Outhouse

An outhouse (or privy) is a small structure, separate from a main building, which covers a pit latrine or a dry toilet. Outside North America, the term "outhouse" refers not to a toilet but to outbuildings in a general sense. Colloquially, the term is also used in some countries to denote the toilet itself, not just the small housing structure.

Terminology

The term "outhouse" is used in North American English for the structure over a pit latrine. The structures are referred to by many other terms throughout the English-speaking world, including "dunny" or "long drop" in Australia and New Zealand, and "bog" in the United Kingdom. The terms "kybo" and "biffy" are unique to the Scouting movements. In British English the word "outhouse" is used for any kind of separate or leanto structure and does not specifically refer to any kind of latrine or toilet. In the Welsh Language the expression "ty bach" = little house refers to any toilet, including a normal bathroom internal to a house.

Outhouse (venue)

History

The Outhouse was a hardcore punk music venue located east of Lawrence, Kansas on 15th Street. Original shows listed the venue as Past the Pavement Hall, being as the county pavement ended about 3/4 of a mile from the building.

It hosted many acts from the time it was initially leased for fraternity parties and biker bashes in 1985 until it was discovered by young rock bands desperate for a place to perform. The first hardcore/alternative rock shows to play at The Outhouse were in the late summer/fall of 1985. Its doors were permanently closed in 1998. The growing mainstream popularity of pop punk music in the early 1990s was already leading to the decline of the Outhouse, but what ultimately led to its closing was the Great Flood of 1993. The building once known as the Outhouse is now a BYOB strip club.

The Outhouse was unique because it was a gutted cinder-block storage garage in the middle of a corn field. The walls (if any) had been torn out leaving only cinder-block walls. Original shows in 1985 featured no stage until a stage was built by volunteers from the University of Kansas student radio station, KJHK, and various local bands. KJHK and others had made an arrangement with the Flaming Lips to play there and felt a stage was needed to attract other non-local acts. During the construction of the stage, it was suggested that the name be changed from Past the Pavement Hall. One KJHK staffer remarked that the place was a &$%@hole and it should be called the Outhouse. The name stuck. Unfortunately, the Flaming Lips van broke down and the show never occurred.

Barn (unit)

A barn (symbol b) is a unit of area. Originally used in nuclear physics for expressing the cross sectional area of nuclei and nuclear reactions, today it is also used in all fields of high-energy physics to express the cross sections of any scattering process, and is best understood as a measure of the probability of interaction between small particles. A barn is defined as 10⁻²⁸ m² (100 fm²) and is approximately the cross-sectional area of a uranium nucleus. The barn is also the unit of area used in nuclear quadrupole resonance and nuclear magnetic resonance to quantify the interaction of a nucleus with an electric field gradient. While the barn is not an SI unit, the SI standards body accepts its use with SI units due to its continued use in particle physics.

Etymology

The etymology of the unit barn is whimsical: during wartime research on the atomic bomb, American physicists at Purdue University needed a secretive unit to describe the approximate cross sectional area presented by the typical nucleus (10⁻²⁸ m²) and decided on "barn." This was particularly applicable because they considered this a large target for particle accelerators that needed to have direct strikes on nuclei and the American idiom "couldn't hit the broad side of a barn" refers to someone whose aim is terrible. Initially they hoped the name would obscure any reference to the study of nuclear structure; eventually, the word became a standard unit in nuclear and particle physics.