Katy -> Vacation 1999

After spending the first week of my vacation at the Amherst Early Music Festival, Rich came to pick me up. We found that without our jobs to stifle our creativity, we were suddenly full of

Idle Questions

Some of these questions were inspired by reading Cryptonomicon (I came across some words I didn't recognize); others were inspired by sights we saw or towns we were driving through, others just by our (over-) active imaginations. The questions below are organized in the order we thought of them. Any answers I've been able to find are right below the question. If you know the answer to one I've missed (marked with ?), let me know. There are also some pictures of the trip.

 

? Where do Gypsy moths get their name?
? What relation do house cats have to big cats?
? What advantage is there (to a cat) to sleep all day?
? Where does the suffix -fane come from (e.g. Newfane, Stellafane, etc.)
? What's the history of the "bed and breakfast?"
? Where was the first one in the world?
? In the US?
? Why are they so popular now?
? What is "Historic Plymouth Notch", and why is it historic? (near intersection of 100 and 100A)
? What's the difference between a moth and a butterfly?
Some references: Moths of North America, Butterflies of North America, the Butterfly Website
There are 16 times more moth species than butterfly species.
Some rules of thumb to tell the difference:
? Is it physiologically easier to walk up or down a hill?
? Where does the independent congressman from Vermont sit, on the left or right side of the aisle?
? What's the derivation of the suffix -sex in town names like Middlesex or Essex?
? When making cheese, what makes it cheddar cheese instead of Swiss cheese or some other kind of cheese?
? What's the origin of cheddar cheese?
? At what frequency does a hummingbird beat its wings?
Some references:
Yahoo category
The ruby-throated hummingbird beats its wings 40-80 times a second.
Apparently, most hummingbirds flap at about 50 times per second, but can reach up to 200 times a second under extreme conditions.
? What's the origin of the town named Felchville, VT?
Why is it called a steeplechase?
A steeplechase is a horse-race across fields, hedges, ditches, and obstacles of every sort that happen to lie in the way.
The story goes that the term arose from a party of fox-hunters on their return from an unsuccessful chase, who agreed to race to the village church, the steeple of which was in sight; he who first touched the church with his whip was to be the winner. The entire distance was two miles.
? What materials are used to make guard rails?
? Are guard rails made of different things in different parts of the country?
? In different countries?
? How often do the wooden posts on guard rails in Vermont need to be replaced? How does this compare to other materials?
? What's the story behind "Agony Hill Road" (north of Felchville on Rt. 106)
What's the origin of the term Northeast Kingdom when referring to Northern Vermont?
Although there is some discussion on when and where this gentleman said it, the words "Northeast Kingdom" were first officially voiced by a beloved former governor and U.S. Senator George Aiken.
Aiken loved to come to this area to fish and was said to utter at an economic development meeting 50 years ago that this place was so pretty it should be a Kingdom, a Northeast Kingdom.
Various parts of the Kingdom claim Aiken said it first while fishing in a northern river or at a meeting in their town, but the most often retold story involves Aiken saying it a group meeting that was the precursor of the Northeastern Vermont Development Association at the Darling Inn in Lyndonville in 1949.
Thanks for asking.
The Northeast Kingdom Chamber of Commerce
? Does the town name Litchfield derive from Graveyard?
? Who was John Brown? (A memorial plaque in Tarrington, CT)

Questions inspired by the books we were reading

I seem to have had more of these questions that Rich did. We were reading Cryptonomicon and the 13th Annual Collection of the Year's Best Science Fiction. Thanks to Onelook, I found most of the definitions.

