When you mix regular off-the-shelf cornstarch with regular from-the-tap water you get yourself a physical anomaly. A substance that can be both a liquid and a solid at the same temperature.

It’s called a non-Newtonian fluid because it doesn’t behave according to the what Sir Isaac Newton discovered about the viscosity (flow) of liquids. In this case the corsntarch-water goo, often called “oobleck”, will slowly pour like a thick fluid under normal circumstances, but if stress is added, the fluid will firm up and break like a solid.

If you have the budget to fill a swimming pool with it, you can easily walk straight across the top as each footstep applies force to the oobleck, firming it up under your foot. However, if you stop, you will sink in, and have a very difficult time getting out. Any attempt to pull yourself up will again firm up the fluid in your path.

You can make some for yourself. Put some cornstarch in a bowl, and slowly stir in water. Keep adding water and stirring slowly until you feel it thickening up. The approximate recipe is 2 parts cornstarch to 1 part water, and just enough food colouring to make it more exciting than mathematics. You’ll know when you get it just right as you’ll be able to pick it up, and roll it into a rubbery ball in your hands. But the moment you stop rolling it will melt and drip back into the bowl. Or, more likely, all over the floor. This is messy science.

The reason this happens is that the structure of cornstarch comes in long chains of atoms bonded together. This is called a polymer. When things are flowing slowly, the chains can slip past each other, but as things speed up the chains get tangled and stuck making the structure more solid. It’s like trying to run through a crowd of people. You have to move slow if you want to get anywhere.

Watch this demonstration of some oobleck placed on a speaker cone. A low-frequency hum is put through the speaker, causing vibrations. As the stress is applied to the fluid it begins to come to life, building solid structures.

Link to Youtube Video

Other everyday non-Newtonian fluids included silly putty, which can stretch or snap depending on how fast you pull it.

Also, ketchup… which explains why it’s so slow to come out of the bottle. It requires a certain amount of force (usually gravity) before it will start flowing, but once it starts it moves easier. Whenever you drown your french fries in a sudden splurge of ketchup, it’s not Newton’s fault.

• Source: Goo Recipe – Colorado State Physics

It’s Harry Houdini‘s birthday today. In his honour let’s talk about locks. As a famous escape artist, lock picking was his bread and butter.

First, let’s understand how a lock works. I’ll only be talking about the common pin-tumbler lock. (usually called a Yale lock, after its inventor in 1860) This is the sort you likely have on your front door, with a key having a series of mountains and valleys of different heights. While your key may slide into other locks, the height of those bumps determines whether or not it will turn.

Brass pins stop the lock cylinder from turning and un-latching the door. Each pin is in two parts, and it must be lined up precisely for the cut in the pin to align with the edge of the turning cylinder. If even one of those pins (most locks have five) is too high or too low the pin will bind and prevent turning.

The proper key corresponds to the cuts in the pins to set everything in alignment. If you’ve ever dealt with an old lock, or a poorly cut key, you may have had to jiggle the key to get the lock to work. That’s actually very similar to the process of picking a Yale lock.

Essentially, to pick a lock you randomly move the pins up and down until you get them to the right height. However, if they move freely up and down it seems unlikely that you’ll suddenly find them all aligned at once. Even if you did, you would never know if you didn’t turn the lock at that moment. So, step one of picking a lock is to apply some torque.

You turn the cylinder of the lock, twisting it with a small screwdriver, so that the pins are squeezed against the chamber walls. Now, with friction the pins will not slide freely up and down, but they can be moved by tapping gently with your lock pick. (a professional lock pick will have a small steel spring attached so you can “twang” it and create a subtle tapping motion) In a poorly made lock that has lots of give you may feel the moment when the first pin aligns. The torque should hold that in place as you move in to the second pin, and so on.

For any modern day Houdini a standard Yale lock is not too big a challenge, which is why many apartment buildings and offices employ more complex locks (such as Medeco brand). These require precise pin rotation in addition to height.

• Source: Due to my interest in magic, this is just stuff I have in my brain.
• Disclaimer: this information is provided for entertainment and protection purposes only.

When you are writing something (e.g. an article, book, blog) and you want to add some more information (i.e. supplement your text with additional facts) then it’s time to pull out your letters.  (i.e. e.g. and i.e.) (e.g. i.e., e.g.)

