Puritan church members in the Massachusetts Bay colony, and later, Congregationalists elsewhere in New England, believed that their contractual relationship with God required them to enforce proper behavior in their communities. This perceived requirement resulted in the enactment of a variety of laws designed to regulate the conduct of all members of society. By the time of the American Revolution, many of the personal conduct laws were no longer enforced. Some, however, have remained on the books to the present day. The blue laws also underwent a revival of sorts in the late 19th and early 20th centuries in the nationwide prohibition movement. Many communities also enacted Sunday closing laws, which prohibited businesses from operating on the Sabbath; other areas contented themselves with outlawing the sale of tobacco and liquor on Sundays. The origin of the term blue law is disputed. A number of authorities have argued that some of the early laws, or a book describing the regulations, were printed on blue paper. Others suggest that the name is associated with “blue blood,” a term conveying a disapproving view of common behavior. http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h1164.html
The Mother of All Languages by Gautam Naik
The world's 6,000 or so modern languages may have all descended from a single ancestral tongue spoken by early African humans between 50,000 and 70,000 years ago, a study published in the journal Science suggests. The finding could help explain how the first spoken language emerged, spread and contributed to the evolutionary success of the human species. Quentin Atkinson, an evolutionary psychologist at the University of Auckland in New Zealand and author of the study, found that the first migrating populations leaving Africa laid the groundwork for all the world's cultures by taking their single language with them—the mother of all mother tongues. "It was the catalyst that spurred the human expansion that we all are a product of," Dr. Atkinson said. About 50,000 years ago—the exact timeline is debated—there was a sudden and marked shift in how modern humans behaved. They began to create cave art and bone artifacts and developed far more sophisticated hunting tools. Many experts argue that this unusual spurt in creative activity was likely caused by a key innovation: complex language, which enabled abstract thought. The work done by Dr. Atkinson supports this notion. His research is based on phonemes, distinct units of sound such as vowels, consonants and tones, and an idea borrowed from population genetics known as "the founder effect." That principle holds that when a very small number of individuals break off from a larger population, there is a gradual loss of genetic variation and complexity in the breakaway group. Dr. Atkinson figured that if a similar founder effect could be discerned in phonemes, it would support the idea that modern verbal communication originated on that continent and only then expanded elsewhere. In an analysis of 504 world languages, Dr. Atkinson found that, on average, dialects with the most phonemes are spoken in Africa, while those with the fewest phonemes are spoken in South America and on tropical islands in the Pacific. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704547604576262572791243528.html?mod=WSJ_World_LEFTSecondNews
Google buys Zagat to vie with OpenTable, Yelp
While much of Zagat's content is free and available to anyone, some content remains behind a paywall and it was unclear if Google would remove it. Founded by Tim and Nina Zagat, the eponymous service provides the familiar burgundy pocket-sized guides to restaurants in more than 100 cities. It may be one of the earliest forms of user-generated content, Google Vice President Marissa Mayer said in a blog post on Thursday. Zagat gave Google a tongue-in-cheek rating on its home page on Thursday, awarding the Internet company a maximum 30-point rating for its "local, social, mobile and usefulness" categories. Industry analysts regard the local, social and mobile markets as some of the fastest-growing areas of the technology sector. "We are thrilled to see our baby placed in such good hands and to start today as official 'Googlers,'" the founders said in a joint statement. http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/09/09/uk-google-zagat-idUSLNE78803320110909
The Senate has passed a patent reform bill that marks the biggest change to the patent process in decades. The America Invents Act has already been passed in its entirety by the House of Representatives, and will now go directly to President Obama for signature. The bill sees a shift from a first-to-invent system to a 'first-to-file' rule, bringing it in line with most of the rest of the world. It also makes it easier to challenge existing patents, and gives the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) the power to set fees. The bill also allows the USPTO to set its own fees, but senators voted against an amendment tabled by Senator Tom Coburn, M.D. (R-OK) allowing it to control those fees, rather than handing them over to Congress. Coburn has described it as 'outrageous' that fees paid for a specific service should be spent on other programs. "Since 1992, Congress has pilfered nearly $1 billion in user fees dedicated to the Patent and Trademark Office and spent those dollars elsewhere," he said in June. "As a result, we have 700,000 patents waiting for a first review that, if approved, could help get our economy moving again." The bill also includes two new measures for invalidating patents - both, according to critics, tailored to benefit specific groups. http://www.tgdaily.com/business-and-law-features/58359-patent-reform-bill-passed
Michael Stern Hart, whose vision of a literate society led him to pioneer the electronic book decades before the spread of the Internet, died at 64 on September 13 in Urbana, Ill. Hart was the founder of the online library Project Gutenberg,
Hart was a freshman at the University of Illinois in 1971 when he was granted free access to the campus' enormous mainframe computer. He was uncertain how to use the valuable computer time until inspiration struck in the form of a reproduction of the Declaration of Independence that had been stuffed in his grocery bag as part of a Fourth of July promotion. He keyed the historic text into the computer system, which linked 100 users at institutions such as Harvard, UCLA and the Department of Defense. It was downloaded by six members of this pre-Internet network, which was encouragement enough for Hart to continue. He transmitted the Bill of Rights, the Constitution, the Bible and the works of Shakespeare. Forty years later, Project Gutenberg, named after the inventor of the Gutenberg printing press, is one of the oldest online collections of literature, offering more than 33,000 free books in 60 languages. The vast majority are public domain, and all are digitized by volunteers scattered around the globe. http://www.latimes.com/news/obituaries/la-me-michael-hart-20110909,0,7536729.story
A Review of: Walters, W. H. (2009). Google Scholar search performance: Comparative recall and precision. portal: Libraries and the Academy, 9(1), 5-24.
Twelve databases were compared: Google Scholar, Academic Search Elite, AgeLine, ArticleFirst, EconLit, Geobase, Medline, PAIS International, Popline, Social Sciences Abstracts, Social Sciences Citation Index, and SocIndex.
The relevant literature on later-life migration was pre-identified as a set of 155 journal articles published from 1990 to 2000. The author selected these articles from database searches, citation tracking, journal scans, and consultations with social sciences colleagues. Each database was evaluated with regards to its performance in finding references to these 155 papers. Elderly and migration were the keywords used to conduct the searches in each of the 12 databases, since these were the words that were the most frequently used in the titles of the 155 relevant articles. The search was performed in the most basic search interface of each database that allowed limiting results by the needed publication dates (1990-2000). Search results were sorted by relevance when possible (for 9 out of the 12 databases), and by date when the relevance sorting option was not available. Recall and precision statistics were then calculated from the search results. Recall is the number of relevant results obtained in the database for a search topic, divided by all the potential results which can be obtained on that topic (in this case, 155 references). Precision is the number of relevant results obtained in the database for a search topic, divided by the total number of results that were obtained in the database on that topic. Google Scholar and AgeLine obtained the largest number of results (20,400 and 311 hits respectively) for the keyword search, elderly and migration. Database performance was evaluated with regards to the recall and precision of its search results. Google Scholar and AgeLine also obtained the largest total number of relevant search results out of all the potential results that could be obtained on later-life migration (41/155 and 35/155 respectively). No individual database produced the highest recall for every set of search results listed, i.e., for the first 10 hits, the first 20 hits, etc. However, Google Scholar was always in the top four databases regardless of the number of search results displayed. Its recall rate was consistently higher than all the other databases when over 56 search results were examined, while Medline out-performed the others within the first set of 50 results. To exclude the effects of database coverage, the author calculated the number of relevant references obtained as a percentage of all the relevant references included in each database, rather than as a percentage of all 155 relevant references from 1990-2000 that exist on the topic. Google Scholar ranked fourth place, with 44% of the relevant references found. Ageline and Medline tied for first place with 74%. https://ejournals.library.ualberta.ca/index.php/EBLIP/article/viewArticle/8543
Friday, September 9, 2011
Thursday, September 8, 2011
The Mesoamerican civilizations consist of four main cultures, Olmec, Maya, Aztec, and Inca. The Olmec Empire (1400 BCE - 500 BCE) was the first major Mesoamerican civilization. The Olmecs inhabited the Gulf coast of Mexico. The Mayan Civilization (300 - 900 CE) lived in various city-states along the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico and in much of Central America. The Aztec Civilization flourished from the late 1200's until the time of European conquest. The Aztecs established an empire that consisted of most of Mexico. In the 1400's, the Inca conquered an empire that stretched along the Pacific coast of South America. See more at: http://regentsprep.org/Regents/global/themes/goldenages/meso.cfm
Vertex (Latin: corner; plural vertices or vertexes) may refer to: mathematics
Vertex (geometry), an angle point of any shape or angle
Vertex (graph theory), a node in a graph
Vertex (curve), a local extreme point of curvature
Vertex of a representation in finite group theory Find other uses of the word; for instance, physics at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vertex
Our good Puritan fathers intended to form a state of society of such equality of conditions, and to make the means of securing the goods of life so free to all, that everybody should find abundant employment for his faculties in a prosperous seeking of his fortunes. Hence, while they forbade theatres, operas, and dances, they made a state of unparalleled peace and prosperity, where one could go to sleep at all hours of day or night with the house door wide open, without bolt or bar, yet without apprehension of any to molest or make afraid. There were, however, some few national fetes, — election day, when the Governor took his seat with pomp and rejoicing, and all the housewives outdid themselves in election cake, and one or two training days, when all the children were refreshed, and our military ardor quickened, by the roll of drums, and the flash of steel bayonets, and marchings and evolutions, —sometimes ending in that sublimest of military operations, a sham fight, in which nobody was killed. The Fourth of July took high rank, after the Declaration of Independence; but the king and high priest of all festivals was the autumn Thanksgiving. When the apples were all gathered and the cider was all made, and the yellow pumpkins were rolled in from many a hill in billows of gold, and the corn was husked, and the labors of the season were done, and the warm, late days of Indian Summer came in, dreamy and calm and still, with just frost enough to crisp the ground of a morning, but with warm trances of benignant, sunny hours at noon, there came over the community a sort of genial repose of spirit, a sense of something accomplished, and of a new golden mark made in advance on the calendar of life . . . How We Kept Thanksgiving at Oldtown (extract) from chapter 27 of of Oldtown Folks by Harriet Beecher Stowe http://books.google.com/books?id=6cxEAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA385&lpg=PA385&dq=thanksgiving+oldtown+harriet+beecher+stowe&source=bl&ots=EYde2-6lMc&sig=dD3sjaIJTvYRxe-WgJFDIKTAOP8&hl=en&ei=_z0gTqqPBsjOgAeW9LXkBQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBkQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false
