Nothing funny about feldspar

Like many people, I do all of my best thinking in the shower.¹ This morning I was wondering about petroleum.

Here we have have some stuff, a resource that up until about 150 years ago was little used. Then someone figured out a way to use this stuff more efficiently, and it replaced all of the other burning oils (animal fats, generally) in use. And then came cars and then came plastics, and the rest, they say, is history.

And now there is some concern that the wells are running dry, and we’re having wars over oil and can’t afford to fill up our cars and trucks and OMG WHERE’S THE OIL!?!! LET’S DRILL EVERYWHERE AND SUCK DOWN THE LAST DROP SO NO ONE ELSE CAN HAVE IT!!!!1!!

We neeeeeed it!

What other thing have we (broadly defined as “historical peoples”) needed, have only known recently that we needed it so much, and yet we used it up so completely that our economic society was completely transformed into something else, and what was that something else?

Was it caves -> lack of room for our burgeoning population -> built dwellings? Was it grazing lands -> deserts -> irrigation? Those, I think are long, slow changes. I could see climate changes having a large local effect in a short period of time, but then the people move (like the Anasazi, perhaps). Is there a pattern we are following, that perhaps we can learn from, or break free of?

And then what is the next thing, corn?

1. Sometimes that’s the only time I think at all — the rest of the day I’m on autopilot.↩

Next Week’s Challenge

Think of a person’s job title that contains the consecutive letters C-H. Move the C-H to the front, then take what used to be the first letter and put it where the C-H was. The result will be another person whom the first person tries to catch. What words are these?

HINT: It *is* that time of year…

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The NPR Sunday Puzzle:

Next Week’s Challenge

From listener Tom Denk of Ann Arbor, Mich.: Take the two-letter postal abbreviations for three U.S. states. Add the letter A. Then add the two-letter postal abbreviations from three more states. You’ll have 13 letters in all. Reading from left to right, you’ll get a familiar three-word phrase that’s seen on many products. (Hint: The three words in the answer phrase have four, two and seven letters respectively.) What’s the phrase?

HINT: A is the 7th letter, and starts the last word of the product phrase. The second word is the same as one of the states.

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Next Week’s Challenge: Think of a familiar brand name ending in the letters G-S. Change the G-S to an O and you’ll get the brand name of a different product. What is it? Hint: The first word has five letters, and the second has four.

Hint: Brand 1 had an iconic plastic package, which has long since been changed out for cardboard. Brand 2 is familiar to anyone with children of A Certain Age (or those who were A Certain Age in the last 40 years).

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Today’s Sunday Puzzle

Next Week’s Challenge: Re-arrange the letters in the word “egomaniac” to spell a sign seen in many stores.

Hint: it’s two words

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