The trouble is knowing which one to use. Having just learned this myself, I shudder to think of my willy-nilly usage that is no doubt scattered throughout this blog. Each has its specific purpose and meaning.

i.e. is an abbreviation of the Latin phrase id est. You can think of it as meaning “that is to say”, and it can be used to re-phrase or elaborate upon your thought in order to increase understanding. (i.e. another way of saying it might make more sense to the reader)

e.g. is quite different and is an abbreviation of exempli gratia that can be taken to mean “for example”.  So you could complete your thought then include a brief list of supporting cases. As a side-by-side comparison…

I like felines. (e.g. cougars, cheetahs, pumas)

I like felines. (i.e. the Felinae subfamily of the Felidae family)

In order to remember the difference it may be helpful to think of e.g. meaning “examples given”. (or maybe just “eg-zample”?) It is suggested that i.e. could equal “in effect” but that seems obtuse to me. I’ll remember “examples given” and i.e. simply becomes “the other one”.

Bonus points if you don’t add etc. to the end of your list of examples. The etcetera is redundant as e.g. already defines it as an incomplete list.

• Source: Common Errors in English Usage

For most people, including myself, the process of eating a chicken wing was not pretty. Nibbling, gnawing and doing whatever it takes to get your 25 cents worth of honey-glazed nourishment. Well I just learned an amazingly efficient method to eat a chicken wing, that I’d love to share with you for “casual Friday”.

Note to my vegetarian readers: If you’re less than excited about this new and improved way to devour animals, may I direct your attention to my previous posts on how to cut an onion without crying, or how to saute mushrooms like a pro.

Now, there are two types of chicken wings. There’s the “drumette” bit which looks like a small drumstick. That would be the upper arm of the chicken. Today we are dealing with only the mid-section of the wing that has two parallel bones. (the third section, the tip, is rarely served with a wing platter because it doesn’t have much meat on it)

Step one: Locate the nubby end of the wing with the exposed cartilage and protruding bones. This would have been the chicken elbow. You want to tear that end off the wing to expose the ends of the bones. The guy I learned this from eats that bit, but remember, elbows are gross.

Step two: Grab the end of the little bone, and pull and wiggle it away from the bigger bone. This loosens the connection on the other end of the wing, so the little bone should be able to slide right out cleanly. If the wing is properly cooked, the bone should come right out all naked.

Step three: Grab the remaining bigger bone, holding the other end of the wing with the other hand, and twist the bone so it also detaches and gently slide it out. Again, it should come out clean.

Step four: You’re left with a completely boneless wing. Dip it once, and pop the whole thing in your mouth. Or, if you’re more dainty, make it a two-bite affair. Either way, you can enjoy it thoroughly without looking like a hungry squirrel.

• Source: http://foodwishes.blogspot.com/2009/10/making-world-better-place-one-chicken.html (with a video if you want to see it in action)

Closing out the first ever theme week on the topic of deception, here’s a little do-it-yourself deceit lesson. Of course, it comes with the disclaimer that this is in the interest of protecting yourself from cheats, not to inflict it upon others… promise?

So you find yourself playing poker with your grandma and your uncle. As you give ‘em the ol’ steely-eyed gaze you realize they are pretty lax about standard card table procedure. Those procedures, such as cutting the deck before dealing, that are in place to prevent cheating. As grandma goes to check on the casserole again during the deal, you decide her and uncle Max are ripe for a fleecing.

There are countless ways to cheat in a casual home game of cards. Dealing cards from the bottom of the deck is handy, but takes years of practice. Here’s one trick you can use that doesn’t take much skill… just guts. In the cardsharp lingo it’s called holding out. It is the real life “ace up the sleeve”, except sleeves are not very practical.

We’ll assume your playing some sort of draw poker, wherein you are holding a five-card hand. (while Texas Hold’em is the popular game these days, it’s harder to cheat when you only get two cards, and they generally stay on the table) So, your first hand is nothing special, but it does contain an ace. You wanna keep that. Bring that ace to the face of your packet, and as you casually wait for your turn, the hand holding the cards naturally comes near the table edge, and subtly thumbs the ace off to fall into your lap. Obviously, make sure nobody can see in your lap.

When it comes your turn to fold, you toss the four remaining cards onto the table. Ideally, you can aim for another folded packet so the cards mix, obscuring their numbers. Now you are holding out an ace. In the action of adjusting your chair, you can tuck it under your leg for long term storage. Later on you will hopefully find yourself with one or two other aces in your freshly dealt hand and it may be a good time to ring in your secret ace.

One hand goes south to retrieve the ace, and as you transfer your packet of cards from one hand to another (near the table edge) the card gets added. You can then ditch the un-wanted sixth card using the same drop-in-the-lap move as before. (and remember what that card is for the next time!)

So it’s not a tricky move, but you want to get the timing right. A fun, casual game is full of distraction. Somebody is digging in the chip bowl, a person walks by to chat, the casserole is burning. Like a ninja, use these to your advantage. Grandma had it coming to her anyways.

