The Beautiful Life of Inanimate Objects: Doorknobs

Reading back through some old blog posts, I found a short rant about umbrellas and their simple perfection in a travelogue, and today I've been thinking upon another everyday object whose place is often disregarded in our everyday lives:  Doorknobs.

"Doorknobs?" I hear you saying as I lie awake at night, sweating and staring into space. "Doorknobs?  Who cares about doorknobs?"

Apparently, no one.  I started doing some research and discovered that, throughout history, most people were far more concerned with keeping the portals to their homes shut than with documenting how they did it. There have been many forms of keeping-door-closed technology throughout the ages, from the simple but classic "heavy piece of wood" to the elegant "piece of string through a hole."  There are references in classic works such as the Bible to "barring doors"  and this seems to have been good enough for the human collective for centuries.

If I were Grendel, I would have trashed this place too.

In the Middle Ages, most people's home consisted of one giant room, lovingly described by modern historians as "a filthy, stinking hovel" and by modern urbanites as "a cheap studio apartment." Look at a Viking hall, for example. It was initially just a giant rectangular room that was used as a permanent residence for the king and all his retainers. People basically just slept on the floor of the place after feasting and drinking. No doorknobs needed! When rooms were added to early structures, people just kind of hung a dead animal's skin up for privacy, or maybe a nice woven blanket. Later, wooden doors came into vogue, complete with hand-tooled strap hinges, which might include a wooden bar with a little leather latch, but proper doorknobs? Not in the slightest. So, when did doorknobs replace "random bit of material" and "giant block of wood" as our preferred egress and entrance enabler? When was this revolution?

Right after the American Revolution, actually.

Freedom.

See, you right remember that America used to be a British colony, and at that time, England discouraged or outright banned the colonies from manufacturing their own goods. The colonies were expected to send raw resources, like wood and iron, back to England, and get their manufactured goods from skilled English craftsman. The English Government even banned English craftsmen from crossing the pond. Ships manifests and newspaper advertisements of the time depicted that all door-related hardware (hinges, locks, etc) was coming to the colonies from England. But not doorknobs per se, mostly just latches and such.

It wasn't until 1815, three decades after the Revolutionary War, that America began to develop the internal manufacturing processes that allowed it to begin to shed the economic and cultural ties to England. Taking a cue from England, the US Government placed big tariffs on imported goods, encouraging domestic purchases and sparking a way of invention called The Industrial Revolution. Patents flourished.

So, who invented the doorknob? It's kind of hard to say, as the U.S Patent Office burned to the ground in December of 1836, destroying pretty much every patent from 1790 to 1836 in the process. Cotton gin, Lightning rod, and steamboat patents lost to the ravages of time.

GET THIS PERSON A PATENT

Therefore, The first documented invention of a doorknob was a patent issued to one Osbourn Dorsey in 1878, which is a lot of centuries of people just settling for door handles (I'm not even going to start on Europeans and their dirty, socialist door levers). Now, Dorsey probably didn't invent the doorknob in the strictest sense;  Doorknobs of a similar design seem to have existed for about a century or so previously. However, Osbourn was the first person to get a patent for them, and if we've learned anything from the epic Edison vs Tesla conflict, patents are all that really matters to the history books. Osbourn Dorsey was also credited with the patent for the door stop, but I think it's safe to assume people had been putting rocks, bricks, and pets in front of their doors to keep them open for some time previously.


Here's where the simple beauty of the doorknob emerges.

A doorknob is really little more than a bolt connected to a cylinder, that when turned, pulls the bolt out of a hole in the doorframe. A spring or some such contrivance pushes the bolt back into place when the doorknob isn't being turned. PRESTO. Slap a couple of plates on that baby, and you've got a doorknob. Technically, the plates are known as "Escutcheon plates," and are classified as "door furniture" by Wikipedia, which might be the loneliest page on all of Wikipedia. There's something strangely magical about the idea that doorknobs exist practically alongside the United States through history, and that such a simple, Industrial age object has remained basically unchanged for so long.

Someone, somewhere, is aroused by this.

Sure, doorknobs are a terrible disease transmission point, and they aren't remotely as easy to use as leftist, socialist "door levers."

Honestly, I don't know how to feel about switching over en masse to door levers, as I've seen a cat use those to open the door, and I'm pretty sure our species won't survive if the cats can't be kept out. Also, didn't they have door levers in Jurassic Park? Just saying.

So there you have it, a brief history of doorknobs, perhaps one of the most overlooked objects in our daily lives. Doorknobs: Sign of civilization, sign of progress, sign of industry.

Locks are another topic all together.

