Wes Phillips

By Strunk, White, and Factotum.

You know those scenes in movies like The 13th Warrior where the hero can't even lift a sword? It's BS. A heavy two-handed sword probably weighed about 4 lbs; most single handed blades were under 3 lbs.

Now there's proof. Besides Congress, I mean.

Ian MacDonald's Revolution in the Head: The Beatles Records and the Sixties is, quite simply, the best book ever published about the Beatles and their music. Its first half is the best description of the '60s I've ever read; its second half is a track by track exploration of the songs and the process of recording them. It's out of print in the USA, but there's a new edition available in the UK and it can be ordered from the link. Do yourself a favor and read this book if the Beatles mean anything to you at all.

I did some work for Muzak once and made the mistake of calling it "music" within the hearing of my boss. He corrected me, "It is a work enhancement technology." Muzak, he explained, was designed to operate subliminally and different programs were designed to have different effects. Office music was designed to keep you focused and working briskly, whereas shopping music was designed to chill you out and make you linger, perhaps to buy more.

Okay, last week we gave a shout out to great first lines; now let's give the last line some.

Phil Plait, over at Bad Astronomy is outraged over the meddling of George Deutsch in NASA's press releases about science matters. Deutsch, a 24-year-old political appointee and college">http://scientificactivist.blogspot.com/2006/02/breaking-news-george-deu… dropout, is entitled to his opinions on scientific matters, of course, but it does seem—shall we say presumptuous?—to insist on editing real scientists on matters of scientific "accuracy."