Mar 2, 2018

Monkey and Banana Myth

Monkeys actually prefer leaves and insects rather than bananas. In fact, bananas are not healthy for monkeys. Bananas are too sweet for them. The UK has banned them from its zoos. They love eating ripe fruits, seeds, vegetables, honey, and flowers.

Incidentally, goats do not eat tin cans.

Draught Guinness

Draught or draft Guinness is special. There is a precise, elaborate, and time-consuming art-form of pouring the perfect pint of Guinness beer. Bartenders around the world are given instructions for the proper pouring process, including details about the type of glass used, the angle the glass is held at during the different states of pouring, the precise length of time the pint must be left to settle, and the force with which the draught Guinness is poured from the tap.

During the 1950s, Guinness scientist Michael Ash was tasked with solving the 'draft problem'. At the time, dispensing a draft pint of Guinness was very complicated, and the company was losing market share to draft lagers in Britain that could be easily dispensed with CO2. “The stout was too lively to be dispensed with CO2 only,” Brady said. “Ash worked on the problem for four years, working long hours day and night, and became a bit of a recluse apparently. A lot of doubters at the brewery called the project ‘daft Guinness'.”


Then Ash attempted dispensing the beer with plain air. It worked. The secret ingredient, he discovered, was nitrogen. The air we breathe is 78 percent nitrogen. Today, a Guinness draft contains 75 percent nitrogen. Not only did the discovery make dispensing the beer easier, it created a creamy mouthfeel that has been the signature of Irish stouts since.

Nitrogen forms tighter bubbles than carbon dioxide when put under pressure in a solution and has a different appearance and texture. The bubble is a pocket of released gas that becomes trapped inside of a thin membrane of beer. There are many more little bubbles in a nitrogen pour.

Incidentally, Draught Guinness, as it is known today, was first produced in 1964. Bottled Draught Guinness was formulated in 1978 and launched into the Irish market in 1979.

Live to 90 With Booze

If you want to live into your 90s, booze actually beats exercise, according to a long-term study. The research, led by University of California (no surprise) neurologist Claudia Kawas, tracked 1,700 nonagenarians enrolled in the 90+ Study that began in 2003 to explore impacts of daily habits on longevity.
Researchers discovered that subjects who drank about two glasses of beer or wine a day were 18% less likely to experience a premature death. Meanwhile, participants who exercised 15 to 45 minutes a day, cut the same risk by 11%.
“I have no explanation for it, but I do firmly believe that modest drinking improves longevity,” Kawas stated at the American Association for the Advancement of Science annual conference in Austin, Texas.

Other factors were found to boost longevity, including weight. Participants who were slightly overweight, but not obese, cut their odds of an early death by 3%. “It’s not bad to be skinny when you are young, but it is very bad to be skinny when you’re old,” Kawas noted in her address.


Also, subjects who kept busy with a daily hobby two hours a day were 21% less likely to die early, while those who drank two cups of coffee a day cut that risk by 10%.

God's Aging Plan

Related to the above, most seniors never get enough exercise. In His wisdom God decreed that seniors become forgetful so they would have to search for their glasses, keys and other things, thus doing more walking. And God looked down and saw that it was good.

Then God saw there was another need. In His wisdom He made seniors lose co-ordination so they would drop things, requiring them to bend, reach, and stretch. And God looked down and saw that it was good.

Then God considered the function of bladders and decided seniors would have additional calls of nature, requiring more trips to the loo, thus providing more exercise. God looked down and saw that it was good.

God saw that the knights of the round table were getting weak, so he took the wheels off the chairs, thus causing them to actually pull on chairs before sitting down to stuff their faces. God looked down and saw that it was good.

So if you find as you age, you are getting up and down more, remember it is God's will. It is all in your best interest even though you mutter under your breath.

Calculate Anything

We all need to calculate things from time to time. Here is a site that has almost 400 different free calculators. There are calculators for business, health, finance, statistics, construction, and more. LINK

Feb 23, 2018

Happy Friday

The joy of happiness is immeasurable.

I count on staying happy, especially on a Happy Friday!

Wordology, Mnemonic

Mnemonics make it easy to remember facts. There are many examples that have been around for years, such as this mnemonic sentence, "Super Heroes Must Eat Oats."   For instance, the names of the five Great Lakes spell the word HOMES. If you want to remember them them in order of size from largest to smallest surface area, try “Super Heroes Must Eat Oats” - Superior, Huron, Michigan, Erie, Ontario. If you want to remember them from left to right on a map, change Super Heroes to “Super Man Helps Every One.”

