Sep 14, 2012
Ink Jet Printer Origin
A Canon engineer discovered this one
when he set a hot soldering iron a bit too close to his pen. The pen
reacted by spitting out ink just moments later, and the principle
behind a new piece of tech was born.
Why Crustaceans Turn Red
Crabs, lobsters, crayfish,
shrimp, and some other crustaceans turn red/orange when cooked from
their typical blue-green to grayish color.
The exoskeletons of such creatures are made up of several pigments, one of which is a carotenoid called astaxanthin, which provides it’s reddish coloring (astaxanthin is the same carotene that gives salmon its color). At normal temperatures and when alive the astaxanthin pigments are hidden because they are covered with other protein chains that give their shells the bluish-gray or brownish-green color we see.
Exposure to heat destroys this protein coating, while the carotenoid pigment, astaxanthin still remains stable. So when you cook a crab or lobster or other crustaceans, the heat breaks down all the pigments except for astaxanthin, causing the bright red color we see in cooked lobsters, crabs, and crayfish or the reddish-orange color of cooked shrimp.
Only the albino crab and lobster do not turn red when cooked because they have no pigmentation, so they remain the same white color even when cooked.
A one pound lobster is about seven to eight years old, and a eight pounder may be 20 to 50 years old. Lobsters are capable of living over 100 years.
The exoskeletons of such creatures are made up of several pigments, one of which is a carotenoid called astaxanthin, which provides it’s reddish coloring (astaxanthin is the same carotene that gives salmon its color). At normal temperatures and when alive the astaxanthin pigments are hidden because they are covered with other protein chains that give their shells the bluish-gray or brownish-green color we see.
Exposure to heat destroys this protein coating, while the carotenoid pigment, astaxanthin still remains stable. So when you cook a crab or lobster or other crustaceans, the heat breaks down all the pigments except for astaxanthin, causing the bright red color we see in cooked lobsters, crabs, and crayfish or the reddish-orange color of cooked shrimp.
Only the albino crab and lobster do not turn red when cooked because they have no pigmentation, so they remain the same white color even when cooked.
A one pound lobster is about seven to eight years old, and a eight pounder may be 20 to 50 years old. Lobsters are capable of living over 100 years.
Swiffer Substitutes
Microfiber cloths are great and cheaper
substitutes for disposable cloths. When one side is soiled, turn the
cloth over and use the other side, same as with the disposables.
Microfiber cloths can be tossed into the wash instead of thrown away
and one package of reusable microfiber cloths cost less than a
package of disposable wipes for the Swiffer.
Sep 12, 2012
Myth: Earth is Close to Overpopulation
This is a myth has
been around since the 18th century, but the world is a really big
place with plenty of space.
Let's look at how much land it really takes to hold 6 billion people. To give you an idea, consider the small nation of Japan, which has about 143,000 square miles of land. One square mile has 27.9 million square feet. Japan has a total of about 4 trillion square feet, enough to give each person on earth 670 square feet. If we housed people in families of four in simple two-level buildings (8 people per building, one family of four per level), each building could be on a lot of over 5300 square feet.
Using the American average of 8,000 square feet to house four people, the entire population of the planet would fit into a space the size of Texas and Nevada combined or less than the state of Alaska. That leaves a bunch of unused space for growing crops, sailing, and going on vacations.
Let's look at how much land it really takes to hold 6 billion people. To give you an idea, consider the small nation of Japan, which has about 143,000 square miles of land. One square mile has 27.9 million square feet. Japan has a total of about 4 trillion square feet, enough to give each person on earth 670 square feet. If we housed people in families of four in simple two-level buildings (8 people per building, one family of four per level), each building could be on a lot of over 5300 square feet.
Using the American average of 8,000 square feet to house four people, the entire population of the planet would fit into a space the size of Texas and Nevada combined or less than the state of Alaska. That leaves a bunch of unused space for growing crops, sailing, and going on vacations.
Ellen Henrietta Swallow Richards
She was the first woman to
graduate from a scientific institute in the United States. She was
the first female student and received a Bachelor of Science degree
from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She met her husband,
Robert Richards at MIT. Ellen Richards was also the first woman to
be elected to the American Institute of Mining and Metallurgical
Engineers.
