Happy Friday

Wear happiness draped with a smile and the world is yours.

I love to dress well, especially on a Happy Friday!

International Bacon Day

Yea, it is almost here again. The celebrations are held each year on the Saturday before Labor Day in the United States. That is tomorrow folks, enjoy some bacon and do not forget to save the grease for cooking other things, like popcorn, eggs, and more to tantalize your taste buds.

Lost Phone or Emergency Contact

Here are two options for a lost phone or emergency situations that may prove useful. Both options allow someone who has found your lost phone or found you in need of emergency help. The first is for medical emergency and requires a free app from the Google app store.
This app is used for emergency if you cannot use the phone, or if it is lost. It puts a little icon on the lock screen to get at the information you provide, including an emergency call number. LINK


The second is built into Android phones and requires no app. It shows a scrolling name and number of your choice on the lock screen, but still preserves that the person cannot get past the lock screen and into your phone. It only shows information you desire, but has no medical information. Go to "Settings" then "device", then look for "Lock Screen," "Security" and/or "Owner Info" (depending on phone version).  You can add any contact info you want a person to call for emergency or lost phone (other than your own cell number). It will scroll across the lock screen and preserve that the person cannot get into your other information, but can still contact someone to tell them the emergency, or the fact that they found your phone.

Union Membership Decline

The overall rate of union membership was 10.7% during 2017, compared with 20.1% in 1983, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. In 2017, 6.5% of private-sector workers belonged to a union, while 34.4% of public-sector workers were members.

Eight DARPA Facts

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, is sixty years old as of 2018. Below are some favorite DARPA facts.

1. The original sketch of ARPANET fits on a napkin.
2. In August 1962, J.C.R Licklider published a paper titled “On-Line Man Computer Communication,” which detailed a connected global network. Less than two months later, Licklider was appointed as director of the new Information Processing Techniques Office, or IPTO at ARPA, as it was called back then. His brief was to create a network to connect Department of Defense computers at three isolated locations.
3. By the end of the decade, the first host-to-host connection between computers on the new Arpanet was established at 10:30 p.m. on Oct. 29. 1969, creating the world’s first fully operational packet-switching network. By December, a four-node network was up and running.
   
4. The first email was sent across it in 1972.
   
5. In the summer of 1979, a group of Massachusetts Institute of Technology students, funded by DARPA, demonstrated the interactive Aspen Movie Map on videodisc. The map let users travel through the city of Aspen, Colorado, virtually. Additionally, the map included the ability to view how historic buildings looked like in the past. (Think Google maps.)
   
6. The voice-recognition system embedded in many smartphones was born out of DARPA research. DARPA has been researching the concept of voice recognition combined with artificial intelligence since 2003. The goal of the research is to provide translation of foreign languages by service members deployed to foreign countries.
7. Nearly every automaker now offers a self-driving car and it all started with a contest held by DARPA in 2004. Anyone could enter. Their vehicle must be self-driven. The fastest vehicle to make it safely through 300 miles of desert wins a $1 million prize.
8. As part of its Extreme Accuracy Tasked Ordnance, or EXACTO program, DARPA developed a .50-caliber ammunition that can maneuver in flight. A bullet that can change direction after it has been fired from a weapon. It uses a “real-time optical guidance system” that tracks and directs the bullets to intended targets, ensuring the high accuracy rate of snipers regardless of external factors that could affect the trajectory of the bullet, such as weather or target movement.

Charcoal and Odors

Charcoal is an excellent odor absorbent and all you have to do is rip the bag open a bit and set it in your pantry. You can use charcoal in your other cabinets, too. Just place a piece of two inside in the back and change it out every few months. If you have a plastic container that smells like onions or garlic, pop a piece of charcoal in it overnight with the lid on it and it will smell better by morning.

Web Cam History

At the beginning of the nineties, the world wide web had no search engines, no social networking sites, and no webcam. Scientists at the University of Cambridge were addicted to caffeine, but the coffee pot was stationed in the main computer lab and many of the researchers worked in different labs and on different floors.

They came up with a solution; set up a camera to grab images three times a minute, and they wrote software to run the images from the camera on their entire internal computer network. During 1993 the program made it to the World Wide Web and millions of tech enthusiasts from around the world began accessing images of the now famous coffee pot.

Junk Paper Mail Opt Out

We receive too many unsolicited paper mail ads in our mailbox and it contributes to landfill pollution. Below are a few ways to opt out of the paper mess. Some take from a few days to a few weeks to opt out, but be patient and your mail box glut should diminish. In addition, you can check my blog for a few more of my opt out ideas LINK.

Catalogue and publishing companies share consumer information via Abacus. Send an email to its parent company at optout@epsilon.com. Put “remove” in the subject line and your name and address in the body of the email. Be sure to include your name as it appears on the bulk mail you receive. If your middle initial is on there, use it. If your name is misspelled, include that.

