Light Me Up

We have all read the light fixture warning not to use anything higher than a 60-watt bulb, or 75, etc. The newer LED bulbs still fall under that fixture rating, however since the equivalent LED bulbs use much less wattage, you can choose a watt equivalency that is higher than that of the old bulbs. As an example, a 60 watt bulb equivalent is a 9 watt LED. They both put out 800 lumens.


You can replace an old 60 watt bulb with a 100-watt equivalent LED bulb (or higher), which is about 17 watts and therefore well under the safety limit of a 60-watt maximum fixture. You get lower energy bills and almost twice the light. One limiting factor might be bulb size, so be sure to check the physical size of new bulbs to make sure they fit the socket. Every now and then I come up with a bright idea.

Happy Friday

Happiness on the whole, soothes a sad soul.

I never have a sad soul, especially on a Happy Friday!

International Day of Failure

October 13th is International Day for Failure. A new holiday intended for people to share stories of failure and learn from them. The goal of the people organizing the event is to have it be an internationally-recognized holiday by 2020. The holiday was created in Finland in 2010.

Office of Planetary Protection

This department is part of NASA and is responsible for preventing outer space organisms from contaminating Earth and simultaneously stopping Earth-based organisms from contaminating outer space. NASA has been employing a planetary protection officer since the Outer Space Treaty was signed in 1967.

A candidate must have at least one year of experience as a top-level civilian government employee, plus have "advanced knowledge" of planetary protection and all it entails. Planetary protection officers are tasked with making sure humans do not contaminate planets, moons, and other objects in space. The salary is $125,000 to $187,000 annually.


NASA and the European Space Agency currently hire permanent planetary protection officers.

Pizza Hack

When ordering, remember that one 18 inch pizza contains more pizza than two 12 inch pizzas.

A Road by any Name

The difference between names like street and avenue are the size of the path, what surrounds it, and how it intersects with other roads. Road is a general term for any throughway that connects two points. Streets and avenues are types of roads.

Streets are public roads that have buildings on both sides. They are often perpendicular to avenues, which historically were grander and wider. These days, the difference tends to be directional.

Denver, Colorado dictates that Streets run north-south and avenues run east-west.

In Manhattan, New York avenues run north-south and streets run east-west. In Washington, D.C., avenues run diagonal to the street grid.

Tucson, Arizona named some roads as stravenues, which run diagonal to the normal north-south/east-west grid.

Boulevards are grander than avenues and designed to funnel high-speed traffic away from residential and commercial streets. Boulevards have trees on either side and a sizable median.

Smaller roads are named way and they are a smaller side street that splits off from a road. A place has a dead end, as does a court (UK close), which usually ends in a cul-de-sac. A lane or byway is narrow and lacks a median, usually found in rural areas. A drive tends to wind around a natural landmark, like a mountain or a lake. A circle usually circles around an area and is an open road intersected by multiple roads.

Pinocchio

Was originally a book published during 1883. The story of the little wooden boy with a nose that grew if he told a lie was one of the best-selling books in the world, with 35 million copies sold.

Wireless Charging

To fully understand how wireless charging works takes understanding the concept of an electromagnetic field and electromagnetic induction. Electromagnetic induction is an energy transfer system, meaning that it can be stored or used.
Think of a person making waves with the rope, the other person will receive the waves as they travel down the rope. This is like electromagnetic induction: a force sends energy from one point to another. The base unit (powered by electricity) transmits energy to the smartphone via electromagnetic fields. The sensors on the smartphone recover the energy and channel it to the battery for storage.

Qi is the most popular wireless charging technology. It is not restricted to a particular manufacturer. Qi uses electromagnetic induction charging and magnetic resonance technology.

Kentucky Fried Recipe

A Sanders-signed copy of the recipe is inside a vault in KFC’s Louisville headquarters, and even the manufacturers do not know what goes into it. Half of the mix is made by Griffith Laboratories, and then it is sent to McCormick, where the rest of the mix is added.

What's in a Name, Knocker-Upper

There were a lot of ways to wake up before the alarm clock was invented. People living in towns had chimes from the church bells, and people living on farms had roosters to crow them awake. In some places, people made getting up in the morning a much stranger experience.
Native Americans would make sure they got up early by drinking as much water as physically possible before falling asleep. That way, the water would fill up their bladders while they were sleeping. Pretty soon, they would be so full that they needed to get up. So they would get up early.

In England, you could pay a “knocker-upper” to get you up in the morning. Your knocker-upper would come to your house first thing in the morning and bang on your window with a long stick. If he wanted to make his shilling, he would keep banging until you got up and shared with him the money (about 12 pence) and customary curse words of morning.

Boston Cream Pie

Armenian-French chef M. Sanzian was credited for creating the first Boston Cream Pie in 1856 at the Parker House Hotel. The dessert acquired its name when cakes and pies were cooked in the same pans, and the words were used interchangeably.
It is really a cake, a yellow butter cake that is filled with custard or cream and topped with chocolate glaze.


The Boston Cream Pie was proclaimed the official Massachusetts State Dessert on December 12, 1996.

Happy Friday

It is impossible to fill your heart with happiness, love, and joy. There is always room for more.

Expand your heart with happiness, love, and joy by celebrating a Happy Friday!

World Smile Day

Every year on the first Friday in October we celebrate World Smile Day. It was created by Harvey Ball, creator of the Smiley Face during 1963.

After his death, the “Harvey Ball World Smile Foundation” was created to honor his name and memory. The slogan of the Smile Foundation is “improving this world, one smile at a time.” The Foundation continues as the official sponsor of World Smile Day each year. It is easy to participate on this unofficial holiday. Just do acts of kindness to spread good will and cheer.

Smile, it improves your beauty 1,000%.


Also on this day is German-American Day. It first gained a spot on US calendars over 130 years ago. An annual holiday on October 6th, it marks the day in 1683 when 13 German families arrived in Philadelphia to set up home. Of course, there was no Germany until 1871, instead separate German-speaking states mostly ruled themselves as parts of the Catholic Holy Roman Empire.

National Emergency Nurses Day

Wednesday, October 11, 2018. Show them some love. They have an extremely difficult job and deserve much credit.