On a recent ramble through the Scottish woods, Roy Watling fingered a dull yellow mushroom and said proudly: "Do you know whose fungus that is? It's mine." The mushroom Boletus porosporus isn't especially rare, isn't poisonous, and, Dr. Watling says, "It has a taste like old socks." He knows what he is talking about: He discovered and officially named the species more than four decades ago. After a lifetime spent rummaging in the woods, Dr. Watling, 74 years old, has discovered and classified more than 50 fungus species around the world. But now, like some of the toadstools he studies, Dr. Watling is part of a vanishing breed. Founded in 1758 by Swede Carl Linnaeus, taxonomy was long a flourishing science. Even today, it underpins the study of biodiversity, evolution and animal conservation. But Britain doesn't have enough taxonomists to help it catalog lichens, fungi and insects. In the U.S. and elsewhere a similar shortage exists for specialists of certain types of black flies, beetles, nematodes, mites, spiders, centipedes, millipedes, clams and parasitic wasps. CABI International, a U.K. nonprofit group that helps countries fight agricultural pests and diseases, employed a dozen formally trained taxonomists in the 1980s. Today, the demand for taxonomic services is greater but CABI employs just two such specialists. Dr. Watling belongs to a dwindling generation of obsessed taxonomists. Three mushroom species bear his name, including the rare Ramaria watlingii. About 1.2 million species of living things have been cataloged so far, according to one estimate. A recent study suggests that another 7.5 million have yet to be identified. Scientists are racing to tabulate new species—even as many become extinct. Knowledge about individual species can be useful. When Nicholas Evans, author of "The Horse Whisperer," fell dangerously ill after picking and then eating some mystery mushrooms in 2008, British doctors sent the contents of the author's stomach to Dr. Watling. He immediately identified the fungal culprit as a highly toxic variety, Cortinarius rubellus, or the deadly webcap, and advised doctors on how to treat Mr. Evans. The author had to go on dialysis and later had a kidney transplant. Dr. Watling says he is frequently called on for help in mushroom-poisoning incidents. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111904716604576544373054363118.html
When Apricot Met Plum by Melanie Grayce West For 50 years, the Zaiger family has been striving for a perfect piece of fruit: juicy like a plum, but not as messy. Sweeter, too, with a cherry snap. The Zaigers own Zaiger's Inc. Genetics in Modesto, Calif., one of country's few commercial fruit breeders specializing in hybrid fruits. Next month, they will decide whether to grant any of the farmers who tasted their pluerry, named for its mix of plum and cherry, at a sampling last week the exclusive rights to grow the new fruit and sell it to supermarkets across the country. Hybrid fruit is a potentially lucrative, and delicious, market. Fruit growers are motivated by the lure of inventing a product that commands premium prices, from 50 cents to $1 or more per pound than conventional fruit. The breeders are also aiming for fruit that will have a longer harvest period to be available to shoppers longer. And with the rise in cooking styles that celebrate the ingredients, American consumers are demonstrating a willingness to spend more on food and a desire to hear the stories behind their produce. To cross fruit varieties, Glen Bradford of Bradford Farms in Le Grand, Calif., chooses a female parent, or "mother" tree, and brings the male component, the pollen, directly to it. For peach and nectarine "mother" plants, workers remove the petals and pollen-producing anthers of every flower, leaving only the pistil. Workers then touch each pistil, by hand, with pollen taken from the "father" tree, such as a different peach or nectarine. "There might be 500 pistils on the tree that we left, and we come and touch each of those, like a bee would accidentally touch them," says Mr. Bradford. To pollinate most plum trees, bees are released into a covering wood and plastic structure, along with pollen-bearing bouquets from other plum or apricot trees. The resulting fruit from a mother tree is planted and the seedling produced is the new mixed variety, technically called an "interspecific" fruit. It will take another three to four years before that seedling matures and begins to bear fruit. The new variety must grow easily and produce ample quantities of attractive and hardy fruit that is easy to ship and store. Also critical is the fruit's so-called brix, or sugar level. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111904900904576552543026705926.html
Vertex (Latin: corner; plural vertices or vertexes) may refer to: mathematics
Vertex (geometry), an angle point of any shape or angle
Vertex (graph theory), a node in a graph
Vertex (curve), a local extreme point of curvature
Vertex of a representation in finite group theory Find other uses of the word; for instance, physics at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vertex
Our good Puritan fathers intended to form a state of society of such equality of conditions, and to make the means of securing the goods of life so free to all, that everybody should find abundant employment for his faculties in a prosperous seeking of his fortunes. Hence, while they forbade theatres, operas, and dances, they made a state of unparalleled peace and prosperity, where one could go to sleep at all hours of day or night with the house door wide open, without bolt or bar, yet without apprehension of any to molest or make afraid. There were, however, some few national fetes, — election day, when the Governor took his seat with pomp and rejoicing, and all the housewives outdid themselves in election cake, and one or two training days, when all the children were refreshed, and our military ardor quickened, by the roll of drums, and the flash of steel bayonets, and marchings and evolutions, —sometimes ending in that sublimest of military operations, a sham fight, in which nobody was killed. The Fourth of July took high rank, after the Declaration of Independence; but the king and high priest of all festivals was the autumn Thanksgiving. When the apples were all gathered and the cider was all made, and the yellow pumpkins were rolled in from many a hill in billows of gold, and the corn was husked, and the labors of the season were done, and the warm, late days of Indian Summer came in, dreamy and calm and still, with just frost enough to crisp the ground of a morning, but with warm trances of benignant, sunny hours at noon, there came over the community a sort of genial repose of spirit, a sense of something accomplished, and of a new golden mark made in advance on the calendar of life . . . How We Kept Thanksgiving at Oldtown (extract) from chapter 27 of of Oldtown Folks by Harriet Beecher Stowe http://books.google.com/books?id=6cxEAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA385&lpg=PA385&dq=thanksgiving+oldtown+harriet+beecher+stowe&source=bl&ots=EYde2-6lMc&sig=dD3sjaIJTvYRxe-WgJFDIKTAOP8&hl=en&ei=_z0gTqqPBsjOgAeW9LXkBQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBkQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false
On a recent ramble through the Scottish woods, Roy Watling fingered a dull yellow mushroom and said proudly: "Do you know whose fungus that is? It's mine." The mushroom Boletus porosporus isn't especially rare, isn't poisonous, and, Dr. Watling says, "It has a taste like old socks." He knows what he is talking about: He discovered and officially named the species more than four decades ago. After a lifetime spent rummaging in the woods, Dr. Watling, 74 years old, has discovered and classified more than 50 fungus species around the world. But now, like some of the toadstools he studies, Dr. Watling is part of a vanishing breed. Founded in 1758 by Swede Carl Linnaeus, taxonomy was long a flourishing science. Even today, it underpins the study of biodiversity, evolution and animal conservation. But Britain doesn't have enough taxonomists to help it catalog lichens, fungi and insects. In the U.S. and elsewhere a similar shortage exists for specialists of certain types of black flies, beetles, nematodes, mites, spiders, centipedes, millipedes, clams and parasitic wasps. CABI International, a U.K. nonprofit group that helps countries fight agricultural pests and diseases, employed a dozen formally trained taxonomists in the 1980s. Today, the demand for taxonomic services is greater but CABI employs just two such specialists. Dr. Watling belongs to a dwindling generation of obsessed taxonomists. Three mushroom species bear his name, including the rare Ramaria watlingii. About 1.2 million species of living things have been cataloged so far, according to one estimate. A recent study suggests that another 7.5 million have yet to be identified. Scientists are racing to tabulate new species—even as many become extinct. Knowledge about individual species can be useful. When Nicholas Evans, author of "The Horse Whisperer," fell dangerously ill after picking and then eating some mystery mushrooms in 2008, British doctors sent the contents of the author's stomach to Dr. Watling. He immediately identified the fungal culprit as a highly toxic variety, Cortinarius rubellus, or the deadly webcap, and advised doctors on how to treat Mr. Evans. The author had to go on dialysis and later had a kidney transplant. Dr. Watling says he is frequently called on for help in mushroom-poisoning incidents. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111904716604576544373054363118.html
When Apricot Met Plum by Melanie Grayce West For 50 years, the Zaiger family has been striving for a perfect piece of fruit: juicy like a plum, but not as messy. Sweeter, too, with a cherry snap. The Zaigers own Zaiger's Inc. Genetics in Modesto, Calif., one of country's few commercial fruit breeders specializing in hybrid fruits. Next month, they will decide whether to grant any of the farmers who tasted their pluerry, named for its mix of plum and cherry, at a sampling last week the exclusive rights to grow the new fruit and sell it to supermarkets across the country. Hybrid fruit is a potentially lucrative, and delicious, market. Fruit growers are motivated by the lure of inventing a product that commands premium prices, from 50 cents to $1 or more per pound than conventional fruit. The breeders are also aiming for fruit that will have a longer harvest period to be available to shoppers longer. And with the rise in cooking styles that celebrate the ingredients, American consumers are demonstrating a willingness to spend more on food and a desire to hear the stories behind their produce. To cross fruit varieties, Glen Bradford of Bradford Farms in Le Grand, Calif., chooses a female parent, or "mother" tree, and brings the male component, the pollen, directly to it. For peach and nectarine "mother" plants, workers remove the petals and pollen-producing anthers of every flower, leaving only the pistil. Workers then touch each pistil, by hand, with pollen taken from the "father" tree, such as a different peach or nectarine. "There might be 500 pistils on the tree that we left, and we come and touch each of those, like a bee would accidentally touch them," says Mr. Bradford. To pollinate most plum trees, bees are released into a covering wood and plastic structure, along with pollen-bearing bouquets from other plum or apricot trees. The resulting fruit from a mother tree is planted and the seedling produced is the new mixed variety, technically called an "interspecific" fruit. It will take another three to four years before that seedling matures and begins to bear fruit. The new variety must grow easily and produce ample quantities of attractive and hardy fruit that is easy to ship and store. Also critical is the fruit's so-called brix, or sugar level. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111904900904576552543026705926.html
