Buchanan’s Journal of Man, Volume 1, Number 5, by Joseph Rodes Buchanan. Published June 1887.

Bookp(h)ile

Odd Ends isn’t a normal blog. In fact, it’s not a blog at all. However, since I don’t have anywhere else to put this post, here it is.

I spent a day decompressing after the three days of Startup Weekend Ann Arbor, and now I have to write down my thoughts so maybe they’ll stop roiling around in my head and I’ll be able to get some uninterrupted sleep.

First, let’s go over what worked well.

• The space was amazing. McKinley was incredibly generous. I think the scruffiness and the basementiness of the space helped to give a sense of verisimilitude to the idea that we were part of high-energy low-rent startups.

• Meeting people. Most of the people there knew only a few (if any) of the others before Friday. I often overheard people saying how surprised and pleased they were to meet such talented folks.

• The food was generally tasty and plentiful, and there were plenty of opportunities for eating healthy food as well as junk. (All kudos go to Laura — I merely assisted on the Costco run.)

Now onto what worked less well.

• Logistical support. Hire staff or develop a larger pool of event volunteers. I didn’t participate like I thought I would — though if I had, I wouldn’t have had the vantage point to be able to observe the proceedings and make this post. I’m not complaining (not anymore ;)), just suggesting.

• WiFi. Yes, we had access, but it was spotty at times which encouraged some teams to disperse to other venues. Don’t hold people hostage, but don’t give them reasons to go away for long periods either — it disrupts the energy in the main venue.

• Scheduling. Startup Weekend is not an Open Space event. It has some similarities, like self-selected interest groups, but that’s about where it ends. It wasn’t until the day of the event that we learned that there was actually supposed to be some structure (expressed in the form of “Well usually we…”) to the weekend, with status reports and final presentations.

  If you’re reading this as a future SW organizer, take this little piece of advice and make a schedule. Even as simple as “Saturday: 9am start/status, noon lunch, 4pm status, 11pm leave” (or whatever your plans are, and you do have them even if it’s figuring out when you’re going to eat).

  Also on the status reports — the only topic should be bottlenecks, where a team leader says “We need (accounting, legal, coding, whatever) help” followed by somebody offering a few minutes of assistance. Next!

• Group formation. We had so many pitches (34 for 90ish people!) that it was hard to get groups to coalesce. (Another area where the “Well usually we…” came too late to be of any use.) A significant proportion of the people who came had one particular idea that they wanted to work on (and they only wanted to work on that idea). A similar proportion had businesses already started and wanted “free” help. A third group (happily, the majority) of people came without any real idea of what/how/where they would contribute, but took the “startup” part to heart. I think it was this last group that had the most fun and got the most out of the weekend.

  Future SW organizer: set a minimum group size (and/or maximum number of projects). Larger groups have a better chance of surviving without some of the players for a while. Discourage projects/companies that are already started (these “idea” pitches often start with “I’ve been working on this for a while…”). Emphasize the point of the event is creating new companies.

• Project choices. It’s a two and a half day event. Companies involved in making physical objects are unlikely to be successful as a Startup Weekend project, simply because it’s hard to find out manufacturing costs within a few hours (unless you have been working on the idea for a while, which you shouldn’t be doing — see above).

• Managing expectations. Many people came with the idea that they were going to be walked through the starting of a company — how to make a business plan, how to do market research, etc. Startup Weekend (the company) assumes there are people with that experience already coming to the event who will be willing to share their knowledge so others will be learning by doing. This needs to be spelled out very clearly at every possible opportunity.

Lest you think upon reading this that the whole weekend stunk, let me assure you that it didn’t. The people who came to Startup Weekend Ann Arbor and stayed (I think we had about 50 at the bitter end, not including the people who had to leave early on Sunday) impressed me with their drive, stamina and enthusiasm for their projects and companies. Of the six projects that were most fully formed by the close on Sunday, three companies really fit the “Startup Weekend” idea and launched from scratch. Two were close but didn’t quite make it to launch, and the other one seemed to me to be a recharacterization of an existing business.

