h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Time to reveal all?

OK by me - I'd need to search online for the others.

I thought everyone would know No. 2, a grand old chestnut.

Cravat comes from the French cravate, a corrupt French pronunciation of Croate; in the reign of Louis XIII, Croatian mercenaries were enlisted... The traditional Croat military [included] picturesque scarves distinctively knotted at the Croats' necks; the cloths that were used ranged from the coarse cloths of enlisted soldiers to the fine linens and silks of the officers. [Thank you, Wiki]

No. 6 is interesting. I saw the wonderful documentary last week about the colour blue. It dealt with the extraordinary Yves Klein, who invented an improved medium for paint that allowed him to produce an exceptionally vibrant blue. He loved it so much he painted a canvas with it which he exhibited in the 1950s.

Strangely, though the Wiki article on him covers this, and the article on monochrome paintings, the one on Colour Field painting that I looked up while setting this question http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_Field seems not to. Whether he was the first or not, featureless monochromes seem to have started appearing in the 1950s.

Yet those that said Dada were close. 'White on White' appeared in 1918, but it was not featureless.

... military *kit* included

There's a new blue.

http://www.iflscience.com/chemistry/this-new-shade-of-blue-was-accidentally-discovered-by-chemists/

I'm glad it was discovered accidentally. There's something in me which feels that the scientific method should be used primarily for advancing mankind rather than discovering such aesthetic things as colours (notwithstanding the remarkable properties this chemical clearly has).

Jersey

Of course! and Gurensey (gansey) too. If they are countries.

Maybe a Sari-name?

Icy, it's an understandable and common feeling, to wish for science to confine itself to advancing mankind rather than discovering aesthetic things.

Hard to delimit, though. Beyond "finding a cure for x" and exploring inner and outer space, what counts as "advancing mankind"? Who is competent to decide the direction that counts as "advance"?

Advancement? Hell, ah'll know it when ah see it.

I don't mind scientists searching for new colors. Sometimes they do so for practical reasons like they did with the ultimate black. ( http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/blackest-is-the-new-black-scientists-have-developed-a-material-so-dark-that-you-cant-see-it-9602504.html ) Sometimes they do so for more aesthetic reasons, like with the searches for better blues ( http://www.webexhibits.org/pigments/intro/blues.html ) and whites ( http://www.webexhibits.org/pigments/intro/whites.html ). There's a lot of science in formulating pigments that are visually appealing AND have durability.

But, yeah, when computer scientists and roboticists keep trying to build automatons that can write poetry ( https://motherboard.vice.com/read/the-poem-that-passed-the-turing-test ) or create art (http://www.themarysue.com/e-david-painting-robot/ ) we enter that uncanny valley. "It ain't right!" "Down with this sort of thing!" Get out the pitchforks and torches.

http://motherboard.vice.com/read/the-poem-that-passed-the-turing-test

The bigger problem must be poets who fail the Turing test.

Like Paul Neil Milne Johnstone?

How can a poem pass a test that consists of interaction?

(Says he, not having read the article)

By misunderstanding the Turing Test, that's how.

Can you not feed it in one line at a time? Or am I missing something?

The Turing Test is that I ask questions through a computer link and the computer or person at the other end replies. If I can't tell whether it is a computer or a person, they've passed the Test. They can't pass the test by producing a poem. They have to answer my questions and I can ask them anything I like.

Ah, ok, so they can't quote random poetry at you.