example, it’s indicative of a broader and older cultural trend, which some people refer to as the “mind-body split.” Whether you trace this trend back to Cartesian dualism, the early days of Christianity, or some other source, it amounts to a belief that the body is somehow an ontologically separate entity from the mind (or “soul” or “spirit”). Perhaps the two are even in competition or conflict with each other. Even if, as adults, we recognize that by implicitly accepting this split we’ve become disintegrated and unbalanced, it’s difficult to reprogram ourselves to recover that sense of being a single, unified whole. A practice called InterPlay exists to encourage that process by helping people to rediscover and express one of their most basic, primal needs: play.

Play Time

Children, of course, have no trouble playing, and kids seem to engage in play with their whole beings—what InterPlayers refer to as “mindful presence.” That, in a nutshell, is what InterPlay seeks to restore to adults who have lost all sense of how easy it is to have fun. As we grow older, we tend to take ourselves more and more seriously. Although that is useful in some respects, InterPlay is a reminder that we never outgrow the need for play.

What does InterPlay mean by “play”? Not the things adults usually mean—sports, board games, gambling, and so on. In a sense, play can be anything that’s enjoyable, but some of the specific activities that make up InterPlay are deep breathing, telling stories, singing, stillness, hand movements, and yes, dancing—all done with a relaxed (and often goofy) attitude. InterPlayers realize that the people who most need to learn how to play sometimes have mental blocks about the very idea of dance, or perhaps even resistance to more basic notions like movement or touch. So their practices are carefully designed to put participants at ease and ensure that everyone feels safe as they learn gradually to “let go.” You may think you’re making a fool of yourself, but so is everyone else; the freedom for each person to be equally silly without judgments or comparisons is part of InterPlay’s basic philosophy.

InterPlayers learn to identify judgments they may have unconsciously made about themselves and release them. Since other participants are not judging you, you learn to silence your inner critic as well. So taking part in InterPlay activities is something like a cross between group therapy and improv comedy. InterPlay teaches participants to become more spontaneous and creative, to better handle stress, change, and uncertainty, and to be more effective collaborators.

Playground as Church

Although many InterPlayers become involved out of a desire to free themselves of certain religious baggage, the practice itself has no religious (or anti-religious) agenda. Instead, it espouses the viewpoint that spirituality is a subset of play, and that to the extent we can discover our true selves, we become better equipped to experience deeper levels of reality. Those who feel a spiritual path must be one of great seriousness and asceticism are challenged to think about spirituality in a more relaxed, light-hearted way.

InterPlay creators Cynthia Winton-Henry and Phil Porter met while attending seminary in Berkeley, California in the late 1970s. They have collaborated ever since. After developing the basic philosophy of InterPlay, they formed a nonprofit organization called Body Wisdom to provide a structure for teaching InterPlay and training other leaders. InterPlay groups have sprung up all over the world; the activities are also taught in such diverse settings as corporations, churches, hospitals, and prisons. Body Wisdom’s current headquarters, called InterPlayce, opened in downtown Oakland, California in 2004.

I have several friends who practice InterPlay, including one who’s a regional leader and was once on Body Wisdom’s board of directors. Although I myself am not an InterPlayer, I’ve noticed that simply by interacting with people who are, I’ve gotten sucked into the wonderful vortex of playfulness that they embody. And that’s exactly what InterPlay is all about: spreading the benign contagion of play.

Note: This is an updated version of an article that originally appeared on Interesting Thing of the Day on May 17, 2005.

Image credit: Pixabay

A matter of perspective

Although I like to think of myself as a multitalented “Renaissance man” of sorts, I must admit that when it comes to drawing and painting, I have absolutely no ability. I’m truly pitiful at Pictionary, and I couldn’t paint my way out of a paper bag. Or so I’ve always thought. Based on what I’ve learned about the methods of some famous painters, I could probably produce some fantastic art from the inside of a very large paper bag, as long as it had a pinhole on one side and pretty bright light outside. All I’d have to do is trace the image projected by this primitive camera obscura. According to a controversial theory, this technique—or something very much like it—gave some world-renowned artists a little help as far back as 1420. Then again…maybe not. Getting to the bottom of this puzzle has been the consuming passion of quite a few artists, historians, and optical engineers.

Without a Trace

Tracing over a projected image is a straightforward notion, but if you’ve ever tried it (as I have) you probably discovered that getting good results is not as easy as it sounds. The easy part is getting the proportions right. But lots of things in any image lack well-defined borders, and trying to make sense of textures and the effects of light and shadow while tracing something is quite a complex undertaking. If, instead of tracing, I were painting, the challenge would become even greater, as I’d have to carefully match gradations in color—and as soon as I applied a dark paint to the light surface, the image in that area would virtually disappear. All that to say: projection or no projection, producing a convincingly realistic drawing or painting takes a lot of skill and practice. So if it turned out that one of the great masters from centuries ago really did pull this off, I’d be no less impressed by the final product—and more impressed by the artist’s cleverness.

We know that numerous artists nowadays, and over the past couple of centuries, have employed just such a technique; many of Andy Warhol’s best-known pieces, for instance, were done this way. Prior to the invention of photography, though, the only images that could be projected were live representations of the real world. The technology to do this, the camera obscura, has been known for many centuries—possibly since as far back as the fifth century BCE. If a tiny hole is placed in the wall of a very dark room and the light outside is bright enough, an inverted image of the outside scene is projected onto the wall inside. But the image is usually fairly dim and fuzzy. Two important innovations in camera obscura design occurred in the 16th century: the addition of a lens (which made the image sharper) and a mirror (which could direct the image onto a horizontal surface rather than a wall). And there are a few scattered records from the mid-16th century of artists suggesting the use of a camera obscura as a drawing aid, though the earliest confirmed date of anyone actually doing so is 1603.

