How Some Measurements Were Named

Can You Fathom a Bushel and a Peck? Fathom is derived from the Old English word faeom or the Old Saxon word fathmos, meaning the length of the outstretched arms. It was eventually standardized to the length of two yards. Although international nautical charts have converted to meters, the United States still measures depth with fathoms.

Bushel comes from the old French words boissel and boisseau and is a measure of dry goods equal to about eight gallons (or four pecks). Today, it is most commonly used to measure things by their weight, and that weight varies depending on the commodity measured. Typical goods sold by the bushel and their weights include oats (32lb), corn (56lb), wheat (60lb), and soybeans (60lb).

Peck is likely derived from the Old French, pek or picot, and is also a measure of dry goods or commodities. Some retailers, farmers at markets and roadside stands still sell fruits and vegetables by the peck. A peck is equal to about two gallons.

A cord is traced back to the 1600s when wood was sold in bundles tied with a cord. Today, a cord of firewood must take up 128 cubic feet, traditionally in a stack 8′ x 4′ x 4′. The size of a cord of wood is typically regulated, either by a state or national government.

Knot comes from the word of the same spelling meaning intertwined ropes. To measure speed, a long rope had knots tied regularly, about every 50 feet, and a log tied to the end. The log was dropped into the water and a sandglass upended at the same time to time how many knots per time unit. Eventually, the speed of one knot became standardized at one nautical mile (6076 feet vs. land mile 5,280 feet) per hour.

Mach (pronounced mock) was named after Ernst Mach in 1937. Mach numbers represent the ratio of the speed of an object moving through a fluid, gas, or atmosphere and the local speed of sound. When space shuttles re-entered the atmosphere, they initially traveled at a speed greater than Mach 25.

An inch was originally the width of a man’s thumb at the base of the nail. After 1066, 1 inch was equal to 3 barleycorn, dry and round, placed end to end, lengthwise.

A foot was the length of a human foot. A yard was the distance from the tip of the nose to that of the middle finger on an outstretched arm.

One thousand paces of a Roman Legion was a mile. A furlong was originally the length of one furrow in a common field, a bit over 200 feet long. In the 9th century, it was standardized to be the same as a Roman stadium, one eighth of a Roman mile.

Glowing Flowers

There is a project to create glowing plants using synthetic biology and Genome Compiler's software. The project says it is the first step in creating sustainable natural lighting.

LINK

This is a kickstarter project where people donate money in hopes of seeing the project succeed commercially. Backers who back the project with $40 or more receive seeds to grow a glowing plant at home and can expect around 50-100 small seeds. Backers who back the project with $150 will get a glowing rose as well when it's completed.

Kickstarter

Kickstarter is a new way to fund creative projects, such as Art, Comics, Dance, Design, Fashion, Film, Food, Games, Music, Photography, Publishing, Technology, and Theater. Kickstarter is full of projects, big and small, that are brought to life through the direct support of people who donate money.

Since 2009, more than 4 million people have pledged over $612 million, funding more than 41,000 creative projects. Here is a link showing some highly funded projects. LINK  It is a great way to get in on the development of new things. You may have read or heard about the Pebble watch that connects with smartphones, it was started as a Kickstarter project and has received over ten million dollars so far.

There are a number of projects for 3D printers, but one project that interests me is a pen that can draw in 3D. As you draw in the air, the output instantly dries.

Sadism and Masochism

These words were named after their first practitioners, Donatien Alphonse Francois de Sade (Marquis de Sade) and Leopold von Sacher-Masoch. Their sexual conduct so shocked the world that their names became synonymous with their activities. "It is always by way of pain one arrives at pleasure." Marquis de Sade

Sade was well known for his morally unrestrained sexuality. He was accused of a number of sexual crimes like imprisoning a prostitute and poisoning another one. He wrote erotic works describing his practices.

