Nitpicking, Bigwigs, and Perukes

By 1580, syphilis had become the worst epidemic to strike Europe since the Black Death. Without antibiotics, victims developed open sores, nasty rashes, blindness, dementia, and patchy hair loss.

Powdered wigs, called perukes saved the day. Victims hid their baldness, as well as the bloody sores that scored their faces, with wigs made of horse, goat, or human hair and coated with powder scented with lavender or orange, to hide the odor. Wigs were not necessarily stylish, just a shameful necessity.

When Louis XIV was only 17 his hair began thinning. He hired 48 wig makers to save his image. Five years later, the King of England, Louis’ cousin, Charles II, did the same thing when his hair started to gray. Other aristocrats immediately copied the two kings. They sported ostentatious wigs, and the style trickled down to the upper-middle class.

The cost of wigs increased, and perukes became a scheme for flaunting wealth. An everyday wig cost about 25 shillings, a week’s pay for a commoner. The bill for large, elaborate perukes could cost as much as 800 shillings. The word 'bigwig' was coined to describe snobs who could afford big, flowing wigs.

At the same time, head lice were everywhere and nitpicking was a painful and time-consuming chore. Wigs curbed the problem. Lice stopped infesting people’s hair, which had to be shaved for the wig to fit, and moved to the wigs. Delousing a wig was much easier than delousing a head of hair. A wig-maker would simply boil the wig to remove the nits.

Facts About Television

The first time color TV sets outsold B&W was in 1972. That was also the first year that broadcast satellite TV began, although cable had been around for years before that. Only 20% of U.S. households had two or more sets at the time, and almost all portable TVs (usually the choice for a second set) were still black and white due to the technology involved for color. By 1979 no more black and white consoles were made. About six channels were available for watching and the average screen size was 22 inches.

During the 90s the average screen size was 27 inches and the 'giant size screens' were 40 inches. The average TV screen size is about 37 inches today and expected to average 60 inches by 2015.

Later this year super HiDef will be coming at four times the 1080p of today and the TV set definition will be 16 times greater by 2015, likely with prices to match.

Social Site Facts

Twitter has 901 million users, Twitter has 555 million users, Google+ has 170 million users, and Linkedin has 150 million users. The average user spends 405 minutes on Facebook, 89 minutes on Twitter, 3 minutes on Google+, and 21 minutes on Linkedin.

Presidential Height Index

Did you know that in the past 27 US presidential elections, the shorter candidate has won only six times? Handlers for Jimmy Carter (5' 9") went to great lengths to prevent him from standing next to the taller Gerald Ford (6'). It worked, Carter won.

The tallest President elected to office was Abraham Lincoln at 6' 4" and George Washington was 6' 2". Eighteen presidents have been 6 foot or taller. James Madison was the shortest at 5 foot 4.

Mitt Romney is 6’2” and Barack Obama is 6’1”.

Michigan is the only state that has a statute prohibiting height discrimination. (Maybe because Jimmy Hoffa was 5'5").

YouTube Free Movies

Have you seen any free movies on YouTube? Check these out. LINK If you have a big monitor or can hook your PC to your TV, as you can do with most flat screens, this is a cheap alternative to pay-for-view.

Is It Cheaper

When offered the possibility of 33% off a product or the same product with 33% more quantity, which would you choose?

The Economist sums up the results of a new study published in the Journal of Marketing, which reveals that most consumers view these options as essentially the same proposition, but they are not. The discount is by far the better deal. The Economist says, most shoppers don’t realize that a “50% increase in quantity is the same as a 33% discount in price.”

In one part of the study, the University of Minnesota’s Carlson School of Management, asked undergraduate students to evaluate two deals on loose coffee beans, one with 33% more beans for free and the other at 33% off the price. The students viewed the offers as equal.

The initial price is $10 for 10 oz. of coffee beans or $1 per oz. An extra 33% more free beans would bring the total up to 13.3 oz. for $10. That $10 divided by 13.3 oz. give us a unit price of $0.75 per oz. With a 33% discount off the initial offer, though, the proposition becomes $6.67 for 10 oz., for a unit price of $0.67 per oz.

In another marketing experiment involving hand lotion in an actual store, researchers sold 73% more when it came in a bonus pack than when it was priced at a discount with the same exact unit price. Caveat Emptor and go for the discount.

Who was Charlotte Braun

She was written as a female version of Charlie Brown. In fact, she looked just like him, except she had curly hair. She was also ostracized by her peers, but it was because she was loud and obnoxious, a fact she constantly pointed out during her appearances in the comic strip.

Shortly after her introduction in 1954, Schulz received a letter from Elizabeth Swain, a young fan in Pittsburgh, who told him to get rid of Braun because Swain found the character annoying and unfunny.

Schulz wrote Swain a letter saying that he would soon “discard” Braun as requested. He added a touch of dark humor by saying that Swain would “have the death of an innocent child on your conscience. Are you prepared to accept such responsibility?”

Next to his signature, he included a sketch of Charlotte Braun with an ax stuck in her head. Braun showed up in the comic one more time, but then never returned. He really did have a sense of humor.

Wordology, Petrichor

This word describes the scent of rain on dry earth. The word is constructed from Greek, petra, meaning stone + ichor, the fluid that flows in the veins of the gods in Greek mythology.

The term was coined in 1964 by two Australian researchers, Bear and Thomas, for an article in the journal Nature, where the authors describe how the smell derives from an oil exuded by certain plants during dry periods and is absorbed by clay-based soils and rocks. During rain, the oil is released into the air along with another compound, geosmin, producing the distinctive scent. Now you have a name for that great aroma.