An Obscura Artist

It should therefore come as no surprise that an artist might have used such a technique in the 1660s, and that’s just what some people have claimed for more than 100 years about Dutch artist Johannes Vermeer (1632–75). These suggestions first surfaced when people began noticing that the proportions in Vermeer’s paintings didn’t match those of other works from the time, in which the subjects were typically painted at the size the artist perceived them to be. But in Vermeer’s works, objects and people closer to the foreground are larger than those in the background—seemingly in just the proportions that they would be in a photograph—or a tracing from a camera obscura image. Several other clues in the geometry and lighting suggested the same thing, but there was no evidence that Vermeer actually had (or even had heard of) a camera obscura. In addition, since the scenes in question were interiors, presumably any image created by a camera obscura would have been incredibly dim. So for many decades the debate continued.

Then in 2001, architect Philip Steadman described in his book Vermeer’s Camera detailed research into the geometry of several of Vermeer’s paintings—backed up with photos of painstakingly recreated miniatures of the rooms from the paintings. Steadman’s studies showed that given the dimensions of the room in each scene (which he carefully calculated) and the viewpoint and size of each painting, all are absolutely consistent with an image of the room being projected onto its back wall with a camera obscura. In other words, given not only the uncanny accuracy of the paintings but also the specifics of their perspective, Steadman felt it was nearly a mathematical certainty that Vermeer partitioned off a small corner in the back of this room as a camera obscura and painted over the image on a canvas that hung on the wall. (In at least some cases, X-ray evidence shows that although there was no underlying sketch, there was a monochrome image beneath the color paint; this makes sense considering the very dim conditions inside the camera obscura.)

Tim’s Vermeer

In 2013, the story took another big step. Inspired in part by Steadman’s work, an inventor named Tim Jenison set about to recreate one of Vermeer’s paintings. Jenison claimed no artistic talent, but he did know a few things about optics. So he devised a mechanism that would have been entirely possible using 17th-century technology: a combination of a camera obscura and a small mirror positioned at an angle above the canvas. Using this setup, along with a room designed to be an exact duplicate of the one in Vermeer’s “The Music Lesson” (including live models in period dress), Jenison spent seven months creating his own version of a Vermeer. The striking results strongly suggest that Vermeer used a similar setup himself. The entire project was documented in the film Tim’s Vermeer, directed by Teller and produced by Penn Jillette (of Penn & Teller).

Both Steadman’s book and Tim’s Vermeer met with a certain amount of controversy, not least because they seemingly suggest that Vermeer did not produce his works with artistic skill alone. (Oh, the horror to think that he might have supplemented his considerable artistic skill with technological skill!) But the evidence from both sources is pretty convincing—and, of course, it mainly confirms what a lot of people had suspected all along.

Mirror, Mirror

Shortly after Vermeer’s Camera was published, another book hit the shelves that made much broader (and more controversial) claims—and also influenced Tim Jenison’s work. Painter David Hockney, in his book Secret Knowledge, alleges that European artists used optical aids for painting as early as the beginning of the 15th century. But rather than using a camera obscura, Hockney believes these artists used a concave mirror to project an image onto the canvas; no documentary evidence exists simply because they all chose to keep it a carefully guarded trade secret. Among the many artists on Hockney’s list are Van Eyck, Caravaggio, and Lotto.

Hockney noticed that around the early 1400s, paintings began to show a much more natural representation of light and perspective—that, in some cases, they looked nearly photographic. He was convinced that the level of realism and accuracy they displayed was simply too great to have been done by eye, so he started looking for other explanations. As he went back through history, he noted the use of the camera obscura and other optical aids, and he suspected that the practice may have been much older. He formulated a series of theories about how various works of art over a period of several centuries may have been made by using optics of one kind or another.

Experts in the art world are still divided over Hockney’s claims. Because his theories are so wide-ranging, some of them are bound to be accurate to one extent or another. But many critics believe Hockney has gone too far, and a few have spent considerable effort rebutting his theories. David Stork, a physicist and art historian at Stanford University, has published numerous papers debunking various aspects of Hockney’s book. Stork found alternative explanations for many claims of optical aids, pointing out that none of the available evidence requires one to posit the use of optics in the oldest and most controversial works; there are other, simpler explanations. In addition, Stork finds it highly implausible that the artists could have discovered, created, and kept secret such advanced technology for so many years.

Having read lengthy articles about this debate until my eyes blurred, I feel I have enough information to reach my own conclusion. And that conclusion is: it doesn’t matter. What Hockney, Stork, and I agree on is that even if these legendary masters did use optics, that does not in any way constitute “cheating”; they would simply have been tools of the trade. In the end, I think the years invested in this intellectual exercise might have been more profitably spent painting.

Note: This is an updated version of an article that originally appeared on Interesting Thing of the Day on May 21, 2005.

Image credit: unknown illustrator [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

It seems like every few days I run across yet another news story about a privacy catastrophe of one kind or another. Maybe it’s a huge corporation that suffered some sort of data breach, revealing private data about millions of customers. Or slimy behavior by social media companies like Facebook and Twitter. Or the latest creepy attempts by advertisers to track people’s movements across the web without their permission. Or any of countless other examples of how using the internet puts your personal information—and perhaps even your physical safety—at risk.

Online privacy is a hot mess these days, and with few exceptions, the big tech companies are working against greater privacy protections, not for it. It’s enough to drive even tech experts (to say nothing of the rest of us) to despair. That’s why I wrote Take Control of Your Online Privacy—I felt the world needed an easy-to-read summary of what the threats are and how ordinary people can achieve a reasonable level of privacy online without abandoning all technology and heading off to live in a cave somewhere. This book tackles web browsing, email, digital payments, social media, file sharing, and numerous other types of online activity, showing users of any platform what they can do to protect their private data. The brand-new fourth edition, released last week, brings the book fully up to date with all the latest techniques, hardware, and software you can use to keep your personal data private. I hope you’ll find it helpful!

This book, like all Take Control titles, comes as an ebook, and you can download any combination of formats—PDF, EPUB, and/or Kindle’s Mobipocket format—so you can read it on pretty much any computer, smartphone, tablet, or ebook reader. The cover price is $14.99, but as an Interesting Thing of the Day reader, you can buy it this week for 30% off, or just $10.49.

