Jeff Cobb was one of the hardest hitting journalists in comics. Making his debut on June 28, 1954, this blonde, clean cut, two fisted, newspaper reporter worked for the Daily Guardian, and like other traditional comic strip newsmen, got into every conceivable situation, from searching for the abominable snowman, to hunting down international war criminals. Cobb survived hundreds of adventures, including losing his right eye in one chilling storyline, only to become a more popular character, with his distinctive black eye patch, for the rest of the series. Over its twenty-four year run, "Jeff Cobb" ran in one-hundred national papers as well as South America and Canada before the feature was picked up for reprint syndication in Europe. Dave Karlen discovered the feature in the Menomonee Falls Gazette and was immediately impressed by the clean line work of the strip's creator, Pete Hoffman. Some time later, Karlen was introduced to Hoffman by his friend and fellow artist Harold Ledoux, illustrator of the syndicated strip, "Judge Parker".
Interview with Pete Cobb by Dave Karlen
My oldest brother drew very well and starting as a kindergartener, I imitated him. The teacher submitted it to Toledo Morning Times...it was of cowboys and Indians and horses. They seemed to think it was worth running. Before graduating from the University of Toledo in 1941, I was the cartoonist on the campus weekly (The Campus Collegian) and art editor of the yearbook (The Blockhouse). Also, during that period, I drew some occasional sports cartoons for the Toledo Blade. After graduation, I worked as an advertising artist for Tiedtke's department store (then the most widely known store in Toledo). Three weeks after Pearl Harbor, I entered military service. I first met Allen Saunders and his partner Elmer Woggon while a student cartoonist. After the war, I stopped by their studio and was asked to work on the Chief Wahoo and Steve Roper strip (later shortened to Steve Roper). They were familiar with my work on The Collegian, and were impressed with the character illustrations of my service buddies I had drawn during the war. Apparently they saw something in them, and they asked me to go to work for them. This was because the strip was in a transition stage and a more illustrative style of drawing was desired. My style fit their needs. I enjoyed ghost-drawing the characters for nearly nine years. At one time, this was was really the hot bed of cartooning. There were many artists and writers in Toledo who produced syndicated serials while I was working on Roper. Among them were Allen Saunders, Elmer Woggon, Bill Woggon, Dr. Nick Dallas, Frank Edgington, Dan Heilman, Harold LeDoux, Jim Seed, Walt Buchanan, etc. Much of my work has gone to aid the University of Toledo's alumni projects. Originals of my work are included in the permanent collections of the International Museum of Cartoon Art, Ohio State University's Cartoon Research Library, and the University of Toledo Archives. See the rest of the interview plus pictures including Hoffman's first published drawing at age four in the Toledo Morning Times. http://www.comicartville.com/hoffmaninterview.htm
Saturn is the sixth planet from the Sun and the second largest planet in the Solar System, after Jupiter. It is named after the Roman god Saturn, its astronomical symbol (♄) representing the god's sickle. Saturn is a gas giant with an average radius about nine times that of Earth. While only 1/8 the average density of Earth, due to its larger volume Saturn is just over 95 times more massive than Earth. Wind speeds on Saturn can reach 1,800 km/h. Saturn has a ring system that consists of nine continuous main rings and three discontinuous arcs, composed mostly of ice particles with a smaller amount of rocky debris and dust. Sixty-two known moons orbit the planet; fifty-three are officially named. This does not include the hundreds of "moonlets" within the rings. Titan, Saturn's largest and the Solar System's second largest moon, is larger than the planet Mercury and is the only moon in the Solar System to retain a substantial atmosphere.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturn
NPR's Best Books of 2011 is available divided by category or as one whole list. NPR will add new lists from their critics throughout the holiday season. At the same link, you may sign up for NPR Books Newsletter, weekly book reviews and stories. http://www.npr.org/series/142590674/best-books-of-2011
See best books of 2011 according to The Economist: http://www.economist.com/node/21541386
December Solstice (approximately December 21-22)
This day begins summer in the Southern Hemisphere and is the longest day in the Southern Hemisphere. It begins winter in the Northern Hemisphere and is the shortest day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere.
March Equinox (approximately March 20-21)
This day begins fall in the Southern Hemisphere and spring in the Northern Hemisphere. There are twelve hours of daylight and twelve hours of darkness at all points on the earth’s surface on the two equinoxes. Sunrise is at 6 a.m. and sunset is at 6 p.m. local (solar) time for most points on the earth’s surface.