Climate Change Study Discovers Scientists "Not Great" At Responding To Emails

Forgive the Onion-esque headline, but it'll all make sense by the end of the article, I promise.

Today, a friend on Facebook posted a link to Forbes article by Forbes contributor James Taylor entitled: "The Latest Meteorologist Survey Destroys The Global Warming Climate 'Consensus' in which he reveals the results of a study by the American Meteorological Society, and claims that this study is:

"... the latest in a long line of evidence indicating the often asserted global warming consensus does not exist."

 He goes on to conclude:

"In short, the news for global warming activists is far worse than the survey results showing barely half of meteorologists believe humans are primarily responsible for some global warming. The reality is when you factor in the other necessary components of a global warming crisis, clearly less than half of American Meteorological Society meteorologists believe in the frequently asserted global warming crisis."

I spent some time looking over both his article and the study itself, and the truth it I'm confused by the language of Taylor's article. Specifically, his statement in reference to the study's findings concerning whether or not climate change is occuring and, if it is, if it's causes were primarily human-driven, natural, or a mix of the two.

"Just 52 percent of survey respondents answered Yes: Mostly human. The other 48 percent either questioned whether global warming is happening or would not ascribe human activity as the primary cause." 

Specifically, the second sentence confuses me the most. It seems to combine survey responses of  "Yes, Global Warming is happening and is equal parts human and natural" with "Yes, Global Warming is happening and is natural" responses, "Yes, Global Warming happening but the reason is unknown" responses as well as "No, Global Warming is not occuring" responses.

While Taylor's above-quoted statement isn't untruthful, it seems misleading given the context of the study. Why would anyone combine positive and negative responses into one block of information unless they were obfuscating the actual information? The study isn't an easy read, but I'll do the best to explain why I feel Taylor's is skewing the data in the manner I have suggested above. I encourage you to read the study yourself, regardless of your political leaning, if only so that you are up to date on what meteorologists (at least, those that were surveyed) are saying about the issue of Global Warming today.

Basically, Taylor's presentation of the data makes it look something like this:

Okay, that looks like some data alright. However, the survey itself states 89% of the sample said that global warming is happening (rather than “not happening” or “don’t know”). While Taylor isn't *lying* when he says that "48 percent either questioned whether global warming is happening or would not ascribe human activity as the primary cause," this statement is misleading when juxtaposed with the headline "The Latest Meteorologist Survey Destroys The Global Warming Climate 'Consensus.' If anything, the study shows that an overwhelming majority (89%) of AMS members surveyed believe global warming IS happening, and more than half of the total surveyed believe it is driven *primarily* by human activity. So, if I was to present the exact same data to make it look like, say, the opposite of Taylor's point, it would look something like this:




But, what does the study actually say? The AMS study's accumulated data, undoctored by either agenda, looks like this:

I made a political cartoon.

Right away, you probably checked out a little, which is okay, because the data isn't simple. In fact, it's sort of complicated and nuanced. Your political alignment (mine is Neutral Good) influences how you perceive the data, because of course you don't want to be the tiny sliver getting eaten by the giant Pac-Man of people who think your opinion is dumb. What I'm getting at can be summarized by the culmination of my entire lives creative expression that can be seen to the right.

What truly interesting about the study (because I know you've been super interested if you've read this far) is that the study abstract clearly states that there has been "tension among members of the American Meteorological Society (AMS) who hold different views on the topic" and the study itself was intended to "explore the uncomfortable fact that political ideology influences the climate change views of meteorology professionals."

Scientist: how dog i change my gmail passwrd gais

The study also admits that only slightly more than a quarter (26.3%) of those asked to participate did, in fact, participate to the extent of answering the above question. Now, I will be the first to point out that I am neither a meteorologist nor a math scientist guy (I'm a Half-Elf  Bard 8/Sorcerer 6), but even I can see that a sample that only includes 26% of the experts in a field is a best an incomplete study of a professional classes opinions. If anything, this study has taught me that meteorological scientists are simply crap at answering their emails and filling out surveys.

I suppose an alternate, biased analysis of the astoundingly low response rate could be "Well, the other 73.7 percent probably figured that the survey was stupid and that Global Warming is obviously a liberal lie/greatest threat mankind has ever faced."

On a completely unrelated note, here's the transcription from the D&D game I ran yesterday:

GM: "You have entered into the hall of the evil goblin king, Forbes. He's been seeding confusion via his wicked agents, the "Contribu-tors." As you approach, mystical energy seethes at his feet as he stands and bellows out a riddle meant to scathe your soul!"

'Pathetic fools! Riddle me this; is global wa-'

Player: I THROW MY SWORD AT HIS DICK