The national beverage of Argentina

I’m a coffee person. I wouldn’t say I’m addicted to it, but I do certainly enjoy drinking it on a more or less daily basis. Sometimes two or three times a day. In fact, now that I think about it, I could use a cup right now. Excuse me. (Time passes.) Ah, that’s better. I do not drink coffee for my health, although I am aware of studies suggesting that coffee consumption in moderation may reduce the risk of colon cancer, kidney stones, heart disease, and even Parkinson’s Disease. But I certainly appreciate the caffeine, the aroma, and the soothing effect of a warm beverage sliding across my tongue and down my esophagus.

Many of my friends, however, are tea people. I have nothing against a nice cup of tea now and then, and of course tea ably fills that hot beverage need. But in terms of aroma and both psychological and physiological impact, tea just doesn’t do it for me. Once again, tea’s supposed health benefits—of which there are, I admit, far more than those of coffee—don’t quite tip the scales. Maybe I’d be 5% healthier if I switched from coffee to tea, but then, maybe I’d also be 10% grouchier.

A Drink to Die For

I am always, however, happy to try new and unusual hot beverages, especially if they are reputed to have health benefits, a strong aroma, and a flavor frequently referred to as an “acquired taste.” And even more so if the beverage must be prepared and served in a highly ritualized way using special, single-purpose gadgets. So on a trip to Argentina in 2004, I was enthusiastic about sampling mate, their national beverage—and acquiring the necessary paraphernalia to make it myself.

Now, keep in mind: back then, mate wasn’t really a thing in the United States. This was long before every supermarket, convenience store, and cafe in North America hopped on the yerba mate bandwagon, with all manner of hot and cold drinks based on this plant. But even if you’ve sampled something called mate, if you didn’t do it in Argentina, I’ll bet you didn’t do it the “right” way (as defined by Argentineans).

According to one survey, mate (pronounced “MAH-teh”—and not to be confused with the Spanish word maté, which means “I killed”) is regularly consumed by some 92% of Argentineans—and by similarly large numbers of people in Uruguay, Paraguay, and Brazil. Superficially it appears to be a kind of tea, but appearances are deceiving. The true story is much more complex.

For starters, there’s the nomenclature. The dried leaves that are brewed to make mate are known as yerba mate—the word yerba meaning “herb.” This is, however, a misnomer: the leaves come from an evergreen tree in the holly family, Ilex paraguariensis. The word mate itself comes from the Quechua word matí, which refers to a certain type of gourd (Lagenaria vulgaris) which, when dried and hollowed, is used as the serving vessel for the beverage. So depending on context, mate can mean the leaves, the container, or the infusion of the leaves in water. The latter sense appears to be the most common—and is thus at odds with the typical North American usage of “yerba mate” to refer to that infusion.

Details, Details, Details

Yerba mate plants must be carefully cultivated and their leaves harvested at just the right time. The leaves are briefly roasted to preserve their color and prevent spoilage, then dried thoroughly, coarsely ground, and left to age for nine months. Finally, they are crushed and packaged. One supermarket we visited in Patagonia had an entire aisle of mate—dozens of varieties, textures, blends, and package sizes. But even the highest-quality brands were inexpensive: a few dollars or so for a kilogram.

The gourds come in every conceivable shape, size, and color, usually with a three-legged metal base (to prevent tipping, since the bottom is convex), and often with a metal ring around the hole in the top, to reduce wear. Although actual gourds are most common, we also saw mate pots made out of clay, ceramic, metal, and even cows’ hooves and horns. Each gourd also requires a special accessory called a bombilla—basically a metal straw with a strainer at the bottom. Instead of filtering out the tiny leaf fragments when the beverage is brewed, drinkers use the bombilla to filter it as they sip.

To prepare mate, one must begin with a properly “cured” gourd—one that has been soaked or cleaned in one of several ways to remove the residual oils that could adversely affect the flavor. The gourd is then filled about two-thirds full of yerba mate leaves, shaken, and tipped at an angle. A small amount of hot water is poured into the empty side, and after a couple of minutes, the bombilla is inserted and a larger quantity of hot water added. Each of the numerous books and websites I read that described mate preparation had different instructions for the precise method of creating an ideal mate—and in fact, many people prefer to leave this immensely important and challenging task to a cebador, a local expert in mate preparation. Every source I consulted, however, was in agreement that unlike tea, mate must never be made with boiling water.

Mate has the somewhat bitter taste of tannins, much like tea. Because of the ratio of leaves to water, it is a very strong flavor. Some of my companions likened it to “grass,” “hay,” or “alfalfa.” I believe these descriptions were intended to be uncomplimentary. I felt about the taste the way I felt about coffee the first time: kind of bitter, not immediately appealing, but I’ll bet it could grow on me.

Drink Me

Mate is normally shared among several people. I read in two different books that each person customarily takes a sip or two from the bombilla, passes the mate to the next person, and the cycle continues. When the liquid gets low, more hot water is added. However, a reader from Buenos Aires informed me that the custom as he knows it is for each person to finish the amount of water in the gourd and pass it back to the cebador, who then refills it and passes it to the next person.

In any case, because such a large quantity of leaves is used, it takes a long time for a single dose of mate to lose its flavor. The people we observed drinking mate appeared to be unconcerned about sharing germs. Apparently in some situations individual, disposable bombillas are used—but more for convenience than hygiene. Our guide did tell us, though, that according to legend when companions share a mate, they will also share their dreams. I did not check to see what other members of our group dreamed about the night after we shared our first mate, but it makes a nice story in any case.

Purists drink their mate hot and unsweetened—just the way I like my coffee. But I read repeatedly that some segments of the population, such as women, children, and city dwellers (if you can believe such categories) prefer their mate cold and/or sweetened with sugar—and sometimes even prepared with milk. We observed locals drinking mate at all hours—in fact, pretty much constantly throughout the day—except with meals. The quantity typically ingested in a day puts my considerable coffee consumption to shame. In order to be assured of a ready supply of raw materials, some people carry around leather cases large enough to hold a gourd, a thermos full of hot water, and a large bag of yerba mate.