June Solstice (approximately June 20-21)
This day begins summer in the Northern Hemisphere and winter in the Southern Hemisphere. This day is the longest in the year for the Northern Hemisphere and the shortest for the Southern Hemisphere.
September Equinox (approximately September 22-23)
This day begins fall in the Northern Hemisphere and spring in the Southern Hemisphere. There are twelve hours of daylight and twelve hours of darkness at all points on the earth’s surface on the two equinoxes. Sunrise is at 6 a.m. and sunset is at 6 p.m. local (solar) time for most points on the earth’s surface.
http://geography.about.com/od/physicalgeography/a/fourseasons.htm
October 30, 2009 Alan Pollom, state director of The Nature Conservancy, stood at the gate of a holding pen on the rolling hills of the Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve northwest of Strong City in Kansas. Inside the pen were 13 young bison -- seven male, six female -- waiting for Pollom to open the gate and release them to roam the 1,100-acre Windmill Pasture nestled in the Flint Hills. "This is a soft release," Pollom said, explaining how a few bison would be released to graze and then a few more released after about 30 minutes. "We ease them out so they don't head to South Dakota. We want them to get used to the sights and feel of their new home." After an absence of more than 150 years, bison are being reintroduced to the tallgrass prairie at the national preserve. At one time, up to 60 million bison roamed North America. By the early 1900s, fewer than 1,000 were left. Pollom said the 11/2- to 21/2-year-old bison were transported from Wind Cave National Park in South Dakota and arrived at the preserve on Oct. 20. The South Dakota herd originated from 14 bison donated in 1913 by the New York Zoological Society and six donated in 1916 from Yellowstone National Park. Bison, which live an average of 20 to 25 years, are subject to the same diseases as cattle, he said. Veterinarians tested blood samples from each bison in the new herd before they left South Dakota to ensure they were disease-free. As the herd grows, Nature Conservancy and National Park Service officials will monitor the bison for age and sex, which will help project herd growth, determine which animals are surplus and calculate stocking rates. "We're looking to get up to 100 on this area," said Wendy Lauritzen, park superintendent at the preserve. Lauritzen said The Nature Conservancy and National Park Service had been working on the bison reintroduction project for nearly 10 years. Their work included a management plan, an environmental assessment and installing fencing to contain the bison on the pasture. http://cjonline.com/news/local/2009-10-30/bison_return_to_prairie
2011 update
May 11, 2011 and July 7, 2011 marked the second and third bison calf births at the Tallgrass National Preserve. The original thirteen-member herd came from Windcave National Park, South Dakota in October 2009. On May 9, 2010 the first bison calf was born on the landscape in over 140 years. http://www.nps.gov/tapr/index.htm
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
Monday, December 12, 2011
Invasive species have become a vexing problem in the United States, with population explosions of Asian carp clogging the Mississippi River and European green crabs mobbing the coasts. With few natural predators in North America, such fast-breeding species have thrived in American waters, eating native creatures and out-competing them for food and habitats. While most invasive species are not commonly regarded as edible food, that is mostly a matter of marketing, experts say. Imagine menus where Asian carp substitutes for the threatened Chilean sea bass, or lionfish replaces grouper, which is overfished. “We think there could be a real market,” said Wenonah Hauter, the executive director of Food and Water Watch, whose 2011 Smart Seafood Guide recommends for the first time that diners seek out invasive species as a “safer, more sustainable” alternative to their more dwindling relatives, to encourage fisherman and markets to provide them. The United States Fish and Wildlife Service is now exploring where it might be helpful. Models suggest that commercial harvest of Asian carp in the Mississippi would most likely help control populations there, “as part of an integrated pest management program,” said Valerie Fellows, a spokeswoman. To increase culinary demand, Food and Water Watch has teamed up with the James Beard Foundation and Kerry Heffernan, the chef at the South Gate restaurant in New York City, to devise recipes using the creatures. At a recent tasting, there was Asian carp ceviche and braised lionfish filet in brown butter sauce. Lionfish, it turns out, looks hideous but tastes great. The group had to hire fishermen to catch animals commonly regarded as pests. Mr. Heffernan said he would consider putting them on his menu and was looking forward to getting some molting European green crabs to try in soft-shell crab recipes. Last summer, the Nature Conservancy sponsored a lionfish food fair in the Bahamas, featuring lionfish fritters and more. They offered fishermen $11 a pound — about the price of grouper — and got an abundant supply. Lionfish, native to the Indian Ocean and South Pacific, arrived in the Caribbean in the early 1990s. Mitchell Davis, vice president of the Beard Foundation, said other species had moved from being pariah pests to must-have items on American plates, like dandelion greens for salads. Elisabeth Rosenthal
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/10/science/earth/10fish.html
Q: I bet that Star Trek's Capt. James T. Kirk never said, "Beam me up, Scotty."