Leopold von Sacher-Masoch was a writer renowned for his romantic stories. He had a thing for dominating women in furs and once entered i a contract with a women to become her slave for 6 months, with the stipulation that she wear furs as often as possible, especially when she was in a cruel mood. “A slap in the face is more effective than ten lectures. It makes you understand very quickly.” Leopold von Sacher-Masoch,

The terms were first selected as professional scientific terminology, identifying human behavioral phenomena and intended for the classification of distinct psychological illnesses and/or malicious social and sexual orientations.

German psychiatrist Richard von Krafft-Ebing introduced the terms "Sadism" and "Masochism"' into institutional medical terminology in his work Neue Forschungen auf dem Gebiet der Psychopathia sexualis ("New research in the area of Psychopathology of Sex") in 1890.

The term "Sadomasochism" has been loosely used to refer to the entire umbrella of BDSM. This is not entirely accurate as BDSM is a shorthand for the three main subdivisions of the culture: B&D (bondage and discipline), D (dominance and submission) and S&M (sadism and masochism).

Google Earth Time Lapse

Amazing The first time lapse is for Las Vegas 1984 - 2012. Interesting to see the size reduction of the lake on the right. You can type any place in the world you choose and watch the changes.  LINK 

More About Laughter

Every time someone laughs around us, our brains must interpret what it means. As German scientists have discovered, it is more complex than we thought.

A joyful belly laugh is interpreted by the brain in a completely different way from a scornful titter or the giggle from someone being tickled, a group of scientists from Tübingen in south west Germany have found.

In experiments designed to help patients with chronic anxiety disorders, they found that positive non-verbal communication, such as a joyful laugh was processed by a different part of the brain from a negative, scornful snicker.

Laughing is one of the oldest forms of non-verbal communication and is also seen in rats and apes. It could be key to helping patients with psychiatric disorders, who often are unable to correctly interpret non-verbal communication.

Humans have developed several different forms of laughter, each of which can have a complex series of meanings and intentions behind them. “Laughing is a very strong signal in social interaction. If you are laughed at with joy you feel accepted. If you are the victim of scornful laughter, you feel shut out of the group,“ said Dr. Dirk Wildgruber.

In their experiments, Wildgruber and his team played various types of recorded laughter and measured how the sounds were interpreted in the brain. They found that giggles generated when someone is being tickled stimulates areas of the brain responsible for interpreting complex acoustic signals. Happy or scornful laughter, on the other hand, stimulates completely separate brain regions usually tasked with guessing the intentions of others. From there, the laughter kick-starts connections with different parts of the brain depending on the tone - negative or positive.

The next step will be to look into how people with psychological disturbances react to different laughter signals to find out which areas of the brain could be artificially stimulated to help them, said Wildgruber.

Robot Builds Furniture

MIT has built a robot that can assemble IKEA furniture without human intervention. It can assemble flat-pack IKEA furniture all by itself. It has a specialized gripper hand that can grab the pieces and screw them together.

Humans feed the robot a design file that describes the product, such as how many pieces, what do they look like, where the screw holes are, etc. The robots do not need to be instructed how to assemble it. From knowing what the parts look like, the software can decipher how something needs to be put together.

Smart Diapers

Huggies has invented a plastic device called TweetPee that fits on diapers, senses moisture, and texts your smart phone when your baby has peed. Hmmm, this might be carrying things a bit too far.

Interesting Internet Tidbits

According to Massachusetts Institute of Technology, more information now crosses the Internet every second than the entire Internet stored 20 years ago. It says, every hour Wal-Mart Stores Inc. collects 50 million filing cabinets' worth of information from its dealings with customers.

Cloud computing is the practice of using a network of remote servers hosted on the Internet to store, manage, process data, and run applications, rather than a local device. The services usually charge monthly fees.

Microsoft has unveiled a system that can translate what you say into Mandarin and play it back in your voice.

The Google Now personal assistant can tell you if there's a traffic jam on your regular route home and suggest an alternative.

Apple's Siri can reschedule an appointment.

IBM's Watson supercomputer can field an awkwardly worded question, figure out what you are trying to ask, and retrieve the answer for you.