Mate is a mild stimulant—when brewed, it has about half as much caffeine as coffee. Some people believe that unlike coffee, mate’s stimulant effect disappears very quickly when you stop drinking, so it can be consumed safely at bedtime. Mate supposedly functions as a digestive aid, which seems reasonable enough; it’s also used as a laxative. Other health claims abound: mate is said to curb the appetite, boost immunity, combat the effects of aging, and even return gray hair to its original shade—among many other benefits. How many of these effects are genuine, I can’t say. But I suspect its health benefits handily beat those of coffee.

Argentineans who drink mate all day long take it very seriously—they must have just the right brand, prepared just the right way in just the right gourd. And of course, “just right” differs enormously from person to person. In this respect, the mate phenomenon is very much like the culture of coffee snobs in the United States. I did bring home my own mate kit, and in fact my gourd is pictured above. (Needless to say, all the supplies to make your own mate are readily available online.) Whether I ever trade my coffee fanaticism for mate remains to be seen, but if I suddenly seem younger and healthier, you’ll know why.

Note: This is an updated version of an article that originally appeared on Interesting Thing of the Day on January 29, 2005.

Adventures with GPS and hiking boots

Hark back with me to a time, long ago, when human beings outnumbered GPS receivers. I know, it’s weird to think about, right? But at this moment I have a GPS receiver built into my smartphone and another built into my smartwatch, and at a rough tally, the total number of such devices in my house right now is eight. Once a specialized, expensive gadget for outdoorsy types with plenty of disposable income, they’re now so common we barely think about them. Every time you ask your car or your phone for directions, you just assume that its GPS circuitry will know where you are and be able to tell you how to get exactly where you want to go.

But back in 2003, when even someone with as much of an interest in gadgets as me couldn’t come up with a good reason to buy a GPS receiver, I was tickled to read an article about a new activity just for those relatively few people with the right hardware. Combining recreation, exercise, high-tech gizmos, and a bit of detective work, geocaching was, at the time, the latest geek rage.

I’m In It for the Cache

Geocaching became possible in 2000, when the U.S. government eliminated a policy called Selective Availability that artificially reduced the accuracy of GPS measurements by non-military folk to a radius of about 100 meters. Once much more precision was possible for civilians, interesting new applications emerged, one of which was a modern version of a treasure hunt. The idea behind geocaching is extremely simple: hide some stuff (the cache), take note of its coordinates using your GPS receiver, publish those coordinates on the web, and invite other people to come find it (using their own GPS equipment as a guide). Nowadays it’s even simpler, as you can just download a smartphone app that’ll display details about all nearby caches on an interactive map.

The cache is usually a watertight container holding a logbook (for finders to record their names and when they located it) and any other random trinkets the owner wishes to include. Usually a cache contains nothing of tangible value; the reward is in the discovery itself, though you might get a small souvenir for your efforts. Finders often leave a memento of their own for the next geocacher who comes upon that site; in more advanced versions of the sport, a cache might contain clues that lead to yet another cache, or an object that’s intended to be relocated to the next cache the person discovers.

Hide and Seek

If your smartphone or any other GPS receiver can indicate your exact position, it may seem as though there’s not much sport—just walk to those coordinates, pick up the box, and you’re done, right? But it’s quite a bit more involved than that. For one thing, GPS receivers still have some margin of error—you may need to search an area with a radius of up to 10 meters. For another, geocaching coordinates generally do not include altitude. A cache could be hidden on the side of a mountain, underwater, in a tree, under a rock, or somewhere inside a public building, all of which would make for a very interesting search. More importantly, knowing where something is doesn’t imply you know how to get to it; the most creative and challenging cache locations are those that require considerable planning, skill, and physical effort to reach.

Geocaching went from a clever idea to an international craze within just a few years. Now, although the newness and exclusivity have worn off, there are approximately eleventy bazillion caches hidden around the world, including dozens within walking distance of my house. There are caches I’ve walked by for years, and would never have known about were it not for the fact that they show up in an app on my phone. And that’s what I find so nifty about geocaching: it’s a way to discover another dimension of your own neighborhood, as you find treasures hidden (almost) in plain sight.

Note: This is an updated version of an article that originally appeared on Interesting Thing of the Day on September 13, 2003, and again in a slightly revised form on January 11, 2005.

Image credit: Pixabay

The primitive hi-tech fire starters

I’ve never been much of a camping enthusiast. It’s not that I don’t appreciate all the great gadgets associated with camping, and I certainly enjoy hiking, fresh air, and getting away from it all. But after toting all our high-tech apparatus into the middle of nowhere, setting up a tent, and rolling out the sleeping bags, I invariably think to myself: this is an awful lot of work for very little comfort. At home I would have had a nice squishy mattress, a flush toilet, clean water, and no mosquitoes. Why am I doing this again? Then it comes time to build a fire and I discover some cruel corollary of Murphy’s Law at work. On those rare days I ever have to attempt this task, it’s always windy, damp, or both. Of course, I know that when matches fail, I can always bring out some specially flammable substance designed expressly for the pyrotechnically challenged. But the latest rage in fire-starting equipment is actually centuries old and uses no chemicals, sparks, or even metal components. Meet the fire piston: a deceptively simple tool that uses compressed air to start a blaze in just seconds.

Light Me Up

A fire piston is a small cylindrical object usually made of wood, bone, or plastic. It consists of two main parts: an outer casing, which is hollow but closed on one end, and the piston itself—a rod or plunger that fits the hole in the casing perfectly and whose tip reaches almost, but not quite, to the stoppered end of the tube. The tip of the piston has a small indentation or hole, and just behind the tip is usually a gasket of some kind to ensure an airtight seal—perhaps a rubber O-ring or simply some waxed string. In other words, very basic parts that require little technological sophistication to create.

