Daylight Saving

Here we go again, when we defy Mother Nature's natural time and mess with our clocks. Sunday Nov 3, 2am is the day and time we turn our clocks back one hour. Mother Nature just sits back smirking until we change our clocks back to her schedule in the spring.
Incidentally, this year, 2019, Finland called for daylight saving to be abolished across the EU after a petition gathered more than 70,000 signatures from citizens asking the state to give up the practice.

European Union is allowing 28 member countries to choose for themselves once mandated daylight saving time ends after 2021. Currently, some 30 bills are being considered in US States. In Canada, some 93% of British Columbia residents said they want year-round daylight saving time. Japan currently observes Japan Standard Time (JST) all year. DST is no longer in use in China, South Africa, and the Philippines.

Bonfire Night

On the Fifth of November, British people celebrate Bonfire Night on the anniversary of the Gunpowder Plot. A scarecrow in the likeness of Guy Fawkes is put in the center of a large pile of wood, before lighting it on fire. There is also a huge fireworks display, eating, drinking, and partying.

The reason why the conspirators of the Gunpowder Plot were trying to blow up Parliament was in an attempt to end the persecution of Recusant Catholics.  Before the scarecrow was made in the likeness of Guy Fawkes, they were burning an effigy of the Pope. In the town of Lewes in Sussex, they will have a parade where they burn crosses on the Fifth of November.

Wordology, NMLS

So many commercials end with some fast talking announcer and one of the things the announcer says is NMLS Number 12345, or whatever the number is. NMLS stands for the Nationwide Mortgage Licensing System and Registry. NMLS is a web based platform for regulatory agencies to administer initial license applications and ongoing compliance requirements.


NMLS itself does not grant or deny license authority. It is the system of record for all federal registrations required of federally regulated mortgage loan originators. License cost for an individual is usually less than $100. Individuals usually need 20 hours training and take a test to pass the National Mortgage Licensing System pre-licensing exam. It includes 100 computer-generated, multiple-choice questions that must be answered within three hours. Ten of the 100 questions are "test" questions that do not affect the grade. Passing score is 75%. The test can be taken online.

Winter and Phone Batteries

Very low temperatures can reduce your battery to ½ or less of your normal use time. Keep your phone warm to keep your battery level up. If it gets cold and battery charge goes down, making the phone warm again will not bring up the charge level.

Doctor Drug Payments

There is a website that you can look up your doctor or hospital to see what payments they have received from drug and medical device companies. I looked my primary care doc and found he received $892 last year. Not sure of the value of the info, but it is interesting to know. LINK 

Roger Whittaker

Came across this video "Last Farewell" the other day while perusing YouTube. It has over nine million views. Almost forgot how smooth Whittaker's voice is. He is 88.  LINK

Netflix Plans

Netflix offers three streaming video plans, plus you can still order DVD and Blu-ray discs in the mail.

The most basic plan allows one user at a time and is shown in standard definition, which is equivalent to the old, pre-HD (720) televisions. The standard streaming plan allows you to watch on two screens at a time in high definition (1080) (HD), like newer, but non-4K TVs. The premium plan allows you to watch on four screens at once and you can watch programs in HD or 4K Ultra HD.
What amazed me is that it is still offering the old 720 standard television, until I realized how much of its business is overseas and how millions of users around the world use PCs, pads, and phones to watch and which require 720 or less for adequate pictures.

Incidentally, Netflix still makes 30 million US dollars a month on DVD and Blu-ray rentals.

Wordology, Whistleblower

Back in Elizabethan times “to whistle” or “to blow” was to reveal secret information. During the twentieth century, “to blow the whistle” and “whistleblower” referred to people blowing whistles, or people attempting to stop illegal or immoral activity by causing a disturbance. Law enforcement officials, such as police in the United Kingdom used whistles to alert the public or fellow police of a crime.

A whistleblower is someone who exposes information about wrongdoings that companies or organizations do not want to share, usually about illegal or unethical actions or wrongdoings within a public or private organization. Whistleblowers disclose the wrongdoing without approval, to the public, a higher authority, or law enforcement. They could expose illegal actions affecting public safety, violations of company rules or policies, or fraud, among others.

