Really, it’s a shame that Starman never made an appearance on The Superman/Aquaman Hour of Adventure, on Aquaman, on The Batman/Superman Hour, or on Super Friends.

At Kingdom Kane (a 'blog focussed upon the art of Gil Kane), Mykal Banta has reproduced The Birth of the Atom. a story which contains what I have long regarded as an epitomal sequence of what I call comic-book science:

As I noted to Mykal, a white dwarf star has a density of about 1 million grams per cc, and the meteor appears to be about 1000 cc, so the whole thing should mass at about 1 million kilograms.

It’s not apparent why 1 million kilograms should stay compressed into such a small volume. In the case of a dwarf star itself, the gravitational mass of the star as a whole creätes sufficient force, but this is just a fractional piece of such a star. It ought to fly apart as a terrible burst of radiation. But let’s assume that this somehow doesn’t happen, that the meteor just stays together in a nifty one-liter piece.

The meteor that creäted Meteor Crater in Arizona was under 30,000 kilgrams. Ray wouldn’t be excavating the meteor at all; he would have been killed by the shock waves from the impact. Those who later did excavate the meteor wouldn’t find it buried just a couple of feet deep.

At the surface of the Earth (which itself masses about 5.97 × 10²⁴ kilograms), this meteor would weigh about 11 hundred tons, but Ray picks it up! He subvocalizes a few puffs, but he manages to carry the thing back to his car! Now-a-days, they don’t make cars that can carry 11 hundred tons. I don’t think that any grad students can lift 11 hundred tons. And, really, Ray ought to be sinking into the ground, as even if he has big feet and has both feet on the ground he is applying over 7000 kPa of pressure to the soil.

It might be suggested that the meteor, while perhaps of material that were once compressed to a density of about 1 million grams per cc, were subsequently uncompressed, and that what Palmer recovered were only, say, 100 kilograms of material. But I don’t know how, then, it would be recognizable as originating from a white dwarf star. For example, the core of the sun compresses matter to a greater density than 100 grams per cc.

(Underscore mine.) Actually, the Magnum® variety is not super-sized. It is not much different in size from various other condoms. It is simply marketed in a manner that yields an impression of being super-sized to those who don’t actually check the facts — such as journalists. An ordinary-sized Trojan condom is 52mm wide and 200mm long; the Magnum® is 54mm wide at the base, widening to 60mm at the head, and 205mm long. (The Magnum® XL differs in that it widens to 65mm at the head.)

(The Durex® Avanti™, on the other hand, has a width of 64mm along its length. It is, however, only 180mm long, which might be of concern if the condom is being used to prevent the transmission of disease and the anatomies of the sexual partners allow penetration to a greater depth.)

When the subject of condom size is raised, many women and various men with small penes make the point that condoms stretch, so that a regular-size condom can be put on a larger penis. Indeed, but elastic substances produce greater counter-force when stretched farther. The fact that someone might be able to fit a spring around his-or-her cranium (as occasionally condoms are stretched around heads for one reason or another) doesn’t mean that one can comfortably wear that spring around one’s penis. So larger condoms are quite appropriate for some men.

But, with the Magnum®, Trojan is selling a mere 0.08in in additional width, just 0.2in in extra length, and fantasy.

From a copy of Le Rire from 1908, reproduced at Vintage Poster:

Readers of this 'blog might recall the Decimator. Well, according to Hugo Chávez, the United States has one.

I’m just hoping that it doesn’t fall into the wrong hands, and get directed at the Amsterdam Fault. Meanwhile, maybe I can become one of the Rocket Men. At my age, hopes of becoming a super-hero have dimmed, but I at least look younger than Jeff King.

There’s a fair amount of annoying absurdity associated with the cotton swab.

The traditional use for these things is, of course, cleaning-out one’s ear canal. Probably that’s not a good idea, though. The back of the Q-tips® package at which I’m looking says

If used to clean ears, stroke swab gently around the outer surface of the ear, without entering the ear canal.

WARNING: Use only as directed. Entering the ear canal could cause injury. Keep out of reach of children.

(Emphasis theirs.) A swab could push cerumen (ear wax) deeper into the canal, and pack it more tightly. With or without the cerumen, the swab could be pressed hard enough to rupture the tympanic membrane (ear drum). And the swab might even promote infection.

But, though there may be some tiny number of people with such odd convolutions to their outer ears that a cotton swab would be helpful in cleaning them, most of the rest of us could get better or faster results with a cloth or tissue. If we’re not going to put the swab in our ears, then it probably just shouldn’t touch our ears at all. Granted that the box merely says If used to clean ears, but I remember a commercial from Cheesebrough-Ponds featuring Orson Bean, cleaning his outer ear with a Q-tip®, and advising us Never put anything in your ear, except your elbow. (Someone get that man a tissue.)