Interesting Facts about Taxis

Back in England, the Hansom cab was a kind of two wheel horse-drawn carriage designed and patented in 1834 by Joseph Hansom, an architect from York. The vehicle was developed and tested by Hansom in Hinckley, Leicestershire, England. Originally called the Hansom Safety Cab, Hansom's design was modified by John Chapman (not Johnny Appleseed and not Dallas' John Chapman) and several others to improve its practicability, but retained Hansom's name. Hansom also set up a company in New York in 1869.

Hackney was an area of London, England and before Hansoms, hackney was also a name for carriages for hire to get around the city. It is also where we get the name 'hack' for modern cab drivers.

Harry Nathaniel Allen of The New York Taxicab Co., who imported the first 600 gas-powered New York taxicabs from France, coined the word "taxicab" as a contraction of "taximeter cabriolet", with cabriolet reflecting the design of the carriage.

There are essentially four distinct forms of taxicab, which can be identified by slightly differing terms in different countries:

1 - Hackney carriages, also known as public hire, hailed or street taxis, licensed for hailing on the street. Hansom's were Hackneys.
2 - Private hire vehicles, also known as minicabs or private hire taxis, licensed for pre-booking only.
3 - Taxibuses, also known as Jitneys, operating on preset routes typified by multiple stops and multiple independent passengers.
4 - Limousines, specialized vehicle licensed for operation by pre-booking.

Taxi service is typically provided by automobiles, but various human-powered vehicles, such as the rickshaw or pedicab and animal-powered vehicles, or boats, such as water taxis or gondolas are also used

The first taxi service in Toronto was established in 1837 by Thornton Blackburn, an ex-slave from the US. He designed and built a red and yellow box cab named 'The City', drawn by a single horse, and able to carry four passengers, with a driver in a box at the front, which he, himself, would operate. It became the nucleus of a taxicab company, the city's first, a successful venture

The firm Checker, which also made cars in addition to the eponymous cabs, came into existence back then, and stopped manufacturing cabs in 1982. It continued operation at partial capacity making Cadillac parts for General Motors until January 2009 when it declared bankruptcy.

Taximeter and Flag Falls

Taximeter is the device that calculates the charge and has been a device with a flag that a cab driver pushes down to start the charge count. The origin is a minimum charge for hiring a taxi, to which the rate per kilometer or mile is then added. It dates back to the old mechanical taximeters, which were equipped with a flag-like lever that could be seen from outside the cab. Think tax (charge) by the meter, as in kilometer.

Flagfall or flag fall is a common Australian expression for a fixed start fee, especially in the haulage and railroad industry. From the Australia mobile phone industry, the expression has recently begun to spread to other English language countries, as business jargon for an initial fixed fee for establishing each phone call. It is also beginning to find its way into other businesses as a synonym to 'start fee'.

Fuel Gauge Arrow

Have you ever noticed a little arrow on your gas gauge? Did you know the symbol pointing left means the gas filler cap is on the left side of the car and vice versa. This little arrow is on nearly every car sold in the US during the past few years.

The vast majority of new cars have this arrow. In older, arrow-less cars, the hose part of the gas-pump symbol sometimes indicates the side of the car that has the filler cap. Handy to know when renting or borrowing cars.

Lawyers Get Automated

Being a lawyer isn't perhaps as much fun as it seems in the movies, in reality involving weeks of reading incredibly boring documents. Now a recent court ruling suggests that computers can take over part of their job for them.

A US judge has approved the use of "predictive coding" software which can sift through millions of documents and spit out only those the lawyer might need for use in a case.

Thomas Gricks, the lawyer who was pushing for the use of predictive coding, wanted to use the software to sift through two million emails in a case defending aircraft-hangar operator Landow Aviation against private-jet owners seeking compensation after a roof collapse in 2010.

He estimated that the email would take twenty thousand person hours to sift though, in the process costing two million dollars. Now, the software will provide just a couple of thousand relevant documents, cutting the time investment to two weeks, and slashing the cost by 98 percent.

In a recent study, pitting lawyers against the software over the course of 800,000 Enron emails, the software came out on top. In fact, it even manged to spot relevant details that the humans didn't.

Spiral Cut Hot Dogs

Something I learned today, if you spiral cut your hot dogs before grilling, they taste better. Here is a LINK  that shows how to do it. Interesting.

Origin of Breath Mints

Bad breath in ancient Egypt often was a symptom of poor dental health. Seems the stones they used to grind flour for bread contributed a lot of sand and grit to their diet, which wore down tooth enamel to expose the pulp of the tooth and making it vulnerable to infection.

The Egyptians didn't have dentists to fix their deteriorating teeth and gums. Instead, they simply suffered, and scientists who examined mummies have found severely worn teeth and evidence of abscesses, even in youthful Egyptians. To cope with the unpleasant odors from their rotting mouths, Egyptians invented the first mints, which were a combination of frankincense, myrrh and cinnamon boiled with honey and shaped into pellets.

Archaeologists also found toothpicks buried alongside mummies, apparently placed there so that they could clean food debris from between their teeth in the afterlife. Along with the Babylonians, they're also credited with inventing the first toothbrushes, which were frayed ends of wooden twigs.

The Egyptians also contributed toothpaste. Early ingredients included the powder of ox hooves, ashes, burnt eggshells and pumice. They also found what appears to be a more advanced toothpaste recipe and how-to-brush guide written on papyrus that dates back to the Roman occupation in the fourth century A.D. It explains how to mix precise amounts of rock salt, mint, dried iris flower, and grains of pepper, to form a "powder for white and perfect teeth"