A: Correct. The closest Kirk came was, "Beam us up, Mr. Scott," during a 1968 episode, "The Gamesters of Triskelion."
Q: What was the highest U.S. money note printed?
A: The $100,000 Gold Certificate, Series 1934, printed from Dec. 18, 1934, to Jan. 9, 1935, were issued by the U.S. Treasurer to Federal Reserve Banks against an equal amount of gold held by the Treasury. They were used only among Federal Reserve banks. U.S. Treasury Department.
http://www.thecourier.com/Opinion/columns/2011/Dec/JU/ar_JU_120511.asp?d=120511,2011,Dec,05&c=c_13
James Patterson's READKIDDOREAD.com is "dedicated to making kids readers for life." Sign up for a newsletter or enter a sweepstakes for either high schools or middle schools to receive free books. Find recommended books divided by ages 0-8, 6 & up, 8& up, and 10 & up at: http://www.readkiddoread.com/home
Name that nym
Find definitions of allonym, aptronym, charactonym, cryptonym, demonym, exonym, hypernym, hyponym, metonym and more at: http://grammar.about.com/od/words/a/Name-That-Nym-A-Brief-Introduction-To-Words-And-Names.htm
Charactonyms are fictional characters whose names reflect their attributes.
Examples of charactonyms
Squire Allworthy from the novel The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling (also called Tom Jones), 1749
Mrs. Malaprop (from mal--bad and apropos--fitting) from play The Rivals, 1775
Daddy Warbucks from comic strip Little Orphan Annie, 1924-2010 (title comes from "Little Orphant Annie," an 1885 poem) written by James Whitcomb Riley.
Tex Richman from The Muppets film, 2011
terrene (teh-REEN, TER-een) adjective
Relating to the earth; earthly; worldly; mundane.
From Latin terra (earth). Ultimately from the Indo-European root ters- (to dry), which is also the source of territory, terrace, turmeric, and toast. Earliest documented use: 1300s.
baldachin (BAL-duh-kin, BOL-) Also, baldacchino, baldachino (bal-duh-KEE-noh) noun
1. A rich embroidered fabric of silk and gold.
2. A canopy.
English baldachin is derived from Italian baldacchino which is from Baldacco, the Italian name for Baghdad. The city was once known for this fabric and earlier canopies were made of it. Earliest documented use: 1598.
Babylon (BAB-uh-luhn, -lawn) noun
A place of great luxury and extravagance, usually accompanied with vice and corruption.
After Babylon, an ancient city of southwestern Asia, on the Euphrates River, now the site of Al Hillah city. It was the capital of Babylonia and known for its opulence and culture. It was the site of the Hanging Gardens, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Earliest documented use: around 1225.
muslin (MUHZ-lin) noun
A plain-woven cotton fabric made in various degrees of fineness.
From French mousseline, from Italian mussolina, from Mussolo (Mosul, Iraq) which was known for this fabric. Earliest documented use: 1609. Earlier sheer muslin was used for women's dresses and as a result, the word muslin was used collectively for women. Today muslin is mostly used for curtains, sheets, tablecloths, etc.
A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg
Feedback to A.Word.A.Day
From: Michael Tremberth Subject: redolent Def: 1. Fragrant; smelling. 2. Suggestive; reminiscent.
I've thought of the power of this and other words that connect us to our sensory memories. Proust explored this space; so did Dickens and others who explored the pollution of the 19th century in terms of the sights, smells and sounds of the urban environment; Keats described a vintage "Tasting of Flora and the country green,/Dance, and Provençal song, and sunburnt mirth!" -- though his imagery is so powerful that you don't at first notice how he makes tasting do duty for other forms of sensory perception implied by his words, viz hearing, seeing and smelling. Olfaction seems to be the most powerful of these, which perhaps explains why the meaning of redolent has become extended.
From: Molly Kalifut Subject: Hegemony
Def: Predominance over others, especially of a country over other countries.
