What's in a Name, Blackberry

The creators thought its keyboard somewhat resembled the skin of a blackberry and an employee suggested that for a name. It was accepted.

Nine Things People Think Cause Cancer but Do Not

The wax on apples
is used to extend shelf life and to make the fruit look enticing. Although some claim the wax is carcinogenic, it is not. While there are some credible concerns about carcinogenic pesticides that might be trapped under the wax, you can take care of that problem by rinsing fruits with water and scrubbing them with a soft brush.
Disposable chopsticks internet rumor began circulating that disposable wooden chopsticks contain carcinogens, including sulfur dioxide. Sulfur dioxide is not a carcinogen. If you do not want to ingest sulfur dioxide you might consider using reusable chopsticks, or a fork.
The cold water viral rumor has been going around that drinking cold water after meals can cause cancer. It does not. The email claims that cold water interferes with digestion, and somehow that causes cancer. No research anywhere backs up this nonsense claim.
Supposedly if water is boiled for too long or reboiled, chemical compounds form, including carcinogens like arsenic. Consuming re-boiled, clean, uncontaminated drinking water will not cause cancer or poison you or your family. As long as your water comes from a source that is regularly inspected, you can boil it as many times as you want.

The claim is that turning on the AC in your car after your car has been running will spew benzene, a carcinogen into the cabin. There are zero studies demonstrating that well-maintained cars contain or produce benzene through their air conditioning system in sufficient quantities to have any carcinogenic impact.
Some studies indicate that constant exposure to hair dyes can put hairdressers and barbers at a higher risk of bladder cancer. There is no scientific evidence that coloring your hair, even regularly increases your risk of cancer. The only reason to extend the time between hair coloring appointments is to save time and expense.
Occasionally the idea crops up that shampoo causes cancer, because it contains the foaming agent sodium laureth sulfate or sodium lauryl sulfate. Also found in hair conditioner, soap, and various cleaning products, SLS may damage your hair, but not your genes. It is definitely not a carcinogen, reports the American Cancer Society.
The National Cancer Institute is clear: There is no truth to the rumor that antiperspirant causes cancer. 'The best studies so far have found no evidence linking the chemicals typically found in antiperspirants and deodorants with changes in breast tissue,' the institute reports in a fact sheet titled Antiperspirants Deodorants and Breast Cancer.

People have long been suspicious of cell phones, but there is no need to be. The American Cancer Society explains, cancer grows through genetic mutations, and cell phones emit a type of low-frequency energy that is not capable of damaging the DNA inside cells. Although researchers continue to study this potential link, there are no reputable findings linking cell phones and cancer risk.

Happy Friday

If you worry about what Was or what Will Be, you miss what Is.

Do not miss the chance to be happy, especially on a Happy Friday!

What's in a Name, Corned Beef

There is no corn in corned beef. Corned beef and cabbage, a staple for Irish and other Americans, does not have anything to do with the grain corn. It is due to the large grains of salt that were historically used to cure meats. They were known as corns.

Hawaii Spam Jam

Every April, Spam fans from across the globe find their way to the island of Oahu to pay homage to their favorite mystery meat. The Waikiki Spam Jam is Hawaii’s largest food festival, and the largest Spam celebration in the world. More Spam is consumed in Hawaii than in any other state. Streets are lined with vendors selling an assortment of meaty dishes, from traditional Spam musubi (sliced or grilled Spam on top of rice), sizzling slices of pizza topped with Spam, Spam flan, and chocolate-covered Spam.

However, it is not the only one. You can find a smaller, week-long Spam party in Austin, Minnesota, the birthplace of the iconic meaty mash. Also, Spam has become a staple of South Korean life, and is now the biggest consumer of it outside the US. Spam is available in 41 countries. 

World War I Kleenex

Doctors decided to use gas mask filters as disposable handkerchiefs after the war. “Items created for the war often had to be re-purposed following the war, and one of those items is Kleenex, which was actually the crepe paper used in the filters of gas masks.


During the influenza epidemic following the war, paper goods company Kimberly-Clark re-purposed the paper as a disposable product for people to sneeze into and limit the spread of bodily fluids. Although it is a brand name, Kleenex is used to refer to any facial tissue.

Hashish vs. Marijuana

Hashish is also called ghanja or hash on the street. Hashish is derived from the dried resin (or kief) of the flowering tops of mature and unpollinated female cannabis plants.  These resin glands, known as trichomes or crystals, produce a powdery substance rich in the properties of cannabis. Kief is usually pressed into blocks known as cakes. These cakes are then smoked, with the consumer using a small amount of the block each time. Hash is smoked using pipes, or else it is vaporized and inhaled, or mixed with marijuana in joints.
Marijuana is made up of a mixture of the dried shredded leaves, stems, seeds, and flowers of the Cannabis Sativa plant. Hash is made up of only the collected and compressed trichomes of the plant. These trichomes are the most potent part of the cannabis plant, so hashish is stronger than marijuana.

