At least one of these things is not like the others

[sniffnoy]

But just how many is unclear.

Pieces of paper were found taped to a blackboard. On these pieces of paper were written words. They were arranged as follows:

---

          Dossier
Space Fagins    Hideouts
Protons         Neutron stars
Helium nuclei   Supernovae
Heavy nuclei    Active galactic nuclei
Electrons       Black holes
Photons
Neutrinos

---

What's going on here? "Space Fagins" is a real WTF entry, and hideouts doesn't fit so well either. ("Dossier" seems to have been taken by everyone as some sort of heading, and so wasn't discussed.) Grant said "Space Fagins" is the only real odd one out because everything else listed actually exists. But hideouts certainly don't fit the theme either. (Also, note, small things on the left, large things on the right. Is this somehow relevant?) One idea I had recently is that perhaps "Space Fagins" and "Hideouts" are in fact column headings, but this - well, at least it's an interpretation, but it still doesn't really make any sense.

Thoughts?

-Harry

Comments

[sivakrytos.livejournal.com]

Oh, that's been in the Barn forever, we don't question it too much.

[sniffnoy.livejournal.com]

Oh, huh. I hadn't been in there in quite a while.

[pklemica]

Back in the day, Bell Telephone sponsored a bunch of educational films with lots of corny mixed media and extreme technological optimism. Because everything old is new again, the school's chapter of the Astronomical Society bought a copy of the digitally remastered "Our Mister Sun" and "The Strange Case of the Cosmic Rays," (1957) which were shown last year along with a DIY-followup in which they tried to make the at-home cloud chamber demonstrated in Strange Case (the far more amusing of the two films, including puppet versions of Poe, Dickens, and Dostoevsky criticizing 'Dr. Research' on the lack of real intrigue in his cosmic ray mystery), which was pretty cool but didn't really work at all, although that may be because, for lack of dry ice, we used liquid nitrogen. Mathews House has also watched these multiple times now, as Melinda Morang is the one who bought them and kind of the one who runs the club, and lives here. Anyhow, the conclusion of Strange Case (SPOILER ALERT) are the three puppet/authors saying that their story of the past 50 years' worth of scientific discovery is unfinished, and that they basically should come back in another 50 years with an update. (OK, SPOILERS OVER) Eventually, we noticed that 1957 is, in fact, exactly 50 years from 2007 - this sequel should be happening right now! And so this Fall, Melinda organized a group to do the remake, much shorter and with a much smaller budget and talent pool to draw on, but much more available for free online, here: http://youtube.com/watch?v=8SgOM8XPI3s I can't promise it will make a whole lot of sense without having seen the original, but at least you get to see these things being put on the board in the barn, back in November, no less. I'm constantly amused they're still up. Anyhow, the general idea is that, in the original Strange Case, they're trying to figure out who's stealing the charge from the gold leaf experiment, so they make a dossier and talk about the experiments they go through to find out more about this villain.

[sniffnoy.livejournal.com]

Wow, I didn't expect that. But my column-heading idea was right, I see... and if they don't actually match up with the contents of the columns, it's because they didn't in the original. Huh.

Also, you might want to try doing something to actually make spoilers not visible (e.g. rot13 or writing them in white).

[pklemica]

I figured nobody actually cared what the conclusion to the suspense-filled drama that is a 50-year-old educational film's puppet's decision was, the spoiler alert being more for comedic effect than actual worries. If you think it's going to upset anyone, though, feel free to hide my comment... I can, at your request, post a new, secret-friendly version.

[sniffnoy.livejournal.com]

What? Oh no... I didn't care and didn't know why you did that. I simply ignored it. It makes sense now (if that were really spoilered, the whole comment would not make sense, as it would explain nothing!). But I wasn't thinking about why you might have done it. Sometimes you run across people who actually think that suffices as a spoiler alert, so that was my immediate reaction.