I loved the illustrated H for 'hegemony' -- the top cat being carried in a sedan chair. In other words: kitty litter.
Now I have to go back and study the rest of the week's illustrations much more carefully!
From: Michael Tremberth Subject: terrene, terrine Def: Relating to the earth; earthly; worldly; mundane.
Another word derived from Latin terra is terrine (tuhr-REEN). Terrene and terrine may be confused in speech because terrene can also be pronounced with the stress on the final syllable. Terrine, a loan word from French, is both a prepared food, ideally cooked in a tureen (terracotta utensil); and also the name for the utensil in which the food has been cooked. Lasagne (Italian) is a word of the same type, meaning both the food, and the utensil, literally a "chamber pot", in which it is baked. You may not have realised that Italian cookery is so eclectic!
From: Elizabeth E. Vaughn Subject: antediluvian
Hadn't thought of this word since Donovan's recording of Atlantis. Worth a YouTube search. Then listen to Hey Jude. Next, trick your children by playing the New Christy Minstrels' version which superimposes these two songs. Yes, I'm old and the first time I heard this done I thought my friend personally blended these songs.
On the bitterly cold afternoon of Dec. 2, 1944, West Point's Felix "Doc" Blanchard kicked the football to Annapolis's Bobby Tom Jenkins to begin the biggest contest in the history of the Army-Navy series. Sitting in the press box in Baltimore's Municipal Stadium, reporter Al Laney wrote, "There never has been a sports event, perhaps never an event of any kind, that received the attention of so many Americans in so many places around the world." On that day the world was at war, but for a few hours, for the legions of American servicemen huddled around shortwave sets in Europe, the Mediterranean and the Pacific, the hostilities seemed to stop. The matchup almost didn't happen. Slightly less than three years earlier, when the Japanese assault on Pearl Harbor plunged the U.S. into World War II, there were calls from politicians and journalists for Americans to set aside peacetime frivolities. Professional baseball and college football had no place in a nation at war, some thought. "You can't train a man to be a fighter by having him play football and baseball," said Cmdr. James Joseph "Gene" Tunney, the Navy's director of physical training and boxing's former heavyweight champion. College football, he said, "has no place in war or preparing for war." Others disagreed. Cmdr. Thomas J. Hamilton, the head of the Navy's Prefight and Physical Training program and a former head coach at Annapolis, thought football was an ideal way to train men for combat. And since Hamilton had the ear of the Navy brass, his position carried the day. Football became an integral part of the Navy's V-5 preflight initiative. This training program was installed at select college campuses including Iowa and Georgia. Other larger Navy V-programs followed the V-5's lead. The mammoth V-12 program, instituted in over 130 colleges just before the 1943 football season to train naval and marine officers, also permitted—and even encouraged—these candidates to participate in varsity sports. While the Navy was underwriting the continuation of college football, the Army moved in the opposite direction. The Army Specialized Training Program (ASTP), instituted in more than 240 colleges, prohibited cadets from participating in intercollegiate sports. These decisions by leaders of the Army and Navy reshaped college football. Traditions were shed and the prewar pecking order was scrambled. Schools with Army Specialized Training Program were out of the running as serious football schools. Most could not field a team and discontinued the sport. Alabama, Auburn, Stanford and Syracuse didn't field teams in 1943. Meanwhile, schools with V-12 programs, especially V-12 Marine programs, walked in tall cotton. As some football programs declined or folded, V-12 schools like Notre Dame, Southern California and Purdue snapped up their best players. A player from Ohio State or Illinois, for instance, could enlist in a Marine V-12 program in July and find himself playing in the opener for Notre Dame in September (not surprisingly, the Irish won the 1943 national title). Then there was Army's famous backfield of Doc Blanchard and Glenn Davis—a tandem that's widely regarded as one of the best in the history of the sport. Blanchard, the fullback who was known as "Mr. Inside," had played his freshman year at North Carolina. Davis, the halfback known as "Mr. Outside" was one of the few big-name players on the Army team who had gone directly to West Point from the gridirons of high school. The game was close for three quarters. Army led 9-7 going into the fourth. Then came a nine-play, 52-yard Army scoring drive in which Blanchard carried the ball seven times and accounted for all but four of the team's yards. On the final play of the drive, he ran over three Navy defenders and bulled his way into the end zone. A short time later, Davis put an exclamation point on the game. Finding a sliver of space, he broke through the Navy line, dodged past several defenders and outraced everyone else for a euphoric 50-yard touchdown run. The 23-7 Army victory was Blaik's first in the series. After the game, the coach received a telegram from the Pacific: "The greatest of all Army teams—STOP—We have stopped the war to celebrate your magnificent success." It was signed MacArthur. Randy Roberts http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203501304577086691362897410.html
December 12: Independence Day in Kenya (1963)