Wednesday, September 7, 2011
plenary (PLEE-nuh-ree, PLEN-uh-ree) adjective
1. Full; complete; absolute.
2. Having all members of a meeting in attendance.
From Latin plenarius (fully attended, complete), from plenus (full). Earliest documented use: 1425.
cowabunga (kou-uh-BUHNG-guh) interjection
An expression of surprise, joy, or enthusiasm.
The word was the cry of Chief Thunderthud, a character in the children's television program Howdy Doody. The word was later adopted by surfers. It was popularized by its use on the animated show Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Earliest documented use: 1954.
gesundheit (guh-ZOONT-hyt) interjection
Used to wish good health to someone who has sneezed.
From German Gesundheit (health), from gesund (healthy) + -heit (-hood). Earliest documented use: 1914.
A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
Most people are mirrors, reflecting the moods and emotions of the times; few are windows, bringing light to bear on the dark corners where troubles fester. The whole purpose of education is to turn mirrors into windows.
Sydney J. Harris, journalist and author (1917-1986)
A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg
Feedback to A.Word.A.Day
From: Joyce Leuchten Subject: thought for today
For sleep, riches, and health to be truly enjoyed, they must be interrupted. Jean Paul Richter, writer (1763-1825)
I amended this thought and sent it to friends and neighbors. I hope they'll soon have the power to read it.
For sleep, riches, health and electricity to be truly enjoyed, they must be interrupted.
Cynthia Daily and her partner used a sperm donor to conceive a baby seven years ago, and they hoped that one day their son would get to know some of his half siblings — an extended family of sorts for modern times. So Ms. Daily searched a Web-based registry for other children fathered by the same donor and helped to create an online group to track them. Over the years, she watched the number of children in her son’s group grow. And grow. Today there are 150 children, all conceived with sperm from one donor, in this group of half siblings, and more are on the way.
Critics say that fertility clinics and sperm banks are earning huge profits by allowing too many children to be conceived with sperm from popular donors, and that families should be given more information on the health of donors and the children conceived with their sperm. They are also calling for legal limits on the number of children conceived using the same donor’s sperm and a re-examination of the anonymity that cloaks many donors. “We have more rules that go into place when you buy a used car than when you buy sperm,” said Debora L. Spar, president of Barnard College and author of “The Baby Business: How Money, Science and Politics Drive the Commerce of Conception.” “It’s very clear that the dealer can’t sell you a lemon, and there’s information about the history of the car. There are no such rules in the fertility industry right now.” Although other countries, including Britain, France and Sweden, limit how many children a sperm donor can father, there is no such limit in the United States. There are only guidelines issued by the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, a professional group that recommends restricting conceptions by individual donors to 25 births per population of 800,000. No one knows how many children are born in this country each year using sperm donors Some estimates put the number at 30,000 to 60,000, perhaps more. “Just as it’s happened in many other countries around the world,” Ms. Kramer said, “we need to publicly ask the questions ‘What is in the best interests of the child to be born?’ and ‘Is it fair to bring a child into the world who will have no access to knowing about one half of their genetics, medical history and ancestry?’ “These sperm banks are keeping donors anonymous, making women babies and making a lot of money. But nowhere in that formula is doing what’s right for the donor families.” Many of those questions were debated in Britain shortly after the birth there, in 1978, of Louise Brown, the first baby born using in vitro fertilization. In 1982, the British government appointed a committee, led by Mary Warnock, a well-known English philosopher, to look into the issues surrounding reproductive health. The groundbreaking Warnock Report contained a list of recommendations, including regulation of the sale of human sperm and embryos and strict limits on how many children a donor could father (10 per donor). The regulations have become a model for industry practices in other countries. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/06/health/06donor.html
A patent-system overhaul nearly a decade in the making is expected to receive final congressional passage this month, significantly altering how anyone with an invention—from a garage tinkerer to a large corporation—will vie for profitable control of that idea's future. The bill, which passed a key Senate vote September 6 and is expected to get President Barack Obama's signature, will reverse centuries of U.S. patent policy by awarding patents to inventors who are "first to file" their invention with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Currently the "first to invent" principle reigns, which often spawns costly litigation between dueling inventors. The new system puts a premium on inventors with the wits—or deep pockets—to dash to the patent office as soon as they discover something useful and nonobvious. Many big companies say that change will help forestall drawn-out disputes. "You'll end up with a patent system that's more predictable and far more certain," said Bob Armitage, general counsel of drug maker Eli Lilly & Co. But small inventors fear the first-to-file approach will cause companies to overwhelm patent examiners with applications, a pace of activity individuals can't afford to match. Critics include Raymond Damadian, the doctor who invented magnetic resonance imaging technology and has said the MRI would never have been invented under the proposed rules. Read more at: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111904537404576554633952918662.html
This week, while the moon is still not overly bright, you have a chance to see the death of a star: a supernova. Unfortunately, this stupendous event is taking place not in our own galaxy — where it would be readily visible to the naked eye — but in the galaxy M101. The bursting star was first seen on Aug. 23 with the 48-inch Oschin Schmidt telescope at Palomar Mountain Observatory in California. First called PTF 11kly and now designated SN2011fe, the supernova was discovered shining at a magnitude of +17.2, but has been brightening rapidly ever since. The galaxy in which this supernova is located, M101, has a linear diameter of more than 170,000 light-years, making it among the biggest disk galaxies known. And it is located at a distance of about 24 million light-years, meaning that the explosion actually took place 24 million years ago. It's taken that long for the light to get to us. In his Celestial Handbook, Robert Burnham, Jr. describes M101 as "one of the finest examples of a large face-on Sc type spiral and a beautiful object on long-exposure photographs." The Frenchman Pierre Mechain was the first to see this galaxy in 1781. Later that same year, it was observed by Charles Messier, who described it as appearing as "A nebula without star, very obscure and pretty large." Messier would later include this galaxy as the 101st object in the final (1781) version of his famous catalog of comet masqueraders, hence "M" (for Messier) 101. It was one of the first "spiral nebulas" identified as such, in 1851 by William Parsons, the third Earl of Rosse. Today, M101 sometimes goes by the popular moniker "The Pinwheel Galaxy." The name is quite appropriate, as observatory photographs show it as an impressive system with well-defined spiral arms. http://www.space.com/12806-supernova-skywatching-tips-star-explosion-sn2011fe.html
Website of the Day http://espn.go.com/
On this date in 1979, the Entertainment and Sports Programming Network – aka ESPN – was born. Today the company’s website serves as a great place for sports fans to keep up with the news from the sporting world. You can follow many teams and leagues, watch videos, play fantasy games and more.
This Day in History
Sept. 7, 2008: The government takes control of the two largest mortgage financing companies in the U.S., Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
Daily Quote
“Life is what we make it, always has been, always will be.” - Grandma Moses, who was born on this date in 1860.
http://www.eveningtribune.com/newsnow/x1654952371/Morning-Minutes-Sept-7
1. Full; complete; absolute.
2. Having all members of a meeting in attendance.
From Latin plenarius (fully attended, complete), from plenus (full). Earliest documented use: 1425.
cowabunga (kou-uh-BUHNG-guh) interjection
An expression of surprise, joy, or enthusiasm.
The word was the cry of Chief Thunderthud, a character in the children's television program Howdy Doody. The word was later adopted by surfers. It was popularized by its use on the animated show Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Earliest documented use: 1954.
gesundheit (guh-ZOONT-hyt) interjection
Used to wish good health to someone who has sneezed.
From German Gesundheit (health), from gesund (healthy) + -heit (-hood). Earliest documented use: 1914.
A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
Most people are mirrors, reflecting the moods and emotions of the times; few are windows, bringing light to bear on the dark corners where troubles fester. The whole purpose of education is to turn mirrors into windows.
Sydney J. Harris, journalist and author (1917-1986)
A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg
Feedback to A.Word.A.Day
From: Joyce Leuchten Subject: thought for today
For sleep, riches, and health to be truly enjoyed, they must be interrupted. Jean Paul Richter, writer (1763-1825)
I amended this thought and sent it to friends and neighbors. I hope they'll soon have the power to read it.
For sleep, riches, health and electricity to be truly enjoyed, they must be interrupted.