Marijuana may generally have a potency of 10-20 percent THC while hashish can range from 20 percent to 60 percent THC. Because they come from the same plants, if marijuana is legal, hashish is legal.

Sharpie Hacks

When you have a switch or outlet cover plate off, write its circuit breaker number with a Sharpie on the back of the plate for future reference. You can also add the info on the breaker box.

Label stuff in your fridge or pantry with a Sharpie with the date you opened it. This is a good way to get rid of very old items.

Idioms

Fly off the Handle - This comes from the days before mass manufacturing. Poorly built axe heads would occasionally soar off of their handles, leading to dangerous and unpredictable results.
Steal Someone's Thunder - This idiom comes from the early 1700s, when an English playwright named John Dennis used a device to imitate the sound of thunder for one of his plays. The play was a flop, but other playwrights started using the device for their own plays to greater success.
Under the Weather - Modern speakers use this to refer to any kind of illness, for sailors it meant seasickness. The original phrase was "under the weather bow," referring to the side of the ship that took the brunt of bad weather. When storms made for choppy water, sailors would head below deck to brace themselves and try to stave off seasickness.
Ride Shotgun - English speakers use this to mean sitting in the passenger seat of a car. The phrase dates back to the early 1900s in the Wild West when the person sitting beside the driver in a coach would often carry a shotgun for protection.
Barking Up the Wrong Tree - In the early 1800s, dogs were commonly used for hunting. When a dog would identify prey that had run up a tree, the dog would bark at it furiously. When the prey jumped to a different tree, the dog would be left at the base of the original tree, confused, barking up at nothing.

Jump on the Bandwagon - The origin of this idiom dates back to the 1848 U.S. Presidential election when a famed circus owner supported the campaign of Whig Party candidate Zachary Taylor by inviting him on his horse-drawn carriage carrying a live orchestra during a parade to advertise his message and meet potential voters. Other members of Taylor's party realized what a good idea this was, and clamored to join him on the bandwagon during future parades.

Six More Body Facts

A human skeleton renews itself completely every 10 years.
By the time a person reaches 70 years old, he or she will have consumed over 12,000 gallons of water.
The body can detect taste in .0015 seconds, which is faster than the blink of an eye.
Every hour, humans shed about 600,000 particles of skin, or about 1.5 pounds every year. By the time a person is 70 years old, they will have lost about 105 pounds of skin.
There are ten times more bacteria cells in your body than human cells.

The brain contains 86 billion nerve cells joined by 100 trillion connections. This is more than the number of stars in the Milky Way.

Happiness Class

Yale's most popular class ever, "The Science of Well-Being," was designed by professor Laurie Santos.  She collected all the psychological science related to happiness and came up with a step-by-step process for boosting your own happiness.
The class has already been taken by more than 225,000 students online. About one in four students at Yale have taken it since it was first offered. Santos designed the course for three reasons: to synthesize what psychologists have learned about making our lives better, to help undergrads overcome stress and unhappiness on campus, and to live a better life herself.
A few exercises include:
Focus on your strengths - Identify your signature strengths and refocus on them each day. Studies show happiness increases and depression decreases when a person uses his or her signature strengths regularly.

Invest in experiences - Going for a walk or traveling to a new place are much better investments in terms of happiness than buying material things. Your stuff loses "happiness value" almost as soon as you have purchased it. Paying for experiences, however, has multiple benefits for happiness, including the anticipation of the experience leads to more happiness and joy. Also, talking about the experience afterward with friends reignites your own happy memories and, sharing these tales with friends tends to boost their happiness, too.

Happy Friday

Destiny is a decision and so is Happiness.

I always decide to be happy and celebrate a Happy Friday!

Butte vs. Mesa vs. Plateau

A butte is a prominent isolated hill with steep sides and a small, flat top. The word “butte" comes from a French word meaning “small hill." Buttes are taller than they are wide

A mesa is distinguished from the butte by its much larger size. Buttes usually have a surface area of less than 10,000 square feet. Mesas can have as much as four square miles of surface area. Mesas are wider than they are tall.

Many plateaus form as magma deep inside the earth pushes toward the surface, but fails to break through the crust. Instead, the magma lifts up the large, flat, impenetrable rock above it.

Butte: a small isolated piece of highland.
Mesa: a large isolated piece of highland.
Plateau: a large area of highlands, not necessarily isolated (often delimited in just one side by a cliff).

Vegan Vegetarian Study

According to a poll of 11,000 Americans, 84 percent of vegetarians and vegans return to eating meat.