Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2021 August 12

= August 12 =

Pear Phone
Is it real Pear Phone? On YouTube there is some video... --62.19.237.177 (talk) 16:30, 12 August 2021 (UTC)


 * It's a joke. See here. Matt Deres (talk) 17:28, 12 August 2021 (UTC)
 * I understand Russia is developing a Watermelon Phone. In tests it has worked very well, but it will require very large pockets. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 20:22, 12 August 2021 (UTC)
 * In the 1970s a Soviet factory manager was sacked because his zavod made sunglasses through which one could gaze directly at the midday Sun and see zero light. True story. --  Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  21:00, 12 August 2021 (UTC)
 * That's unfortunate. There's a big market for that kind of thing, among politicians. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 22:37, 12 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Perhaps they were just peril-sensitive sunglasses. (I had a pair of those once.) Mitch Ames (talk) 09:14, 13 August 2021 (UTC)
 * I know a guy who has two pairs of them. --Khajidha (talk) 16:39, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

Horton Sphere Compressed Gas Storage Tank (Gas Ball), Stow Massachusetts
A Horton Sphere compressed gas storage tank (known by old town citizens as the "Gas Ball") was installed on Route 62 in Stow, MA a little over a mile from the town center by the Hudson and Marlboro Gas Company sometime in the early 1900s and removed sometime during the mid-1900s. Not much information is still available on this piece of town history and there doesn't appear to be any photographs or other information on the storage facility in the town's records. If you have pictures or any information on this storage tank, or if you have pictures or any information on similar structures, please post.2601:18F:B80:370:B4FD:12A2:7D4D:305B (talk) 21:10, 12 August 2021 (UTC)
 * I can't find anything on the Stow, Mass. one in particular, but here is some general information on Horton Spheres. Wikipedia has a short article about them as well at Horton Sphere.  Here is another pretty good article on them.  -- Jayron 32 22:22, 12 August 2021 (UTC)
 * An article in the July 2013 edition of the Stow Independent confirms its former existence "at the corner of Gleasondale Avenue and Boon Road" but no dates. Perhaps if you can find the full article? WikiProject Resource Exchange/Resource Request may be able to help. Alansplodge (talk) 10:36, 15 August 2021 (UTC)

Do lumberjacks ever work from boats?
I would think that there just aren’t a lot of opportunities to fell trees from boats, and the few trees that grow directly in water (mangroves) might be easy enough to cut anyway, but I don’t know. —(((Romanophile))) ♞ (contributions) 21:30, 12 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Yup. They're called "boom boats" and they're used for organizing, pushing, and moving logs in logging ponds.  See  or here for some information I found.  -- Jayron 32 22:17, 12 August 2021 (UTC)
 * There was some (much?) overlap between stereotypical French loggers and quaint English steamers all along the Ottawa. They didn't work from the boats, but the boats took them to work and (perhaps less often) back again. It was indeed a different time. InedibleHulk (talk) 03:30, 13 August 2021 (UTC)
 * We don't have an article on the G.B. Greene, rumoured to have hauled some logs, but we have G. B. Greene, Jr. InedibleHulk (talk) 03:56, 13 August 2021 (UTC)
 * As far as lakes go, did you know if you tow 200,000 logs in three booms, you're pulling a "sack"? The captain of the Lady Minto likely did! If she's any relation to the more notable Mintos, it's news to me. InedibleHulk (talk) 07:31, 13 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Maintenance work along the banks of a river or canal may involve cutting down some trees and it's often most convenient to just load them in a barge. That happens all the time along commercially used European waterways. Long distance transport of logs can be by ship too. Wood floats, but on big waterways it's more convenient (and fuel-efficient) to use a barge.

PiusImpavidus (talk) 14:09, 13 August 2021 (UTC)
 * I'm confused. A log doesn't need gasoline to float down a river, does it? Temerarius (talk) 18:30, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Those logs have to be "herded", don't they? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 22:42, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Git along, little loggies. Yeehaw! Clarityfiend (talk) 23:33, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Barges, bah. On the the Great Lakes we used lumber hookers! Also wanigans if ya wanna eat. Rmhermen (talk) 15:11, 14 August 2021 (UTC)