Chocolate Diamonds

Another way jewelers have found to separate people from their money. Chocolate diamonds are brown diamonds. These are the most common diamonds, and up until the ad campaign, they were almost worthless. However, with a bit of rebranding, they are now being sold for the same price as other diamonds.

For every carat of diamond that is mined, 1,750 tons of rock needs to be mined and discarded.

Night Vision

The first practical night vision devices were developed in Germany in the mid-1930s. Night vision goggles are usually green, because people can see more shades of green than other colors. Because the eye is most sensitive to light wavelengths nearer green, the display can be a little dimmer, which conserves battery power.

Photons that hit the lens at the front of night vision goggles are carrying light of all colors, but when they are converted to electrons, there is no way to preserve that information. Effectively, the incoming, colored light is turned into black and white. It is also easier to look at green screens for long periods than to look at black and white ones. That is also why early computer screens were mostly green.

YouTube Facts

During 2012, YouTube was watched 700 billion times, and 99% of the views were of only 30% of the videos.

During 2017 - Amount of content YouTube users watch annually:
46,000 years worth of content are watched annually,
One billion hours are watched per day,
400 hours of video are loaded each minute.

Happy Friday

"As a well-spent day brings happy sleep, so life well used brings happy death." ~Leonardo Da Vinci

Happy days are always well-spent days, especially on a Happy Friday!

21 Gun Salute

The origin of gun salutes is usually attributed to soldiers or other armed types demonstrated peaceful intentions by placing their weapons in a position that rendered them ineffective. As cannons and small arms came into use, a good way to render them ineffective and demonstrating peaceful intentions, was to fire them, as reloading was a real pain. At sea, seven shots became the norm, probably because of superstition and mysticism about the number seven. On land, with a less limited supply of gunpowder, they could fire three guns for every one shot from a ship, so a salute from a ship of seven guns would be answered by a salute from the shore batteries of 21 guns. When gunpowder technology and storage improved, ships at sea adopted the salute of 21 guns.
There is a complex protocol for salutes. Twenty one guns are only used to salute a national flag, the sovereign or chief of state of a foreign nation, a member of a reigning royal family, and anyone who has ever been elected President of the US. A vice-president, speaker of the house, American or foreign ambassador, a premier or prime minister (unless sovereign), chief justice, cabinet member, state governor, secretary or ranking general of a branch of the armed forces, and president pro tem of the senate all receive 19 gun salutes on entering. Generals, admirals, the assistant secretary of defense, and chairpersons of House committees receive 17. There are 15, 13, and 11 gun salutes for people of descending rank, both military and civilian.

For a full-honor funeral at Arlington, a President gets 21 guns. A secretary of defense, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, or other military officer given command over multiple branches of the service receives 19. Seventeen guns are fired for a four-star general, 15 for a three-star, 13 for a two-star, and 11 for a one-star.

Runpee

This phone app tells you the best time during a movie to go relieve yourself.

Taco Bell Beef

Taco Bell 'meat' is made up of 36 percent beef. The other 64 percent includes: water, isolated oat product, wheat oats, soy lecithin, maltodrextrin, anti-dusting agent, autolyzed yeast extract, modified corn starch and sodium phosphate, as well as beef and seasonings.

Two Amazing Costco Facts

Costco sells over 100 million hot dogs a year, according to the Daily Meal. That is more than all the major league baseball parks combined sell in an entire season. I also think they are better dogs than sold in many of the stadiums, and they are cheaper.

 It is also one of the largest pizza chains in the US.

Natural Foods

Natural is a broad term used to describe products that are minimally processed, and free of synthetic dyes, coloring, flavorings and preservatives. Products labeled “natural” can still contain fructose corn syrup and GMOs. The term is largely unregulated by the USDA. Even meat, poultry, and egg products can still have antibiotics and growth hormones, and can be fed on GMO feed. The US FDA has not developed a definition for use of the term natural or its derivatives.

The USDA says,  claims indicating that a product is natural food, such as “natural chili” or “chili - a natural product” would be unacceptable for a product containing beet powder which artificially colors the finished product. However, “all natural ingredients” might be an acceptable claim for such a product.
The UK FSA guidance states: "The term ‘natural’ without qualification should be used ... to describe single foods, of a traditional nature, to which nothing has been added and which have been subjected only to such processing as to render them suitable for human consumption."


Natural or all natural labels are more marketing than fact based. Naturally, this is all unnatural label mumbo jumbo that means little, but makes us feel good.

Divorce Rate

Just read that 67% of second marriages and 73% of third marriages end in divorce. The average divorce rate for first marriages is about 41% in the United States, and the divorce rate figures have been declining.

YouTube Tips

Here are a few YouTube keyboard shortcuts to increase your viewing pleasure.

K = pause or play
J = rewind 10 seconds
L = fast forward 10 seconds
M = turn off the sound
Number 0 = jump to the start of the video
Numbers 1 to 9 = jump to between 10% and 90% of the way through the video.
Find your favorite artist’s page - type # + the artist’s name (without spaces) in the search bar.
To use theater  or full screen mode, click on the small rectangle or the open box next to it in the lower right corner of the video.

To change the speed of a video, click on the gear symbol in the lower right corner of any video.

Thomas Edison Phonograph

This was written during 1877 about his phonograph. The same might be said about social apps and smart phones today.
“He has been addicted to electricity for many years,” the phonograph, with its ability to record speech, “will eventually destroy all confidence between man and man.”

Another paper of the time outlined ways phonographic technology might go wrong: greedy thieves might trick elderly millionaires into vocally amending their wills; sketchy neighbors might use opera recordings to lure women out of their homes; and wives might frighten their husbands out of sleep by playing a tape that yells “POLICE! FIRE!” over and over again. Editorial fear-mongering has not changed much during the past 140 years.

What is DLNA

TVs and many devices usually include DLNA as one of the features. For most of us, it is unimportant and we do not even know what it means. Since it is a standard, manufacturers and stores to not use it as a selling point, because almost all devices have the feature.

DLNA stands for Digital Living Network Alliance, the trade group founded by Sony in 2003 to define the interoperability guidelines.

It separates multimedia devices into 10 certified classes subdivided into three broad categories: Home Network Devices (PCs, TVs, AV receivers, game consoles), Mobile Handheld Devices (smartphones, tablets, digital cameras), and Home Infrastructure Devices (routers and hubs). All DLNA-certified devices use Universal Plug and Play (UPnP) to discover and talk to each other on the network.

Happy Friday

Family and friends are not our whole life, but make our lives whole.

Family and friends always make my life whole, especially on a Happy Friday!