Cynthia Daily and her partner used a sperm donor to conceive a baby seven years ago, and they hoped that one day their son would get to know some of his half siblings — an extended family of sorts for modern times. So Ms. Daily searched a Web-based registry for other children fathered by the same donor and helped to create an online group to track them. Over the years, she watched the number of children in her son’s group grow. And grow. Today there are 150 children, all conceived with sperm from one donor, in this group of half siblings, and more are on the way.
Critics say that fertility clinics and sperm banks are earning huge profits by allowing too many children to be conceived with sperm from popular donors, and that families should be given more information on the health of donors and the children conceived with their sperm. They are also calling for legal limits on the number of children conceived using the same donor’s sperm and a re-examination of the anonymity that cloaks many donors. “We have more rules that go into place when you buy a used car than when you buy sperm,” said Debora L. Spar, president of Barnard College and author of “The Baby Business: How Money, Science and Politics Drive the Commerce of Conception.” “It’s very clear that the dealer can’t sell you a lemon, and there’s information about the history of the car. There are no such rules in the fertility industry right now.” Although other countries, including Britain, France and Sweden, limit how many children a sperm donor can father, there is no such limit in the United States. There are only guidelines issued by the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, a professional group that recommends restricting conceptions by individual donors to 25 births per population of 800,000. No one knows how many children are born in this country each year using sperm donors Some estimates put the number at 30,000 to 60,000, perhaps more. “Just as it’s happened in many other countries around the world,” Ms. Kramer said, “we need to publicly ask the questions ‘What is in the best interests of the child to be born?’ and ‘Is it fair to bring a child into the world who will have no access to knowing about one half of their genetics, medical history and ancestry?’ “These sperm banks are keeping donors anonymous, making women babies and making a lot of money. But nowhere in that formula is doing what’s right for the donor families.” Many of those questions were debated in Britain shortly after the birth there, in 1978, of Louise Brown, the first baby born using in vitro fertilization. In 1982, the British government appointed a committee, led by Mary Warnock, a well-known English philosopher, to look into the issues surrounding reproductive health. The groundbreaking Warnock Report contained a list of recommendations, including regulation of the sale of human sperm and embryos and strict limits on how many children a donor could father (10 per donor). The regulations have become a model for industry practices in other countries. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/06/health/06donor.html
A patent-system overhaul nearly a decade in the making is expected to receive final congressional passage this month, significantly altering how anyone with an invention—from a garage tinkerer to a large corporation—will vie for profitable control of that idea's future. The bill, which passed a key Senate vote September 6 and is expected to get President Barack Obama's signature, will reverse centuries of U.S. patent policy by awarding patents to inventors who are "first to file" their invention with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Currently the "first to invent" principle reigns, which often spawns costly litigation between dueling inventors. The new system puts a premium on inventors with the wits—or deep pockets—to dash to the patent office as soon as they discover something useful and nonobvious. Many big companies say that change will help forestall drawn-out disputes. "You'll end up with a patent system that's more predictable and far more certain," said Bob Armitage, general counsel of drug maker Eli Lilly & Co. But small inventors fear the first-to-file approach will cause companies to overwhelm patent examiners with applications, a pace of activity individuals can't afford to match. Critics include Raymond Damadian, the doctor who invented magnetic resonance imaging technology and has said the MRI would never have been invented under the proposed rules. Read more at: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111904537404576554633952918662.html
This week, while the moon is still not overly bright, you have a chance to see the death of a star: a supernova. Unfortunately, this stupendous event is taking place not in our own galaxy — where it would be readily visible to the naked eye — but in the galaxy M101. The bursting star was first seen on Aug. 23 with the 48-inch Oschin Schmidt telescope at Palomar Mountain Observatory in California. First called PTF 11kly and now designated SN2011fe, the supernova was discovered shining at a magnitude of +17.2, but has been brightening rapidly ever since. The galaxy in which this supernova is located, M101, has a linear diameter of more than 170,000 light-years, making it among the biggest disk galaxies known. And it is located at a distance of about 24 million light-years, meaning that the explosion actually took place 24 million years ago. It's taken that long for the light to get to us. In his Celestial Handbook, Robert Burnham, Jr. describes M101 as "one of the finest examples of a large face-on Sc type spiral and a beautiful object on long-exposure photographs." The Frenchman Pierre Mechain was the first to see this galaxy in 1781. Later that same year, it was observed by Charles Messier, who described it as appearing as "A nebula without star, very obscure and pretty large." Messier would later include this galaxy as the 101st object in the final (1781) version of his famous catalog of comet masqueraders, hence "M" (for Messier) 101. It was one of the first "spiral nebulas" identified as such, in 1851 by William Parsons, the third Earl of Rosse. Today, M101 sometimes goes by the popular moniker "The Pinwheel Galaxy." The name is quite appropriate, as observatory photographs show it as an impressive system with well-defined spiral arms. http://www.space.com/12806-supernova-skywatching-tips-star-explosion-sn2011fe.html
Website of the Day http://espn.go.com/
On this date in 1979, the Entertainment and Sports Programming Network – aka ESPN – was born. Today the company’s website serves as a great place for sports fans to keep up with the news from the sporting world. You can follow many teams and leagues, watch videos, play fantasy games and more.
This Day in History
Sept. 7, 2008: The government takes control of the two largest mortgage financing companies in the U.S., Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
Daily Quote
“Life is what we make it, always has been, always will be.” - Grandma Moses, who was born on this date in 1860.
http://www.eveningtribune.com/newsnow/x1654952371/Morning-Minutes-Sept-7
Tuesday, September 6, 2011
A week after the collapse of the Twin Towers, The New Yorker ran Polish poet Adam Zagajewski’s “Try to Praise the Mutilated World” on the final page of its special 9/11 issue. http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2003/09/15/030915on_onlineonly03 Written a year and a half before the attacks, the poem nevertheless quickly became the most memorable verse statement on the tragedy, and arguably the best-known poem of the last 10 years. “You’ve seen the refugees going nowhere,” Zagajewski wrote. “You’ve heard the executioners sing joyfully./ You should praise the mutilated world.” “Try to Praise the Mutilated World” recalls a trip Zagajewski took with his father through Ukrainian villages in Poland forcibly abandoned in the population transfers of the post-Yalta years. “This was one of the strongest impressions I ever had,” he says. “There were these empty villages with some apple trees going wild. And I saw the villages became prey to nettles; nettles were everywhere. There were these broken houses. It became in my memory this mutilated world, these villages, and at the same time they were beautiful. It was in the summer, beautiful weather. It’s something that I reacted to, this contest between beauty and disaster.” Since the late ’80s, Zagajewski has split his time between Europe and America. These days he teaches literature at the University of Chicago. He sounds pessimistic about Europe and finds the vibrancy of American life, literary and otherwise, alluring. “I would still rather live in Europe, but I feel this lack of energy,” he says. “Here [in the U.S.] people have a fuller life, in terms of being ready to take risks. Even the fact that America is waging wars. It’s not a political [statement], but anthropologically speaking, there’s a fullness of life. In Europe you have a feeling that history is over. Europe is this wonderful museum.” http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2011/09/04/adam-zagajewski-the-poet-of-9-11.html
Top 100 Websites from Top Sites Blog: http://topsitesblog.com/top-100-websites/ search engines, social networks, news, sports and more A few picks from the list: online language dictionaries at: http://wordreference.com/ Findlaw at: http://www.findlaw.com/ new and used car reviews and information at: http://www.edmunds.com/
Top 100 Educational Websites from homeschool.com http://www.homeschool.com/articles/top100_2011/default.asp?Hover_NoThankYou=true
Most Popular Websites from mostpopularwebsites.net http://mostpopularwebsites.net/
Whirlwind vacation September 2-4, 2011 We started in Painesville, located about 30 miles east of downtown Cleveland, the county seat of Lake County. Painesville, like many Northeast Ohio communities, was first "settled" as part of the Connecticut Western Reserve in the early 1800s. The town, situated along the Grand River was first named Champion, the surveyor, but was later changed to Painesville, in honor of Revolutionary war hero, General Edward Paine. http://cleveland.about.com/od/lakeandashtabulacounties/p/painesville.htm
We stayed at Rider's Inn, on the National Register of Historic Places since April 23, 1973. http://www.ridersinn.com/
Joseph Rider opened Rider's Inn in 1812. During the early 1800s, Rider's Inn served as a stop for stagecoaches traveling between Buffalo, New York and Cleveland, Ohio. During the 1840s and 1850s, the tavern's owners also provided runaway slaves, who were traveling along the Underground Railroad, with a safe haven. http://www.ohiohistorycentral.org/entry.php?rec=3186&nm=Riders-Inn
We drove by private liberal arts Lake Erie College, known for equine studies, and then visited wineries in Conneaut, Geneva, Madison, Thompson, Norwalk and Avon Lake.
