Penny for Your Thoughts

Did you know it costs the government 1.4 cents to make a penny. It produces 5.4 billion of them a year. Do you know why the government has to keep producing pennies? It is because of sales tax, which makes purchases cost an uneven amount, because tax is a percent of the price. The coin's name derives from the Old English pennige, pronounced, roughly, penny-yuh.

Can you see those initials under Lincoln's right shoulder? They are the initials of the designer. So, our infinitely wise government makes pennies, which it has to make because of taxes, and it loses money on each one, which cost us more income tax to pay for their production costs. My thoughts are to eliminate sales tax so our income tax will go down and we could get rid of pennies.

Shiver Me Timbers

A shiver is a wood splinter from a broken mast on a ship, sometimes caused by cannon fire from another ship. As the mast shattered, splinters broke off and sometimes flew into an unfortunate sailor caught too close to the action.

Knives with no handles are shaped like those broken shards and are hence called shivs. Arrgh, that's the truth, matey.

Keeping Notes

If you are like me and need to write notes to yourself about some web site or other tidbit of info you don't want to lose. Try this. I write an email to myself and save it as draft. I usually have only a few emails in my draft folder, so it is easy to find. The worst thing that can happen is that you hit 'send' by mistake and it is mailed to yourself.

Winter Solstice

In the Northern Hemisphere, the Winter Solstice marks the first day of the season of winter. It falls on or near December 21.

The Pagan celebration of Winter Solstice (also known as Yule) is one of the oldest winter celebrations in the world. It is a celebration of the shortest day and longest night of the year in the Northern Hemisphere, when the North Pole is at its furthest point away from the sun.

The Druids (Celtic priests) would cut the mistletoe that grew on the oak tree and give it as a blessing. Oaks were seen as sacred and the winter fruit of the mistletoe was a symbol of life in the dark winter months.

Yule logs are traditionally lit on the first day of the Solstice and are burned throughout the Solstice night for 12 hours as a symbol of hope and belief that the sun will return. The Celts thought that the sun stood still for twelve days in the middle of winter and during this time, a log was lit to conquer the darkness, banish evil spirits,  and bring luck for the coming year.

Land Ownership

The United States government has direct ownership of almost 650 million acres of land, or nearly 30% of its total territory. These federal lands are used as military bases or testing grounds, nature parks, and reserves and Indian reservations, or are leased to the private sector for commercial exploitation (e.g. forestry, mining, agriculture).  (Red is Fed owned)

They are managed by different administrations, such as the Bureau of Land Management, the US Forest Service, the US Fish and Wildlife Service, the National Park Service, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the US Department of Defense, the US Army Corps of Engineers, the US Bureau of Reclamation or the Tennessee Valley Authority.

Sheep

How do sheep in Mexico say Merry Christmas?
Fleece Navidad!

Christmas Shopping

The value of retail sales by electronic shopping and mail-order houses in December 2008 was $24 Billion.

New Way to Fight Cancer

Cell>Point is a company that plans to deliver a cheaper and more effective way to detect tumors in 2010.

Doctors currently rely on positron-emission tomography (PET) scans to see tumors. But PET machines cost more than $2.5 million apiece and are usually found only in major medical centers. MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, had developed a chemical that could light up a tumor on a common SPECT (single photon emission computed tomography) camera. They wanted Cell>Point's owner to help turn it into a product.

More affordable at about $800,000, SPECT cameras are found in six times as many US hospitals as PET scanners and Cell>Point's isotope uses 70% less radiation than PET isotopes and should cost about half as much, about $800 per scan.

Doctors can determine within about two weeks whether a cancer treatment was working, instead of waiting for months with PET scans. Now it is time to begin the costly FDA approval process, but don't expect that to be accomplished next year.

Christmas Post Office Offer

The following is taken directly from the Post Office web site and  thought I would share.
"Camcorder. Check. Toy train. Check. Cuckoo clock. Check. No matter what’s on your holiday wish list, if it fits, it ships, with Priority Mail Flat Rate Boxes, only from the U.S. Postal Service. Priority Mail Flat Rate Boxes let you ship nearly any gift for a low flat rate,” said Robert F. Bernstock, president, Mailing and Shipping Services.

Four box sizes are available to fit holiday gifts:

    * Small Flat Rate box, 8 5/8" x 5 3/8" x 1 5/8", shipping starts at $4.95
    * Medium Flat Rate box, 11" x 8 1/2" x 5 1/2", shipping starts at $10.35
    * Large Flat Rate box, 12" x 12" x 5 1/2", shipping starts at $13.95 ($10.95 when shipping to military personnel at APO/FPO addresses overseas)
    * Medium Flat Rate box, 13 5/8" x 11 7/8" x 3 3/8", shipping starts at $10.35.

