Thursday Things: Wobbly Mugs Edition
6 May 2021. Vol 3 No 18 By Dan McGirt. #91
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Not the mug we’re looking for. Photo by Janaya Dasiuk on Unsplash
Not surprisingly, it has to do with drinking. Why Do We Use the Word Mug as a Synonym for Face?
While there’s no definitive trail of evidence to prove how mug first took on that meaning, most signs point to the Toby jugs of 18th-century Britain. According to the American Toby Jug Museum in Illinois, the original Toby jugs were ceramic pitchers shaped and painted to resemble “a seated, jovial, stout man dressed in the attire of the period, wearing a tricorn hat, puffing on a pipe, and holding a mug of ale.”
While original Toby jugs depicted a complete human figure and were pitchers for pouring liquids, later iterations were drinking mugs depicting caricatured faces. Hence mug = face. Which will be useful to know next time you face a mugger.
Sometimes we have to push against our boundaries. Or, in this case, France’s boundaries. Belgian farmer accidentally moves French border
A farmer in Belgium has caused a stir after inadvertently redrawing the country's border with France.
A local history enthusiast was walking in the forest when he noticed the stone marking the boundary between the two countries had moved 2.29m (7.5ft).
The Belgian farmer, apparently annoyed by the stone in his tractor's path, had moved it inside French territory.
That sounds entirely justifiable to me. The border stone was place in 1819, but was anyone thinking about tractors then? No.
Local Belgian authorities plan to contact the farmer to ask him to return the stone to its original location. If that does not happen the case could end up at the Belgian foreign ministry, which would have to summon a Franco-Belgian border commission, dormant since 1930.
Never think one person can’t make a difference in the world!
We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. Or maybe not. Stomach-churning pedestrian bridge opens in Portugal
The world’s largest pedestrian suspension bridge — 516 Arouca — opened Thursday in Portugal. The views of rock-strewn mountains covered in lush greenery are spectacular from the 1693 foot crossing, but the see-through metal grid pathway that wobbles with every step might give many walkers pause.
You think?
Não, hoje não. Source: Designboom
Smithsonian Magazine has more coverage of this nightmare skywalk: The 1,693-foot overpass hangs 570 feet above a roaring river and wobbles as people walk across it
At nearly a third of a mile long, a newly opened, record-breaking suspension bridge in the town of Arouca, Portugal, demands a bit of a head for heights. As Reuters’ Catarina Demony reports, the bridge, which hangs 570 feet above the Paiva River, consists of a see-through metal grid that wobbles with each step.
OH, IT WOBBLES! With each step. That’s a nice touch.
The Cube Personality Test. Sometimes a cube is not just a cube.
I did this tricky little personality test many years ago. It doesn’t take long. I’m not sure of its scientific validity — I put most of these personality tests on about the same plane as numerology or palm reading.
On the other hand, I’m a sucker for “What Disney Princess Are You?” quizzes (Usually I get Belle. Sometimes Pocahontas.) Anyway, the Cube test is fun and may give you useful insights even if its completely made up. You imagine and describe a cube, a horse, a ladder, and a few other things — and then get an interpretation of “what it all means”. If you try it, let us know in the comments what you think of the results!
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