 

What does Myrmidon refer to?
Classical Myth: one of the warlike people of ancient Thessaly who accompanied Achilles, their king, to the Trojan War.
What is Lucius Shepherd doing these days?
He has a new short story collection out.
Here's his bibliography.
Some recent (11/1998) commentary.
What's the definition of epiphyte?
A plant growing on, but not parasitic on another plant.(Like moss or orchids.)
http://www.graylab.ac.uk/cgi-bin/omd?epiphyte
What does cahoutchouc mean?
It's French for rubber. See, this for example. (Babelfish may be helpful here.)
What does turn mean in "turn of brackish ice water"? Is it correct or perhaps a typo for tun?
My guess is that it is, in fact a typo for tun, given the larger context of being buffeted by hazardous weather.
Is there an epiphyte.com? How about tombstone.epiphyte.com?
Yes and No. epiphyte.com is owned by Avon books, but does not seem to have any important ports open. tombstone.epiphyte.com appears not to exist.
What does semiotics mean?
The study of signs and symbols, and how people derive meaning from them.
http://www.arts.ouc.bc.ca/fiar/glossary/s_list.html#semiotics
http://advertising.utexas.edu/research/terms/#S
http://www.dictionary.com/cgi-bin/dict.pl?term=semiotics
How about plesisynchronus?
This word is not found in any dictionary I know of. It's a coined word meaning "almost at the same time", from the greek root plesio-, meaning near, and synchronous, meaning simultaneous. Here's the context from the book:

Magnificent isn't the word you would normally use to describe Tom Howard; he's burly and surly, completely lacking in social graces, and doesn't apologize for it. Most of the time he sits silently, wearing an expression of sphinxlike boredom, and so it's easy to forget how good he is.

But during this particular half hour of Tom Howard's life, it is of the essence that he be magnificent. He is going blade-to-blade with the Seven Samuriai here: the nerdiest high-octane Ph.D.s and the scariest private-security dicks that Asia can produce. One-by-one they come after him and he cuts their heads off and stacks them on the table like cannon-balls. Several times he has to stop and think for sixty seconds before delivering the deathblow. Once he has to ask Eberhard Föhr to make some calculations on his laptop. Occasionally he has to call on the cryptographic expertise of John Cantrell, or to look over at Randy for a nod or shake of the head. But eventually, he shuts the hecklers up. Beryl wears a not very convincing smile throughout the entire thing. Avi just grips the arms of his chair, his knuckles going from blue to white to pink to a normal healthy glow over the course of the final five minutes, when it's clear that the Samurai are withdrawing in disarray. It makes Randy want to empty a six-shooter into the ceiling and holler, "Yeee-haaw!" at the top of his lungs.

Instead, he listens, just in case Tom gets tripped up in the briar patch of plesiosynchronus protocol arcana, whence only Randy can drag him out. [...]

And encomium?
A formal expression of praise, like a eulogy.
http://shoga.wwa.com/~rgs/gl-e.html#encomium
http://www.bibliomania.com/Reference/PhraseAndFable/data/417.html#encomium
http://humanities.byu.edu/rhetoric/encomium.htm
Who was Antaeus?
A Titan who renewed his strength by touching the earth. He was slain when Heracles held him away from the ground.
See http://www.antaeus.org/Legend.html for details of the legend.
What does ab initio mean?
Latin for "from the start"
http://dictionary.law.com/definition.asp?letter=A
http://www.lectlaw.com/def/a119.htm
What does barangays mean?
By context, and analogy with the Spanish barrio, this means neighborhood. I haven't found any specific definitions online, however.
Here's the context:

[...] The fork in the river around which this town was nucleated was meeting-point of unofficial turfs of three such different cultures. Lure of bright lights, or even dim, flickering ones, has draw thousands down from mountains in recent generations to establish several distinct barangays.

? What's a Penrose tile?
A couple of answers to this one. Explanation forthcoming. For now, some links I haven't checked out yet:
http://www.traipse.com/penrose_tiles/index.html
http://www.dartmouth.edu/~matc/math5.pattern/lesson6math.html
A cartoon featuring Penrose tiles.
Is parlous a typo for perilous?
Nope, probably not. It means: dangerously shrewd or cunning, or full of danger and risk (See Merriam Webster online.)
What does teratomic mean?
Cancer-ridden.

Credits

These people helped me out with answers.

They also recommended some research sources:

No solicitation beyond this point.
Don't even think of adding me to your mailing list. Put up a web page I'm interested in, and let me ask you for information.
Comments? Questions? Send mail to Katy

This page was last modified on 1999/10/01