Famous Olympians After Olympics

Some Olympians become famous for other accomplishments long after the medal glory wears off. Here are a few folks you might not remember for participating in the Olympics.
Dr. Benjamin Spock, author of the bestselling Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care (1946), was the authority on child rearing in Baby Boomer America. Spock rowed with Yale's crew team and made the men's eights team for the 1924 Paris Olympics. He won a gold medal at age 21. He also  placed third in a 4-mile rowing contest at age 84.

General George S. Patton, World War II officer who led the U.S. Third Army on the Western Front, was famous for his foul mouth, rousing speeches, and tenacious leadership. He placed fifth in the inaugural modern pentathlon (swimming, riding, fencing, running, shooting) at the 1912 Olympics.

Bruce Dern was second in 1500 meters and 800 meters events in the Senior Olympics.

Geena Davis picked up archery as a hobby, but almost made the 2000 USA Olympic Team, where she placed 24th out of 300 at the tryouts. She had only been shooting for two years prior to trying out.

Jason Statham developed an interest in diving at age 11, joined Britain’s National Diving Team and competed in the 1990 Commonwealth Games.
Dolph Lundgren was asked to serve as the Team Leader for the 1996 US Olympic Modern Pentathlon team.

Strother Martin, from Cool Hand Luke movie,  "What we've got here is failure to communicate." He entered the adult National Springboard Diving competition in hopes of gaining a berth on the US Olympic team, but finished third in the competition.

Talk to a Human Help

These days it seems like companies deliberately hide the phone number to speak to a real human being. Even if a company provides a number, the computer leads us through a seemingly random set of questions to keep punching in numbers until we want to scream.

There is a way to bypass much of this hassle. A website https://gethuman.com/ provides real numbers and real techniques to get to a live human being. It even offers to help (for a fee) if you are completely exasperated.

Longest Gestation

In humans, the period of time it takes for a baby to grow in the womb to the point when it's ready to be born is called the gestation period and it averages about 40 weeks or nine months. Relative to many animals, that is a short period of time

When it comes to mammals, no one has to wait as long to give birth as the elephant. weighs approximately 230 pounds when born, to develop. The average gestation period for an elephant is about  95 weeks or 23 months.

Black alpine salamanders have gestation periods that can last two to three years. The higher they live in the Alps, the colder it is and the longer their gestation period lasts.

Certain species of sharks also have long gestation periods, such as a basking shark carries its young almost three years, while the frilled shark has a gestation period of three and a half years.

Deeper beneath the sea is another marine animal the a deep-sea octopus at over 4,500 feet deep in the ocean waters off California. Babies were born after a gestation period of 53 months. That is more than twice as long as most that live in more shallow waters.

TV is Watching Us

Your smart TV is watching you. Some may not mind being tracked as it allows more personal ads sent to you. Others may not like being tracked for any reason. Saw this in USA Today and thought I would share how to turn off smart TV tracking.
LG - In the menu, click to Settings, which brings you to All Settings, and find your way to General. The feature to look for here is LivePlus, which is what LG calls the ACR technology. This is the one you want to turn off.
Samsung - On newer sets, go for Settings in the menu, then Support, then Terms & Policies. From there, Consumer Reports suggests pulling Viewing Information Services to opt out of. On older models, Consumer Reports says to click on Support and then select Terms & Policy and then SyncPlus and Marketing to turn off ACR.
Sony - Consumer Reports notes that ACR is turned on during setup of the TV, via agreements with Sony, which makes the TV; Google, which provides the AndroidTV operating system; and Samba TV, a company that gathers analytics on viewers' habits that advertisers can use for targeted ad campaigns. On Sony TVs, you need to get go back to the setup, available within Settings, to turn off ACR. If you want some of the Web connectivity, but not everything, you can agree to Sony and Google policies, and then when you come to Samba TV, opt out of ACR by clicking 'disable'.
TCL/Roku - TCL, Hisense, Hitachi, Insignia, Philips, RCA and Sharp.
Turn off ACR by going to Settings, then Privacy, and "Smart TV Experience." Consumer Reports says you can uncheck "Use Information for TV Inputs" to disable ACR.


Vizio - Select System, click on Reset & Admin and opt for Viewing Data to opt out of ACR.

Before TV Interviews

This site has a compilation of interviews on film that date back to the 1920s and 1930s. If you want to be fascinated, have a watch. No big revelations, but interesting conversations with real people. Caution, you could spend way too much time on the site. LINK