Three new companies that didn’t exist before June 21, except maybe as a random thought in someone’s head, are now out there in the world (at least in beta ;)). And that is awesome.

[updated to add] I forgot to mention Laura’s hard work and nearly single-handed effort to bring the weekend off successfully. Any criticisms you might think you see here are not directed at her, but are observations of the Startup Weekend process. She earned that gin

[The Arena][], Volume 4, Issue 1 (June 1891), edited by B. O. Flower.

The is the first issue of this volume — the rest is making its way through Distributed Proofreaders.

Bookphile

“Died at her residence, of a nauseous smell, Margaret Smith, in the 40th year of her age.” If in the mortuary column of this or every other paper, the expression “died of typhoid fever” was stricken out, and in it stead printed “died of a nauseous smell,” the frequency with which we should find these words occurring would not a little surprise and alarm us.

Is it, indeed true, that nauseous smells actually kill? That they are very disagreeable we all know, but that they are deadly not everyone is fully aware. We are accustomed to regard our olfactories as sources from which pleasure may be derived, rather than as monitors to warn us against unwholesome and destructive odors. Did we trust them in the latter capacity and heed their monitions, delicate and almost imperceptible as they frequently are, much sickness and many deaths would every year be prevented.

It is a fact now very well understood in the medical profession that all excrementitious matters of the human body received into the body again through the lungs, or the pores, or the mouth are direct and deadly poisons. They will kill as certainly as arsenic, or prussic acid, or a pellet of cold lead, if enough of them are taken.

Prince Albert died of a minute crevice in the mouldering mansion of an old London sewer that ran under a closet adjoining his summer sitting-room. The odor was imperceptible, but it made Queen Victoria a mourner all her days. One among the distinguished and lamented American dead in 1869 died of a water closet adjoining his office which was not properly drained. The papers said “typhoid fever,” and thousands mourned his “untimely removal from a field of extensive usefulness here, to his everlasting reward.” The clergy and pious people called it “an inscrutable and mysterious Providence;” the doctors said “imperfect sewerage.”

In the country there are fewer deaths from this cause than in the city, for reasons quite obvious: populations are not crowded together, and effete matters are returned more promptly to the soil. Yet in the most healthy localities typhoid fever sometimes occurs, and may always be traced to its only source.

In the summer of 1860 the writer of this article spent some months on the plateau of the Cumberland Mountains, that which, perhaps, the world does not afford a more salubrious region. Within a mile of our cottage an entire family lay prostrate with typhoid fever, and two of their number died. What was the matter there? In one large log cabin, imperfectly lighted and ill ventilated, ten persons, ate, slept, lived. There was carried on all the work of the family; the beds were never aired, the linen seldom ever washed, and the slops were thrown where ease and convenience suggested. To a healthy pair of lungs the atmosphere within and around the house was simply intolerable. But they had become accustomed to the odor, though it utterly refused to make peace with them.

As the warmth of the sun increases, more and more vigilance should be used by the house-keeper to keep everything in and around her premises perfectly sweet and wholesome. Dry earth will completely disinfect and deodorize every offensive substance. Where this cannot be applied, lime, dilute sulphuric acid, and copperas water form very good substitutes. Particular attention should be paid to the drainage of the sink, especially if that and the well are contiguous. Sleeping rooms should be thoroughly aired and sunned every day, and the bedding hung upon a line or fence at least once every week during hot weather. If these simple rules are religiously observed, whatever other diseases may affect the family, typhoid fever will not be among them.–Hearth and Home.

[tags]Michigan Argus, June, 1870[/tags]

The manufacture of transparent leather has for some time past been accomplished by different methods, but experiments show, as reported in the Magazin Pittoresque, that, for simplicity and effectiveness, the method described below is reliable: After the hair has been removed from the hide, the latter, tightly stretched upon a suitable frame, is rubbed with a mixture consisting of one thousand parts glycerine of twenty-six B, two parts salicylic acid, two parts picric acid, and twenty-five parts boric acid. Before the hide is absolutely dry it is placed in a room where the rays of the sun do not penetrate, and it is saturated with a solution of bichromate of potash; when the hide is very dry there is applied to its surface an alcoholic solution of tortoise shell, a transparent aspect being thus obtained, and the leather is very flexible.