Here are a few more opt-out pages:

- Money Mailer sends big red, white and blue envelopes. If you do not want them, email your name and address to ListContactManager@moneymailer.com.

- RedPlum asks that you fill out a form on its website to put a stop to its mailings: redplum.com/tools/direct-mail-preferences.

- Valpak also offers an online opt-out form: valpak.com/coupons/show/mailinglistsuppression.

- Yellow Pages books opt out: yellowpagesoptout.com.

- Credit card and insurance offers 5 years opt out, if you use online form or permanent if you wish to use paper to mail in your signature. It is endorsed by Equifax, Innovis, Xperion, and TransUnion.: https://www.optoutprescreen.com/

JPG vs. PNG

It is best to save photographs as JPG or JPEG - for altered colors, gradients and textures. JPEG stands for Joint Photographic Experts Group that created the standard. JPG loses a bit of clarity each time it is copied, due to compression.

Graphics and screenshots are best saved as PNG. PNG stands for Portable Network Graphics, which is a bitmap image format that uses lossless data compression. If it has pointed lines, clearly unconnected areas of flat colors and text, PNG is best. File compression for a PNG is lossless, which keeps all of the data contained in the file, within the file, during the process. Lossless compression is necessary when you have images that are still in the editing process. PNGs are often used if size is not a concern and the picture is complicated because a PNG file holds additional information than a JPG.
Basic Rule: JPG for Photos, PNG for Graphics.

More Google Facts

If an employee of Google dies, the company mandates that the employees’ spouse receives half the former employees’ salary for the next ten years as well as stock benefits. If the employee has any children, they will each receive $1,000 per month until they turn 19.

In addition to street view cars, images have also been captured by attaching a camera to individual people, a tricycle, and even a camel. The camel cam was attached to a ten year old dromedary named Raffia, who captured images across the Liwa desert in the United Arab Emirates.

Happy Friday

Happiness is a fire that cleanses our souls.
Today is the day to come clean and celebrate a Happy Friday!

Other Uses for Coffee

Coffee is a spice that brings rich, deep, and earthy flavors to food. You will mostly find it on red meats and desserts to add an espresso-like taste.

Coffee can be added to a marinade for roast meat, braising liquid for beef short ribs, barbecue sauce for grilled chicken, a sauce for fried eggs, or a pancake topper. You can even mix it with your favorite spices to create a dry rub for burgers, spice-crusted pork, or lamb.

Coffee is a secret ingredient in some of the very best chocolate cakes and desserts. When used in a small amount, coffee enhances the chocolate.

Coffee rub: One rounded tablespoon freshly ground coffee two teaspoons (packed) golden brown sugar 1.5 teaspoons freshly ground black pepper 1/2 teaspoon ground coriander 1/2 teaspoon dried oregano 1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt. Sprinkle 1 teaspoon coffee rub on top side of each burger.

Old coffee grounds end up in a landfill, so it is better to use them in your garden and compost pile. Using coffee grounds in your garden also helps to add nitrogen to your compost pile. You can throw the grounds into your compost pile, or they can be used as a fertilizer. Using grounds as a fertilizer adds an organic material to your soil, which improves drainage, water retention, and aeration in the soil. Coffee grounds can even repel slugs and snails in the garden. Worms love coffee grounds and worms are great for your garden soil.

Make-Goods and Upfronts

Make-Goods are ads which were paid for, but not used. For instance, a company paid millions to run an ad during a TV show, with the promise that it would reach 8 million people with each airing. A few weeks into the season, ratings could be down, and the ad is only seen by 6 million people. The network owes 2 million ad impressions to the buyer. Make-goods or spot audience deficiency units are run in something other than the original program that was purchased.

Upfronts are buying TV ad time for reach, not for response. Networks offer premium inventory, and brands buy it with the guarantee that their ads will reach a certain number of eyeballs. Companies get access to network ad inventory time at discounted rates. The buys lack flexibility that makes it almost impossible to make in-flight changes to campaigns. This commitment, which for some brands is 90% of their annual TV budget, is probably the last bastion of old TV ad buying.

During the past season NFL games, the delivery of “make goods” grew to 23% of the units due to lower ratings.

Butch and Sundance

Robert Leroy Parker, known as Butch Cassidy, was the leader of the Wild Bunch Gang. His last name, Cassidy was a tribute to his friend and mentor Mike Cassidy who taught him how to shoot.

Harry Alonzo Longabaugh, known as The Sundance Kid was an outlaw and member of Butch Cassidy’s Wild Bunch Gang who committed one of the longest strings of successful train and bank robberies in history. He got his nickname for getting caught stealing horses in Sundance, Wyoming.