Ron the Yarnspinner

  Paul Fisher’s Space Pens                                                                 NASA spent millions of dollars developing an 'astronaut pen' that would work in outer space, while the Soviets fixed the problem easily using  Карандаши ( pencils).   Is this true? Certainly, if you are like the woman in the 2012 State Farm   television commercial who claimed everything on the Internet is true just before her Internet date with a “French Model” comes on scene.   No, this is not true, but every falsehood seems to contain a touch of truth.   Both U.S. astronauts and Soviet cosmonauts initially used pencils on space flights, but pencils were not ideal; something better was needed. And when a solution   to the problem of providing astronauts with a ballpoint pen that would wor...

  And That’s How We Write                                                                                     A folktale is a story passed  from one person to another, by word of mouth over a period of time. Sometimes it  seeks to explain the world around us. Sometimes it tells the whole story about real people and events. Sometimes – but not always. Once upon a time long ago   (16th century) a fierce thunderstorm unearthed a small forest of trees   in Borrowdale (England)   After the storm ended, large deposits of a blackish material were found where the trees were uprooted. Someone said, “Hey, it looks like it’s lead” and everyone agreed that it did, so that’s what they called it. That’s the lead in your...