1915 President Yuan Shikai of the Republic of China reinstated the monarchy and declared himself Emperor.
1918 The Flag of Estonia was raised for the first time atop the Pikk Hermann in Tallinn.
2000 The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Bush v. Gore that the election recount of the ballots cast in Florida for the presidential election must stop, effectively making George W. Bush the winner. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/10/science/earth/10fish.html
Q: I bet that Star Trek's Capt. James T. Kirk never said, "Beam me up, Scotty."
A: Correct. The closest Kirk came was, "Beam us up, Mr. Scott," during a 1968 episode, "The Gamesters of Triskelion."
Q: What was the highest U.S. money note printed?
A: The $100,000 Gold Certificate, Series 1934, printed from Dec. 18, 1934, to Jan. 9, 1935, were issued by the U.S. Treasurer to Federal Reserve Banks against an equal amount of gold held by the Treasury. They were used only among Federal Reserve banks. U.S. Treasury Department.
http://www.thecourier.com/Opinion/columns/2011/Dec/JU/ar_JU_120511.asp?d=120511,2011,Dec,05&c=c_13
James Patterson's READKIDDOREAD.com is "dedicated to making kids readers for life." Sign up for a newsletter or enter a sweepstakes for either high schools or middle schools to receive free books. Find recommended books divided by ages 0-8, 6 & up, 8& up, and 10 & up at: http://www.readkiddoread.com/home
Name that nym
Find definitions of allonym, aptronym, charactonym, cryptonym, demonym, exonym, hypernym, hyponym, metonym and more at: http://grammar.about.com/od/words/a/Name-That-Nym-A-Brief-Introduction-To-Words-And-Names.htm
Charactonyms are fictional characters whose names reflect their attributes.
Examples of charactonyms
Squire Allworthy from the novel The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling (also called Tom Jones), 1749
Mrs. Malaprop (from mal--bad and apropos--fitting) from play The Rivals, 1775
Daddy Warbucks from comic strip Little Orphan Annie, 1924-2010 (title comes from "Little Orphant Annie," an 1885 poem) written by James Whitcomb Riley.
Tex Richman from The Muppets film, 2011
terrene (teh-REEN, TER-een) adjective
Relating to the earth; earthly; worldly; mundane.
From Latin terra (earth). Ultimately from the Indo-European root ters- (to dry), which is also the source of territory, terrace, turmeric, and toast. Earliest documented use: 1300s.
baldachin (BAL-duh-kin, BOL-) Also, baldacchino, baldachino (bal-duh-KEE-noh) noun
1. A rich embroidered fabric of silk and gold.
2. A canopy.
English baldachin is derived from Italian baldacchino which is from Baldacco, the Italian name for Baghdad. The city was once known for this fabric and earlier canopies were made of it. Earliest documented use: 1598.
Babylon (BAB-uh-luhn, -lawn) noun
A place of great luxury and extravagance, usually accompanied with vice and corruption.
After Babylon, an ancient city of southwestern Asia, on the Euphrates River, now the site of Al Hillah city. It was the capital of Babylonia and known for its opulence and culture. It was the site of the Hanging Gardens, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Earliest documented use: around 1225.
muslin (MUHZ-lin) noun
A plain-woven cotton fabric made in various degrees of fineness.
From French mousseline, from Italian mussolina, from Mussolo (Mosul, Iraq) which was known for this fabric. Earliest documented use: 1609. Earlier sheer muslin was used for women's dresses and as a result, the word muslin was used collectively for women. Today muslin is mostly used for curtains, sheets, tablecloths, etc.
A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg
Feedback to A.Word.A.Day
From: Michael Tremberth Subject: redolent Def: 1. Fragrant; smelling. 2. Suggestive; reminiscent.
I've thought of the power of this and other words that connect us to our sensory memories. Proust explored this space; so did Dickens and others who explored the pollution of the 19th century in terms of the sights, smells and sounds of the urban environment; Keats described a vintage "Tasting of Flora and the country green,/Dance, and Provençal song, and sunburnt mirth!" -- though his imagery is so powerful that you don't at first notice how he makes tasting do duty for other forms of sensory perception implied by his words, viz hearing, seeing and smelling. Olfaction seems to be the most powerful of these, which perhaps explains why the meaning of redolent has become extended.