To use a fire piston, you put a tiny piece of tinder in the indentation at the tip of the piston, and perhaps apply a dab of grease to the gasket for lubrication. Then you place the plunger into the tube and smack it down rapidly. This compresses the air inside, which raises its temperature. Within less than a second, the temperature at the tip of the piston can reach more than 800°F (about 425°C)—enough to turn the tinder into a glowing ember. The pressure also, conveniently, works as a spring that forces the piston back out of the casing. Transfer the ember to a larger pile of tinder, blow for a few seconds, and poof! You’ve got fire.

Pressure Cooker

In an earlier version of this article, I made the rookie mistake of believing something I read on some random webpage, and then compounded the problem by repeating that claim. The claim was that fire pistons work according to a principle called Charles’s law, but that is not only wrong, it’s pretty much the opposite of right. (Charles’s law has to do with the relationship between a gas’s pressure and its temperature, as in rising temperatures make the gas expand.) I hereby repent of my faulty reporting.

In fact, what’s going on is an adiabatic heating process, in which the rapid compression of the air increases its temperature as the pressure increases, and the system doesn’t leave that heat anywhere else to go. You can approximate this effect by inflating a tire with a manual tire pump—yet another piston design—and notice that the pump gets hot as you use it (although that type of design does provide an outlet for most of the heat). This very principle is what makes diesel engines work: the fuel is ignited by rapidly compressed air, not by a spark as in conventional internal-combustion engines. In fact, some people believe Rudolf Diesel may have gotten the idea for his engine from seeing a fire piston being demonstrated.

No one knows who invented the first fire piston. Although the device was patented in England in the early 1800s, a similar design (albeit made from different materials) was apparently in use long before that in Indonesia, the Philippines, and several other southeast Asian nations. The prevailing theory is that in the process of hollowing out a long tube to make a blowgun, a hunter inadvertently ignited some sawdust.

In any case, just as fire pistons were beginning to catch on in Europe, matches hit the scene, and quickly took over as the most popular method of making a flame. And so fire pistons were all but forgotten—at least in the western world—for the better part of two centuries.

But under certain conditions, matches are still no match for a fire piston. Because fire pistons create a watertight seal, they’re virtually weatherproof. And because you’re working with a glowing ember rather than an open flame, wind can actually work in your favor. You do, of course, have to have dry material to burn, but that’s pretty much a given if you’re going to start a fire by any means.

I first heard about fire pistons in an email from one of the many readers who regularly supplement my list of interesting things to research. After browsing a few websites—and, especially, watching some videos of the devices in action—I was simply astonished. I couldn’t believe that something so simple, effective, and useful wasn’t part of every camper’s gear. It might have been, had matches not been invented at just the right (or wrong) time.

Note: This is an updated version of an article that originally appeared on Interesting Thing of the Day on April 3, 2005.

Image credit: Chocolateoak [CC BY-SA 3.0], via Wikimedia Commons

When I was young, my friends and their families would head out to the commercial beaches for their vacations. By “commercial beaches,” I mean the ones with oceanfront hotels, boardwalks, and a dizzying array of lights. My vacations, however, were quite different, as they were spent at Assateague, a 37-mile-long island off the coast of Maryland and Virginia. The island is owned by both states, and the state line divides it in two. Because it is a national seashore and wildlife refuge, buildings on this island are few and far between. Not a hotel, restaurant, or arcade can be found here. The beach offers a 360° view of the sea and sky, with nothing to mar the experience except for horseflies and kamikaze kites.

What do you mean there’s no boardwalk?

Assateague is a natural barrier island, so it is constantly battered by water and wind. Its topography changes often. Since 1866, it has “moved” a quarter of a mile inland. My vacations were spent on the Virginia side of Assateague, and as a child I remember wooden steps and walkways that would take you up and over the high sand dunes. After being away from Assateague for a few years and then coming back as an adult, I found the high dunes were gone, and smaller, less-protective dunes had taken their place. Water and sand are constantly moving on this island. Changes in landscape and scenery on Assateague are expected and accepted.

Most visitors to the Virginia side of the island stay on the nearby island of Chincoteague. Because there are no hotels on Assateague itself, vacationers must drive onto the island and then out to the beach, a short 5–10 minute car ride from Chincoteague. Due to this relative isolation, you might find yourself wondering what appeal this island could have. Not for entertainment junkies, Assateague has many things to offer those who love an unspoiled beach. A short walk up or down the coast will take you away from the summer crowds and into remoteness, where you may only encounter a lone fisherman or wandering beachcombers. On the southern end of the island, 4-wheel drive vehicles are allowed (by special permit) to drive out on the sand, allowing access to the southern tip of the island and more secluded areas.

Aside from swimming, sunbathing, and fishing, the island has many outdoor activities. Nature tours are diverse and can range from marsh walks to bird-watching expeditions. Canoe and boat rentals allow for more personal and scenic views of the island and its waterways. There are also a myriad of chartered excursions for inland and ocean fishing. For those who don’t have their sea legs, crabbing and clamming are popular and easy. The Assateague Lighthouse, reached by a short walk through a pine forest, is occasionally open for visitors to ascend. Additionally, there are many bike paths that transverse the marshes and forests, allowing for close views of the vast populations of waterfowl, migratory birds, and mammals. At any other beach, an encounter with wildlife usually involves a seagull stealing your sandwich. At Assateague, wildlife and nature take center stage, and humans are merely visitors just passing through.

Pony Penning

Although a harsh environment, Assateague has a herd of wild ponies, more casually referred to as the “Chincoteague Ponies.” These horses have inhabited the island for at least 300 years. Originally thought to have swum ashore from a wrecked Spanish galleon, it is more widely believed that settlers brought them on the island to graze. Today they survive on marsh grass and other island roughage. Two separate herds exist, one belonging to each state, and they are kept isolated from one another by a fence at the border. Although true horses, they are often referred to as ponies due to their small stature, which is most likely a consequence of their marsh diet.

