Top 10 Viewers of Shubsthoughts

The top ten countries viewing my blog this month, in order are: Russia, US, Germany, France, Ukraine, United Kingdom, Hong Kong, Portugal, India, China. Thank you to all my new BFFs. I hope you continue to enjoy. Hey Soedinyonnye Shtaty Amerik watzup! 

How Many Kisses

A popular study showed that kissing as a greeting is healthier than a handshake because you don't know what someone has just been touching.

What we call the 'Eskimo kiss', or rubbing noses is called a kunik by the Inuit. It is an expression of affection, usually from an adult to a child. The Inuit also kiss on the lips as we do. The myth of rubbing noses grew out of a Hollywood silent documentary.

French disagree on the number of greeting kisses, but mostly for central France it's two kisses, and for the North, four. There are exceptions - in Finistère, one kiss is normal - and even disparities within the same area: half the population of Calais prefer deux bises, while the other half will greet you with quatre. The number of kisses can depend on whether someone is a friend or family member, and varies between generations. To the upper-class French any more than two kisses is a faux pas.

Of course, it is not just in France that people greet each other with a kiss; in the Netherlands three is normal, and in Belgium it's one kiss for your peers, but if someone is 10 years older than you, then three is respectful. In Spain, two is normal, but you must kiss the right cheek first.

The French don’t necessarily French kiss more than anyone else; the term probably comes from our belief that French sexuality is more sophisticated. In France, it's known as baiser anglais ('English kissing'), baiser florentin (Florentine kiss) or rouler une pelle (to roll a spade). In Quebec, it is frencher.

Kissing in public is illegal in India and a similar law has been proposed in Russia and Indonesia.

Shubsthoughts Blogviews

The top ten viewers to my blog last month in order are:
Russia
United States
Malaysia
Germany
France
China
United Kingdom
Poland
Canada
Ukraine
Thank you to all my new best friends from Russia for being number one. Thank you to all the rest of my new friends from around the globe. Hope you enjoy the content.

Nostradamus

It is probably prophetic that Nostradamus was born in December, because that is the month all the pundits come out withe their predictions for the coming year. Michel de Notredame was and is famous for his predictions, even though many change with the reader. He was born 1503 in St. Remy, France. He is the author of ten books of prophecies, titled Centuries that many still believe foretell the future. He was also a physician, astrologer and, clairvoyant.

His famous astrological predictions were written in rhyming quatrains (four-line poems) that many believe predicted the Great London Fire in 1666, Spain’s Civil War, a Hitler who would lead Germany into war, and predicted his own death on July 2, 1566.

He wrote in code, because in those days, if he was found out, he would have been considered a sorcerer and probably burned at the stake. He used symbolism, metaphors, and added and deleted letters to make his writings even more obscure. Most were written in French and some in Italian, Greek, and Latin. Since we do not know his exact code, or which calendar he was using, we are challenged with making events fit into the 942 quatrains, or vice versa.

Louisiana

I am surprised Nostradamus did not foresee the Louisiana Purchase. The United States took possession of the Louisiana Territories from France in December 1803, just before Christmas. The treaty that France drew up, sold the territory to the United States for $15 million.

The Louisiana Purchase effectively doubled the size of the existing U.S. It was 827,987 square miles, at about $18 per square mile.

The area was later made into 15 states, created or *partially created from the Louisiana Purchase: Arkansas, *Colorado, Iowa, *Kansas, Louisiana, *Minnesota, Missouri, *Montana, Nebraska, *New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, *Texas and *Wyoming.

Virtual Boarding Agents

Orly airport in Paris, France is experimenting with "virtual" boarding agents who always smile, don't need breaks, and never go on strike. "Bonjour! I invite you to go to your boarding gate. Paris Airports wishes you a bon voyage," the image appears to say, while the name of the destination flashes in front of it.

The pilot project in July and has so far been met with a mix of amusement and surprise by travelers, who frequently try to touch and speak with the life-like video images that greet them and direct them to their gate. The images materialize seemingly out of thin air when a live boarding agent presses a button to signal the start of boarding.

