Uncle John's Endlessly Engrossing Bathroom Reader by Bathroom Readers’ Institute

around the same time as the publication of Greenspan’s new book: The Annals of Gullibility: Why We Get Duped and How to Avoid It.
     
    HOW’S THE WEATHER? England’s most powerful supercomputer—capable of 1,000 billion calculations per second—was designed to predict climate change. After it was installed in 2009, however, critics noted that the massive, hangar-sized machine requires 1.2 megawatts of energy to operate. Using that much power produces 12,000 tons of carbon dioxide per year, making it one of Great Britain’s single worst contributors to climate change.
     
    WHO ARE YOU? In 2009 a man named Kevin Mitnick was unable to access his Facebook account. Due to a temporary glitch, the social networking site didn’t accept his claims that he was who he said he was. Ironically, Mitnick had previously spent time in jail for impersonating other people in order to access their computers. “I used to be very influential at proving I was someone else,” he said. “And now I can’t even prove I’m the real Kevin Mitnick.”
     
    RIGHT UNDER THEIR NOSES . In 2006 England’s Home Office was embarrassed when five workers—hired to clean their immigration department offices in London—were arrested for being illegal immigrants.
     
    WHO WASN’T WHERE? Cate Blanchett was not there for the 2008 Golden Globe Awards due to the Hollywood writers’ strike (actors boycotted the event). Had Blanchett been there, she could have picked up her award for Best Supporting Actress for her role in the film I’m Not There . “I wish circumstance would allow me to be there,” said Blanchett in a statement.

DINGLES AND BEEF
    Every profession has its own slang. Here are some everyday terms used by movie crews.
    Walk a banana: Instruction to an actor to walk in a curvy pattern away from the camera for no other reason than to avoid blocking something that needs to be seen.
     
    Barney: A cloth used to keep a camera warm in cold weather. It gets its name from Barney Google , a 1920s comic strip that featured a horse that always wore a thick blanket.
     
    Buff and puff: Hair and makeup.
     
    Futz: To degrade recorded dialogue so it sounds worse. Example: The sound would be “futzed” (distortion or static is added) if a character is speaking through a telephone or appearing on a TV set.
     
    Bubbles: Lights.
     
    Make the day: Successfully complete all scenes scheduled to shoot for that day.
     
    Noncombatants: Anyone on set not involved in the shooting of a particular shot, such as extra crewmembers or actors not in that scene.
     
    Gone with the Wind in the morning, Dukes of Hazzard after lunch: The production spent too much time getting everything right before lunch and doesn’t have much to show for it, so they’re going to have to speed through the rest of the day’s scheduled scenes.
     
    Beef: Lighting strength. “More beef” means that more-intense lighting is required.
     
    C47: A wooden clothespin, a low-tech solution for a number of problems on a film set. Legend says that a studio accountant didn’t want to have to justify a production’s large order of clothespins, so he called them C47s to make them sound like sophisticated moviemaking equipment.
     
    Shoe leather: Scenes or shots with no dialogue that exist only to move characters from one location to the next, such as walking to a taxi or boarding an airplane.
     
    Fishpole: Boom microphone—the one on the long stick they keep just out of frame.

     
    Dingle: A branch set in front of a light to cast creepy shadows.
     
    McGarrett: A 50mm film lens. The name comes from the character played by Jack Lord on the TV series Hawaii Five-0 .
     
    Manmaker: Any prop, usually a wooden box, that an actor stands on to seem taller.
     
    Balloon tires: Circles under an actor’s eyes.
     
    Century lights: Spotlights, so named because they were once made by the Century Lighting Company (which no longer exists).
     
    Emily: A technical term for a floodlight is a “single