Friday Four

1. Reports from daycare indicate that Little Man might deserve a new nickname: Little Ladies' Man. The boy kissed two girls in one day, and likes to give lots of hugs.

And yet he still finds time to get big points with his old man. His latest score was, one day when I was a little irritated with him, to come over to me with his flat cap -- the kind I wear -- for me to put it on his head. His beaming completely wiped all of that away. That made my day.

2. Bacon, once demonized, has more than made up lost ground in the marketplace to say the least. This wasn't a mere fad, and it was happening long before those who claimed it had health benefits were being heard:

In terms of economic impact, nothing beats bacon. While most food trends tend to trickle down from the gourmet market into the mouths of mass consumers, that wasn't the case with bacon. Bacon mania was sparked not in the kitchens of fancy restaurants in New York or Chicago, but in the pork industry's humble marketing offices in Iowa, where people like Joe Leathers engineered a turnaround for an underappreciated cut of pig.

I didn't need Joe Leathers to help me appreciate bacon, but I'll be the first to thank him for his fine work.

3. The eruption of Krakatoa was so loud that a few people heard the sound on its way to circling the world four times:

... It was heard 1,300 miles away in the Andaman and Nicobar islands ("extraordinary sounds were heard, as of guns firing"); 2,000 miles away in New Guinea and Western Australia ("a series of loud reports, resembling those of artillery in a north-westerly direction"); and even 3,000 miles away in the Indian Ocean island of Rodrigues, near Mauritius ("coming from the eastward, like the distant roar of heavy guns.") In all, it was heard by people in over 50 different geographical locations, together spanning an area covering a thirteenth of the globe. [footnote markers removed]

A small taste is provided for the reader in the form of an amateur video of a volcanic eruption, in which signs of the sonic boom are visible a little bit before the gunshot-like sound becomes audible.

4. In the mood for a shaggy dog tale? Then I have one for you: "Inside the Russian Short Wave Radio Enigma".

-- CAV