Regular Everyday Stuff

Easter stories

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I happened upon a couple of stories on [W:Wikipedia] last night. One is nonsense that has become widely accepted to be based on some truth…

Legend has it that in 1820 Colonel Robert Gibbon Johnson wanted to prove the edibility of the tomato, which many Americans often assumed were poisonous, so he stood on the courthouse steps in [W:Salem County, New Jersey] and ate tomatoes in front of a large amazed crowd assembled to watch him do so… and possibly die.

As the Debunk House points out the story did not appear until decades after the event but somehow managed to become accepted and embellished until it was dramatically reconstructed in a [W:CBS Radio Network] broadcast in the 1940’s which gave it further credence.

The other story is thankfully true…

While Apple were developing the [W:Power Macintosh 7100] they gave it the code name [W:Carl Sagan]. Once Sagan heard about this he sued Apple wanting them to change the name. He lost the case but Apple changed the name anyway… to BHA which meant “Butt-Head Astronomer”. Once Sagan heard about this he sued them again. Again he lost his case. Emboldened by their victories Apple once again changed the name of the project to LAW (Lawyers Are Wimps) but they had no more challengers.

Today the Unreasonable Faith blog has dug up some more interesting stories.

Play time

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A few days off from work presents one with the exciting prospects of doing absolutely nothing. Of course actually doing nothing would be a far too difficult, bordering on the impossible, task. It may appear to others that what you are doing is nothing although you are fully engaged in some activity that, seemingly, has neither purpose nor produces anything worthwhile. The description by [W:R Crumb] of his working patterns strikes me as being pretty good template…

“It’s necessary to “waste” a certain amount of energy in order to allow new ideas to emerge from the random spinning off of doodles, scribbles, worthless foolishness, playful notions, silliness, aimless meandering, wandering down dead-end streets, a few of which may turn out not to be dead-ends. As I say, this is necessary activity… It’s not healthy to always be devoted to a specific direction, a certain idea… The mind becomes rigid, stifled… Sooner or later it’s necessary to break out, to goof off… This isn’t to say that during these relaxed periods you should allow yourself to be passively robbed of your energy [by others] such as TV, books, etc… Part of the time, at least, must be devoted to randomly wandering about in a creative way which may possibly lead to new discoveries within yourself!
It’s difficult to explain… forget it…”

There is a splendid talk by Stuart Brown from a recent TED conference about the importance of play…

So that will be me for the next few days… just pottering about doing a whole lot of “nothing”.

Time you enjoy wasting, was not wasted. – [W:John Lennon] (attributed)