The Canada–United States border
officially known as the International Boundary, is the longest
international border in the world between two countries. Eight
Canadian provinces and territories and thirteen US states are
located along the border.
At one point the border between
Canada on the north and the US runs through the villages of
Derby Line, Vermont, and Stanstead, Quebec - and though the
middle of the town library.
It physically snakes through side streets, in and out of houses,
through the public library, and straight down the middle of a
main road that residents affectionately call “Canusa Avenue." An
apartment building in town has two addresses, one for each
country.
Incidentally, Canada borders are east, west, north, and south
of the US. In Alaska, Canada is directly East. In many
northern US continental states, Canada is directly North. In
Maine, it is directly West and North. In Detroit, Michigan,
Canada is directly South. Part of Washington State is both
North and South of Canada. See my blog LINK
“You cannot do a
kindness too soon, for you never know how soon it will be too
late.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
I always try to be
kind, especially on a Happy Friday!
It is estimated that around ten billion videos are watched
online annually. Of those ten billion videos, user created videos are most viewed,
followed by news and movie trailers.
Wyatt Earp was not satisfied sticking to one job
for too long. During his life he was a lawman, buffalo hunter,
brothel keeper, miner and boxing referee, among others. But he
was best known for being an infinitely tough cowboy.
Earp took part in the
most famous shootout in the history of the American Wild West,
the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, a 30-second gun battle that has
inspired dozens of feature-length films. What you might not
realize is that, unlike most people involved in that event, Earp
lived long enough to see the earliest movies inspired by his
exploits.
Toward the end of his
life, Earp settled in California and tried to break into
Hollywood. Perhaps noticing an alarming lack of westerns where
his character was always surrounded by naked ladies, Earp
decided he wanted to tell his story from his own perspective.
Unfortunately, the closest he got was reportedly a background
part in a single scene of an obscure 1915 film. However, Earp
did get to befriend some Hollywood actors, including a
17-year-old nobody called Marion Morrison, whose stage name is
John Wayne.
While hanging out on
movie sets, casually choreographing historical gunfights for
directors like John Ford, Earp would share stories from the Wild
West with the actors. The future Wayne, then an extra and prop
man, soaked them up. He also paid close attention to the way
Earp talked and carried himself.
1. The Romans called this month Aprilis which may
derive from the verb aperire meaning “to open”, referring to
flowers and fruits opening.
2. April was the 216th
most popular name given to a baby girl in England and Wales in
2015 and the 191st most popular in Scotland.
3. Of the eight US
presidents who died in office, three died in April.
4. April is the first
month of the year with exactly 30 days and the only month with
an “i” in its name.
5. In the UK, April is
national awareness month for pets, mathematics, stress,
irritable bowel syndrome, bowel cancer and jazz.
6. The Anglo-Saxons
called April Eostre-Monadh, possibly named after a pagan
goddess.
The technology world passed a potentially huge
marker during March 2017 as Google developed Android, with
37.93% overtook Microsoft's Windows at 37.91% software in terms
of worldwide users. Apple IOS is at 13%
Google's mobile
software tops Windows after almost 30 years as number one. The
news comes from online research company StatCounter, which
continually monitors the number of users worldwide.
Windows still dominates
the worldwide desktop market, at 84%. Android had just 2.4% of
all internet usage five years ago.
Google Chrome is the least hackable web browser, the results
of the 10th annual Pwn2Own event shows. The computer hacking
contest is held each year at the Vancouver, Canada CanSecWest
security conference and sees contestants desperately try to
exploit popular software and hardware with previously unknown
vulnerabilities.
Those who manage to
successfully find an exploit win a cash prize, a jacket
emblazoned with the year of their win, and, the device they
broke into. During the three days of Pwn2Own, Microsoft Edge was
successfully attacked five times – racking up $300,000 in
bounties. Safari was exploited three times, Firefox was attacked
twice, but only once successfully. Google Chrome had no attacks
completed in time.
There are more libraries in Britain’s prisons than there are in
its schools.
The color of the background for movie rating cards is
important. The rating for the film itself shows up in text, but
is also indicated by the background color of the rating card
splash screen.
There are three colors
used - red, yellow, and green. The specific regulations
surrounding what can be shown in the preview for each of these
rating cards are set by the MPAA.
The most commonly seen
one is the green rating card. Before April of 2009, a green
background meant that the preview was approved for all
audiences. Since April of 2009, the MPAA now states that the
green card is for “appropriate audiences”. This basically means
it is appropriate for audiences in theaters, taking into account
what movie the audience is about to watch.
A yellow rating card
indicates the preview is for age-appropriate Internet viewers
and is used on internet trailers only. The red rating card
indicates that content in the preview is only appropriate for
mature audiences. These previews can only be shown in theaters
where the movie about to be watched is R-rated, NC-17-rated, or
unrated.
Theatrical trailers
must be less than two minutes and 30 seconds, as mandated by the
MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America). The MPAA gives
each movie studio one exception to this a year where they are
allowed to show a trailer that is longer than 2 minutes and 30
seconds. Trailers shown online can be any length. The rating
system itself is entirely voluntary on the part of studios.
However, having a film rated tends to boost revenues
significantly, so nearly all major studios submit all their
films for rating.
[pawrt-man-toh] It would be a terrible shame
if portmanteau were not itself a portmanteau. The word
originally referred to a large traveling case made of stiff
leather, derived from a combination of the French porter,
meaning "to carry," and manteau, meaning "mantle" or "cloak."
The word's literary
significance is the work of Lewis Carroll. In Through the
Looking-Glass, Humpty Dumpty explains to Alice that the strange
compound words she hears in Wonderland are "like a
portmanteau--there are two meanings packed up into one word."
The two biggest deserts are the Antarctic
and the Arctic. Even though they are covered with ice, they are
dry enough to be considered deserts.
The Sahara, spanning an
area of 8.5 million square kilometers (covers 29.6% of Africa)
is the world’s hottest desert and third in size. The Sahara is
only twenty percent sand, the rest of it is mostly made up of
bare rock, gravel, and pebbles.
The road to happiness
passes through the sea of smiles.
I am swimmingly happy today, because it is Happy
Friday!
It is the only Internet holiday to say thanks to Techies for all
they do. It began in the early 1990s, is celebrated on April 3
or the first Monday after April 3, and has been dishing out
great fun ever since then.
Legend has it the
Cheese Weasel travels the world, leaving a bit of cheese under
keyboards or mouse pads of good techie boys and girls, men and
women. Have some fun and surprise your favorite geek to some
cheese on that day.
Give your favorite
techie a Thank You shout out using #cheeseweaselday on Facebook,
Twitter, Google+, or your favorite social site. If you are not
close by on that day, send a picture of some cheese.
The US Senate Resolution on National Tartan
Day was passed on March 20, 1998. Tartan Day is a celebration of
Scottish heritage on 6 April, the date on which the Declaration
of Arbroath was signed in 1320.
It commemorates the
Scottish Declaration of Independence, from which the American
Declaration of Independence was modeled. It also recognizes
achievements of Americans of Scottish descent. National Tartan
Day parades occur in major cities on or around April 6. They
often feature bag-pipe bands playing Scottish music and people
dressed in kilts with tartan patterns that represent their
Scottish clans.