From: Molly Kalifut Subject: Hegemony
Def: Predominance over others, especially of a country over other countries.
I loved the illustrated H for 'hegemony' -- the top cat being carried in a sedan chair. In other words: kitty litter.
Now I have to go back and study the rest of the week's illustrations much more carefully!
From: Michael Tremberth Subject: terrene, terrine Def: Relating to the earth; earthly; worldly; mundane.
Another word derived from Latin terra is terrine (tuhr-REEN). Terrene and terrine may be confused in speech because terrene can also be pronounced with the stress on the final syllable. Terrine, a loan word from French, is both a prepared food, ideally cooked in a tureen (terracotta utensil); and also the name for the utensil in which the food has been cooked. Lasagne (Italian) is a word of the same type, meaning both the food, and the utensil, literally a "chamber pot", in which it is baked. You may not have realised that Italian cookery is so eclectic!
From: Elizabeth E. Vaughn Subject: antediluvian
Hadn't thought of this word since Donovan's recording of Atlantis. Worth a YouTube search. Then listen to Hey Jude. Next, trick your children by playing the New Christy Minstrels' version which superimposes these two songs. Yes, I'm old and the first time I heard this done I thought my friend personally blended these songs.
On the bitterly cold afternoon of Dec. 2, 1944, West Point's Felix "Doc" Blanchard kicked the football to Annapolis's Bobby Tom Jenkins to begin the biggest contest in the history of the Army-Navy series. Sitting in the press box in Baltimore's Municipal Stadium, reporter Al Laney wrote, "There never has been a sports event, perhaps never an event of any kind, that received the attention of so many Americans in so many places around the world." On that day the world was at war, but for a few hours, for the legions of American servicemen huddled around shortwave sets in Europe, the Mediterranean and the Pacific, the hostilities seemed to stop. The matchup almost didn't happen. Slightly less than three years earlier, when the Japanese assault on Pearl Harbor plunged the U.S. into World War II, there were calls from politicians and journalists for Americans to set aside peacetime frivolities. Professional baseball and college football had no place in a nation at war, some thought. "You can't train a man to be a fighter by having him play football and baseball," said Cmdr. James Joseph "Gene" Tunney, the Navy's director of physical training and boxing's former heavyweight champion. College football, he said, "has no place in war or preparing for war." Others disagreed. Cmdr. Thomas J. Hamilton, the head of the Navy's Prefight and Physical Training program and a former head coach at Annapolis, thought football was an ideal way to train men for combat. And since Hamilton had the ear of the Navy brass, his position carried the day. Football became an integral part of the Navy's V-5 preflight initiative. This training program was installed at select college campuses including Iowa and Georgia. Other larger Navy V-programs followed the V-5's lead. The mammoth V-12 program, instituted in over 130 colleges just before the 1943 football season to train naval and marine officers, also permitted—and even encouraged—these candidates to participate in varsity sports. While the Navy was underwriting the continuation of college football, the Army moved in the opposite direction. The Army Specialized Training Program (ASTP), instituted in more than 240 colleges, prohibited cadets from participating in intercollegiate sports. These decisions by leaders of the Army and Navy reshaped college football. Traditions were shed and the prewar pecking order was scrambled. Schools with Army Specialized Training Program were out of the running as serious football schools. Most could not field a team and discontinued the sport. Alabama, Auburn, Stanford and Syracuse didn't field teams in 1943. Meanwhile, schools with V-12 programs, especially V-12 Marine programs, walked in tall cotton. As some football programs declined or folded, V-12 schools like Notre Dame, Southern California and Purdue snapped up their best players. A player from Ohio State or Illinois, for instance, could enlist in a Marine V-12 program in July and find himself playing in the opener for Notre Dame in September (not surprisingly, the Irish won the 1943 national title). Then there was Army's famous backfield of Doc Blanchard and Glenn Davis—a tandem that's widely regarded as one of the best in the history of the sport. Blanchard, the fullback who was known as "Mr. Inside," had played his freshman year at North Carolina. Davis, the halfback known as "Mr. Outside" was one of the few big-name players on the Army team who had gone directly to West Point from the gridirons of high school. The game was close for three quarters. Army led 9-7 going into the fourth. Then came a nine-play, 52-yard Army scoring drive in which Blanchard carried the ball seven times and accounted for all but four of the team's yards. On the final play of the drive, he ran over three Navy defenders and bulled his way into the end zone. A short time later, Davis put an exclamation point on the game. Finding a sliver of space, he broke through the Navy line, dodged past several defenders and outraced everyone else for a euphoric 50-yard touchdown run. The 23-7 Army victory was Blaik's first in the series. After the game, the coach received a telegram from the Pacific: "The greatest of all Army teams—STOP—We have stopped the war to celebrate your magnificent success." It was signed MacArthur. Randy Roberts http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203501304577086691362897410.html
December 12: Independence Day in Kenya (1963)
