Why Do Pirates Love Parrots? (9 page)

N
ever underestimate the intelligence of a newspaper vending machine. It knows darn well when you try to pay the price for a daily newspaper on Sunday. You can try to get away with inserting fifty cents when you owe two dollars, but our money is on the vending machine shutting you out.

When you insert coins into the vending machine, the quarters don’t just drop into an empty vessel, but into a mechanical or electronic receptacle (“mech”). Even the more primitive machines can account for at least two different price structures—most commonly, to account for a more expensive Sunday paper. As Bob Camara, sales representative for K-Jack Engineering Company put it: “The coin mechanism is changed over to a Sunday setting.”

The people who service the racks reset all the mechanisms to a Sunday setting to assure that bargain hunters are frustrated. Pamela Davis of Rak Systems, Inc., explains:

A collection of Rak’s mechanisms are on display at http://www.raksystems.com/mechs.htm. There you’ll see that the preoccupations of Rak’s clients are few but persistent—multiple pricing options, ability to collect coins other than quarters, and the most nagging issue since the advent of the vending machine: rejection of slugs.

Submitted by Jim Barton of Phoenix, Arizona.

L
ucy Ricardo might have been able to crush grapes with her feet to make wine on
I Love Lucy,
but extracting olive oil from olives is a little trickier than juicing a grape or an orange. Olives don’t contain as much moisture content as grapes, and possess nasty, hard pits.

The first important process in making olive oil, after separating the olives from dirt, leaves, and other contaminants, is pushing them through a mill or grinder, which turns them into a fine paste. Usually, the olive pits are left in before processing; the pits don’t have much effect on flavor, and contribute little to the volume of oil—but “destoning” olives adds another step, and expense, to the process.

After the olives are mashed into paste form, the paste is mixed malaxation”) for about one half hour, which allows larger bubbles of oil to coalesce. The next stage is crucial—extracting the oil from the water in the paste, usually accomplished by one of two types of machine: a press or a centrifuge.

Although the valuable oil has been extracted, and the olives have lost all of their original texture, olive oil producers don’t toss the waste product, which is called “pomace.” Paul Vossen, a University of California farm advisor, told
Imponderables
about the fate of the pomace:

The pomace olive oil is controversial in the trade. As we discussed in
When Do Fish Sleep?
, virgin and extra virgin olive oil are prized not only for their low acidity and fine taste, but for the lack of processing used to extract them. Purveyors of fine olive oils tend to look down on solvent-extracted pomace oil, especially because pomace can legally be labeled “olive oil.” Betty Pustarfi, owner of Strictly Olive Oil in Pebble Beach, California, refers to pomace olive oil as “industry denigrated oil” because it is used to:

Submitted by Rene Triliad, via the Internet.

For more information about the making of olive oil, visit the Olive Oil Source Web site at: http://www.oliveoilsource.com/making_ olive_oil.htm.

W
e all know that ostriches don’t really bury their heads in the sand. But will they dunk their bodies into the water? We vaguely remembered Charles Darwin writing about swimming ostriches, and we found the passage that we remembered in
The Voyage of the Beagle.
The scientist was traveling through northern Patagonia and discussed the South American ostriches he observed, but the description was a little more elusive than remembered:

So far, Darwin’s account is second hand, it would seem. But eventually, he recounts:

Case closed? When we conducted some further research, we were taken aback to read that ostriches are native only to the savannas and deserts of central and southern Africa. The “South American ostriches” that Darwin observed were not ostriches at all, but close relatives, the rhea (they belong to the same order as ostriches, Struthioniformes, but a different species). Rheas look similar to ostriches but with more water sources available to them than ostriches in the desert, might they have abilities in the water that ostriches don’t have?

The first person to respond to our query was Prof. Gerhard H. Verdoorn, director of BirdLife South Africa, who wrote:

Next in our queue was an e-mail from Steve Warrington, of Ostrich.com:

A South African ostrich farmer, Tania Lategan from Cango Ostrich Farm outside of Oudtshoorn, South Africa, responded matter of factly, “Yes, an ostrich does swim to cool its body off.” We asked her if her ostriches swim on a regular basis, and she said: “Yes, if they do have access to water and it is hot, it will occur every day.”