Taking a scenic road from Cleveland, we discovered Huntington Reservation in Bay Village on the shores of Lake Erie. Picnic areas high above the beach offer visitors opportunities to enjoy the striking and ever-changing lake views. Breakwalls allow anglers to fish in Lake Erie in all seasons. The reservation is also home to three Cleveland Metroparks affiliates, Lake Erie Nature & Science Center, Huntington Playhouse and BAYarts. One of the oldest reservations in Cleveland Metroparks, it still contains many unusual botanical specimens brought here from Europe by John Huntington, the previous owner and reservation namesake. The Huntington Water Tower, a well-known landmark, was used to pump water from the lake to irrigate Mr. Huntington's fields of grapes. http://www.clemetparks.com/visit/index.asp?action=rdetails&reservations_id=1021
HIDDEN IN THE MANUSCRIPTS of early British settlers are the last surviving records of many indigenous languages. The State Library of New South Wales http://www.sl.nsw.gov.au/ has launched a new project to rediscover these forgotten dialects. Of the 250 indigenous languages spoken at the time of British settlement, fewer than 20 are still in daily use. The State Library of New South Wales, in a partnership with Rio Tinto, aims to pass the rediscovered words on to Aboriginal communities, helping to reverse the current language decline. Melissa Jackson, an indigenous services librarian at the State Library, says early recordings of lost languages can be found among the journals and letters of British naval officers, missionaries and surveyors. But poring over the Library's vast collection of manuscripts is a daunting task. "The first phase of the project is discovering what language lists we hold in the Library's twelve linear kilometres of manuscripts," Melissa told Australian Geographic. "The lists can be in the form of a formal study into Aboriginal languages, or they can just be snippets of information in someone's journal." http://www.australiangeographic.com.au/journal/a-mission-to-save-indigenous-languages.htm
Singapore-based photographer Qi Wei offers up this beautiful series of images showing "exploded flowers" -- flowers which have been carefully disassembled and then photographed in a way that honors their radial symmetry. Here's a rose, a chrysanthemum, and a sunflower. Disassembling the flowers, he writes, "lays bare the various shapes and textures of the flowers, and what is interesting to me is how much more expanded some flowers can get when they are disassembled -- the relative surface area to size of a rose is so much greater compared to a larger flower like the sunflower." You can also see the fractcal size-pattern of the petals. http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/brainiac/2011/08/qi_weis_explode.html
See the rest at: http://fqwimages.com/2011/08/exploded-flowers-3/
Top 100 Websites from Top Sites Blog: http://topsitesblog.com/top-100-websites/ search engines, social networks, news, sports and more A few picks from the list: online language dictionaries at: http://wordreference.com/ Findlaw at: http://www.findlaw.com/ new and used car reviews and information at: http://www.edmunds.com/
Top 100 Educational Websites from homeschool.com http://www.homeschool.com/articles/top100_2011/default.asp?Hover_NoThankYou=true
Most Popular Websites from mostpopularwebsites.net http://mostpopularwebsites.net/
Whirlwind vacation September 2-4, 2011 We started in Painesville, located about 30 miles east of downtown Cleveland, the county seat of Lake County. Painesville, like many Northeast Ohio communities, was first "settled" as part of the Connecticut Western Reserve in the early 1800s. The town, situated along the Grand River was first named Champion, the surveyor, but was later changed to Painesville, in honor of Revolutionary war hero, General Edward Paine. http://cleveland.about.com/od/lakeandashtabulacounties/p/painesville.htm
We stayed at Rider's Inn, on the National Register of Historic Places since April 23, 1973. http://www.ridersinn.com/
Joseph Rider opened Rider's Inn in 1812. During the early 1800s, Rider's Inn served as a stop for stagecoaches traveling between Buffalo, New York and Cleveland, Ohio. During the 1840s and 1850s, the tavern's owners also provided runaway slaves, who were traveling along the Underground Railroad, with a safe haven. http://www.ohiohistorycentral.org/entry.php?rec=3186&nm=Riders-Inn
We drove by private liberal arts Lake Erie College, known for equine studies, and then visited wineries in Conneaut, Geneva, Madison, Thompson, Norwalk and Avon Lake.
Taking a scenic road from Cleveland, we discovered Huntington Reservation in Bay Village on the shores of Lake Erie. Picnic areas high above the beach offer visitors opportunities to enjoy the striking and ever-changing lake views. Breakwalls allow anglers to fish in Lake Erie in all seasons. The reservation is also home to three Cleveland Metroparks affiliates, Lake Erie Nature & Science Center, Huntington Playhouse and BAYarts. One of the oldest reservations in Cleveland Metroparks, it still contains many unusual botanical specimens brought here from Europe by John Huntington, the previous owner and reservation namesake. The Huntington Water Tower, a well-known landmark, was used to pump water from the lake to irrigate Mr. Huntington's fields of grapes. http://www.clemetparks.com/visit/index.asp?action=rdetails&reservations_id=1021
HIDDEN IN THE MANUSCRIPTS of early British settlers are the last surviving records of many indigenous languages. The State Library of New South Wales http://www.sl.nsw.gov.au/ has launched a new project to rediscover these forgotten dialects. Of the 250 indigenous languages spoken at the time of British settlement, fewer than 20 are still in daily use. The State Library of New South Wales, in a partnership with Rio Tinto, aims to pass the rediscovered words on to Aboriginal communities, helping to reverse the current language decline. Melissa Jackson, an indigenous services librarian at the State Library, says early recordings of lost languages can be found among the journals and letters of British naval officers, missionaries and surveyors. But poring over the Library's vast collection of manuscripts is a daunting task. "The first phase of the project is discovering what language lists we hold in the Library's twelve linear kilometres of manuscripts," Melissa told Australian Geographic. "The lists can be in the form of a formal study into Aboriginal languages, or they can just be snippets of information in someone's journal." http://www.australiangeographic.com.au/journal/a-mission-to-save-indigenous-languages.htm
Singapore-based photographer Qi Wei offers up this beautiful series of images showing "exploded flowers" -- flowers which have been carefully disassembled and then photographed in a way that honors their radial symmetry. Here's a rose, a chrysanthemum, and a sunflower. Disassembling the flowers, he writes, "lays bare the various shapes and textures of the flowers, and what is interesting to me is how much more expanded some flowers can get when they are disassembled -- the relative surface area to size of a rose is so much greater compared to a larger flower like the sunflower." You can also see the fractcal size-pattern of the petals. http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/brainiac/2011/08/qi_weis_explode.html
See the rest at: http://fqwimages.com/2011/08/exploded-flowers-3/
Friday, September 2, 2011
The noble gases are a group of chemical elements with very similar properties: under standard conditions, they are all odorless, colorless, monatomic gases, with very low chemical reactivity. The six noble gases that occur naturally are helium (He), neon (Ne), argon (Ar), krypton (Kr), xenon (Xe), and the radioactive radon (Rn). Noble gas is translated from the German noun Edelgas, first used in 1898 by Hugo Erdmann to indicate their extremely low level of reactivity. The name makes an analogy to the term "noble metals", which also have low reactivity. The noble gases have also been referred to as inert gases, but this label is now deprecated as many noble gas compounds are now known. Rare gases is another term that was used, but this is also inaccurate because argon forms a fairly considerable part (0.94% by volume, 1.3% by mass) of the Earth's atmosphere. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noble_gas
Legal Upstarts Gain Traction by Paula J. Hane In May, LegalZoom raised $66 million in a new round of funding from Kleiner Perkins and Institutional Venture Partners. In August 2011, Google Ventures announced that it is part of a group that invested $18.5 million into Rocket Lawyer. In June 2010, Rocket Lawyer raised $7 million from Investor Growth Capital and expanded its management team. Rocket Lawyer claims that more than 15 million small businesses and consumers have used its web-based do-it-yourself tools and legal plans. Self-help publisher Nolo was acquired by Internet Brands in May 2011 and combined with its legal-focused division called ExpertHub. Nolo was established in 1971 as the first publisher of do-it-yourself legal books for consumers. It currently has a broader focus than some of the forms sites. Its website features extensive free content, online tools, and a consumer-friendly lawyer directory. Nolo also develops software, online legal forms, and print and ebooks. LawPivot, founded in 2009, is a legal Q&A site where businesses receive crowdsourced legal answers from the right lawyers. Lawyers use LawPivot to market themselves by answering questions and building their reputations. LawPivot aims to ease the burden of matching businesses to lawyers. In January 2011, it announced a $600,000 round of seed funding from Google Ventures, and a handful of angel investors. In August 2011, the startup released a public-facing Q&A platform to allow businesses to also ask questions publicly and receive answers from the LawPivot community of users nationwide. http://newsbreaks.infotoday.com/Spotlight/Upstart-Legal-Services-Gain-Traction-77423.asp Thanks, Julie
The Old Farmer's Almanac is a reference book that contains weather forecasts, tide tables, planting charts, astronomical data, recipes, and articles on a number of topics including gardening, sports, astronomy and farming. The book also features anecdotes and a section that predicts trends in fashion, food, home décor, technology and living for the coming year. Released the second Tuesday in September of the year prior to the year printed on its cover, The Old Farmer's Almanac has been published continuously since 1792, making it the oldest continuously published periodical in North America. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Farmer's_Almanac
Farmers' Almanac is an annual North American periodical that has been in continuous publication since 1818. Published by the Almanac Publishing Company, of Lewiston, Maine, it is famous for its long-range weather predictions and astronomical data, as well as its trademark blend of humor, trivia, and advice on gardening, cooking, fishing, and human-interest crusades. Conservation, sustainable living, and simplicity are core values of the publication and its editors, and these themes are heavily promoted in every edition. In addition to the popular American version, the Almanac Publishing Company also publishes the Canadian Farmers' Almanac and a promotional version that businesses can personalize and distribute to customers. The total annual distribution of all Farmers' Almanac editions is more than 4 million copies.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farmers%27_Almanac
Leading the Spanish Modernist movement, Antoni Gaudí (1852-1926) has been classified with Gothicism (sometimes called warped Gothicism), Art Nouveau, and Surrealism. He was also influenced by Oriental styles, nature, sculpture, and a desire to go beyond anything that had ever been done before. Gaudí was granted the title of Architect and presented his first major project, the Mataró Cooperative (a housing project for factory workers), at the Paris World Fair in 1878. Far ahead of his time, only a small portion of the project was actually built, but Gaudí's name became known and he met Eusebi Güell, who would become a very close friend as well as a patron. In 1882, Gaudí began work on his greatest project, the Sagrada Familia church, taking over from Francisco de Paula del Villar. For nearly 30 years, Gaudí worked on Sagrada Familia and other projects simultaneously, until 1911, when he decided to devote himself exclusively to the church. During the last year of his life, Gaudí lived in his studio at Sagrada Familia. In June, 1926, Gaudí was run over by a tram. He died five days later, and was buried in the crypt of the building to which he had devoted 44 years of his life, the as-yet unfinished Sagrada Familia. During Gaudí's lifetime, official organizations rarely recognized his talent. The City of Barcelona often tried (unsuccessfully) to stop or limit Gaudí's work because it exceeded city regulations, and the only project the City ever assigned him was that of designing streetlights. http://architecture.about.com/od/architectsaz/p/gaudi.htm
