Hey DougO, Where ya been?

No new posts in over a year?  What's up with that?

They don't call it the Poop deck for nothing. Do they?

Q: So Doug-O what part of the ship is the poop deck, and why in Salacious Crumb do they call it a poop deck? Is there some misunderstanding of the word poop and it actually has nothing to do with feces? Did they just think it was funny? Please explain.

A: The "poop deck" of a ship is the raised platform at the back that forms the roof of the aft deck cabin.  The back end of a ship (the aft end, in naval parlance) is called the stern (as opposed to the bow in front), and the word for stern in French is la poupe.  Ha ha.  Poupe.  At any rate, the poop deck was where the helmsman stood to steer the ship, as well as the captain and his officers when they weren't occupied elsewhere, since the raised perspective gave an excellent view of the the deck, the rigging, and the horizon in all directions.  As the poop deck was the command center, where all the most important decisions radiated from, maybe this is the root of the term "the straight poop".

Why the English, constantly at war with "Pierre" across the channel, tolerated naming an important part of their ships with a French term is hard to imagine.  Maybe the average sailor just didn't know that they were doing so, and the officers were too well-bred to make a fuss about it.  Maybe it was simply that everyone on board was constantly on a low-level drunk from grog and so used to weird naval terms like "scuppers", "larboard", "bowsprit" and "figgy dowdy" that "poop" didn't sound unusual.

He Chose...Poorly.

Q: Hey DougO. I meant to ask this an eon ago, but a baby got in the way. Now I finally have time to address real issues. Thus: I was sitting in my bathroom one day, um, relaxing, and happened to notice a tiny little spider had spun it's web in the bottom corner behind the door. It was just sitting there, waiting. So it occurred to me, how patient are spiders? I mean, if real estate is all about location, location, location, then this little guy just bought a money-pit in downtown Beirut. No way was he ever going to catch anything there to feed on. So how long will a spider wait for prey before it packs up and moves? Will it just sit there and die?

A: You would be surprised how little people seem to worry about spiders starving to death.  Most research into that sort of thing seems to have been done by exterminators, who would rather not tell you how it can be accomplished if they can charge you for it instead.

I have managed to dredge up some pertinant information, though.  First, spiders are always a little thirsty, so much so that scientists have been able to attract them with syringes full of liquid.  It's at that point that they feed them LSD or THC, then film the webs thay make and laugh at them, subsequently putting the results up on YouTube.  Take into account that spiders are liquivores, living on the inside juices of their prey, and you can see how they are consequently also hungry all the time.  This is good conditioning for a predator, but bad for developing patience.

Complicating this problem for the spider is that most species of spider that build webs are entirely dependent on the web for food and information about its surroundings.  They are nearly blind, and use the vibrations of the web itself to read air currents and interpret sounds.  Their only option, therefore, is to build a web in a likely spot for smaller company and hope.  It doesn't hurt their chances to build where it is dark and slightly damp, too, so that they dry out slower.

Some exterminators have mentioned (reluctantly) that wrecking a spider's web and then hampering its attempts to repair or rebuild it will eventually cause the spider to starve.  But there wasn't much information on how long that might take.  Given that a Black Widow can live up to five years, and a Bird-Eating spider maybe 15 years, it's hard to guess what their staying power is, as opposed to, say, flies, who might die in a day or two under the best conditions.  

I would propose an experiment.  Search around for a spider that seems to be successful, then observe it over a period of time and see how many bugs it seems to be consuming per day.  That should give you a round figure, per ounce of spider.  Then, if your bathroom spider does go to that Big Creepy House in the Sky, feed it to the successful spider.

Numbers, Numbers everywhere so let's all have a drink.

Dear Doug,

Q: On my computer keyboard, the number pad starts with 1 on the bottom row. On my phone the numbers start with 1 on the top row.

Why are these two similar systems diametrically opposed? Is it like the struggle of capitalism vs. socialism? Why can't we all just get along?

A: Hm.  This one doesn't have the same answer as the "QWERTY" layout for keyboards, which was a mechanical solution to jamming early typewriters.  But it may be something similar, on a a psychological level, giving the user what they expect for the function of the pad.

I have no conclusive proof for this theory, but here it is.

Computer number pads are arranged in the same configuration as the buttons on a calculator, counting up from the bottom from 0.  This would be the expected behavior for early mass-produced computers, since they were (until a decade or two ago, in fact) considered to be nothing much more than very complicated and powerful calculators themselves.  VisiCalc, a spreadsheet program, was the first "killer app" for personal computers after all, and the reason people bought them in the early days - as a piece of accounting hardware.

