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19 jun 06 "what is the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow?" 24mph (source). it's a hard problem to solve, because there are so many variables. but, this guy on the web has made an undertaking of it, and provided a rough estimate with what look like, at a glance, to be reasonable figures and tools. i have no choice but to say "good show!" and repeat his answer here. i'm not going to figure out everything (anything) on my own -- even cecil adams does research, albeit he probably doesn't stop with a single google search. but no, i'm not that bad; i hit wikipedia pretty hard for a couple of questions. anyway, if i were to attempt to solve this problem, i'd look for mentions of a swallow being slower or faster than other birds, find the average speed of a bird, and then add/subtract a little bit. i get the joke -- don't worry. this project of mine should really be called "mail me a question and i'll google it for you". something in the back of my mind, some very faint memory of a memory, told me to google the question itself, verbatim, because i had a feeling it had some cultural location. or, maybe it was such a strange question to be asking that i figured there was a chance it wasn't original. however, i was still open to the possibility that the reader had pulled it out of his or her chapeau. for those of you who do not know (like the "me" of five minutes ago), that question comes out of "monty python and the holy grail", specifically a scene in which a bridgekeeper is asking silly questions of king arthur and his band before they're allowed to cross. the first two questions are easy ("what is your favorite color?" and "what's your name?"), and the quizzed are allowed passage after responding. then, the bridge keeper asks one of the group for the capital of assyria. king arthur's travel companion doesn't know, and is consequently thrown over the bridge. finally, the bridge-keeper gets to king arthur, and asks him, "what is the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow?", to which arthur replies, "what do you mean? an african or european swallow?" the bridge-keeper doesn't know, and throws himself off the bridge. you can find the script of that scene here -- search on page for "swallow". it's pretty funny, but i still prefer "nobody expects the spanish inquisition!" and the whole jehovah bit in "life of brian." i wonder if i'm going to start getting really burnt out here, and my answers will become short and uninteresting. i suppose this is when i have to start stretching for ellaboration. i could write about monty python and why, exactly, it's funny. i could speculate on the motives of the submitter. i could discuss cultural memetics, providing "what is the airspeed of an unladen swallow?" as an excellent example. i could discuss science's place in humor, and humor's place in science (hint: think "absurdly rational"). or, i could just lapse into a discussion of this project, and talk about how i'm starting to feel a little bit burnt out. it's because i've received, i believe, 14 questions today, and i will have answered them all in what will hopefully be a few minutes. maybe in the future i'll be given a little bit of time to recuperate between answers. i'm sure the reader can picture me here, at my computer, typing away. it's pretty much all i've been doing today -- probably close to 20 single spaced pages. i wouldn't mind if i received, say, one question in the mail every one or two days. then, i could be sure i wouldn't run out of steam. i've got two more questions besides this one to answer, and by the time i've written them, the history of the day teaches that another will have arrived. i checked my mail, and in fact i just received not a submission, exactly, but an email directly from the one and only ALPESH D. GOR, who has been mentioned thus far in three articles. this is what he said: You could talk about your misshapen ass!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ...i would have, too, if i'd gotten that question via my anonymous web form. even if i had, i'd still recognize the writer as alpesh, with no chance whatsoever of error. i almost wish he had properly submitted the question, because i really do have something to say about my misshapen ass. but now, that subject is closed here forever; what a shame. and all because of alpesh. tell him what you think of him -- his email address and AIM name are right there on his index page. maybe i should alter the script i use here to target his email address, so you can tell him what you think of him anonymously. when i submitted my own first question, i fantasized that so many questions would arrive that i'd have to pick which ones i'd answer. i thought roughly the same when i did my "grafitti wall" (a guestbook, basically) -- fantasized about massive unsolicited user input. when that didn't happen, in either case, i sent out a group email asking them to give it a try. it's possible that questions are coming from the same four or five people, who keep typing up new ones. i have a good idea of the author of a few of them, but for most of them, i'm totally in the dark. the danger, or maybe the good thing, or maybe just the thing, about this project, is that i can type whatever i want. if i feel the need for some blog-like free-writing, then i'm going to do it. my answer to the unladen swallow question represents by far the most egregious example of that behavior, and it may set a trend, which my mental health might demand. i suppose what i originally intended was just that -- for reader questions to serve as a very vague departure point for the same sort of improvisational web writing i used to do. wow, people really get into that unladen swallow business. it made more sense after i noted the terrible intersection of monty python and the internet, and the sort of personalities and behavior it yields. god, i still have to write about emma thompson, and check over the crypto-date article. after this first barrage is over, i will consider limiting my answers to one a day. or more, if i feel like it. it's this obligation i feel to get them all done today that's killing me.
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