Images are rear-projected onto a human shaped silhouette made of plexiglass. Three actual airport boarding agents were filmed in a studio to create the illusion, which the airport hopes will be more eye-catching and easier for passengers to understand than current electronic display.

Airport authority AdP came up with the idea when it was brainstorming ways to modernize one of the dozens of boarding gates at Orly. Similar virtual agents have been in airports in London and Manchester since earlier this year.

The gate serves about 30 or 40 flights a day and about 1 million passengers a year pass through it, mainly on their way to destinations in the south of France and Corsica.

The experiment will be evaluated by the end of the year, after which it could be expanded to other gates and other airports.

Origin of French Toast

Contrary to the name, French toast was not invented in France, in fact, it was invented before there was a France.

Bread has been a staple food for most cultures since food first began being prepared. Soaking bread was a way to make stale bread a bit more palatable, like gravy bread, bread pudding, and other recipes. Soaking stale bread in milk and egg and then cooking it is just another variation of the theme.

The earliest reference for 'French' bread dates back to 4th century Rome. Romans would take bread and soak it in a milk and egg mixture and cook it, typically frying it in oil or butter, much as it is still prepared.

Semaphore

Duane used his handy phone to come up with the answer to the question, what do you call it when those sailors talk to each other with flags. Below are the letters A and B

Semaphore telegraph, optical telegraph, shutter telegraph are all names used to describe the passing of information visually. The lights, with shutters that are open and shut in a specific sequence, are also called semaphore telegraph.

In 1792, France set up a network of 556 optical telegraph stations stretching almost 3,000 miles. It used large movable wooden boards and was used for military and national communications until the 1850s.

Semaphore is still used today at sea and is acceptable for emergency communication in daylight or using lighted wands instead of flags, at night.

'Telegraph Hill' in San Francisco is named after the semaphore telegraph which was established there in 1849 to signal the arrival of ships into San Francisco Bay.

Oldest Photos

In 1839, Robert Cornelius, a Dutch chemist who immigrated to Philadelphia, took a daguerreotype portrait of himself outside of his family’s store and made history: he made the world’s first human photograph.

The oldest known color photograph was taken by Louis Ducos du Hauron in 1872. The photo is of a view of Angouleme in Southern France.

In the 1920s, a brass birdie was often used by photographers to grab the attention of children during a portrait session. A rubber hose and squeeze bulb were connected to the short length of open brass tubing. The brass base was filled with water. Squeezing the rubber bulb caused the bird to make a whistling and warbling sound. Watch the birdie. . .

Interesting Facts About Your Feet

Did you know that you will walk more than 100,000 miles in your lifetime?

Over 80% of Americans suffer from foot pain.

Medieval Europeans believed that wearing pointy-toed shoes would make witches helpless.

High heels were first introduced in the 16th century by Queen Catherine de Medici of France.

In the same century, Italian women began wearing very strange-looking, two-foot high platform shoes called “chopines”. They were originally designed to keep women 'on a pedestal', so to speak. The shoes were banned because they presented the danger of miscarriage to pregnant women who fell from the that height.

About 60% of the body’s weight is supported by the balls of the feet, not the heels.

The foot measurement began in ancient times was based on the length of the human foot.

By the Middle Ages, the foot as defined by different European countries ranged from 10 to 20 inches.

In 1305, England set the foot equal to 12 inches. (The measurement we still use today)

In animals that walk on all four legs, the ends of the front and hind feet are much the same.

The human foot has 26 bones. There are three sets of bones: the ankle bones (tarsals), instep bones (metatarsals), and toe bones (phalanges).

Bones in the feet are not completely formed until a person is about 20 years old.

The foot has as many muscles as the hand, but the foot’s structure allows less flexibility and freedom of movement than the hand.

Swollen ankles can be a sign of congestive heart failure.

Feet that are insensitive to pain and temperature can be a sign of diabetes.

Cold feet may signify circulatory disease.