Thursday, October 1, 2009

Witticisms of ex-jockey and prolific author Dick Francis
Spare no thrift (rather than expenses)
Original virtue (rather than sin)
Kick a man when he’s up (rather than down)

Once they were neologisms:
maximize A Treatise on the Calculus of Variations by Lewis Buffett Carll (1890)
minimize Lawyers' Reports Annotated by Lawyers Co-operative Publishing Company (1918)
negativity Calcutta Review by University of Calcutta (1844)
positivity System of Positive Polity by Auguste Comte (1876)
http://www.lexic.us/

The sauté is the key to fast suppers. Technically, "sauté" comes from a French verb which means to jump or rise up. Culinarily, it is something like pan frying, except you cook foods in a modest amount of hot fat in a wide shallow pan. The goal is cooking food through without added moisture. Let cooked meats sit at room temperature 10 minutes. Juices settle, the meat finishes cooking and when you cut into your dinner it is succulent. Weeknight Kitchen from The Splendid Table [newsletter@americanpublicmedia.org]

Recent contest on Multitasking at The Week magazine
Results: After hearing about the two Australian girls who fell into a storm drain and updated their Facebook status rather than dialing 911, we asked you to predict the next really dumb Facebook message. You texted:
FIRST PRIZE: Wondering why this idiot policeman is pulling me over.
SECOND PRIZE: Car stalled on tracks. Loud whistle sound drowning out my iPod. Grrrrrrr.
THIRD PRIZE: My bungee cord just bro
See honorable mentions at: http://www.theweek.com/article/index/100670/The_Week_contest_Dumb_Update__Sept_25_2009

adjoin
1. v. t. To join or unite to; to lie contiguous to; to be in contact with; to attach; to append.
2. v. i. To lie or be next, or in contact; to be contiguous; as, the houses adjoin.
http://www.lexic.us/definition-of/adjoin
adjunct
1. a. Conjoined; attending; consequent.
2. n. Something joined or added to another thing, but not essentially a part of it.
http://www.lexic.us/definition-of/adjunct

The Newton scale is a temperature scale devised by Isaac Newton around 1700. Applying his mind to the problem of heat, he elaborated a first qualitative temperature scale, comprising about twenty reference points ranging from "cold air in winter" to "glowing coals in the kitchen fire". This approach was rather crude and problematic, so Newton quickly became dissatisfied with it. He knew that most substances expand when heated, so he took a container of linseed oil and measured its change of volume against his reference points. He found that the volume of linseed oil grew by 7.25% when heated from the temperature of melting snow to that of boiling water. After a while, he defined the "zeroth degree of heat" as melting snow and "33 degrees of heat" as boiling water. His scale is thus a precursor of the Celsius scale, being defined by the same temperature references. Indeed it is likely that Celsius knew about the Newton scale when he invented his. Newton called his instrument a “thermometer”.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newton_scale

palindrome noun the same forward or backwards
letters: kayak
numerals: 2002
symbols: #*#
music: (temporal palindrome) successive notes, then at a certain point, played backward
Search crab canon on www.youtube.com to find examples.

The cultural prehistory of eastern North America and the Middle Atlantic region can be divided into six periods: Paleoindian and Early Archaic (11,000 to 6500 B.C.), Middle Archaic (6500 to 2500 B.C.), Late Archaic (2500 to 1000 B.C.), Early Woodland (1000 to 500 B.C.), Middle Woodland (500 B.C. to A.D. 900), and Late Woodland (A.D. 900 to 1600). Inspired by ancient Rome, the classical architecture of Washington symbolized the order, balance, substantiality and rationality promulgated by the founders of the new republic. L’Enfant’s plan, which organized the major public buildings separately from one another but on axial lines, was the foundation for the reiteration of political order through architecture. George Washington hoped to encourage (and force) individuals to support these ideals of symbolic architectural development through aesthetic uniformity and fire suppression (Hoaglund 1989:58-59). A 1791 act required that new buildings were to be of stone or brick, no less than 35 feet high and no higher than 40 feet, for the sake of uniformity. By 1796, these zoning laws were relaxed to stimulate growth that was lagging behind the government’s expectations. Frame buildings were allowed, but not within 24 feet of a brick structure, ostensibly for fire containment (Hoaglund 1989:65; Watterston 1847:171). Privies and sheds were exempted from that restriction (Hoaglund 1989:65). James Monroe officially repealed the zoning laws for the year 1819, again with the purpose of stimulating growth (Elliott 1822:81-85). Washington, lacking an industry other than its burgeoning bureaucracy, developed a service industry to perpetuate the local economy. Housing was essential to this economy, and consequently boarding and rooming houses, and the rental of houses built on speculation by those who could afford to, became central to the city’s economic success. http://www.si.edu/ahhp/patent/2.0Results.htm

The pigpen cipher (sometimes called the masonic cipher or Freemason's cipher) is a simple substitution cipher exchanging letters for symbols based on a grid. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pigpen_cipher

Wingdings 
Wingdings 2 
Wingdings3 
X MARKS THE SPOT

How to make a secret code http://www.ehow.com/how_2257604_make-secret-code.html

How to make a cipher wheel http://www.ehow.com/how_2304020_make-cipher-wheel.html

No comments: