Do Penguins Have Knees? Read Online Free PDF

depressed first, allowing it to sense if the cassette ERASE tab was present. Then it would permit closure of the play button.
     Modern recorders, audio as well as VCRs, use servo controls to engage the tape mechanism and sensors to detect if erasure/recording is allowed. With these devices, “one button” recording is possible from the control panel or via an infrared remote or by a present timer.
     
    William J. Goffi, of the Maxell Corporation, told Imponderables that many audio recorder manufacturers have seen the light and are incorporating user-friendly one-touch recording.
     
    Submitted by Richard Stans of Baltimore, Maryland .
     
     
    How Do Bus Drivers Get into a Bus When the Door Handle Is Inside the Bus?
     
    It all depends upon the bus. According to Robin Diamond, communications manager of the American Bus Association, many newer buses have a key lock that will open the door automatically when a key is turned. Mercedes-Benz buses, according to their press information specialist, John Chuhran, have a hydraulic door release that can be activated “by a key located in an inconspicuous place.” Most often, the “inconspicuous place” is the front of the bus rather than the door itself.
    Instead of a key-activated mechanism, some buses have a handle or air-compression button located in the front of the bus. Others have a toggle switch next to the door that opens it. Along with these high-tech solutions, we heard about some other strategies for bus drivers who may have locked themselves out. Karen E. Finkel, executive director of the National School Transportation Association, was kind enough to supply them:
     
1. Enter through the rear emergency door, which does have a handle.
2. Push the door partially closed, but not enough for the door mechanism to catch, so that the door can be pulled open.
3. Use your hands to pry open the door.
     
    Why do we think that method #3 is used altogether more often than it is supposed to be?
     
    Submitted by Harry C. Wiersdorfer of Hamburg, New York. Thanks also to Natasha Rogers of Webster, New York .
     
     
    Why Is the Lowest-Ranked Admiral Called a Rear Admiral?
     
    If you think that we are going to joke about the fact that a rear admiral is the lowest-ranked admiral because he tends to sit on his duff all day, you severely underestimate us. Puns are the refuge of the witless.
    Dr. Regis A. Courtemanche, professor of history at the C.W. Post campus of Long Island University, wrote to Imponderables that the term originally referred to the admirals who commanded English naval fleets in the seventeenth-century Dutch Wars. The fleets were divided into three segments: the vanguard (the ships in front), the center, and the rear. “So,” Courtemanche concludes, “the term lies in the fact that the lowest ranking admiral controlled the rear of the fleet at sea.”
     
    Submitted by Peter J. Scott of Glendale, California .
     
     

     
     
    Why Was April 15 Chosen as the Due Date for Taxes?
     
    It wasn’t ever thus. In fact, the original filing date for federal taxes, as prescribed in the Revenue Act of 1913, was March 1. A mere five years later, the deadline moved back; until the Internal Revenue Code of 1954 was approved on August 16, 1954, midnight vigils were conducted on March 15. Taxpayers who paid on a fiscal year were also given a month’s extension in 1954, so that they now filed on the fifteenth day of the fourth month, instead of the third month, after their fiscal year was over. In fact, all federal returns, with the exception of estates and trusts, are now due on April 15, or three and one-half months after the end of the fiscal year.
    Were these dates plucked out of thin air? Not really. The IRS wants to process returns as early in the year as possible. In the 1910s, when most tax returns were one page long, it was assumed that after a wage earner totaled his or her income, the return could be filled out in a matter of minutes. Why wait until after March