But then another source, Pierre duP Fourie, proprietor of the Baron’s Palace Hotel, just miles from Cango Farm, reports:

But veterinarian Carole Price, president of the American Ostrich Association, counters with:

So here we are answering this Imponderable with a qualified yes: Ostriches certainly
can
swim, but perhaps reluctantly so. We were able to find one image of an ostrich swimming at http://www.marijuana.org/pictures6-14-99/swimingostrich.JPG, but we’re not sure what role marijuana played in the proceedings!

Submitted by Galen Musbach of Greeneville, Tennessee.

T
his is a rare example of an Imponderable posed in front of us at the moment it was born. A pal, Chris McCann, was playing West in a duplicate bridge tournament. In duplicate bridge, the North-South players remain seated at the same table, while East-West players move from table to table after playing a few hands. When Chris came to our table, he noted that the wooden chair he sat in felt very warm.

We have had the same experience, so for years we’ve done some empirical research on this Imponderable. We also consulted with two science types, both of whom hold advanced degrees from accredited universities, and because they have a reputation to protect, didn’t rush to have us quote them by name. They confirmed our impressions that this is a matter of simple, thermal conductivity: When two surfaces press against each other, there is an exchange of heat between them. But what determines the degree of heat transfer?

1.Time and Temperature

Although the core temperature in our body is approximately98.6 degrees Fahrenheit, the temperature of our skin is lower, usually a little above 90 degrees. Under normal circumstances, we’re sitting in rooms that are much cooler. So if a chair has been previously occupied, the former occupant, let’s call him “Ex,” is going to warm a chair to a higher temperature than the ambient air in the room.

When we are first seated in a restaurant, though, we are unlikely to perceive our chair as warm, because the table has been unoccupied long enough for the chair to cool off to the room temperature. At the bridge tournament, the new occupant, let’s call him “Chris,” might be in Ex’s seat within seconds of Ex leaving, allowing plenty of time to bask in the warmth left behind.

2. Length

The longer Chris has been standing up, exposed to the 70-degree room, the more likely he’s going to feel that the chair that Ex is vacating will be warm. The longer Ex has sat in the chair, the warmer that chair will be, as more of Ex’s heat will be transferred to the chair. But the longer Chris sits in the chair, the less he is likely to continue
perceiving
the chair as warm, as the contrast in temperature peaks upon first contact.

3. Width

There is no getting around it. There is a direct correlation between the mass of the buttocks region and how much heat Ex is able to transfer from his booty to the seat. The wider the rear, the tighter the seal between the skin (with its higher temperature) and the surface of the chair is accomplished, and the more heat is transferred. If Ex filled out the seat before him, even a slimmer Chris is sure to hit a “hot spot.” There are plenty of bridge players with ample rears, and in our experience they tend to leave the gift of warm seats when they move on to the next table.

4. Surface

What kind of clothing are Ex and Chris wearing? The thinner the clothing, the more easily heat can be transferred to or felt from the chair. Probably even more important is the composition of the chair. Metal is a great conductor. Ever sit on an aluminum chair in shorts in an air-conditioned room in the summer? The chair will feel much, much cooler than a chair with fabric on the seat and backrest, because the metal chair leeches heat out of our bodies quickly. Textiles are poor conductors of heat, as they leave plenty of room for air to be trapped inside, and stationary air doesn’t promote heat transfer. This is why bulky sweaters are effective in the winter—the trapped air in the material helps to insulate you from the cold. Wooden chairs are in between fabric and metal, but closer to fabric in conductivity.

5. Psychology

No doubt our mind plays tricks on us. If you expect a metal chair to be cold, and the Ex who preceded you, with ample rump covering the whole seat, has sat in it for a long time, the chair might feel surprisingly warm, even though in actuality its surface temperature is lower than the fabric chair alongside it. And perhaps, if you expect a warm seat, it will feel warmer than it really is.

But if you want to insure a warm seat, watch for the big guy with the wide booty and the thin clothes. As soon as he leaves, hasten thee to that chair.

Submitted by Christopher McCann of Brooklyn, New York, who exhibits low butt mass.