Teeming millions and the storehouse of knowledge

July 18, 2005 8:32 AM

The Straight Dope. The indispensable resource for almost any question, and despite resolving arguments in many threads, it has never been featured in the Blue on its own. So, some of the best from the last 30-odd years: Can hair turn white from fright? How do airplanes really fly? What was Barney Rubble's job in the Flintstones? If spaghetti is Italian, why is it sold by Franco-American? After the zombies take over how long until the electricity fails (A personal favorite)? What is the origin of the tooth fairy? And, of course, how much wood could a woodchuck chuck? And ever so many more.
posted by blahblahblah (32 comments total)

Great post. Really enjoyed the zombie article.
posted by Happydaz at 8:49 AM on July 18, 2005

Ditto; it reminded me of how my suspension of disbelief in the Stephen King novel The Stand crumbled when I got to the part where they got the electrical power turned on again in Boulder: I thought, "Tshyeahright; you and whose army?"
posted by alumshubby at 9:37 AM on July 18, 2005

One can't discuss The Straight Dope without mentioning the classic pigeon-themed questions: where are all the baby pigeons? and why do pigeons bob their heads?
posted by Turtles all the way down at 9:45 AM on July 18, 2005

And if Unca Cecil doesn't acknowledge your question, there's always the forums.
posted by Gyan at 9:54 AM on July 18, 2005

If you want something to read for the next day or two, peruse their archives.

Also, watch out because it's easy to not notice that you're reading an article originally published in 1981.
posted by smackfu at 10:10 AM on July 18, 2005

If we're going to make posts about stuff clearly everyone already knows, let me introduce you to a great search engine, an online auction house where you can buy and sell your junk, and also an online store that sells nearly everything.
posted by crunchland at 10:28 AM on July 18, 2005

Wow crunchland, I didn't realize an alternative newspaper columnist from Chicago now had an online presence as large as google or ebay with name recognition to match.

Just because you know about it, doesn't mean everyone else does. Just because Uncle Cecil got linked to a few times, doesn't mean people bothered to check out the front door of the site.
posted by inthe80s at 10:35 AM on July 18, 2005 [2 favorites]

Excellent post, blahblahblah. Despite crunchland's sniffing, I think some of the greatest posts in recent memory have involved internet/cultural archaeology like this. Keep up the excellent work.
posted by felix at 11:01 AM on July 18, 2005

i've had a lot of fun (I think of learning as being fun) on the Straight Dope's message boards, although even more so than MeFi it has the bad habit of ggetting overburdened on the server end when I want to be on it.
posted by thecjm at 11:02 AM on July 18, 2005

Can't believe this has never been in the blue. I read all the books, and was thrilled when I found him online.
posted by boymilo at 11:04 AM on July 18, 2005

Crunchland's profile describes him as a part-time malcontent. You must have caught him on the clock.
posted by ToasT at 11:05 AM on July 18, 2005

What I want to know is why does the rotating turntable in my microwave change directions each time I turn it on?
posted by StickyCarpet at 11:13 AM on July 18, 2005

Hey crunch - don't forget about that spoof news site.
posted by grateful at 11:39 AM on July 18, 2005

My favorite.
posted by hootch at 11:49 AM on July 18, 2005

Some suspect that "Cecil Adams" is really "Little" Ed Zotti. The gentleman in the photo, though, looks to be too young to have been writing the Straight Dope since 1973. Maybe Cecil Adams is a Dread Pirate Roberts-type character who gets replaced every so often.
posted by kirkaracha at 11:51 AM on July 18, 2005

The thing that sites like this teach me is to learn to think for yourself.

The statements made in that link are flat-out wrong. I've run across these kinds of problems in Straight Dope, Snopes, Factcheck, etc...

There is no site where one can go and find the "plain truth" and thinking there is simply a way of turning off your brain. Sure, they seem to be mostly right, but they are also poorly sourced and subject to error and bias as much as anyone else.
posted by teece at 12:15 PM on July 18, 2005

teece: Which statements? There are two contradictory sets. Or do you mean all of them are wrong? If so, what's the correct explanation? (I second your caution about not turning off your brain, of course.)
posted by languagehat at 12:27 PM on July 18, 2005

That hair turning white article got my attention. My hair was jet black until I was in a very traumatic event (I was dead, no heartbeat, etc) and my hair started turning white. About 2-3 months later I noticed my roots were lighter. Over time it got lighter and lighter, not grey, white.
Freaky, because not all of it has gone white.
posted by Smedleyman at 12:51 PM on July 18, 2005

Sorry, the last paragraph is the conclusion of ONE (1) suspect paper, and is full of guesses by the authors of those paper's. (Authors whose primary action item seems to be ad hominem on Dvorak, as he had a patent, and thus monetary interest. Yet the paper's authors have an ideological angle just as damning, even if one were to assume Dvorak did bad science because of his patent).

