Three Interesting Coin Facts

A blind child read Braille on an American coin for the first time, and it was the 2009 Louis Braille Bicentennial Silver Dollar.

The United States Mint produced fewer coins in 2009 due to so many coins being cashed in from savings because of the bad economy. It was the lowest production in 45 years.

The mint made up for other losses by selling 1.7 billion dollars worth of gold bullion, eighty percent higher than 2008.

What's in a Name

Twitter - A small group of employees from Odeo, the San Francisco podcasting startup where Twitter initially began, had a brainstorming session. They were trying to come up with names that fit with the theme of a mobile phone buzzing in your pocket with an update. After narrowing down the options (which included Jitter and Twitter), they wrote them down, put them in a hat, and let fate decide. Fate decided on Twitter as the name was literally picked out of a hat.

Yahoo - Founders David Filo and Jerry Yang started what would become Yahoo when they were Ph.D. candidates at Stanford University. The project originally consisted of categorized lists of favorite links on the web, which made its original name, “Jerry and David’s Guide to the World Wide Web,” at least accurate if not so catchy. Yahoo is actually an acronym for “Yet Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle.” According to the company, the team chose the name for its definition: “rude, unsophisticated, uncouth.”

Toilet Talk

Had to share this strange, but useful web site 'where do i put the paper' for travelers. LINK  It provides a guide to toilet and use of toilet paper habits around the world. Don't expect pictures or fancy text, just a black and white text of what to expect. You will be surprised at how many cities do not have facilities for flushing and how many do not provide paper. For instance, in Greece you should use the bin next to the toilet, because the plumbing system can't handle the paper. OK, if you are not planning to take a trip, skip it. If you are planning a trip, it could provide some good advice to save a bit of embarrassment.
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Off Road Vehicles

For those of you who like unusual off-road vehicles, this site is very fascinating. 

You can waste a few hours looking at these strange and unusual vehicles and robots. LINK

Top Ten Congressional Districts

Have you ever seen a map of Congressional Districts? As we approach this year and the resulting restructuring of Congressional Districts due to the new census results, you might enjoy some that have already been jiggered in interesting ways. Check the Illinois, Congressional District #4. It looks like two distinct districts, but is really one connected by a median along the highway. Leave it to those folks in Illinois. I wonder if it was done when Rod Blago was still in office? LINK

Blekko

Those of you who read my missives know how much I like Google, but I have found something that might provide some more relevant and limited results. It is called Blekko and the way it works is with use of slash tags. Those are those words preceded by a slash / to narrow your results. Many of us never get past the first few pages of results, so the limited pages is not an issue, and it does a fairly good job of filtering out spam pages. Super for searching business information.

If you want to search for pneumonia, and follow it with /health, you wind up with only 200 or so sites, but they are relevant sites. Each result also has a 'spam' button, so you can click the button to forever ban that site from your results. There is a few minute demo on the upper left side of the screen. It is in beta, but working now. Not completely ready for prime time, but getting close. Very cool stuff. LINK

Happy Friday

Buddha said - Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment.

I do not dwell in the past or dream of the future, I am concentrating on having a Happy Friday!

Paying For It

Here is an interesting site as we jump into the new year. It is called daystopay. The site provides a calculator that helps you find out how many days you have to work to pay for things you want to buy. For instance, if you want to buy a new television and it takes 100 days to pay for it, is it still worth the price. Fun site, easy to use, and provides for some fun budget discussions. LINK  

iPhone Applications

Be careful with that new technology in your hand. An examination of 101 popular smartphone apps (games and other software applications for iPhone and Android phones) showed that 56 transmitted the phone's unique device ID to other companies without users' awareness or consent. Forty-seven apps transmitted the phone's location. Five sent age, gender, and other personal details to outsiders.

The findings reveal the efforts by online-tracking companies to gather personal data about people in order to build databases of information about them. Many companies don't have privacy policies and there isn't much you can do about it.

iPhone apps transmitted more data than the apps on phones using Google's Android operating system. Apps sharing the most information included TextPlus 4, for text messaging. It sent the phone's unique ID number to eight ad companies and the phone's zip code, along with the user's age and gender, to two of them.

Both the Android and iPhone versions of Pandora, a music app, sent age, gender, location, and phone identifiers to various ad networks. iPhone and Android versions of the game Paper Toss each sent the phone's ID number to at least five ad companies.

Millennial Media lists 11 types of information about people that developers may transmit to "help Millennial provide more relevant ads." They include age, gender, income, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and political views. MySpace also sent a user's income, ethnicity and parental status. Bottom line, the more you play, the more you pay is even more true in the information age.

Teeth Brush

How about this to brush all your teeth at once. Should save minutes per year.

Brain Stuff

The Ten Habits of Highly Effec­tive Brains

   1. Learn the “It” in “Use It or Lose It”. A basic under­stand­ing will serve you well to appre­ci­ate your brain’s beauty.
   2. Take care of your nutri­tion. Did you know that the brain only weighs 2% of body mass but con­sumes over 20% of the oxy­gen and nutri­ents we intake?
   3. Remem­ber that the brain is part of the body. Things that exer­cise your body can also help sharpen your brain: phys­i­cal exer­cise enhances neurogenesis.
   4. Prac­tice pos­i­tive, future-oriented thoughts until they become your default mind­set and you look for­ward to every new day in a con­struc­tive way.
   5. Thrive on Learn­ing and Men­tal Chal­lenges. Chal­lenge your brain often with fun­da­men­tally new activities.
   6. We are the only self-directed organ­isms in this planet. Aim high. The brain keeps devel­op­ing, no mat­ter your age, and it reflects what you do with it.
   7. Explore, travel. Adapt­ing to new loca­tions forces you to pay more atten­tion to your envi­ron­ment.
   8. Don’t Out­source Your Brain. Make your own deci­sions, and mis­takes. And learn from them. That way, you are train­ing your brain.
   9. Develop and main­tain stim­u­lat­ing friend­ships. We are “social ani­mals”, and need social inter­ac­tion.
  10. Laugh Often. Espe­cially to cog­ni­tively com­plex humor, full of twists and sur­prises.

Did You Know

Van Gogh sold only one painting during his life.
Romeo had more lines than Juliet.
Wilt Chamberlin was never fouled out of a game.
Q is the only letter that does not appear in any US state name.
Starting this month, more than 10,000 baby boomers a day will turn 65, a pattern that will continue for about the next 19 years.