[tags]Ann Arbor Register, June, 1895[/tags]

We have not any new kind of olives, but a new way of preparing them for use, that is, slicing them before they are bottled. Instead of paying for a lot of stones and serving the olives whole, now one may buy them all cut in rings, very pretty for garnishing dishes, very handy to help oneself to instead of a cold, slippery oval object sure to roll away unless very securely prodded with an olive fork; and it is very much more easily and gracefully eaten, since a ring may be severed, whereas a whole olive had to be lifted to the lips and nibbled, and then the stone discarded as deftly as possible. It is a wonder we have not had stoned olives before, since comparatively few have a chef at hand to stone them neatly, nor a cooking school teacher to impart the information. To be sure stuffed olives, the heart of pimentoes or celery, have been fads of fashion, but not everyone likes these combinations.

The dark, purple-red, ripe olives are softer in texture and much esteemed for the table as more easy of digestion than the green; in fact, they are given freely to children, who do not always chew their food properly, and to older folk who have not the best of grinders with which to divide the firm green olives into minute particles.

A blessing, indeed, in these rushing days is the sliced olive, a very handy adjunct to the salad garnishing, and eleventh hour entertaining, whether a mid-day luncheon or a mid-night supper.

“Bathing and the use of soap,” says Prof. Checkly, “is 40 per cent more injurious to the human race than any other form of stimulation to which people are addicted. If I should bathe a man, in proportion, as much as he drank, I’d kill him in one-half the time. This is called the age of hurry and feverish excitement; critics complain that people are unwilling to take time for anything. As a matter of fact, hours of precious time are worse than wasted daily in the bathroom. If men would preserve their health, there are three things they must do: First, leave soap alone; second, get the skin loose from the tissues of the body; third, get rid of the idea that regularity in the matter of sleep and meals is necessary to physical well-being.”

“What are the objections to the use of soap?” asked a reporter to whom the professor’s original views were a revelation.

“There are vital objections,” was the reply. “The skin, it is acknowledged, bears a most important relation to the body. First, it acts as a protective agent, covering the sensitive tissues of the flesh. Second, it acts as the agent of the mind, conveying all sensations of heat, cold, friction, and the like. Third, it directly aids all the other organs of the body, taking up the work of each in turn, when for any reason they become unable to perform their functions. The skin assists all the organs of secretion and excretion in the entire system, and for that reason great attention should be paid to keeping it in a healthy condition. Although realizing its important functions people instead of protecting this wonderful covering of theirs, try by every means in their power to destroy it. Soap does not cleanse the skin. When the skin is dirty it is unhealthy, and the organs within the body can never be cleansed by all the soaps in the world. The only stains, blots, etc., on the skin that people need to get rid of cannot be removed by soap. Some other chemical ointment or fluid has to be resorted to to obliterate them. As far as regards the dust and dirt which naturally adheres to the body, dust and dirt, being earthy and material, are much better brushed off than washed off, and soap does not aid in the process.”

Some boys were playing on the site of the McNulty homestead in Alton, Ill., which has lately been graded off to conform to a new grade of Beacon street, they found a skeleton and a sword. The skeleton was found first, and it was presumed to be that of an Indian, as it is quite common to unearth such remains in this vicinity. However, when the sword was found a new phase was put on the matter. The latter is of the rapier type, and the blade is a half inch wide and of the very finest steel. The handle was inlaid with a metal which proved to be copper. The copper was inlaid to form letters, which are in Roman. On one side of the sword handle are the letters “L. I. N. B. U. R. G. O., 17,” all in capitals. On the reverse side appear these letters and figures: “1 (or I.), S. S.,” and a little to the right the following: “C. H. V. I. Z., I. N.” No explanation can be made regarding the inscriptions or their meaning. The most reasonable presumption is that the sword belonged to some member of Father Marquette’s party, when they were here several hundred years ago; that this person died and was buried with his sword at the place where both skeleton and sword were found.