Cell phones, however, developed from landline phones with keypads, which in turn developed from rotary phones.  Rotary phones counted upwards from 1,  starting at the top and going counter-clockwise around the dial to end at 0, which, besides being a number, represented the "O" in "Operator", making it a special space on the dial.  When phones moved from rotary to tuoch-tone dialing, the format of 1 to 9 going down with 0 in a special place at the bottom was maintained for familiarity and ease of use.  When equivalents for letters were needed, the letters of the alphabet were arranged in the same way, going from A to Z in groups in the same arrangement as the numbers, with the special buttons * and # at the bottom with the magic 0.

The problem, as you've already figured out, is when cell phones are computers, as is almost universally the case now.  No open warfare has broken out, and as far as I know, no one has mysteriously disappeared due to conflicts over how keypads are laid out.  So I have to conclude, even given that this is a mystery, that no secret societies are involved.

Well,... of course the vampires and the Bavarian Illuminati are involved, but that's always a given.

The Vomiting Conundrum

So my wife and son are sick with a virus that causes both vomiting and the diarrhea. As anyone who shares close quarters with sickies knows I am going to get the virus. Its just a matter of when. Knowing that at any moment the virus could strike me I have been choosing my meals based purely on how pleasant or unpleasant they will be on the return trip. So the question DougO is...

Q: If you knew you were going to be vomiting it back up at some point but it was dinner time and you were hungry, what would you eat?

A: My guess is that this is the reason for the old adage "feed a cold and starve a fever".  Or was it "starve a cold..."?  Nah.  Let's go with the first one.  At any rate, a fever is more likely to come with a stomach virus, and around the onset of such things you are unlikely to feel like a big lunch, anyway.  But, for this case, say that you are a bit peckish.  Reason dictates that you want something without much texture, like broth or jello.  I always find the chunkier foods the least pleasant to revisit later.  But, of course, this is up to your personal taste in textures.  

I might also suggest that eating bland foods and foods that are easier on the digestion could forestall having to chuck it up later at all, working on the theory that your body has a tipping point that, once passed, triggers the response.  Keeping your body from getting to that point might mean you could ride the brief illness out without incident.

Personally, I take a more grimly determined route.  Considering how many things can upset my stomach, and given that most of those causes are transitory (or caused by not having eaten, or eaten the right things), I tend to eat whatever I want as long as I still have appetite.  I won't eat sausage or raw jalapenos, of course, but I won't starve myself just because I might be sick later.  Proper sustenance is, after all, part of good health.  Bring it on, agents of disease.  Let's see what you got.

The Deadly Sneeze

Q: There is one myth I don't see ever being tested on Mythbusters: that sneezing with your eyes open will cause your eyes to pop out of their sockets. Any truth to this? It's obviously not something I'm willing to try.

A: Authorities of no less prominence than Cecil Adams of The Straight Dope claim that there is no truth to this rumor, although one of his readers claims to have burst blood vessels in his eyes in the attempt.  I don't know if this seond claim is true, but it seems to follow reason that you will hurt yourself whenever you try to short-circuit your body's defense mechanisms (seeing if you can avoid flinching when hitting your fingers with a hammer, say).  So your caution is well-founded, even if you are likely to avoid having to shove your eyeballs back in if you try it.  

Incidentally, in the interest of related scientific discovery, my sons have determined that you do not explode if you burp, fart and sneeze at the same time.

Fingernails in our future?

Q: Hey Doug, why do humans have fingernails? It seems we should have evolved past them, seeing as they don't do more than fray and annoy and grow funny. Do you see a future without them?

A: Most sources say basically the same thing about fingernails and toenails: that nails protect sensitive nerve endings in the fingers, that both sets are leftovers from claws, and that they are (just FYI) made of keratin - the same material that claws and hooves are made of in other animals. Some sources claim, incorrectly, that the nails developed to protect the delicate nail bed. That's like saying phones lines were developed to give telephone poles meaning and purpose. But I digress. At least one source explains the current shape of fingernails and toenails as an adaptive reaction to the broadening of our grasping appendages, used to lift us off of the plains and into the safety of the trees. Our fingers developed more surface area for gripping, so nails became a flatter protection for the sensitive ends. Probably true, but that doesn't really explain "why nails instead of claws?", since many tree-living species get along just fine with claws to adhere themselves to branches and tree trunks. My favorite suggestion was that fingernails made it easier to pick body lice off of oneself or a comrade. I guess that was a pretty serious problem at the time. Or a source of protein.

As for whether we will ever lose nails for lack of use, I recommend that you try getting along without them for a few days. Trim them back or tape your fingers, as one writer suggests, and you'll see how soon you miss them. Having recently had two of my fingernails gouged out, I can tell you I missed them more than I ever missed a phillips head screwdriver. When the bomb drops and everyone is scrambling for that last FreshPak of bologna, I think the survivors will be the ones who can get that little zipper thing open without having to hunt down a pair of scissors from the smouldering, radioactive wreckage.