In addition, she was a leading figure in the study of nutrition and hygiene. Ecology was a word coined by her. Ellen was an instructor in the laboratory of sanitary chemistry at the Lawrence Experiment Station. She also became the first president of the American Home Economics Association in 1908. In 2011, she was listed as #8 on the MIT150 list of the top 150 innovators and ideas from MIT. Ellen was born in 1842 and died in 1911.
In addition, she was a leading figure in the study of nutrition and hygiene. Ecology was a word coined by her. Ellen was an instructor in the laboratory of sanitary chemistry at the Lawrence Experiment Station. She also became the first president of the American Home Economics Association in 1908. In 2011, she was listed as #8 on the MIT150 list of the top 150 innovators and ideas from MIT. Ellen was born in 1842 and died in 1911.
Bacon Barter
They have finally done it. Driving across
country with no money and no credit cards. Josh Sankey is
freeloading his way across the US armed with nothing more than
a truckload of bacon.
Oscar Mayer supplied enough bricks of Butcher Thick Cut Bacon fill his refrigerated truck.
Sankey is literally hauling a trailer full of 3,000 pounds of bacon from New York to L.A., going coast to coast with zero cash, cards, or checks. He is relying only on the goodness of Americans and the goodness of bacon. He offers bacon to finagle whatever he wants from whomever he wants and so far it's working.
Sankey kicked off the cross-country adventure at the Jets' opener, crashing the tailgate party with a red wagon load of bacon. His goal was to get tickets to the game by trading bacon. He stacked his odds with Camille Burford, host of The Movie Show. They scored two seats. He went on to Maryland, and is now through Charleston. I imagine when he needs a snack, he just throws a few rashers on the engine block to heat them up.
Oscar Mayer supplied enough bricks of Butcher Thick Cut Bacon fill his refrigerated truck.
Sankey is literally hauling a trailer full of 3,000 pounds of bacon from New York to L.A., going coast to coast with zero cash, cards, or checks. He is relying only on the goodness of Americans and the goodness of bacon. He offers bacon to finagle whatever he wants from whomever he wants and so far it's working.
Sankey kicked off the cross-country adventure at the Jets' opener, crashing the tailgate party with a red wagon load of bacon. His goal was to get tickets to the game by trading bacon. He stacked his odds with Camille Burford, host of The Movie Show. They scored two seats. He went on to Maryland, and is now through Charleston. I imagine when he needs a snack, he just throws a few rashers on the engine block to heat them up.
Doughnut Crumbs
No one really knows when donuts were
invented or who invented them. One theory suggests they were
introduced into North America by Dutch settlers, who were
responsible for popularizing other American desserts, including
cookies, cream pie, and cobbler. Another theory is the English
brought the recipes over when they settled in the US.
Doughnut is the more traditional spelling, and still dominates outside the US. Doughnut and the shortened form donut are both pervasive in American English.
Donuts were originally made as a long twist of dough. It was also common in England for doughnuts to be made in a ball shape and injected with jam after they were cooked. Both methods of cooking involved no human intervention as the balls and twists turn over when the underside is cooked.
Hansen Gregory, an American, claimed to have invented the ring donut in 1847 when he was traveling on a steam boat. He was not satisfied with the texture of the center of the donut so he pressed a hole in the center with the ship’s tin pepper box. Excuse me, I feel the need to graze on a glazed.
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Doughnut is the more traditional spelling, and still dominates outside the US. Doughnut and the shortened form donut are both pervasive in American English.
Donuts were originally made as a long twist of dough. It was also common in England for doughnuts to be made in a ball shape and injected with jam after they were cooked. Both methods of cooking involved no human intervention as the balls and twists turn over when the underside is cooked.
Hansen Gregory, an American, claimed to have invented the ring donut in 1847 when he was traveling on a steam boat. He was not satisfied with the texture of the center of the donut so he pressed a hole in the center with the ship’s tin pepper box. Excuse me, I feel the need to graze on a glazed.
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Sep 7, 2012
Happy Friday
Your present circumstances don't determine where you can go; they
merely determine where you start.
My circumstances always cause me to have a Happy Friday!
My circumstances always cause me to have a Happy Friday!