The Bing cherry (scientific binomial name: Prunus avium) was developed in the 1870s by Oregon horticulturist Seth Lewelling and his Manchurian Chinese foreman Ah Bing, whom the cherry is named after. Washington is the largest Bing supplier with cherries also grown in Oregon, California, Idaho, Utah, and imported from Canada and Chile. Find Bing cherry recipes at: http://www.produceoasis.com/Items_folder/Fruits/Bing.html
Prunus is a genus of plant in the family Rosaceae. Rosaceae is one of the largest families of flowering plants with about 3,400 species, including apples, berries, peaches, plums, cherries, the hawthorn tree, the mountain ash, and many others. The genus Prunus includes the plums, cherries, peaches, apricots, and almonds. There are around 430 species of Prunus spread throughout the northern temperate regions of the globe. http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Apricot
Reading Revolution: 14 Marvelous Modern Libraries See stunning pictures plus descriptions of these cultural landmarks in Mexico City, London. Denmark. Colombia (2), Belarus, The Netherlands, Sweden, Canada, Baton Rouge, Ann Arbor, San Diego, Tokyo and New Haven at: http://weburbanist.com/2011/08/26/reading-revolution-14-marvelous-modern-libraries/
Legal Upstarts Gain Traction by Paula J. Hane In May, LegalZoom raised $66 million in a new round of funding from Kleiner Perkins and Institutional Venture Partners. In August 2011, Google Ventures announced that it is part of a group that invested $18.5 million into Rocket Lawyer. In June 2010, Rocket Lawyer raised $7 million from Investor Growth Capital and expanded its management team. Rocket Lawyer claims that more than 15 million small businesses and consumers have used its web-based do-it-yourself tools and legal plans. Self-help publisher Nolo was acquired by Internet Brands in May 2011 and combined with its legal-focused division called ExpertHub. Nolo was established in 1971 as the first publisher of do-it-yourself legal books for consumers. It currently has a broader focus than some of the forms sites. Its website features extensive free content, online tools, and a consumer-friendly lawyer directory. Nolo also develops software, online legal forms, and print and ebooks. LawPivot, founded in 2009, is a legal Q&A site where businesses receive crowdsourced legal answers from the right lawyers. Lawyers use LawPivot to market themselves by answering questions and building their reputations. LawPivot aims to ease the burden of matching businesses to lawyers. In January 2011, it announced a $600,000 round of seed funding from Google Ventures, and a handful of angel investors. In August 2011, the startup released a public-facing Q&A platform to allow businesses to also ask questions publicly and receive answers from the LawPivot community of users nationwide. http://newsbreaks.infotoday.com/Spotlight/Upstart-Legal-Services-Gain-Traction-77423.asp Thanks, Julie
The Old Farmer's Almanac is a reference book that contains weather forecasts, tide tables, planting charts, astronomical data, recipes, and articles on a number of topics including gardening, sports, astronomy and farming. The book also features anecdotes and a section that predicts trends in fashion, food, home décor, technology and living for the coming year. Released the second Tuesday in September of the year prior to the year printed on its cover, The Old Farmer's Almanac has been published continuously since 1792, making it the oldest continuously published periodical in North America. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Farmer's_Almanac
Farmers' Almanac is an annual North American periodical that has been in continuous publication since 1818. Published by the Almanac Publishing Company, of Lewiston, Maine, it is famous for its long-range weather predictions and astronomical data, as well as its trademark blend of humor, trivia, and advice on gardening, cooking, fishing, and human-interest crusades. Conservation, sustainable living, and simplicity are core values of the publication and its editors, and these themes are heavily promoted in every edition. In addition to the popular American version, the Almanac Publishing Company also publishes the Canadian Farmers' Almanac and a promotional version that businesses can personalize and distribute to customers. The total annual distribution of all Farmers' Almanac editions is more than 4 million copies.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farmers%27_Almanac
Leading the Spanish Modernist movement, Antoni Gaudí (1852-1926) has been classified with Gothicism (sometimes called warped Gothicism), Art Nouveau, and Surrealism. He was also influenced by Oriental styles, nature, sculpture, and a desire to go beyond anything that had ever been done before. Gaudí was granted the title of Architect and presented his first major project, the Mataró Cooperative (a housing project for factory workers), at the Paris World Fair in 1878. Far ahead of his time, only a small portion of the project was actually built, but Gaudí's name became known and he met Eusebi Güell, who would become a very close friend as well as a patron. In 1882, Gaudí began work on his greatest project, the Sagrada Familia church, taking over from Francisco de Paula del Villar. For nearly 30 years, Gaudí worked on Sagrada Familia and other projects simultaneously, until 1911, when he decided to devote himself exclusively to the church. During the last year of his life, Gaudí lived in his studio at Sagrada Familia. In June, 1926, Gaudí was run over by a tram. He died five days later, and was buried in the crypt of the building to which he had devoted 44 years of his life, the as-yet unfinished Sagrada Familia. During Gaudí's lifetime, official organizations rarely recognized his talent. The City of Barcelona often tried (unsuccessfully) to stop or limit Gaudí's work because it exceeded city regulations, and the only project the City ever assigned him was that of designing streetlights. http://architecture.about.com/od/architectsaz/p/gaudi.htm
The Bing cherry (scientific binomial name: Prunus avium) was developed in the 1870s by Oregon horticulturist Seth Lewelling and his Manchurian Chinese foreman Ah Bing, whom the cherry is named after. Washington is the largest Bing supplier with cherries also grown in Oregon, California, Idaho, Utah, and imported from Canada and Chile. Find Bing cherry recipes at: http://www.produceoasis.com/Items_folder/Fruits/Bing.html
Prunus is a genus of plant in the family Rosaceae. Rosaceae is one of the largest families of flowering plants with about 3,400 species, including apples, berries, peaches, plums, cherries, the hawthorn tree, the mountain ash, and many others. The genus Prunus includes the plums, cherries, peaches, apricots, and almonds. There are around 430 species of Prunus spread throughout the northern temperate regions of the globe. http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Apricot
Reading Revolution: 14 Marvelous Modern Libraries See stunning pictures plus descriptions of these cultural landmarks in Mexico City, London. Denmark. Colombia (2), Belarus, The Netherlands, Sweden, Canada, Baton Rouge, Ann Arbor, San Diego, Tokyo and New Haven at: http://weburbanist.com/2011/08/26/reading-revolution-14-marvelous-modern-libraries/
Thursday, September 1, 2011
Libel and slander Two torts that involve the communication of false information about a person, a group, or an entity such as a corporation. Libel is any Defamation that can be seen, such as a writing, printing, effigy, movie, or statue. Slander is any defamation that is spoken and heard. Collectively known as defamation, libel and slander are civil wrongs that harm a reputation; decrease respect, regard, or confidence; or induce disparaging, hostile, or disagreeable opinions or feelings against an individual or entity. The injury to one's good name or reputation is affected through written or spoken words or visual images. The laws governing these torts are identical.
http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Libel+and+Slander
Tort French for wrong, a civil wrong, or wrongful act, whether intentional or accidental, from which injury occurs to another. Torts include all negligence cases as well as intentional wrongs which result in harm. Therefore tort law is one of the major areas of law (along with contract, real property and criminal law), and results in more civil litigation than any other category. Some intentional torts may also be crimes such as assault, battery, wrongful death, fraud, conversion (a euphemism for theft), and trespass on property and form the basis for a lawsuit for damages by the injured party. Defamation, including intentionally telling harmful untruths about another, either by print or broadcast (libel) or orally (slander), is a tort and used to be a crime as well.
http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/tort
Groats are the hulled grains of various cereals, such as oats, wheat, barley or buckwheat (which is actually a pseudocereal). Groats are whole grains that include the cereal germ and fiber-rich bran portion of the grain as well as the endosperm (which is the usual product of milling). Groats are nutritious but hard to chew, so they are often soaked and cooked. They can be the basis of kasha, a porridge-like staple meal of Eastern Europe and Eurasia. Roasted buckwheat groats are also known as kasha or kashi, especially in the United States. Wheat groats, also known as bulgur, are an essential ingredient of the Middle Eastern dishes mansaf and tabbouleh. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groat_(grain)
The most valuable coin in the world sits in the lobby of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York in lower Manhattan. It’s Exhibit 18E, secured in a bulletproof glass case with an alarm system and an armed guard nearby. The 1933 Double Eagle, considered one of the rarest and most beautiful coins in America, has a face value of $20—and a market value of $7.6 million. It was among the last batch of gold coins ever minted by the U.S. government. The coins were never issued; most of the nearly 500,000 cast were melted down to bullion in 1937. Most, but not all. Some of the coins slipped out of the Philadelphia Mint before then. No one knows for sure exactly how they got out or even how many got out. The U.S. Secret Service, responsible for protecting the nation’s currency, has been pursuing them for nearly 70 years, through 13 Administrations and 12 different directors. The investigation has spanned three continents and involved some of the most famous coin collectors in the world, a confidential informant, a playboy king, and a sting operation at the Waldorf Astoria in Manhattan. It has inspired two novels, two nonfiction books, and a television documentary. And much of it has centered around a coin dealer, dead since 1990, whose shop is still open in South Philadelphia, run by his 82-year-old daughter. Read the 5-page article by Susan Berfield and see pictures at: http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/gold-coins-the-mystery-of-the-double-eagle-08252011.html
Many people around the world tell of water creatures that are half-fish and half-human. These creatures are all different. But sometimes, they have odd details in common. Why do mermaids in Europe, Africa and the Americas all carry combs and mirrors? These details were passed from Europe to Africa to the Americas as merchants and slaves spread mermaid stories and art around the world. And in many cases, water spirits that weren't originally mermaids took on that form only after images of mermaids were introduced by outsiders.