Incidentally, the main difference between leakers and whistleblowers is that whistleblowers release information that shows wrongdoing. They have a right and responsibility to report this information. Leakers release sensitive or classified information unlawfully and possibly for their own personal or political agenda, not necessarily for public good or policy.

Happy Friday

Laughter is the sharpest weapon in the arsenal.

It is the swiftest tool to open a closed mind, especially on a Happy Friday!

Yuca vs. Yucca

Yuca – pronounced yoo-cuh – is the root portion of a cassava plant. It is often prepared and eaten like sweet potatoes.

Yucca - pronounced yuhk-a  - is an ornamental plant. Yuccas are spiky flowered plants common in Southern and Western parts of the US, including Florida, New Mexico, and California.  The stems, leaf bases, flowers, emerging stalks as well as the fruit of most types of yucca are edible. 

Wordology, Mukbang

South Korea video trend is known as “mukbang,” and it has spread to the US and around the globe on YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram.

Japanese mukbang entertainer Yuka Kinoshita has 5.34 million subscribers on YouTube. She is shown in different videos eating various foods, such as one hundred Chicken McNuggets, 62 hamburgers, 3 large pizzas, 10 pounds of cereal, 6.6 pounds of noodles. She is thin, 5' 2" tall, and weighs 95 pounds.

The trend has grown into a worldwide sensation and often involves massive consumption of foods in nauseating quantities. Hosts will often prepare or buy a meal, sit down and eat it as part of a live stream, watched by hundreds of thousands of fans. Many times, the whole purpose is to see the mukbang host take in multiple servings.

The trend is social and interactive. According to some, watching a person eat while possibly having a meal at the same time and perhaps the same meal that they are watching a mukbang entertainer consume on the screen fills certain longings in a modern society with less personal interaction. Social media gets scarier every day.

Movie Trailer Colors

There are three colors preceding each movie trailer, red, yellow, and green. These colors show up as the background for movie rating cards. The rating for the film itself shows up in text, but the rating for the preview shows up in text and indicated by the background color of the rating card splash screen. The specific regulations surrounding what can be shown in the preview for each of these rating cards are set by the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), though the rules are not publicly made available.
The most common is the green rating card.  Before April of 2009, a green background meant that the preview was approved for all audiences.  Since April of 2009, the MPAA now states that the green card is for “appropriate audiences”.  This basically means it is appropriate for audiences in theaters, taking into account what movie the audience is about to watch.

A yellow rating card indicates the preview is for age-appropriate internet viewers and is used on internet trailers only.

The red rating card indicates that content in the preview is only appropriate for mature audiences. These previews can only be shown in theaters where the movie about to be watched is R-rated, NC-17-rated, or unrated.

Theatrical trailers must be less than two minutes and 30 seconds, as mandated by the Motion Picture Association of America.  The MPAA gives each movie studio one exception to this a year where they are allowed to show a trailer that is longer than 2 minutes and 30 seconds.

Scary Thought

Ninety percent of US media (TV, radio, news) is owned by six corporations.

Magnetic Particle Imaging

MPI was first presented during 2005 and began to come into its own by 2012. So far, only a handful of prototype small-animal MPI scanners have been constructed worldwide. It has the potential to revolutionize the biomedical imaging field. The new tracer imaging modality is gaining significant interest from NMR and MRI researchers. MPI employs the same superparamagnetic iron oxide (SPIO) contrast agents that are sometimes used for MR angiography and are often used for MRI cell tracking studies.

These SPIOs are much safer for humans than iodine or gadolinium. SPIOs in MPI generate positive, bright blood contrast. With this ideal contrast, even prototype MPI scanners can already achieve fast, high-sensitivity, and high-contrast angiograms with millimeter-scale resolutions.

While the physics of MPI differ substantially from MRI, it employs hardware and imaging concepts that are familiar to MRI researchers, such as magnetic excitation and detection, pulse sequences, and relaxation effects.

MPI shows great potential for an exciting array of applications, including stem cell tracking and inflammation imaging in vivo, first-pass contrast studies to diagnose or stage cancer.