To keep the population numbers of the Virginia herd down, the ponies are annually driven across the channel in late July to the neighboring town of Chincoteague. Here, the horses (mostly foals) are auctioned off and the money collected benefits the Chincoteague Volunteer Fire Company. In recent years, individual horses were sold for an average of about US$2,300, with the largest bid being $25,000 in 2015 for a single horse! The last few Pony Penning events have auctioned off an average of 58 horses per year. The number of horses auctioned is dictated by herd size, as the Virginia side of Assateague Island is only permitted a maximum of 150 horses. After the auction, the remaining horses swim back across the channel and resume their lives on the island. The actual pony swim officially dates to the 1920s, although some form of pony herding has occurred since the 1700s. Pony Penning is an extremely popular event, and festivities span an entire week. Large crowds of hopeful bidders as well as spectators crowd onto the island. Today, Chincoteague ponies can be found all across the United States as a result of this auction.

Marguerite Henry wrote a notable series of children’s books about the horses and the annual swim. The first and most popular book, called Misty of Chincoteague, was written around 1948 and was based on a real Chincoteague family and their pony. This pony (the “real Misty”) died in 1972, and was allegedly stuffed and put on display. I don’t recall ever seeing the stuffed version of Misty while vacationing in Chincoteague, and I prefer to keep it that way.

Today the ponies can be seen in a variety of places on the island at different points of the day. They usually roam in smaller herds, and it is common to see them off in the distance relaxing under a copse of trees or grazing in the marshy fields. Closer encounters occur frequently along the wildlife trails and beach road; here tourists with cameras will crowd around, snapping photos as the horses languidly amble about. Signs posted all over state that “Wild Ponies Bite and Kick,” but that doesn’t seem to stop anyone from sidling up to them. They are part of the landscape and culture of Assateague as well as Chincoteague, and they make this already fascinating area even more extraordinary.

Editor’s note: In late 2018, it was reported that a serious infection has killed a number of the ponies, and authorities were working hard to both treat affected ponies and develop a vaccine.

The way it should be

As an adult, I still love to visit Assateague Island. Even though the nightlife is limited, and there are no boardwalks or flashy rides, a vacation here is what it should be: relaxing. There is no sense of hurry, no rush, no multilane highway packed full of cars ready to crowd the shore. It’s a shame to see how commercialized many beaches are becoming. But I guess we each have our own ideas as to how a vacation should be spent. Give me a view of the ocean in one direction, a dune full of sea grass in the other, and the possibility of ponies stomping up the shore. I want to enjoy the sun without a great big hotel looming over my shoulder. I can only hope that Assateague will always stay the way it is.

Guest author Jillian Hardee is an assistant professor in the Department of Psychiatry and a lecturer in the Department of Psychology at the University of Michigan.

Note: This is an updated version of an article that originally appeared on Interesting Thing of the Day on August 16, 2006.

Image credit: Bonnie U. Gruenberg [CC BY-SA 3.0], via Wikimedia Commons

Laundry without the hot air

During the years my wife and I were living in apartments—in San Francisco, Vancouver, and Paris—we always looked for units that had their own washer and dryer. We had both spent enough time using laundromats and shared communal laundry rooms to recognize that there is a positive correlation between convenience of laundry facilities and marital bliss. Even though such apartments were often harder to find and more expensive, we knew the extra effort was worth it.

Once when we were looking for a place, we came across an otherwise suitable apartment that included a small extra room with hookups for a washing machine, but no space for a dryer—nor any way to vent one. That sounded to me like a problem that ought to have a technological solution, so I began searching the web. Sure enough, I found a class of machines that used a single chamber for both washing and drying—put clothes in dirty, push a button, wait an hour or two, and take them out clean and dry. That by itself was interesting, but what really got my attention was the fact that these devices could dry clothes without any sort of vent. I had always assumed that hot, moist, linty air has to come out of a clothes dryer one way or another—it seemed like one of those cosmic truths you just couldn’t get around. But you can get around it, and surprisingly enough, one way to do so is to use water to dry your clothes.

Small Change

I first saw one of these machines when I went over to a friend’s apartment in San Francisco and saw one of the combo washer/dryer machines in the corner humming merrily along. After it washed his clothes, a different light came on and it started drying them. It didn’t give off any heat, which was actually slightly disappointing because that room was a bit chilly. He said it worked extremely well, the only minor drawback being that it had a relatively small capacity. According to the sticker on top of the machine, it was expected to consume about US$12 worth of electricity in a year—or about as much as a typical San Franciscan spends on coin-operated washers and dryers in a month.

But it wasn’t the compactness or energy efficiency of this machine that intrigued me, it was the way it got the clothes dry. Ordinary dryers suck in cool, dry air from the room, heat it, blow it through the clothes, and then discharge the damp, hot air outside through a vent. This dryer, on the other hand, runs the exhaust through a heat-exchange system to cool it. Cold water flows through the heat exchanger, absorbing heat from the air. As the air cools, the moisture in it condenses and runs down the drain (along with the used cooling water); the dry air is then heated again, sent back through the clothes, and the cycle continues. The upshot of this is that drying your clothes with a ventless dryer requires a few extra gallons of water, but eliminates the need for a vent and keeps your laundry room from overheating.

Years later, we moved into an apartment in Paris that had space in the kitchen for a washer, but nowhere to put a dryer. No problem—combination washers and ventless dryers were commonplace there, so we bought one and installed it in all of two minutes—we pretty much just plugged it in, attached the input and output hoses, and slid it into place. It served us well until we moved again, and we really dug the convenience of washing and drying all at once.

Air Apparent

Not all ventless dryers (or condenser dryers, as they are often called) have built-in washing machines, and not all of them use water to condense the moisture from the air. Another design—frequently seen in Europe but hard to find in North America—has heat exchangers that use cool air from the room to absorb the heat. This means that hot (but dry) air is discharged into the room; the condensed water drains away just as it does in the combination units.

It’s easy to find ventless dryers, washer/dryer combos, and even units that can switch between vented and ventless modes. Major brands available in North America include Equator, Haier, LG, and even Whirlpool. And yet, although these devices do solve a problem for those in places with limited space or venting options, they haven’t achieved widespread popularity, for a combination of three reasons: higher price, lower capacity, and longer drying time compared to conventional dryers. I hope that changes some day because—and I speak from experience—the whole notion that you can wash and dry your clothes with the push of a single button while keeping your apartment cool and dry fills me with geeky delight.

