The Scale of Things

Received this link from Bud. It is a fascinating look at the scale of everything from things so small that they cannot yet be seen with modern technology to things so large that they are yet to be seen with technology. Slide the scale slowly or you will miss many details. LINK

Six Interesting People Facts

Shirley Temple always had 56 curls in her hair.

Isaac Asimov is the only author to have a book in every Dewey-decimal category.

Hulk Hogan's real name is Terry Bollea.

The Earl of Condom was a knighted personal physician to England's King Charles II in the mid-1600's. The Earl was requested to produce a method to protect the King from syphilis.

Stalin was only five feet, four inches tall, his left foot had webbed toes, and his left arm was noticeably shorter than his right.

The only real person to be represented with a Pez head was Betsy Ross.

Annie Get Your Gun

Phoebe Anne Oakley Mozee was five feet tall. She was also a crack shot with rifles, pistols, and shotguns. Annie Oakley was born in a log cabin in Patterson Township, Ohio and starred in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show for seventeen years.

March 5, 1922, Annie broke all existing records for women’s trap shooting by hitting 98 out of 100 clay targets thrown at 16 yards while at a match at the Pinehurst Gun Club in North Carolina. She hit the first fifty, missed the 51st and 67th.

In one day she used a .22 rifle to hit 4,772 glass balls out of 5,000 tossed in the air. She could hit the thin side of a playing card from 90 feet and puncture it at least five times before it hit the ground. It was this display that named free tickets with holes punched in them, Annie Oakleys.

She was immortalized in Annie Get Your Gun, which was later made into a musical for the stage. In 1985, another film, Annie Oakley, was made for TV. It included silent-film footage of the record-breaking sharp-shooter, taken by Thomas Edison. There was also a weekly TV show about her during the fifties.
------------------

Happy Friday

Work like you don’t need the money. Love like you have never been hurt. Dance like nobody’s watching.

I am working and loving and dancing my way toward a Happy Friday!

Happy Texas Independence Day

Today is the celebration of the adoption of the Texas Declaration of Independence on March 2, 1836. Settlers in Mexican Texas officially broke from Mexico, creating the Republic of Texas.

Baseball Clothing Rules

Basketball and hockey coaches wear business suits on the sidelines. Football coaches wear team-branded shirts and jackets and often ill-fitting pleated khakis. Baseball managers are the only ones who wear the same outfit as their players.

It goes back to the earliest days of the game, when the person known as the manager was the business manager, the guy who kept the books in order and the road trips on schedule.

The person we call the manager today, who arranges the roster and decides when to pull a pitcher, was known as the captain. He was usually also on the team as a player. There were also a few captains who didn’t play for the team and stuck to making decisions in the dugout, and they usually wore suits. With the passing of time, it became less common for the captain to play and on most teams they had strictly managerial roles. The rules do not state that a manager should wear a uniform or not.

Wordology

Jumbo was a large African Bush Elephant, born 1861 in the French Sudan, imported to a Paris zoo, transferred to the London Zoo in 1865, and sold in 1882 to P. T. Barnum, for the circus. The giant elephant's name is now a common word 'jumbo', meaning large in size.

ENIAC Facts

 In February 1946, the first ever general purpose digital electronic computer was dedicated at the University of Pennsylvania.  The machine was called the ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer).  It cost over $500,000 ($6 million today), weighed about 57,000 pounds and took up 1800 square feet.  It had 17,468 vacuum tubes, 70,000 resistors, 7,200 diodes, 10,000 capacitors, and 5 million hand soldered joints. It used enough electricity to power 114 homes. The longest time between vacuum tube failures was 4 days and 20

The first task it was to perform calculations pertaining to the development of the hydrogen bomb. It stayed in service for nine years.

Japanese Earthquake and Tsunami Before and After

Here are some stunning pictures of the incident in March 2011 and one year later. Amazing cleanup. Click on each picture for the after. LINK

How to Squish Beans

Are you having a bad day? Feeling frustrated? Use this site to squish some beans. LINK  Just click on the beans and watch. Now you will feel better.

What's in a Name Bisquick

Bisquick mix was reportedly invented in 1930 by a General Mills executive who, while on a journey by train, complimented the chef in the dining car on his fresh biscuits. The chef showed him how he pre-mixed shortening with the dry ingredients of flour, salt and baking powder and kept the mixture on ice in the train kitchen so he could prepare the biscuits very quickly.

When they mass-marketed the idea, General Mills replaced the shortening with hydrogenated oil so that the product wouldn't need to be refrigerated. At first they marketed it solely as a fast way to make biscuits, but soon, in an effort to increase sales, they started suggesting that consumers use it to make a variety of other foods, including pizza dough, pancakes, dumplings, cookies, and pies.

Top of the Morning to You

This phrase appears to not be original Irish, although some have said it has been Irish and out of use for hundreds of years. Hollywood keeps it alive, along with the response, "and the rest of the day to yourself."

It was used in Theodore Cyphon, a novel by George Walker, published in 1796. The protagonist is greeted not long after landing on the shore of Essex, "Halloo! you teney" cried one, "the top of the morning to you. Have you seen pass a tall chap, in a light blue coat, with striped trowsers."

Four Coffee Seed Facts

Coffee bean is not actually a bean, it is a seed.  Beans are always seeds, but seeds are not always beans.  A bean is just one kind of a seed.  Specifically, the bean is a name for seeds of the family Fabaceae, of which the coffee plant is not a member.
A coffee bean is actually the seed of the coffee plant, the pit inside of the coffee fruit.
Only one state produces coffee, Hawaii.
English chemist, George Constant Washington invented instant coffee.
Put used coffee grounds in houseplant soil to help the plants.

Steve Jobs Henry Ford

Phones started as all black.
Then they went crazy with color, shape, and size.

Where we are now.

It is difficult to stand out from the pack these days.
We have devolved into a pack of phone drones.
There is no difference in shape or style.
Steve Jobs has taken over as the new Henry Ford.

Next will we all be wearing black as the clothing color of choice?
Oops, women already are.
At least there is a variety of size and shape.

Cars started as all black.
Then they went crazy with color, shape, and chrome.
Then they began to all look alike, with color as the only differentiator.
Now they come in many sizes, shapes, and colors.

PCs started as all gray.
Then they went crazy with color, shape, and size.
Then they morphed into tablets, which all look alike.

Why have PCs and phones become clones?

It seems to me the last time we came out of a depression things changed.
I hope it happens again when we come out of this one.
It is time for a change.