Tuesday, June 06, 2006

Is Kate Paying Attention?

So she finally convinced her old dad to get onto blogspot. I did it on June 5, 2006 in order to use this cool website commenting tool (a FireFox extension called Blogger Web Comments).
So, Kate, what date (or year) is it now that you've finally found this ? Will there be any other underground comments logged here by the time you do?

Riddle: Why are manhole covers round?

How long are your legs? 

My friends know that I'm willing to come up with a theory for anything. I'm embarrassed to say I was completely stumped when someone asked me to speculate how the bilateral parts in our human bodies "know" to stop growing at the same length/size.

The legs I can imagine because we're constantly pounding on them and I can imagine them "evening out". But the arms? Ears and eyes for that matter? I know that hormones are involved in the cessation of skeletal growth, but that doesn't fully cover it from my limited understanding.

I'll probably look it up eventually.

BTW: Abraham Lincoln was once asked "How long to you think a man's legs should be?"  His answer was "Long enough to reach the ground".

Why are manhole covers round?



Riddle: Say, if you read this far, perhaps you like riddles? Here's one of my favorites: Why are manholes and their covers round? (They weren't always that way, I believe an easier-to-fabricate octagonal shape was favored in the early days.)

Answer: It turns out that a round cover is the only shape that can't fall through it's own hole!  I don't know about you, but I sure wouldn't want to be in a sewer, but if I WAS, I wouldn't want a 300 pound manhole cover falling on my head!