• Source: the book “How To Cheat Your Friends At Poker” (at least I think this trick is in there… it’s a fun book either way)

I’m a bit of a schoolmarm when it comes to word usage. I don’t get upset or annoyed by improper use but, as evidenced by my discovery about mispronouncing ‘often’, I do my best to keep my words in order. Here’s a few more common errors made with words…

everyday or every day: I see this one all the time in my blog statistics as people search for “learn something new everyday” (the more common, but incorrect, word choice). Every day means something that happens continuously each day. Everyday, on the other hand, does not refer to frequency, but rather something that is common. Think “everyday people”, or “everyday clothes”.

Ninja letters: I also try to keep my eye out for letters lurking in the dark. Words like library, Wednesday, and February have those tricky little bumps that really ought to be enunciated.

it’s or its: You can go back over this blog and surely find multiple mess-ups on this one. I often get mixed up between its and it’s. We’re used to writing “the dog’s ball”, where the apostrophe signifies the ball belongs to the dog. However, it’s incorrect to write “the dog is brown, it’s ball is red.” The only time you can use it’s is as a contraction of it is. All other times, use plain old its.

there, their, and they’re: Another little detail that often gets mixed up is these three homonyms. There refers to the location, their is a matter of belonging, and they’re is a contraction of they are. I’m pretty good about keeping them straight, but I’m terrible about spelling their correctly. I always get mixed up by possibly the worst “rule” of the english language; “I before E except after C”.

(for the record, here’s a few other common “jail words”, as my grade two teacher would say: beige, conscience, deity, dreidel, eight, either, feign, feint, feisty, foreign, forfeit, freight, heifer, heigh-ho, height, heinous, heir, heist, neighbour, neither, rein, science, seismic, seize, sheik, society, sovereign, veil, vein, weight, weir)

I don’t mean to sound like a nit-picky grump. Its no big deal, as their are people making these mistakes pretty much everyday. Even on wendsdays at the libary. But if you do catch yourself, now you can make an effort to fix it.

• Source: Just me. My grade two teacher would put rule-breaking words inside a little birdcage… I guess the lesson stuck.

Tomorrow morning I vanish off the face of the earth, technologically speaking, for eight days. I’m leaving and I’ll be totally un-wired. I was planning on writing eight extra LSNED facts this weekend, and scheduling them to trickle out while I was gone. Eight. That’s a lot. Each one takes over an hour to uncover, research, write, and illustrate. I worried about it. I hated the thought of a lapse in my once-a-day continuity (this post marks 70 days without a hiccup). Surely I’d be letting down my readers. As the weekend arrived, the task grew from a worry to a stress.

Just now, at the moment I began writing this, I freed myself from that un-fun, stressful task simply… with a shrug. Here’s some suggestions that may help you de-stress your life.

#1 – Realize it probably doesn’t matter. The majority of what seems critically important today has a very short life span. It will dull by tomorrow, and by months end be a faded memory. My “legacy” of once-a-day-every-day posts, I realized, really only mattered to me. The rest of the world will be un-affected, if they even notice.

#2 – Play matters. Play often. I feel it’s very important for adults to do things that don’t matter at all, except that you enjoy doing them. The key is to release any feelings of guilt. As Dr. Stuart Brown explains in this video, play is vital, beneficial, and makes you smarter. Writing this blog is play, except when I feel “forced” to write eight posts in one day!

#3 – Shop less. Much stress is caused by the earn/spend life cycle. It’s very easy to buy things we don’t need, then spend more unnecessary time working to pay for those useless items. I know some people go shopping as a form of entertainment. Yikes! I personally have a wait-and-see tactic. If I feel the urge to buy something, I don’t give in then and there. I wait to see if I still want it next week, or next month. (this rule does not apply to chocolate bars)

#4 - Move slower. The most stressful part of rushing, for me, is that your mind is focused on where you intend to end up rather than where you are. The zen concept is “being in the moment”, and the folk version is “stopping to smell the flowers”. Take things slow and be mindful of what you’re doing. The insight that comes from that also helps you to discover certain tasks that may not really matter, as above. (I made the decision to not write those 8 posts while laying in a hammock)

#5 – Don’t worry, be happy. If a fish can learn to sing, dag nabbit you better listen! Don’t worry. Worry will never change anything. Either do something about it, or accept that the thing in question is beyond your control. There is never a good reason to worry. Be happy. Author Dan Millman says to practice unreasonable happiness, which is simply being happy without any particular reason. You and only you are 100% responsible for your mood.

I do appreciate all you folks who visit, read, and hopefully enjoy my blog.  I’ll be back again with fact-filled daily posts after my adventure. In the meantime, I encourage you to try applying some of these thoughts to your life. If you do run short on facts, be sure to check out any of the other 69 posts I’ve made around here.

• Source: cobbled from various collected wisdom and things that I at least try to practice in my daily life.