http://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/mythiccreatures/water/mermaids.php
Idioms dictionary: http://www.idiomdictionary.com/
One hallmark of Homo erectus, a forerunner of modern humans, was his stone tools, an advanced technology reflecting a good deal of forethought and dexterity. A new geological study, being reported August 31 in the journal Nature, showed that tools from a site near Lake Turkana in Kenya were made about 1.76 million years ago, the earliest of their ilk found so far. Previous dates were estimates ranging from 1.4 million to 1.6 million years ago. American researchers at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, part of Columbia University, established the age of the Turkana tools by dating the surrounding mudstone with a paleomagnetic technique. When layers of silt and clay hardened into stone, this preserved the orientation of Earth’s magnetic field at the time, and an analysis of the periodic polarity reversals and other records yielded the age of the site known as Kokiselei. “I was taken aback when I realized that the geological data indicated it was the oldest Acheulean site in the world,” said the lead author of the report, Christopher J. Lepre, a researcher at Lamont-Doherty who also teaches geology at Rutgers University. The assemblage of hand axes, picks and other cutting tools was collected, mostly in the 1990s, by French archaeologists led by Hélène Roche of the National Center for Scientific Research in France. Dr. Roche, a co-author of the paper, was steered to the site by Richard Leakey, the Kenyan fossil hunter who had discovered, just six miles away, the Turkana Boy, a young Homo erectus who lived about 1.5 million years ago and is the most complete early hominid skeleton found so far. In the journal article, Dr. Lepre’s group said that artifacts from an earlier and simpler technology, Oldowan, were found alongside the more advanced Acheulean tools. The Oldowan tools were mainly sharp stone flakes and roughly worked rock cores, while the more sophisticated tools displayed signs of symmetry, uniformity and planning.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/01/science/01tools.html
Quotes
I am not discouraged, because every wrong attempt discarded is another step forward.
There’s no substitute for hard work.
Genius is 1 percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration.
Just because something doesn't do what you planned it to do doesn't mean it's worthless. Thomas A. Edison (1847-1931) American inventor, entrepreneur
http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Libel+and+Slander
Tort French for wrong, a civil wrong, or wrongful act, whether intentional or accidental, from which injury occurs to another. Torts include all negligence cases as well as intentional wrongs which result in harm. Therefore tort law is one of the major areas of law (along with contract, real property and criminal law), and results in more civil litigation than any other category. Some intentional torts may also be crimes such as assault, battery, wrongful death, fraud, conversion (a euphemism for theft), and trespass on property and form the basis for a lawsuit for damages by the injured party. Defamation, including intentionally telling harmful untruths about another, either by print or broadcast (libel) or orally (slander), is a tort and used to be a crime as well.
http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/tort
Groats are the hulled grains of various cereals, such as oats, wheat, barley or buckwheat (which is actually a pseudocereal). Groats are whole grains that include the cereal germ and fiber-rich bran portion of the grain as well as the endosperm (which is the usual product of milling). Groats are nutritious but hard to chew, so they are often soaked and cooked. They can be the basis of kasha, a porridge-like staple meal of Eastern Europe and Eurasia. Roasted buckwheat groats are also known as kasha or kashi, especially in the United States. Wheat groats, also known as bulgur, are an essential ingredient of the Middle Eastern dishes mansaf and tabbouleh. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groat_(grain)
The most valuable coin in the world sits in the lobby of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York in lower Manhattan. It’s Exhibit 18E, secured in a bulletproof glass case with an alarm system and an armed guard nearby. The 1933 Double Eagle, considered one of the rarest and most beautiful coins in America, has a face value of $20—and a market value of $7.6 million. It was among the last batch of gold coins ever minted by the U.S. government. The coins were never issued; most of the nearly 500,000 cast were melted down to bullion in 1937. Most, but not all. Some of the coins slipped out of the Philadelphia Mint before then. No one knows for sure exactly how they got out or even how many got out. The U.S. Secret Service, responsible for protecting the nation’s currency, has been pursuing them for nearly 70 years, through 13 Administrations and 12 different directors. The investigation has spanned three continents and involved some of the most famous coin collectors in the world, a confidential informant, a playboy king, and a sting operation at the Waldorf Astoria in Manhattan. It has inspired two novels, two nonfiction books, and a television documentary. And much of it has centered around a coin dealer, dead since 1990, whose shop is still open in South Philadelphia, run by his 82-year-old daughter. Read the 5-page article by Susan Berfield and see pictures at: http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/gold-coins-the-mystery-of-the-double-eagle-08252011.html
Many people around the world tell of water creatures that are half-fish and half-human. These creatures are all different. But sometimes, they have odd details in common. Why do mermaids in Europe, Africa and the Americas all carry combs and mirrors? These details were passed from Europe to Africa to the Americas as merchants and slaves spread mermaid stories and art around the world. And in many cases, water spirits that weren't originally mermaids took on that form only after images of mermaids were introduced by outsiders.
http://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/mythiccreatures/water/mermaids.php
Idioms dictionary: http://www.idiomdictionary.com/
One hallmark of Homo erectus, a forerunner of modern humans, was his stone tools, an advanced technology reflecting a good deal of forethought and dexterity. A new geological study, being reported August 31 in the journal Nature, showed that tools from a site near Lake Turkana in Kenya were made about 1.76 million years ago, the earliest of their ilk found so far. Previous dates were estimates ranging from 1.4 million to 1.6 million years ago. American researchers at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, part of Columbia University, established the age of the Turkana tools by dating the surrounding mudstone with a paleomagnetic technique. When layers of silt and clay hardened into stone, this preserved the orientation of Earth’s magnetic field at the time, and an analysis of the periodic polarity reversals and other records yielded the age of the site known as Kokiselei. “I was taken aback when I realized that the geological data indicated it was the oldest Acheulean site in the world,” said the lead author of the report, Christopher J. Lepre, a researcher at Lamont-Doherty who also teaches geology at Rutgers University. The assemblage of hand axes, picks and other cutting tools was collected, mostly in the 1990s, by French archaeologists led by Hélène Roche of the National Center for Scientific Research in France. Dr. Roche, a co-author of the paper, was steered to the site by Richard Leakey, the Kenyan fossil hunter who had discovered, just six miles away, the Turkana Boy, a young Homo erectus who lived about 1.5 million years ago and is the most complete early hominid skeleton found so far. In the journal article, Dr. Lepre’s group said that artifacts from an earlier and simpler technology, Oldowan, were found alongside the more advanced Acheulean tools. The Oldowan tools were mainly sharp stone flakes and roughly worked rock cores, while the more sophisticated tools displayed signs of symmetry, uniformity and planning.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/01/science/01tools.html
Quotes
I am not discouraged, because every wrong attempt discarded is another step forward.
There’s no substitute for hard work.
Genius is 1 percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration.
Just because something doesn't do what you planned it to do doesn't mean it's worthless. Thomas A. Edison (1847-1931) American inventor, entrepreneur
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
Wendell Berry (born August 5, 1934, Henry County, Kentucky) is an American man of letters, academic, cultural and economic critic, and farmer. e is a prolific author of novels, short stories, poems, and essays. He is also an elected member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers and a recipient of The National Humanities Medal. Berry's nonfiction serves as an extended conversation about the life he values. According to him, the good life includes sustainable agriculture, appropriate technologies, healthy rural communities, connection to place, the pleasures of good food, husbandry, good work, local economics, the miracle of life, fidelity, frugality, reverence, and the interconnectedness of life. As a prominent defender of agrarian values, Berry's appreciation for traditional farming techniques, such as those of the Amish, grew in the 1970s, due in part to exchanges with Draft Horse Journal publisher Maurice Telleen. Berry has long been friendly to and supportive of Wes Jackson, believing that Jackson's agricultural research at The Land Institute lives out the promise of "solving for pattern" and using "nature as model." The concept of "Solving for pattern", coined by Berry in his essay of the same title, is the process of finding solutions that solve multiple problems, while minimizing the creation of new problems. The essay was originally published in the Rodale Press periodical The New Farm. Though Mr. Berry's use of the phrase was in direct reference to agriculture, it has since come to enjoy broader use throughout the design community. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wendell_Berry
The Real Work by Wendell Berry The mind that is not baffled is not employed. The impeded stream is the one that sings. Find the whole poem at: http://www.panhala.net/Archive/The_Real_Work.html
Leave it to Beavers by Joel Millman Clyde Woolery's ranch on Beaver Creek outside Kinnear, Wyo., has been beaver-free for decades, but he could sure use their help now. A small beaver colony, he says, would engineer dams that raise the water table under his pastures, opening up drinking holes for his cattle. So the 64-year-old rancher put himself on a waiting list this year hoping state officials would bring him a beaver or two. Wyoming's Game and Fish Commission periodically plucks the rodents from drainage culverts. Beaver backers have a simple creed: Trapping, not killing, "nuisance" beavers, they say, can add value to wilderness reserves and farmland by increasing their water content. That, in turn, restores fish habitats and native plants, which allow bigger species like moose, cougar and elk to thrive. "We call ourselves Beaver Believers because we found beavers do restoration work better than people," says Celeste Coulter, stewardship director at the North Coast Land Conservancy, a Seaside, Ore., group that urges developers to set aside land for beavers. "We can spend $200,000 putting wood into a stream, cabling down logs. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't," she says. "Put in a colony of beavers and it always works." Justin Burnett, a rancher in Richards, Texas, desperately wants beavers. He blames low creek levels for a "red water" virus that is killing his Angus herd. "Since we are in an extreme drought and there are no beavers to keep the water level sufficient, the water is stagnant and becoming deadly," he wrote the Lands Council. "The creek is constantly getting shallower. I just need beavers back at my ranch."