Hansel and Gretel
In the widely known version of Hansel and
Gretel, we read of two little children who become lost in the
forest, eventually finding their way to a gingerbread house which
belongs to a wicked witch. The children end up enslaved for a time
as the witch prepares them for eating. They figure their way out and
throw the witch in a fire and escape.
In an earlier French version of this tale (called The Lost Children), instead of a witch we have a devil. Now the wicked old devil is tricked by the children (in much the same way as Hansel and Gretel) but he works it out and puts together a sawhorse to put one of the children on to bleed (that isn’t an error – he really does). The children pretend not to know how to get on the sawhorse so the devil’s wife demonstrates. While she is lying down the kids slash her throat and escape.
In an earlier French version of this tale (called The Lost Children), instead of a witch we have a devil. Now the wicked old devil is tricked by the children (in much the same way as Hansel and Gretel) but he works it out and puts together a sawhorse to put one of the children on to bleed (that isn’t an error – he really does). The children pretend not to know how to get on the sawhorse so the devil’s wife demonstrates. While she is lying down the kids slash her throat and escape.
Sliced Bread Fact
Hansel and Gretel remind me of
breadcrumbs and here is a crumb about sliced bread. Claude R.
Wickard, the head of the War Foods Administration as well as the
Secretary of Agriculture, got the idea to ban pre-sliced bread in
America, which he did on January 18, 1943.
He said it was about conservation of resources, such as to conserve wax paper and secondary goals of conserving wheat and steel.
However, there was no shortage of wax paper at the time the ban was put in place. He also thought that by banning pre-sliced bread, the amount of bread consumed would go down and reduce the demand for flour and wheat, and thus, decrease prices of those products while increasing stockpiles of wheat. However, at the time of the ban, the US had already stockpiled over 1 billion bushels of wheat, which would be enough to meet the United States’ needs for about two years, even if no new wheat was harvested.
After a severe consumer backlash, the ban was rescinded three months later on March 8, 1943. Upon rescinding the ban, Wickard stated, “Our experience with the order, however, leads us to believe that the savings are not as much as we expected…”
He said it was about conservation of resources, such as to conserve wax paper and secondary goals of conserving wheat and steel.
However, there was no shortage of wax paper at the time the ban was put in place. He also thought that by banning pre-sliced bread, the amount of bread consumed would go down and reduce the demand for flour and wheat, and thus, decrease prices of those products while increasing stockpiles of wheat. However, at the time of the ban, the US had already stockpiled over 1 billion bushels of wheat, which would be enough to meet the United States’ needs for about two years, even if no new wheat was harvested.
After a severe consumer backlash, the ban was rescinded three months later on March 8, 1943. Upon rescinding the ban, Wickard stated, “Our experience with the order, however, leads us to believe that the savings are not as much as we expected…”
Automatic Bread Slicer
As long as we are talking of bread
slicing, The world’s first automatic bread slicer was invented by
Otto Frederick Rohwedder in Davenport, Iowa. He first built a
prototype of his bread slicer in 1912. Unfortunately, his blueprints
and machine were destroyed in a fire in 1917. It took him until 1927
to re-build the machine and produce a model ready to use in an
actual bakery.
The first pre-sliced loaf of bread using his machine, was sold on July 7, 1928. A friend of Rohwedders installed a bread slicing machine at the Chillicothe Baking Company in Missouri. Sliced bread sales skyrocketed.
Pre-sliced bread became a national hit thanks to Wonder Bread, then owned by Continental Baking, who began commercially producing the pre-sliced bread in 1930 using a modified version of Rohwedder’s machine. Crumb is a term bakers use to define the part of bread inside the crust. Unrelated, Jackie Gleason called his drinking buddies crumb bums.
The first pre-sliced loaf of bread using his machine, was sold on July 7, 1928. A friend of Rohwedders installed a bread slicing machine at the Chillicothe Baking Company in Missouri. Sliced bread sales skyrocketed.
Pre-sliced bread became a national hit thanks to Wonder Bread, then owned by Continental Baking, who began commercially producing the pre-sliced bread in 1930 using a modified version of Rohwedder’s machine. Crumb is a term bakers use to define the part of bread inside the crust. Unrelated, Jackie Gleason called his drinking buddies crumb bums.
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