The page itself buys into the idea that the "superiority" Dvorak's layout is a myth. That's unabashed bullshit. At best, one could say that there are conflicting studies; the reality is that the authors of the paper referenced are so biased towards the market always making the best choice that their methodology is not sound. One of the theories put forward as to why Qwerty might be better is the alternating letter theory: well, their knowledge of Dvorak is so abysmal they don't even realize that this is one of it's primary design traits.

In any event, the matter of which keyboard layout is "superior" is far from settled, as the page indicates. It is an unequivocal fact that QWERTY is a (more or less) accident and Dvorak is designed. Be that what it may. Dvorak most certainly reduces finger travel, and no one has ever come with a reason why a higher finger travel keyboard might be better.

But all of this is tangential, I don't want to derail the thread into a Dvorak-Qwerty discussion (damn, too late!), that's just the one that I remember from quite recently (via /.). But what I find is that on issues like this, many folks simply turn off their brain when they come to a definative sounding statement on a site like The Straight Dope. I wonder in the long run if this is a net good or a net bad, because on the few articles in which I have special knowledge, I find the accuracy of such sites as sometimes questionable.

And yet they are treated by many as the Gospel truth.
posted by teece at 12:52 PM on July 18, 2005

Maybe Cecil Adams is a Dread Pirate Roberts-type character who gets replaced every so often.

It seems this is exactly the case. IIRC, there have been two or three Uncle Cecils since the column first began, but Ed Zotti has been the Karl Rove of Internet Wisdom Seeking for as long as I can personally remember (I started reading the Chicago Reader when I was a freshman at Northwestern in 1981).
posted by briank at 1:06 PM on July 18, 2005

teece, that's a good example of coming across old article, from 1981 in this case. Although the addendum does seem to be a bit newer, maybe from the early 90's.
posted by smackfu at 1:41 PM on July 18, 2005

crunchland is right on this one--you might as well link Snopes or Yahoo!

But since we're here, when I was a kid, if spaghetti is Italian, why is it sold by Franco-American?was right up there with If Pluto is a dog and Goofy is a dog, then why....

Can't wait for that Wayback Machine post tomorrow.
posted by y2karl at 2:26 PM on July 18, 2005

Actually, it's more analogous to posting about Savage Love or News of the Weird -- all three columns are widely syndicated in the US, in alt.weeklies in most major cities.

However, I'm more surprised that Straight Dope hasn't been linked to before. Interestingly, the only instance Google found of straightdope.com on MetaFilter was in the comments on one of blahblahblah's previous posts (although blah^3 didn't link it, MiG did).
posted by me3dia at 2:38 PM on July 18, 2005

me3dia: "the only instance Google found of straightdope.com on MetaFilter was in the comments on one of blahblahblah's previous posts"

Just shows you that Google sucks w.r.t. Metafilter. It's been linked to, 26 times, within FPPs.
posted by Gyan at 3:41 PM on July 18, 2005

My fave Cecil Adams column- hell, one of my favorite things ever, period- is "The Story of Schroedinger's Cat (An Epic Poem).
posted by the_bone at 3:49 PM on July 18, 2005

Apologies to all who found this an obvious post, etc. It is not my habit to walk the fine line of repetition, but since many MeFites did seem to know of the online archive it seemed worth a FPP (and I don't think it was ever the main subject, Gyan). And at least there was some good discussion...
posted by blahblahblah at 4:05 PM on July 18, 2005

blahblahblah: I didn't say it was.
posted by Gyan at 4:23 PM on July 18, 2005

> What I want to know is why does the rotating turntable
> in my microwave change directions each time I turn it on?

Answered at:

Unwise Microwave Oven Experiments
http://amasci.com/weird/microexp.html

If you do things right, the handle on your coffee mug will still be in it's initial position when the buzzer sounds. Synchro motors!
posted by billb at 5:09 PM on July 18, 2005

I've known about Straight Dope for years (it's one of my daily visits), but I'd never seen the zombie article - it rocks. Zombies justify a FPP, IMHO.
posted by birdsquared at 7:05 PM on July 18, 2005

Maybe Cecil Adams is a Dread Pirate Roberts-type character who gets replaced every so often.

I believe this is closest to the truth. I knew somebody who claimed to have met a "Cecil Adams." He said that "Cecil Adams" was just a pseudonym used by staffers at the Chicago Reader. The creation of a consistent writing persona for Cecil hides the fact that there is more than one person writing and researching the column.
posted by jonp72 at 8:38 PM on July 18, 2005

because on the few articles in which I have special knowledge, I find the accuracy of such sites as sometimes questionable.

Likewise.
posted by Heywood Mogroot at 3:35 AM on July 19, 2005

based on personal experience, your hair can fall out from fright. alopecia areata.
posted by brandz at 7:41 PM on July 19, 2005