1915 President Yuan Shikai of the Republic of China reinstated the monarchy and declared himself Emperor.
1918 The Flag of Estonia was raised for the first time atop the Pikk Hermann in Tallinn.
2000 The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Bush v. Gore that the election recount of the ballots cast in Florida for the presidential election must stop, effectively making George W. Bush the winner. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page
Friday, December 9, 2011
YAHOO AS NAME Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels - Yahoos and Houyhnhnms
7 September 1710 – 2 July 1715
Despite his earlier intention of remaining at home, Gulliver returns to the sea as the captain of a merchantman as he is bored with his employment as a surgeon. On this voyage he is forced to find new additions to his crew who he believes to have turned the rest of the crew against him. His crew then mutiny, and after keeping him contained for some time resolve to leave him on the first piece of land they come across and continue as pirates. He is abandoned in a landing boat and comes first upon a race of (apparently) hideous deformed and savage humanoid creatures to which he conceives a violent antipathy. Shortly thereafter he meets a horse and comes to understand that they call themselves Houyhnhms (which in their language means "the perfection of nature"), and that they are the rulers, while the deformed creatures called Yahoos are human beings in their base form. Gulliver becomes a member of the horse's household, and comes to both admire and emulate the Houyhnhnms and their lifestyle, rejecting his fellow humans as merely Yahoos endowed with some semblance of reason which they only use to exacerbate and add to the vices Nature gave them. However, an Assembly of the Houyhnhnms rules that Gulliver, a Yahoo with some semblance of reason, is a danger to their civilization, and expels him. He is then rescued, against his will, by a Portuguese ship, and is surprised to see that Captain Pedro de Mendez, a Yahoo, is a wise, courteous and generous person. He returns to his home in England, but he is unable to reconcile himself to living among Yahoos and becomes a recluse, remaining in his house, largely avoiding his family and his wife, and spending several hours a day speaking with the horses in his stables.
See illustrations at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulliver's_Travels
Read Gulliver's Travels at: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/829
YAHOO AS BACKRONYM
Yahoo! began as a student hobby and evolved into a global brand that has changed the way people communicate with each other, find and access information and purchase things. The two founders of Yahoo!, David Filo and Jerry Yang, Ph.D. candidates in Electrical Engineering at Stanford University, started their guide in a campus trailer in February 1994 as a way to keep track of their personal interests on the Internet. Before long they were spending more time on their home-brewed lists of favorite links than on their doctoral dissertations. Eventually, Jerry and David's lists became too long and unwieldy, and they broke them out into categories. When the categories became too full, they developed subcategories ... and the core concept behind Yahoo! was born. The Web site started out as "Jerry and David's Guide to the World Wide Web" but eventually received a new moniker with the help of a dictionary. The name Yahoo! is an acronym for "Yet Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle," but Filo and Yang insist they selected the name because they liked the general definition of a yahoo: "rude, unsophisticated, uncouth."
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/misc/history.html
A backronym or bacronym is a phrase constructed purposely, such that an acronym can be formed to a specific desired word. Backronyms may be invented with serious or humorous intent, or may be a type of false or folk etymology. The word is a combination (a portmanteau or a blend) of backward and acronym, and has been defined as a "reverse acronym". Its earliest known citation in print is as "bacronym" in the November 1983 edition of the Washington Post monthly neologism contest. The newspaper quoted winning reader "Meredith G. Williams of Potomac" defining it as the "same as an acronym, except that the words were chosen to fit the letters". Backronyms can be constructed for educational purposes, for example to form mnemonics. An example of such a mnemonic is the Apgar score, used to assess the health of newborn babies. The rating system was devised by and named after Virginia Apgar, but ten years after the initial publication, the backronym APGAR was coined in the US as a mnemonic learning aid: Appearance, Pulse, Grimace, Activity, and Respiration. Alcoholics Anonymous and other 12-step programs use backronyms as teaching tools, similar to slogans such as "one day at a time", or "Let go, let God", but often with an ironic edge. For example, a slip may be expanded as "Sobriety Losing Its Priority", and denial as "Don't Even Notice I Am Lying".