When doctors and medical advice columns tell their audience not to use these things in the ear, they frequently use a formula which gets my back up. Formally, it’s

which is to say that they claim something doesn’t happen, and then tell us what to do when it happens. Geez! More specifically, they tell us

The ear canal does not need to be cleaned, because it’s a self-cleaning organ. […] When the ear canal needs to be cleaned, one should see a doctor.

Okay, the ear canal does need to be cleaned, because it is an imperfectly self-cleaning organ; let’s not pretend otherwise while we’re trying to keep the swabs out. And, as far as this see a doctor business, while it may seem like a mighty fine idea to the doctors, most people don’t want to pay the cost of seeing a doctor. Even where medicine is socialized to the point that there would be no pecuniary cost in seeing a doctor, there will be the cost of waiting (which will typically be significantly higher where medicine is socialized). People want their ears unclogged quickly.

A better alternative to the swab for cleaning the ear canal is the syringe. For a few bucks, most druggists will sell you a syringe that’s basically a rubber ball with a nozzle. If you went to the doctor, then he’d probably use a more impressive syringe, made of metal and with a plunger. You could order one of those for yourself for about US$20, but it’s unlikely to be more useful for you unless you start syringing not only the ears of everyone in your household but also those of all your friends and neighbors.

If you read the instructions on the syringe package, it will basically tell you to dribble water into your ear. You will probably find this dribbling signally unhelpful unless you’ve used other fluid to dissove the cerumen and are now just rinsing the mess out. You can buy expensive fluids from your druggist, or you can use the dilute hydrogen peroxide that he’ll sell you for much less, or you can use a mixture of vinegar and baking soda, each bought from the grocer. In all three cases, that’s going to tickle maddeningly.

I once had my ear canals cleaned by a Doctor Villavecer, in Westerville, OH. He used one of those impressive metal syringes. He didn’t dribble the water into my ear; he blasted it. That worked pretty well, though I might have felt differently had a tympanic membrane ruptured. In any case, subsequently, this blasting is how I clean my canals, except that I use a rubber ball syringe, as I am leaving the ears of my friends and neighbors clogged but unmolested.

Backing-up, let’s return to the warning on that Q-tips® package:

Keep out of reach of children.

Now, unless we’re prepared to tell people to keep lollipops and twigs out of reach of children, it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to put the Q-tips® with the pornography and assault rifles. We can instead tell junior not to put anything into his ear, and reälize that a swab would be less terrible in disobedience than many other candidates. I reälize that Cheesebrough-Ponds is not really to blame for this specific bit of nonsense (responsibility lies in the hands of lawyers, of state officials, and of the fools who empower them), but nonsense it is, none-the-less.

The Woman of Interest alerts me to reports that Marge Simpson is to appear on the cover of the November issue of Playboy.

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To see Elmer Fudd in drag, watch The Big Snooze (1946, directed by the egregious Robert Clampett).

I first encountered Darrel Dane, the Doll Man, in a copy of Feature Comics #114 (September 1947) given to me by a friend.[1]

You can encounter Doll Man — if you are ready for the thrills — at Golden Age Comics (search both for doll man and for Feature Comics), at Pappy’s Golden Age Comics Blogzine, and at Golden Age Comic Book Stories.

[1] WTF? In middle school, friends just gave golden-age comic books to me! Another friend gave a copy of Action Comics #125 (October 1948) to me.

I am amused by this eBay bid history:

I’ll translate:

• On 27 July, at 11:30:10 PDT, seller posts item with an opening bid of $1.00 and some still unknown reserve price.
• At 19:36:05 PDT, first bidder enters a maximum bid of $6.16; this does not meet reserve price, so first bid is $1.00.
• On 29 Jul, at 12:45:05 PDT, second bidder enters a maximum bid of $5.00; entry automatically pushes bid of first bidder to $5.50.
• 10 seconds later, second bidder enters some maximum bid more than 50¢ than first bidder’s maximum bid, and finds that his or her bid is now $6.66.
• 12 seconds later, second bidder enters some higher maximum bid, but his or her bid remains $6.66.
• Another 12 seconds later, second bidder enters some even higher maximum bid, but his or her bid remains $6.66.

If the second bidder were to enter a bid not less than the seller’s reserve price, then his or her bid would become that. Otherwise, his or her bid will remain at $6.66 until some other bidder enters at least $7.16.

(BtW, I put the words reserve and maximum in quotes, because, as far as I’m concerned, eBay abuses each term, one way or another.)