Today is the anniversary of the dedication of the main branch of the New York Public Library, a landmark which was officially opened on May 23, 1911. This is the iconic library building on 5th Avenue, with an entrance guarded by two stone lions (Patience and Fortitude) and a grand reading room that is a wonder to behold.

“Photo by DAVID ILIFF. License: CC-BY-SA 3.0”

The room is 77 feet wide and 295 feet long – longer than a Boeing 747 and able to take people more places. It is a shrine to knowledge, a temple of learning, and is lined with thousands of books – exactly the type of place where it would be impossible for me to read a book.

As a child, teenager and even as an adult, I am almost unengrossable. Oh, I love to read, but no matter what I’m doing,  my head keeps lifting up to gaze around the room.  It takes me twice as long as most people to read a book because of all the necessary daydreaming that has to happen at the end of chapters, after significant paragraphs, and often in between words.

The New York Public Library is magnificent.  But if you’re building a reading room, give me something with the grandeur removed –  a shabby closet, some pillows and a desk lamp.

Any place without a lot of stuff to look at.

Where do you go to read?

I love an eclipse.

The feature I love most is that we talk it up and then tell people not to look. Properly paying attention to an eclipse requires discipline. In our media-saturated, spectacle hungry world, that doesn’t happen very often.

Sunday evening’s annular eclipse will present an obscured sun with a bright “ring of fire” around the outside edge for those in the prime viewing area. The moon is a bit distant from the earth right now (wasn’t it just SUPER?) so its disc won’t cover the sun completely.

For we Minnesotans, there’s a chance we’ll get a view of a partially covered sun at sunset. This nifty animation from NASA shows how the moon shadow will cross the earth from West to East, with the “ring of fire” viewing area represented by the startling red dot that makes a quick entrance at daybreak over Asia, lingers longest just south of the Aleutians, and zooms eastward at sunset over the USA. I expect to see plenty of cool photos Monday morning.

Here in the upper midwest I think that means we’ll get a Sunday sunset missing a chunk, assuming the clouds let us see it. But remember, don’t look! Use the camera obscura technique, projecting the image on a viewable surface. To help you remember not to look, here’s a little warning poem.

Don’t look directly at the sun
Whilst it becomes eclipsed
A pinhole camera shows it
as a backwards crescent, flipsed.

If you don’t have the time or interest to make a pinhole camera, find a leafy tree placed between a low western horizon and a blank wall. Apparently spaces between leaves work effectively as pinhole cameras, casting lots of tiny eclipse images. You might get something like this.

Images of the sun during a solar eclipse through the leaves of a tree. October 3, 2005, St Juliens, Malta

Or we could just get a cloudy western sky and a gloomy sunset. Don’t get your hopes up, but don’t get your eyeballs fried. Seriously. Avoid looking directly at it.

Name something you really cannot bear to watch.

Today’s post comes directly from everyone’s favorite PDA (Personal Downside Anticipator), Bathtub Safety Officer Rafferty.

Egads! Another horrifying science story!

Last time I wrote to you, it was about the deeply troubling exploration of Lake Vostok – a line of scientific inquiry being conducted by Russian geniuses without any allowance of the dangerous precedents set in countless science fiction and horror movies!

Now scientists are making progress in an area where their abilities and imagination are sorely needed, doing work that will someday yield great benefits for millions of deserving paralyzed individuals and through them, all mankind, by making it possible for injured people to operate artificial appendages with their brains.

But! Once again science has failed to allow for what I call the EGF – the Evil Genius Factor.

There is no question that the usual assortment of black-hearted lab rats will appropriate any technology used to create a mind-controlled robot arm, and will turn its power towards the dark side.

No Question! One need look no further than a Spider Man nemesis, Doctor Octopus! Do I want powerful hydraulic arms controlled by my thoughts? If you think the answer could possibly be ‘no’, I will pick you up by the heels with my metallic fingers and shake you like a Homer Hanky.

Science will create it, industry will provide it, and villains will put it to work!

In fact, thought controlled appliances of every kind are on the way and will soon be ubiquitous, multiplying just like the wireless devices we thought were so nifty just ten years ago! Even you Baboons, based on your impulsive conversation yesterday about coffee shops, would certainly fall for the thought-triggered Mr. Coffee drip-pot now being developed in a secret underground lab outside Seattle. Every time java crosses your mind, this infernal brewt will produce another $3 drink and charge it to your account. How long will it take to put you in the poor house once that machine hits the market?

I don’t need proof. I know this will happen! The question is – once your brain is wired like a garage door opener, how much trouble would it be to reverse the circuit and operate YOU like a model airplane?

It’s too bad that Evil Geniuses have to ruin something good for all of us once again, but When I think about all the different ways this amazing technology can be misused, I shudder. And what if your robotic arm also responds to your dreams? You know which ones I mean – the truly weird ones! Who will be responsible for the mayhem that rises out of that connection?

Sorry, paralyzed people. Thought controlled robotic arms must be stopped!

Your paranoid friend,
Bathtub Safety Officer Rafferty

BSO Rafferty has a point, but just a minor one. I can’t help but think this technology will do a lot of good -more than the evil he imagines.

Or will it?

Today’s post comes from idea man and deal maker Spin Williams.

Great news on the wires today! Researchers started to wonder about sleepwalking. Who knows why? Lying awake, I guess. But they decided to ask people if they’ve ever sleepwalked, and the results were a surprise.

Almost one third of those responding said they had! That’s amazing. How did they know? I thought the whole point of sleepwalking was lack of awareness at the time and a total absence of recollection afterwards.

If you go for a moonlight stroll and remember it, that’s just walking!

And they neglected to ask if any of the 16,000 people they called were sleepwalking AT THAT MOMENT! That’s the FIRST question I’d ask, but then I’m not a scientist. So let’s assume the REAL number of sleepwalkers is MUCH larger than this survey indicates. How much larger could it be? I don’t know! But then, I’m not very alert right now. I think my brain is only half switched on. I might be sleep WRITING.

Egads! What if EVERYBODY sleepwalks! And if they do, what if EVERYBODY has the potential to sleep WORK? And I’m not talking about the poor minimum wage earner who takes on three jobs to feed the family and can hardly keep his eyes open while manning the cash register at your local convenience store. I’m talking about the person who THINKS he only has TWO jobs, but there’s a THIRD he doesn’t know about.

At ALL!

I’m a business man, so I find this VERY exciting. If we could follow the Chinese example and house our workers in dormitories attached to the plant, we would have a whole zombie workforce waiting around to power a shadow economy. Sleepworkers could be trained to march to their posts when they roll out of bed, their eyes as vacant as the Bride of Frankenstien’s. And because they don’t remember that they’re putting in the hours, you don’t have to pay them. Not a thing! In fact, it would break the law to pay them, because paying them would call attention to their sleep WORK job, which would wake them up to the idea that they’re being used. And you should NEVER wake up a sleepwalker!

Sleepworkers could do great things for us, especially in highly sensitive defense-related industries where secrecy is important. If your sleepworkers don’t even know they’re at the plant, they can’t lift any documents to send to Wikileaks. And because each is in his or her own world, they won’t fraternize or gossip or plot to overthrow management.

We might just get rid of day jobs all together. Then we would work all night, not remember a thing in the morning, and play all day.

During our waking hours, we’d be totally free to do what we like, but too fatigued to get into too much trouble. And everyone would have a dream job!

Optimistically yours,
Spin Williams

Have you ever gone sleepwalking?

Here’s a hint for savvy shoppers: 7:30pm on Mother’s Day is not a good time to go to Cub for cut flowers. The selection is a little thin.

When have you found it easy to move the product?