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111904253204576512391087253596.html
Tiffany Setting by Eric Wills Sergio Guardia never thought he'd live outside Manhattan. But when the Bolivian-born architect and owner of a New York-based firm began looking for an apartment, the price of units in the city forced him to broaden his geographic horizons. And so, after losing a few bidding wars for townhouses and apartments, he found himself across the Hudson River in Newark, N.J., standing before a three-story Forest Hill house that the listing agent told him had been built by the Tiffany family. Guardia hadn't considered Forest Hill, or even heard of it, until The New York Times ran an article titled, "Yes, We're in Newark." The November 2007 story described the National Register-listed neighborhood as an oasis in a city usually derided for urban blight and crime. He found himself walking through the Tiffany house that day, taking in stained-glass windows, intricately designed parquet floors, remarkable woodwork—each room, he says, revealing "one wonderful surprise after another." He was smitten. To be sure, the house had been horribly neglected and needed years of work, but the bones were magnificent. And the structure, just a short walk from a historic park designed by Frederick Law Olmsted, was massive—eight bedrooms, 5,100 square feet plus a 1,600-square-foot basement—much larger than anything he could have afforded in Manhattan or Brooklyn. Though Guardia has preserved the house's outstanding details—the marble fireplace mantel, the white built-in cabinets in the kitchen, the stained-glass windows in the living room and baths—he has modernized the interiors with his choice of furniture: A white fiberglass Eames chaise stands in the living room, a marble Saarinen tulip table fills the kitchen. The contrast is pleasing, playful; the Modernist décor helps accentuate the distinguished 19th-century architecture and keeps it from seeming stuffy or dour. Guardia's work is hardly done. Copper trim on the outside of the house, painted an unfortunate green, can't be stripped but can be repainted to resemble its original color. The windows—all 62—need extensive restoration work. A wood deck built onto the back of the house must be demolished. Guardia jokes that the experience of purchasing and restoring an ornate historic house has given him a newfound respect for clients: "Now that I've been through this, I know how difficult and time-consuming it is," he says. See picture and more of the story at: http://www.preservationnation.org/magazine/2011/september-october/tiffany-setting.html
"Louis Comfort Tiffany was unappreciated for years. Now he's appreciated as an American genius. We have to do everything to preserve his windows, to pass them along for future generations. Restoration keeps the past alive."
Barbara Meise, specialist in stained-glass restoration, who has removed, repaired and cleaned the Tiffany windows in Sergio Guardia's eight-bedroom home in Newark, New Jersey
"Beside myself with joy" means experiencing extreme joy. "Beside" was formerly (15th through 19th centuries) used in phrases to mean "out of a mental state or condition, as 'beside one's patience, one's gravity, one's wits'" (Oxford Engl. Dict.), and that use survives only in "'beside oneself': out of one's wits, out of one's senses." "Beside himself. Why do we describe a distraught person as being 'beside himself'? Because the ancients believed that soul and body could part and that under great emotional stress the soul would actually leave the body. When this happened a person was 'beside himself.' This same thought is to be found in 'out of his mind'; and in 'estasy' too. 'Ecstasy' is from the Greek and literally means 'to stand out of.'" From "Dictionary of Word Origins" by Jordan Almond (Carol Publishing Group, Secaucus, N.J., 1998)
http://www.phrases.org.uk/bulletin_board/10/messages/179.html
Internet Anagram Server and a link to the Anagram Hall of Fame: http://wordsmith.org/anagram/ I put in the 11 letters of my name to find anagrams and there were 9319.
The Real Work by Wendell Berry The mind that is not baffled is not employed. The impeded stream is the one that sings. Find the whole poem at: http://www.panhala.net/Archive/The_Real_Work.html
Leave it to Beavers by Joel Millman Clyde Woolery's ranch on Beaver Creek outside Kinnear, Wyo., has been beaver-free for decades, but he could sure use their help now. A small beaver colony, he says, would engineer dams that raise the water table under his pastures, opening up drinking holes for his cattle. So the 64-year-old rancher put himself on a waiting list this year hoping state officials would bring him a beaver or two. Wyoming's Game and Fish Commission periodically plucks the rodents from drainage culverts. Beaver backers have a simple creed: Trapping, not killing, "nuisance" beavers, they say, can add value to wilderness reserves and farmland by increasing their water content. That, in turn, restores fish habitats and native plants, which allow bigger species like moose, cougar and elk to thrive. "We call ourselves Beaver Believers because we found beavers do restoration work better than people," says Celeste Coulter, stewardship director at the North Coast Land Conservancy, a Seaside, Ore., group that urges developers to set aside land for beavers. "We can spend $200,000 putting wood into a stream, cabling down logs. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't," she says. "Put in a colony of beavers and it always works." Justin Burnett, a rancher in Richards, Texas, desperately wants beavers. He blames low creek levels for a "red water" virus that is killing his Angus herd. "Since we are in an extreme drought and there are no beavers to keep the water level sufficient, the water is stagnant and becoming deadly," he wrote the Lands Council. "The creek is constantly getting shallower. I just need beavers back at my ranch."
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111904253204576512391087253596.html
Tiffany Setting by Eric Wills Sergio Guardia never thought he'd live outside Manhattan. But when the Bolivian-born architect and owner of a New York-based firm began looking for an apartment, the price of units in the city forced him to broaden his geographic horizons. And so, after losing a few bidding wars for townhouses and apartments, he found himself across the Hudson River in Newark, N.J., standing before a three-story Forest Hill house that the listing agent told him had been built by the Tiffany family. Guardia hadn't considered Forest Hill, or even heard of it, until The New York Times ran an article titled, "Yes, We're in Newark." The November 2007 story described the National Register-listed neighborhood as an oasis in a city usually derided for urban blight and crime. He found himself walking through the Tiffany house that day, taking in stained-glass windows, intricately designed parquet floors, remarkable woodwork—each room, he says, revealing "one wonderful surprise after another." He was smitten. To be sure, the house had been horribly neglected and needed years of work, but the bones were magnificent. And the structure, just a short walk from a historic park designed by Frederick Law Olmsted, was massive—eight bedrooms, 5,100 square feet plus a 1,600-square-foot basement—much larger than anything he could have afforded in Manhattan or Brooklyn. Though Guardia has preserved the house's outstanding details—the marble fireplace mantel, the white built-in cabinets in the kitchen, the stained-glass windows in the living room and baths—he has modernized the interiors with his choice of furniture: A white fiberglass Eames chaise stands in the living room, a marble Saarinen tulip table fills the kitchen. The contrast is pleasing, playful; the Modernist décor helps accentuate the distinguished 19th-century architecture and keeps it from seeming stuffy or dour. Guardia's work is hardly done. Copper trim on the outside of the house, painted an unfortunate green, can't be stripped but can be repainted to resemble its original color. The windows—all 62—need extensive restoration work. A wood deck built onto the back of the house must be demolished. Guardia jokes that the experience of purchasing and restoring an ornate historic house has given him a newfound respect for clients: "Now that I've been through this, I know how difficult and time-consuming it is," he says. See picture and more of the story at: http://www.preservationnation.org/magazine/2011/september-october/tiffany-setting.html
"Louis Comfort Tiffany was unappreciated for years. Now he's appreciated as an American genius. We have to do everything to preserve his windows, to pass them along for future generations. Restoration keeps the past alive."
Barbara Meise, specialist in stained-glass restoration, who has removed, repaired and cleaned the Tiffany windows in Sergio Guardia's eight-bedroom home in Newark, New Jersey
"Beside myself with joy" means experiencing extreme joy. "Beside" was formerly (15th through 19th centuries) used in phrases to mean "out of a mental state or condition, as 'beside one's patience, one's gravity, one's wits'" (Oxford Engl. Dict.), and that use survives only in "'beside oneself': out of one's wits, out of one's senses." "Beside himself. Why do we describe a distraught person as being 'beside himself'? Because the ancients believed that soul and body could part and that under great emotional stress the soul would actually leave the body. When this happened a person was 'beside himself.' This same thought is to be found in 'out of his mind'; and in 'estasy' too. 'Ecstasy' is from the Greek and literally means 'to stand out of.'" From "Dictionary of Word Origins" by Jordan Almond (Carol Publishing Group, Secaucus, N.J., 1998)
http://www.phrases.org.uk/bulletin_board/10/messages/179.html
Internet Anagram Server and a link to the Anagram Hall of Fame: http://wordsmith.org/anagram/ I put in the 11 letters of my name to find anagrams and there were 9319.
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