Weather Machine is a lumino-kinetic bronze
sculpture and columnar machine that serves as a weather
beacon, displaying a weather prediction each day at noon. Designed and constructed by Omen Design Group
Inc., the approximately 30-foot (9 m) tall sculpture was installed in 1988 in
the northwest corner of Pioneer Courthouse Square in Portland,
Oregon. During its daily two-minute
sequence, which includes a trumpet fanfare, mist,
and flashing lights, the machine displays one of three metal symbols as a
prediction of the weather for the following 24-hour period: a sun for clear and sunny weather, a blue
heron for drizzle
and transitional weather, or a dragon and mist for rainy or stormy weather. The sculpture includes two bronze wind scoops
and displays the temperature via vertical colored lights along its stem. The air
quality index is also displayed by a light system below the stainless
steel globe. Weather predictions are
made based on information obtained by employees of Pioneer Courthouse Square
from the National Weather Service and the
Department of Environmental Quality. In
the weeks following Weather Machine's dedication, an estimated 300 to
400 people gathered at the square daily to witness the noon sequence. See images at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weather_Machine
ASTOR'S PET HORSE Also pet cow, pet pony, plush
horse A variation of Mrs. Astor's pet
horse. 1. An overly dressed-up or
made-up person. 1950. 2. A self-important person. 1967-69. From the "Dictionary
of American Regional English," Volume 1 by Frederic G. Cassidy (1985,
Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass., and London,
England). http://phrases.org.uk/bulletin_board/24/messages/185.html
acro-, acr- (Greek: high,
highest, highest point; top, tip end, outermost; extreme; extremity of the
body) Find a list of 153 terms starting
with acro (for instance, acrobat, acrogram, acronym, acrophobia and acrostic )
at http://wordinfo.info/units/view/2372/page:1/ip:2
The shortest palindromes consist of two
characters or symbols. Examples: aa, 33, ∞ ∞
The longest palindromic word in the Oxford English Dictionary is the onomatopoeic tattarrattat,
coined by James Joyce
in Ulysses
(1922) for a knock on the door. The
Guinness Book of Records gives the title to detartrated, the preterit and past
participle of detartrate, a chemical term meaning to remove tartrates. http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/13844/what-is-the-longest-palindrome-word-in-english
Symbols may be symmetric, asymmetric, open, closed, curved, straight, have crossed lines or
not. Locate a symbol by making choices
at http://www.myteachertools.com/old/symbols.htm This will take you to Symbols.com, an online
encyclopedia that includes symbols, signs, flags and glyphs arranged by
categories such as culture, country, religion, and more. Search symbols alphabetically, by
category or by keywords. Other online
sources are Dictionary of Symbolism http://www.umich.edu/~umfandsf/symbolismproject/symbolism.html/
and Symbols & Symbolism Websites at http://www2.fiu.edu/~morriss/bookword/symbols/symbolismsites.html
Cryptology—from
the Greek words kryptos, "hidden," and logos,
"word"—began as the science of communicating critical information,
usually of a political or military nature, in a secret language known only to
the sender and the legitimate receiver. The
source information is called the plaintext. The secret formula for encrypting the
plaintext is called the key. The result of the encryption is called the cipher
(often spelled cypher) or ciphertext. The process of applying a key to a cipher in
order to decode it is known as decryption. Ciphers systematically substitute letters or
numbers for the letters in a message; codes consist of symbols, words, or
groups thereof, which stand for other words, parts of words, or ideas. For
example, Meriwether Lewis used a set of symbols to encode his evaluations
of Army officers for Thomas Jefferson. Read about Jefferson's cipher
for Lewis at http://lewis-clark.org/content/content-article.asp?ArticleID=2222
Sandusky,
Ohio was founded in 1818. During this time
German and Irish stonecutters were attracted to the area to fill the city's
building needs. Most of the earliest
buildings in Sandusky were carved from limestone (which can be found just a
little more than a foot below the ground in most sections of town). When Cedar Point's white sand beaches made it
a popular vacation spot in the late 1800's Sandusky's population grew even more
rapidly. Downtown Sandusky was designed
according a modified grid plan known as the Kilbourne Plat after its designer. The original street pattern featured a grid
overlaid with streets resembling the symbols of Freemasonry. Hector Kilbourne was a surveyor who laid out
this grid in downtown Sandusky. Sandusky is the only city in the world originally laid out on Masonic symbols.
decibel
a unit of measurement of the loudness or strength of a signal. One deciBel is considered the smallest
difference in sound level that the human ear can discern. Created in the early days of telephony as a
way to measure cable and equipment performance and named after Alexander Graham
Bell, deciBels (dBs) are a relative measurement derived from two signal
levels: a reference input level and an
observed output level. A deciBel is the
logarithm of the ratio of the two levels.
One Bel is when the output signal is 10x that of the input, and one
deciBel is 1/10th of a Bel.A whisper is about 20 dB. A normal conversation is typically from 60 to
70 dB, and a noisy factory from 90 to 100 dB.
http://www.yourdictionary.com/decibel
Ten
nutrients that can lift your spirits by Maya Dangerfield How can foods
improve our moods? It all comes down
to the brain. A healthy cognitive system
is essential to regulating mood, and certain nutrients have a profound impact
on maintaining normal brain function. Researchers
have studied the association between foods and the brain and identified 10
nutrients that can combat depression and boost mood: calcium, chromium, folate, iron, magnesium,
omega-3 fatty acids, Vitamin B6, Vitamin B12, Vitamin D and zinc. Read more and see pictures at http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/10-nutrients-that-can-lift-your-spirits/2014/01/14/05f4e514-7a4d-11e3-b1c5-739e63e9c9a7_story.html?hpid=z1
Schoolhouse Rock! is an American
interstitial programming series of animated musical
educational
short films (and later, videos) that aired during the Saturday morning
children's programming on the U.S. television network ABC. The topics covered included grammar, science, economics, history, mathematics,
and civics. The series' original run lasted from 1973 to
1985, and was later revived with both old and new episodes airing from 1993 to
1999. Additional episodes were produced
as recently as 2009 for direct-to-video release. Conjunction Junction was first aired in 1973. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schoolhouse_Rock!
Watch a 3:01 video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4AyjKgz9tKg
Birds of a feather may flock
together, but why they fly together in V formations has never been known for
certain. Now, with the help of 14
northern bald ibises fitted with lightweight sensors on a 1000-kilometre
migration from Austria to Tuscany, researchers are suggesting that the
explanation is one that was long suspected but never proved: the formation helps the birds conserve energy. Reporting in the journal Nature, the scientists write that the ibises
positioned themselves in spots which were aerodynamically optimal, allowing
them to take advantage of swirls of upward-moving air generated by the wings of
the bird ahead. The lead bird gets no
lift advantage; the ibises regularly switched leaders. ''We've been wondering for years whether
flapping birds can save energy by following each other in the right way,'' said
Geoffrey Spedding, chairman of the aerospace and mechanical engineering
department at the University of Southern California, who was not involved in
the study. ''This work answers that
question, and the answer is yes.'' http://www.smh.com.au/environment/animals/scientists-discover-why-birds-fly-in-a-v-20140116-30xt4.html
http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com Issue 1098
January 17, 2014 On this day in
1524, Giovanni da Verrazzano set sail westward
from Madeira
to find a sea route to the Pacific Ocean.
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