But there’s one final frontier of laundry automation, and it’s already on its way to a solution: folding. A machine called FoldiMate, projected to ship in late 2019 for about US$1,000, can fold shirts, blouses, pants, towels, and pillowcases as fast as you can feed them in. That’s extremely cool (if pricey for what it does), and the manufacturer hints that in the future they may incorporate wrinkle removal and other laundry care features. (It can’t fold underwear or pair socks, but I expect such capabilities aren’t too many years in the future.)

If the FoldiMate or something like it could be integrated with a washer/dryer, though, that would be just about perfect. I remember an old Lost in Space episode in which Mrs. Robinson put the family’s dirty clothes into a tabletop box, pressed a button, and then pulled out clean, dry, folded, and plastic-wrapped garments a few seconds later. That’s ultimately what I want. Then my wife will be happy to do the laundry while I replicate dinner.

Note: This is an updated version of an article that originally appeared on Interesting Thing of the Day on November 20, 2003, and again in a slightly revised form on September 11, 2004.

Image credit: Matthew Paul Argall [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Vital energy measurement for the masses

In Chinese, it’s called ch’i (or qi). In Japanese, it’s ki. Variously translated using terms like “vital force” and “internal energy,” it is the name for a type of invisible power that purportedly circulates through the human body. It can be stimulated through acupuncture or ch’i kung (qigong) exercises, blocked by bad posture, enhanced with a proper diet, and depleted by stress, illness, and negative emotions. You can’t see it, nor is it visible indirectly to the tools of modern medical science, but many people consider it every bit as real as air or blood.

I’ve been aware of this concept for many years, and it’s mentioned at least a few times in every t’ai chi class I take. Although my teacher may talk about ch’i as though it’s tangible, I’ve long thought of it as a metaphorical way of discussing a bundle of abstract concepts—a useful fiction, in other words, just like “spirit” or “love” or “peace.” No one claims to be able to locate someone’s spirit physically within the body, but it’s nevertheless a handy word for talking about certain notions that are not quite covered by more mundane terms such as “brain” or even “mind.”

The Ch’i Tricorder

Imagine my surprise and bewilderment, then, when at a t’ai chi retreat some years ago, the instructor pulled out a small, strange-looking plastic box with blinking LEDs and told us, matter-of-factly, that it was a device that measures ch’i. On the top of the box was a gearlike wheel, giving the device the overall look of a miniature, high-tech phonograph. Supposedly, when you bring your hand near the device, this wheel spins faster or slower depending on the amount of ch’i you have. It’s called an Egely Wheel, and for a mere US$189, you too can have your very own.

During a break, I tried the machine out myself. I tried holding each of my hands in turn near the device, but the wheel did not spin. I tried concentrating, mentally directing energy at the device…still nothing. Then I tried relaxing and casually intending the wheel to move. Again, nothing. Various other people tried it too—sometimes the wheel moved, sometimes it didn’t, even for the same person. But no one appeared to be able to spin the wheel very fast, regardless of their apparent proficiency in t’ai chi. One explanation, of course, is that our ch’i wasn’t very strong. The more tempting explanation is that the device doesn’t actually measure anything.

The Spin Doctor

The Egely wheel is the brainchild of Hungarian scientist Dr. George Egely. According to Egely, he discovered that small objects (such as a small strip of foil) floating in a bowl of water rotated when someone’s hand was held nearby. He initially attributed this effect to heat radiated from the bodies or small air currents generated by breathing, but found that even when shielded from heat or wind, the floating strip exhibited the same effect. His conclusion was that some other, previously unmeasurable energy was causing the motion—namely, ch’i. Egely realized that because the effect was so subtle, it could only be shown by something with extremely low friction, so he developed what he calls a Vitality Meter based on a very lightweight wheel with a specially designed low-friction pivot. As for the electronics, those are used to provide a visual and/or audio indication of the wheel’s speed; if you actually look inside the case you’ll see that there’s no motor—in fact nothing connecting physically to the wheel at all. (Indeed, there’s a non-electronic version of the same device with just the wheel, called a Vitality Indicator, for a mere $49.)

Now, supposing for the moment that this principle really does represent a display of ch’i, it’s not at all apparent to me how a $189 (or $49) gadget is better than a strip of foil floating in a bowl of water. Money aside, though, I can’t say I’m convinced that such motion—to the extent that it does occur with subjects who are obviously more talented than I am—isn’t caused by something quite simple. If not heat or air currents, my guess is that the wheel is responding to vibration. Because it has such low friction, even a tiny amount of vibration (from someone walking nearby, say), could conceivably cause it to move. Any number of devices, from self-winding watches to perpetual-motion machine wannabes, are simply clever machines that convert lateral or vertical vibration into rotation. Quite plausibly, even a vibration too weak to be felt by a person could produce motion in a wheel; nothing mysterious there.

When you get right down to it, I can no more prove that ch’i isn’t moving the wheel than that there’s no such thing as a unicorn. But I really don’t buy it. (And I’m not the only one to regard this claim with some suspicion.) Even if ch’i truly does exist in a non-metaphorical form, I have no particular reason to expect it would cause an object nearby to rotate. On the other hand, if I needed some way of assessing my mental or physical health other than introspection, there are any number of gadgets I could buy for that same $189 that would tell me things I find genuinely useful, such as my body temperature, blood pressure, skin resistance, or brainwave activity. And saving money definitely enhances my ch’i.

Note: This is an updated version of an article that originally appeared on Interesting Thing of the Day on October 8, 2004.

Image credit: Photo courtesy of Aimslab LTD. Used by permission.

Serious pop from the other Dave Stewart

In 1985 I was attending college in New York, and in the great tradition of young people wasting the best years of their lives “experimenting,” I developed an addiction—to synthesizers. I bought what was to be the first of many keyboards and spent countless hours tweaking sounds when ordinary people my age were busy getting drunk and forming bad social habits. I wasn’t much interested in writing songs; what fascinated me most was the process of creating interesting timbres.

