Street Signs

Real estate and subdivision developers have the privilege of naming new streets in the United States. The name is submitted to the city for review. Police, fire, and the post office, are given the opportunity to veto the name if they feel it creates any confusion.

The building, engineering and public works departments all comment, but the departments that have the most input and veto power are police and fire. The reason is that the street names are unique and intelligible enough for them to distinguish and find a street and property in an emergency.

Most cities have guidelines and standards for certain areas that require street names to be of a specific theme. This is why you see a large quantity of streets named after trees in one particular section of a city, or all 50 states represented in street names in Washington D.C.

If you happen to be a developer and want to name a street after yourself, you would have better luck in a newly developing suburb than you would in an established city.

The names of trees and numbers make up the greatest number of street names in the country

Health Insurance Statistics

The Census Bureau survey report on health insurance said there were about 311,116,000 people in the United States in 2012. Of these, 263,165,000 had some kind of health insurance coverage and 47,951,000 did not. Of the 263,165,000 who had health insurance coverage, 101,493,000 million obtained it from the government. That means almost 33% of Americans get health care from the government.

According to the survey, there were approximately 114,809,000 people who usually worked full-time in the United States in 2012. Percent of all people working in 2012 was less than in many decades past.

Food for Thought

Oranges and bananas are berries, but strawberries are not technically berries, they are aggregate fruits.

Inventions by Women

Josephine Cochrane invented the dishwasher. She was angry that hired domestic help continually broke and chipped her fine china. Cochrane's dishwasher used high water pressure aimed at a wire rack of dishes, she received a patent for it in 1886. During this era, most houses didn't have the technology of a hot water system to run such a machine, but Cochrane persisted and sold her idea to hotels and restaurants. Eventually dishwashers moved into households as more and more women entered the workplace.

Admiral Dr. Grace Murray Hopper was stationed at Harvard after WWII, where she worked on the development of the IBM-Harvard Mark 1, the first large-scale computer in the U.S. Dr. Hopper invented the compiler, which translates written language into computer code. She coined the term "bug" for a computer problem, and co-developed COBOL, the first user-friendly business computer software program. As a woman inventor, she won numerous awards, including the National Medal of Technology in 1991. Dr. Hopper had received honorary degrees from 30 universities.

Mary Anderson noticed a problem with cars of her time and in 1903 she invented windshield wipers. It was the ingenious squeegee on a spindle attached to a handle inside the car. To clear the windshield, the driver would pull down on a handle. Ten years after she patented the device, another woman, Charlotte Bridgwood first patented the automatic windshield wiper in 1917, called the 'Storm Windshield Cleaner'. The reason we call it a windshield is because that is what it actually does, shields us from wind.

Happy Friday

A wise man hears one word and understands two.

I hear Friday and understand it will be a Happy Friday! 

International Day for Failure

October 13th is International Day for Failure. A new holiday intended for people to share stories of failure and learn from them. The goal of the people organizing the event is to have it be an internationally-recognized holiday by 2020.

The holiday was created in Finland in 2010. In 2012 it has expanded to over 17 different countries, their goal is for it to be accepted worldwide by 2020. In 2011, their campaign got over 30 public figures in Finland to talk about their failures. They managed to reach 1/4 of the population with their media coverage. LINK   It will be interesting to see if their failure campaign will be a success.

Free Mug Shots

There are over a hundred web sites that publish mug shots and request payment to take them off. These are legal, but can be very bad for someones reputation and job prospects. The sites get away with their actions because the United States Supreme Court has ruled that mug shots are public records and many law enforcement agencies regularly publish them online. Mug shots are taken at time of booking and many people are exonerated or have their charges dropped.

Mug shots have been online for years, but now there are many more sites. They get most of their images from sheriffs’ and other law enforcement web sites. Some sites offer a courtesy removal for people who have been exonerated or never charged, to get their image removed for free. Others charge hundreds of dollars for removal. Unfortunate for the people who land on many sites. It could cost them thousands to have their mug shots removed.

Lately PayPal and some credit card companies have been dropping known mug shot sites as customers, making it more difficult for them to get paid. This is good for their corporate consciences, but makes it even more difficult to get mug shots removed from the web.

Vitamin C Myth Lingers

As we approach the cold and flu season, I thought it might be interesting to follow up on the persistent vitamin C myth of using it as a prevention and cure for the common cold. Some people have also claimed it to be a cure for cancer.

Hundreds of studies have now concluded that vitamin C does not treat the common cold. The results of many studies of various types, involving hundreds of thousands of people from around the world have all arrived at the same conclusion - vitamin C has no effect to prevent or cure colds or cancer.

The FDA, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Medical Association, the American Dietetic Association, the Center for Human Nutrition at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and the Department of Health and Human Services do not recommend supplemental vitamin C for the prevention or treatment of colds. Vitamin C does have other benefits and the studies did not say vitamin C is bad for you, it just does not provide the cancer and common cold remedies claimed.

New Toothbrush

It has been a long time since toothbrushes have changed. This interesting personally tailored brush, called the Blizzident is 3D printed to order and claims to clean your teeth in six seconds. The Company does have FDA approval for materials and production, but toothbrushes are FDA Class 1 devices and therefore generally do not need an FDA approval.

It looks almost like a set of dentures and has 400 bristles in a mold of a person's mouth. By biting down on the mouthpiece and grinding on it, the 45-degree angled bristles are supposed to clean your teeth in six seconds.

There are also inter-dental bristles that get between teeth. The Blizzident comes with slits where dental floss can be inserted to clean between teeth and the handle has a container for the dental floss. In the middle there is also a tongue scraper and brush so you clean your tongue at the same time.

The toothbrush is tailored to a person's mouth through either a dental impression or a dental scan performed by a dentist. The 3D scan can be uploaded to Blizzident's site, where it is used to make the toothbrush with a 3D printer. The first Blizzident brush costs $299 and recommended annual replacement brushes sell for $159. The company also offers to refurbish a brush by replacing the bristles for $89. Here is a LINK to the site. Wow, personally tailored low tech and high tech in one package.