Prices are even lower when you pay online at usps.com. “Order Flat Rate boxes now, and we’ll deliver them to you at no charge in time to ship for the holidays,” said Bernstock. “We’ll even pick up your packages for free, saving you a trip to the Post Office.” I think they are really interested in some business this year.

Mircrosoft Maps

Microsoft is trying to get in on the Google action of taking pictures of streets, so you can actually see store fronts on the map as you move down the street. Just tried it at LINK and it has a ways to go before catching up with Google.

If you have not tried the Streetview when using the Google map, just click on the outline of a man on the view bar on the left side of the map and drag him the the street you are looking at. You will see a photograph of the buildings. Google has also done many neighborhoods and I tried my own house and the pictures are reasonable.

To try it, look up your own address on Google maps LINK
Type in your address and zoom in to your house. Then hold down the left mouse button and drag the little man to your street. It will turn the map into a photo. Click on the left or right arrows to move up and down your street.

Singularity

I haven't written much about this lately, but recently IBM scientists built the biggest artificial brain of all time, (now as smart as a house cat), using a supercomputer powered by 147,456 processors and 150,000 gigabytes of memory.

It appears we are on the way to realizing Ray Kurzweil’s prediction made in 1999 that by the year 2020, the power of a $1,000 PC will match the computing speed and capacity of the human brain. He had a follow-up 2005 work, 'The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology', in which he talked more about how the exponential growth of computing will enhance human intelligence far beyond anything imaginable today.

Many scholars believe that because of this rapidly accelerating convergence, a technological event called the SINGULARITY will occur. The amount and rate of change resulting from it, will cause such vast difference in how we work, live, and play that we can't possibly conceive of the changes that will come about after that time. Think of it as the  new industrial revolution on steroids, Viagra, and hallucinogens all at the same time. These scholars are talking about positive, not negative affects of technology.

Kurzweil says that computers are rapidly gaining intelligence, are acquiring humanlike intelligence, and will eventually, collectively exceed human intelligence. Computers will be able to gather knowledge on their own. On the human side, new technologies will be increasing our health and mental capabilities, thanks to nanotechnologies and knowledge systems. By the 2020s, “it will become increasingly difficult to draw any clear distinction between the capabilities of human and machine intelligence,” he wrote.

Kurzweil also went on to predict that by 2029, the power of a $1,000 PC will grow to approximately 1,000 human brains. By that time, “automated agents are now learning on their own, and significant knowledge is now being created by machines on their own.” Several decades later, by the end of the 21st century, there will be more software-based “humans” than carbon-based humans.

The world is already different than what it was just five years ago. Think iPod and the touch screens they use on news programs. I love technology and I know I can always pull out the plug or hit the off switch. Wish I could do that with some. . . Oh, that's a different story.

Alcohol Protects Men's Hearts

Just in time for the holidays. Drinking alcohol every day cuts the risk of heart disease in men by more than a third, a major study suggests and the type of drink did not appear to change the results

The Spanish research involving more than 15,500 men and 26,000 women found large quantities of alcohol could be even more beneficial for men. Female drinkers did not benefit to the same extent.

The study was conducted in Spain, a country with relatively high rates of alcohol consumption and low rates of coronary heart disease. The research involved men and women aged between 29 and 69, who were asked to document their lifetime drinking habits and followed for 10 years.

The researchers, led by the Basque Public Health Department, placed the participants into six categories - from never having drunk to drinking more than 90g (3 oz.) of alcohol each day. This would be equivalent to consuming eight bottles of wine a week, or 28 pints of beer.

For those drinking less than a shot of vodka a day, the risk was reduced by 35%, and for those who drank anything from three shots to more than 11 shots each day, the risk worked out an average of 50% less risk of heart disease.

The exact mechanisms are as yet unclear, but it is known that alcohol helps to raise high-density lipoproteins (HDL), sometimes known as good cholesterol, which helps stop so-called bad cholesterol from building up in the arteries.

The Stroke Association meanwhile noted that overall, evidence indicated that people who regularly consumed a large amount of alcohol had a three-fold increased risk of stroke.

In the UK, the recommendation is no more than two to three units of alcohol a day for women - the equivalent of one standard glass of wine - and three to four units for men. So, drink lots and save your heart, but ruin your brain and liver. Drink less and save your liver and brain, but risk a heart attack.  Hmmm. Decisions, decisions. . .

Speaking of Drinking

A friend of mine, Joe Dougherty sent me this one and I couldn't resist sharing. LINK It is about how to make bacon infused vodka. The Allston Yacht Club bar serves a bacon and egg martini. It shows how to infuse vodka with bacon, then serve with a quail egg. Oh, yes, the site also shows 1,001 things to do with bacon. Yumm!

Founding Fathers Papers

LINK  thousands of unpublished documents from our nation’s founders in a free online resource. Collected over many years by the Founders Documentary Editions, these letters and other papers penned by important figures such as James Madison, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson offer Americans of all ages and interests, a unique view of the early Republic.