Pun Salad

A good review in the WSJ put this book by David Baron on my get-at-library list. It's easy to write off our modern age as one where the unwashed masses believe in utter claptrap, but guess what? The author, David Baron, demonstrates that back in the late 1800s and early 1900s, plenty of Americans got hooked into believing in Martians. And many of those people were well-washed.

Leading the way were the "amateur" astronomers of the day. (By our lights, most scientists back then were amateurs, although very enthusiastic.) The most famous was Percival Lowell, one of the immensely wealthy mill-owning Lowells of Boston. Percival wasn't that interested in mills, but used his fortune to build telescopes and (eventually) observatories, and his attention was concentrated on Mars.

And he reported some astounding news: Mars was an arid, dying, planet, but it had polar icecaps. And a vast network of canals, clearly meant to carry runoff water from those icecaps down to oases at lower latitudes. Clearly, the inhabitants of Mars had built them as a desperate measure to survive.

Although there were critics of this scenario, the public was swept up by Lowell's certainty. Nicola Tesla was also a True Believer, and made serious efforts to communicate with the Martians, either by huge reflecting mirrors or a even bigger radio antenna. H.G. Wells also got in on the craze with (you may have heard) his novel War of the Worlds.

But by the early 1900s, the craze was in decline. Although Lowell remained a believer in his fantasy until he died in 1916, he was increasingly isolated and depressed. (Tesla, as you might know, was even crazier, developing an (um) eccentric attachment to a white New York pigeon that he claimed visited him daily.)

Baron does a good job of getting into Lowell's head. Occasionally his prose gets purple and (perhaps) overly speculative, but that's OK.

Another book picked off the shelves of the Portsmouth (NH) Public Library thanks to its inclusion on the WSJ's list of 2025's Best Mystery Books. The reviewer, Tom Nolan, likes the author, Denise Mina, quite a bit and he says this "may be Ms. Mina’s best book." Alas, my fancy was untickled.

The protagonist, Claudia O’Sheil, is a forensic scientist, and her specialty is the "Blood Spray Probability Scale" (BSPS), a crime scene analysis tool that's brought her fame. By Dickensian coincidence, she is nearby when the grisly murder of an aristocrat and his fiancée is uncovered. (And also, a dog.) Suspicion falls on the wastrel son, but Claudia's not so sure. Even though her BSPS seems to point to him, she's becoming less convinced of its utility. Alas, the son pleads guilty, even though Claudia's increasingly convinced that someone else did the deed.

And she's got other problems of her own. Her husband was recently killed in a seeming auto accident. (Or was it suicide? Or murder?) Her sister is a drug addict. She's worried about the school her two sons will attend. And… well, she's not very sympathetic. Or interesting. Her investigatory efforts seem half-hearted and random.

The book is also full of unexplained Britishisms, most of which I couldn't even figure out from context.

I'm probably wrong. As usual, the book's Amazon page is full of praise.

Andrew Heaton, Reason's game show host, asks his unwary contestant: Is it war?.

Minigripe: Andrew didn't ask the contestant about the First Barbary War.

Also of note:

• I wish Vinay good health and access to whatever drugs he needs to make that happen. The WSJ editorialists note that Vinay Prasad Is Out at the FDA—Again. (WSJ gifted link) And it's hard to see this as anything other than good news:

  Is two times the charm? FDA Commissioner Marty Makary said Friday that Vinay Prasad, who leads the FDA’s biologics division, will leave the agency at the end of April. This is the second time Dr. Prasad is being pushed out of the agency, and to understand why, see his handling of UniQure’s gene therapy for Huntington’s disease.

  We reported in November that the FDA had moved the goal post on UniQure’s treatment. Huntington’s disease afflicts about 40,000 patients in the U.S., and there are no current treatments that slow progression. UniQure’s therapy slowed progression by 75% compared to the natural course of the disease.

  For the record: Pun Salad covered Vinay relatively positively back in early, mostly COVID, days: here, here, here, here, and here. But then things turned to is-this-the-same-guy? land this year: here, here, and here.

  I know: past performance is not a guarantee of future results. Still, it makes me wonder if I'm missing something.

• It's a glum-looking bunch. We don't do a lot of linking to InDepthNH, but this seems to be pretty solid reporting: Protesters Rally Against Free State Project.

