What's in a Name

Have you ever wondered where is Old Zealand? New Zealand is actually named after Zeeland, a major seafaring province of the Netherlands, by Dutch navigator Abel Tasman in 1642. You might also notice the island of Tasmania is named after him. Captain James Cook misspelled it New Zealand and the name stuck ever since. (Tasmania is just below Australia and to the left of New Zealand.)

How about New Amsterdam? New York City was originally settled by the Dutch and named New Amsterdam in 1625. It was situated right outside of Fort Amsterdam. It became New York (after the Duke of York) in 1665. Then it became New Orange after the Dutch took it back in 1673, then finally back to New York in 1674. Wow, New Orange became the Big Apple.

Philtrum

It is also known as the infranasal depression, is the vertical groove in the upper lip. It has no apparent function besides its visual prominence.


Some people have a beautiful philtrum.

Close Buttons

Did you know most elevators built or installed since the early 1990s don’t have close buttons that actually work, unless you use a fireman or repair key? People push them, because the fact that the door eventually closes reinforces their belief that the button works. Doors are set on a delay timer to close. Older ones do work as advertised.

Coffee's Hot

A little shameless self promotion here. This blog, Shubsthoughts, is featured on Coffee's Hot site this week. LINK

Why not take a break and go check it out and see what some of the other authors, bloggers, and readers are doing. As always, thanks for stopping by.

Penny for Your Thoughts

The government spends 1.8 cents to make one penny and 9 cents to produce a nickel. Because metal prices have shot up lately, the cost to make these two coins is more than what they are worth as coins. This costs us an additional $100 million a year.

The government is loosening up its rules for what metals can be used to used to make coins. Using cheaper metal should help bring the cost of making one penny closer to one penny. Seems we should have respected the old axiom of 'take care of your pennies and the dollars will take care of themselves'. Now we spend trillions of dollars and the pennies do not take care of themselves. Maybe we should change the politicians instead of changing the metals.

Intel Newest Computer Chip

Intel announced on Feb 8 its newest Intel announced its Itanium 9300 series microprocessor, a high-end supercomputing chip with 2 billion transistors on a single chip. The number of transistors, or basic on-off switches that control the flow of electrical signals in a chip, is about twice as much as what Intel and other big companies normally put in a chip.

Marriage and TV

Ages of Marriage:
Twenty is when you watch TV after.
Forty is when you watch TV during.
Sixty is when you watch TV instead.

Fly Paper

You have heard of fly paper, but have you seen a paper fly?

Alzheimer's Drink

Rush University Medical Center is leading a nationwide clinical trial of a nutritional drink to determine whether it can improve cognitive performance in people with mild to moderate Alzheimer's. The study follows recently released results from an earlier trial conducted in Europe showing that the drink, called Souvenaid, improved verbal recall in people with mild disease who were followed for three months.

Results of the first European study were released recently, following publication in the journal Alzheimer's & Dementia. In that study, 225 patients with mild Alzheimer's were divided into two groups. Some drank Souvenaid and the others sipped a non-medical drink every day for 12 weeks.

Researchers found that the patients who drank Souvenaid improved in a delayed verbal recall task.

A total of 500 individuals who are taking medications approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for the symptomatic treatment of mild to moderate Alzheimer's disease will be enrolled in the present study at 40 sites across the U.S. In the double-blinded study, half of the participants will drink about four ounces of Souvenaid once a day for 24 weeks. The other half will drink a control product that is similar in flavor, appearance, and composition, but without the Souvenaid nutrients. Neither group will know whether they are drinking Souvenaid or the other beverage.