Possumblog

Well, it's not like it's John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt...

Steevil, famed NASA Rocket Scientist and brother of Dr. Weevil, just sent me the following:

There may be a story behind this bibliography entry:

"[4] R. C. Titsworth [subsequent to publication of this paper, the author changed his surname to Tausworthe], “Optimal Ranging Codes,” IEEE Trans. Space Elec. & Telem., vol. SET-10, pp. 19-30, March 1964."

Hmmm. Probably so. Although I could see his original name as being a good name for a chain restaurant with a more risque theme than, say, T.G.I. Friday's or O'Charley's or Applebee's or Bennigan's.

Anyway, doing a bit of surfing on the Amazon revealed that the R stands for Robert, and under the Tausworthe moniker, he has at least six books of a highly esoteric type dealing with things and stuff and electrical things and junk--things that were I a rocket scientist, I would be able to immediately comprehend. Sadly, saddled as I am with a walnut-sized brain, the titles read more like a random word generator test, which is why he's a college professor and I am, well, me.

As for his titter-inducing former name, looking through Amazon also brought me to this book, which indicates the original version of Titsworth is the Dutch surname "Tietsoort."

As for the rest of the story, well, you'll just have to do your own research!

Posted by Terry Oglesby at October 11, 2005 10:26 AM