  CONCORD, NH — About 100 protesters joined the Kent Street Coalition and other local advocacy groups at the State House on Thursday to protest the Free State Project in New Hampshire, which critics say attempts to influence state politics and dismantle public education.

  Groups such as 50501 NH, Southern NH Indivisible, Granite State Matters, and Third Act NH joined the coalition to oppose the Free State Project, which was formed in 2001. Two years later the state was picked as the best destination to “reinforce and enhance an already existing libertarian culture.” Its mission — which began with the goal of a mass migration of more than 20,000 people — is to expand personal and economic freedom by concentrating liberty-minded people in New Hampshire.

  (I will observe that none of the FSP-hating folks advocated/threatened/promised moving to FSP-free states, like … well pick and choose among approximately 49 others, plus D.C.)

  To his credit, the reporter sought rebuttal quotes from FSP Executive Director Eric Brakey:

  Brakey responded to the criticism and asserted that “there is no such thing as a ‘Free State Agenda.’”

  Brakey said that the group is not a political party and does not operate with a centralized policy platform. He noted it’s a decentralized movement of people who believe the government should be limited to protecting life, liberty, and property. Citing the New Hampshire Liberty Association, he said there are about 100 liberty legislators at the State House, adding that whether they consider themselves Free Staters is “up to them, but they certainly have a lot of support from the Free Staters at the very least.”

  He clarified that not everyone associated with the project runs for office, saying that people have different ideas on how best to promote liberty. He said some build businesses, homeschool networks, and community centers, and that those on the direct political path get a lot of attention “but culture building is equally important.”

• But for the really important NH news… You have to go to Ars Technica, which asks two burning questions. Which of these two arcades is the "world [sic] largest"—and does it matter?

  In New Hampshire, just off the western shore of the vacation destination Lake Winnipesaukee, there’s a town called Laconia. With a population somewhere south of 17,000, it’s barely a blip on a map—except on Bike Week, when around 300,000 motorcyclists swarm the place. On the other, quieter weeks of the year, Laconia is best known as the unlikely home of Funspot, the world’s largest arcade.

  Meanwhile, in Brookfield, Illinois, about 45 minutes west of Chicago and the shores of Lake Michigan, you’ll find Galloping Ghost Arcade, a sprawling suburban palace with a nondescript exterior hiding a mind-blowing collection. With over 1,000 arcade cabinets (plus a further 46 pinball machines), Galloping Ghost is the world’s largest arcade.

  Yes, there are two arcades in the US labeled as the world’s largest, and while that may seem a bit paradoxical, a visit to both proves that while only one can be the biggest, both are the greatest.

  So the answer to the headline questions?

  Yeah, I'm gonna say it: the answer may surprise you.

Recently on the book blog:

I remembered this title earlier this year while reading a very good history book about Michael Faraday and James Clerk Maxwell. It was originally published in 1999, and was part of the "Feynmania" of that era. And I had never read it, and the Portsmouth (NH) Public Library still had a copy on its "530" shelf, so…

It's a 13-chapter hodgepodge of interview transcripts, speeches, talks, magazine articles, etc. And also Feynman's devastating "minority report" on the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster, which excoriated NASA's "well, we got away with it this time, so…" attitude toward risk evaluation, criticism that the rest of the Rogers Commission found unable to support. (Or maybe understand.)

The lightly-edited interviews are uneven. Things can get jumbled when you or I think faster than we can talk. Reader, Feynman could think much faster than you or I, and things get very jumbled here on occasion. But still interesting, if you can follow him over the leaps and bounds.

Feynman's famous musing on "cargo cult science" shows up multiple times; he was fascinated by the Pacific natives who tried to keep World War II benefits coming to their islands by crafting aircraft models, runways, control towers, and so on. He saw analogous behavior in some contemporaries, who adopted the superficial aspects of science, but lacked understanding and self-doubt. As his famous quote, aimed at 1974 Caltech grads, goes (included here): "You must not fool yourself--and you are the easiest person to fool."

Many chapters here can also be found "out there" on the web. I found my favorite one was a transcript of his 1966 talk to the National Science Teachers Association, "What is Science?" You can read it here. It contains yet another quote that should be more famous: "Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts."

In case you haven't seen President Trump's Truth Social post today:

Disclaimer: for my more serious rant, see my: The Right Number of Time Zones is Zero.