The Friday Fillip

I know, I know, Spring refuses to show up properly, the recent vacation is as if it never were, we’ve lost an hour of sleep, and yet work keeps coming in the door faster than it leaves. I can’t offer much solace — too grumpy myself, maybe. But if, and I repeat if, a change is as good as a rest, take a plunge into a whackload of information and knowledge having nothing to do with law.

Dr. James B. Calvert is Associate Professor Emeritus of Engineering, University of Denver, and the author of a set of web pages that deal with things (one is tempted to say “everything”) from The History of the Electromatic Telegraph, through Musical Scales for the Non-Musician, to Denver Traffic and the Stupidity of Traffic Lights.

His site, lacking a title on the main page and, so, appearing in your browser only as Index, is damn near an omnium gatherum. Mostly canted to engineering (which is very much not law, you’ll have to agree), this is the place to go to see how little you know about things as fundamental as ellipses (not ellipsis) or magma and as abstruse as The Corn-Hog Ratio.

The world is an odd place, and some people help to remind us. Dr. Calvert is one of those.