I subscribed to Keyboard Magazine, which encouraged my habit in two different ways. First, each issue convinced me that I absolutely needed the latest electronic musical gadgets, thus ensuring a state of perpetual credit card debt. But the magazine also taught me a number of practical skills for making music. One of the magazine’s features at that time was called a Soundpage—a tear-out “Flexidisc” plastic phonograph record. Each month, some well-known keyboard player would put together a special recording, along with an article describing the music and the techniques used to create it.

These Are the Daves I Know

Dave Stewart was the featured artist in the December 1985 issue. The Soundpage article began: “Dave Stewart insists that the other Dave Stewart, co-founding member of the Eurythmics, is not related to him, even though they’re both British, play keyboards, accompany female vocalists, and wear glasses.” (This Dave Stewart had been in the bands Egg, Hatfield & the North, and Bruford; vocalist Barbara Gaskin was once in Spirogyra.) I listened to the recording of “Henry and James” and was instantly hooked. Though the style could be called “synth-pop,” I had never heard music like this. The instrumentation was entirely electronic, but the sounds had been crafted with such skill and care that you could easily forget that fact. In contrast to the prevailing custom, synthesizers were used to maximum musical effect, not to call attention to the fact that the artist was using the latest gear. Meanwhile, Barbara Gaskin’s vocals were hauntingly beautiful, utterly obscuring the song’s rather odd subject matter: two dronelike office workers. I played the single until it was nearly worn out.

Naturally, I had to have more. But their first album, Up From the Dark, was available only on CD. I didn’t have a CD player at the time or even know anyone who did, but I decided I’d buy the CD anyway and figure out how to play it later. I looked in record stores for the next five years and simply couldn’t find it anywhere. Once a store said they’d special-order the CD for me, but it never arrived. I wondered if I would ever hear more of Dave Stewart & Barbara Gaskin.

Then, in 1990, I casually mentioned Up From the Dark to a friend of mine in Texas. “Oh yeah, I have that,” he said. “It has the ‘Siamese Cat Song’ on it; I bought it for my kids.” I was flabbergasted: my quest had ended. After listening to a cassette copy for a few months, I finally tracked down the CD in a used record store. Shortly thereafter, Dave Stewart & Barbara Gaskin released another album, The Big Idea, followed by Spin in 1991.

Extended Coverage

The music on those three albums is quite diverse. Many of the songs are extremely inventive covers—including such strange bedfellows as “Subterranean Homesick Blues” (Bob Dylan), “Amelia” (Joni Mitchell), and “Leipzig” (Thomas Dolby). It was also on Stewart & Gaskin CDs that I first heard “8 Miles High,” “Walking the Dog,” and “It’s My Party,” their version of which became a #1 hit in the U.K. But Stewart’s original compositions, like “Henry and James,” “The Cloths of Heaven” (based on a poem by Yeats), and “Golden Rain,” are my favorites. Although the styles of music vary, the masterful orchestrations, clever interpretations, and luscious vocals give it all a distinctive coherence.

Stewart & Gaskin refer to their work as “pop music for grown-ups.” That’s a terrifically apt description. The songs’ subject matter is sometimes serious and sometimes silly, but it never degenerates into the meaninglessness of most commercial pop music. The duo’s unique mixture of intelligent lyrics and interesting music results in a distinctive style. I think of it as the musical equivalent of gourmet macaroni and cheese: familiar and comforting, yet rich and sophisticated—skillfully made with quality ingredients and adorned with subtle garnishes. The songs tend to have the overall structure, rhythm, and length of pop songs, but an entirely different texture, if you will—one that especially appeals to people who appreciate technical excellence in musical composition, performance, and yes, synthesizer programming.

What Goes Around

After the major labels dismissed Stewart & Gaskin’s music as “too uncommercial,” they started their own label, Broken Records. The lack of commercial pressure allows them an unusual level of artistic integrity and creative freedom. But apart from the occasional odd remix, re-release of a CD single, or compilation album the duo produced no new music for many years after 1991. Every now and then I’d check in on their website, which perpetually promised that a new album was in the works, but after 18 years, I’d pretty much given up hope.

And then, in 2009, much to my surprise and delight, that long-promised album, Green and Blue, finally appeared. In fact, because Stewart & Gaskin had accumulated more new music than would fit on a single CD, they simultaneously released a five-track EP called Hour Moon with the remaining songs (including the Soundpage version of “Henry and James” I’d fallen in love with back in 1985), followed several months later by the 14-track The TLG Collection, featuring rare and unreleased tracks. The following year, they released two new Special Edition CDs: Broken Records: The Singles and As Far As Dreams Can Go, both of which include reworked and extended versions of earlier tracks. The following year, two more Special Edition CDs appeared—updated versions of The Big Idea and Spin.

Apparently Stewart & Gaskin felt that collection of music should be enough to last fans for quite a while, because more than seven additional years would pass before their next offering. In January 2019, the duo released another full-length studio album, Star Clocks. The sound is just what I’ve come to expect from Stewart & Gaskin, including occasional lyrical and musical callbacks to their earlier hits. But as an example of how thoroughly they’ve rejected commercial pop expectations, the average song length on this 11-track album is a full seven minutes.

My one fond wish, which will probably never come true, would be to see a live performance by Dave Stewart & Barbara Gaskin. The duo rarely tours—I’ve found records of a handful of concerts over the years in the U.K. and in Japan, as well as one in Los Angeles back in 1991. But that’s about it. Furthermore, Stewart & Gaskin apparently have a philosophical objection to releasing video recordings of their concerts, so I may not even get a second-hand impression of what their live performances are like. On the other hand, Stewart says that they have no plans to retire and expect to keep making new music for years to come. I sure hope so.

Note: This is an updated version of an article that originally appeared on Interesting Thing of the Day on April 19, 2003, and again in a slightly revised form on March 18, 2005.