Backronyms are also created as jokes, often expressing consumer loyalties or frustration. For example, the name of the restaurant chain Arby's is a play on "RB", referring to "roast beef" as well as the company's founders, the Raffel brothers. An advertising campaign in the 1980s created a backronym with the slogan "America’s Roast Beef, Yes Sir!" Many companies or products spawn multiple humorous backronyms, with positive connotations asserted by supporters or negative ones by detractors. For example, Ford, the car company founded by Henry Ford, was said to stand for "First On Race Day" among aficionados but disparaged as "Fix Or Repair Daily" and "Found On Road, Dead" by critics. Likewise Fiat was in the 70's and 80's jokingly said by some American critics to stand for "Fix it again Tony".
NASA named its ISS treadmill the Combined Operational Load-Bearing External Resistance Treadmill (COLBERT) after Stephen Colbert. The backronym was a lighthearted compromise in recognition of the comedian's ability to sway NASA's online vote for the naming of an ISS module. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backronym
WISE AS ACRONYM
The Wellness Initiative for Students at Eastman, or WISE, is a series of events, workshops, and resources throughout the academic year. These services are meant to support the well-being of students and complement the academic rigor of the Eastman School of Music. Two of the free programs are yoga and boxing. http://www.esm.rochester.edu/studentlife/wise/
Using twin telescopes at the Keck Observatory in Hawaii, astronomers have discovered 18 new Jupiter-like planets orbiting massive stars. Researchers at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), surveyed about 300 stars, and focussed on those dubbed “retired” A-type stars that are more than one and a half times more massive than the sun. "It's the largest single announcement of planets in orbit around stars more massive than the sun, aside from the discoveries made by the Kepler mission," John Johnson, first author on the paper, said. The study has been recently published in The Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series. http://www.hindustantimes.com/HTNext/LifeAndUniverse/Massive-18-new-planets-discovered/Article1-777412.aspx
Charles Dickens (1812–1870) was Britain's first true literary superstar. In his time, he attracted international adulation, and many of his books became instant classics. Today, his popularity continues unabated, and his work remains not only widely read but widely adapted for stage and screen. The Morgan Library & Museum's collection of Dickens manuscripts and letters is the largest in the United States and is one of the two greatest collections in the world, along with the holdings of Britain's Victoria and Albert Museum. The exhibit Charles Dickens at 200 celebrates the bicentennial of the great writer's birth in 1812 with manuscripts of his novels and stories, letters, books, photographs, original illustrations, and caricatures. Purchase tickets and find links to lectures, programs and online exhibition at: http://www.themorgan.org/exhibitions/exhibition.asp?id=48
The exhibit is showing at the Morgan Library & Museum, 225 Madison Avenue, New York (212) 685-0008 through February 12, 2012. For hours and admission prices, see: http://www.themorgan.org/visit/default.asp
Mary Elizabeth Jane Colter (1869 –1958) was an American architect and designer. As a child, Mary Colter traveled with her family through frontier Minnesota, Colorado and Texas in the years after the American Civil War. After her father died in 1886, Colter attended the California School of Design in San Francisco. In 1901, the Fred Harvey Company (of the famous Harvey Houses) offered her the job of decorating the Alvarado Hotel in Albuquerque. Colter began working full-time for the company in 1910, moving from interior designer to architect. For the next thirty years, working as one of few female architects and in rugged conditions, Colter completed 21 projects for Fred Harvey. She created a series of landmark hotels and commercial lodges through the southwest, including the La Posada, the 1922 Phantom Ranch buildings at the bottom of the Grand Canyon, and five structures on the south rim of the Grand Canyon: the Hopi House (1905), Hermit's Rest (1914), the observatory Lookout Studio (1914), the 70-foot Desert View Watchtower (1932) with its hidden steel structure, and the Bright Angel Lodge (1935). The Bright Angel became a de facto model for subsequent National Park Service and Civilian Conservation Corps structures in the following years, influencing the look and feel of an entire architectural genre some call National Park Service rustic, and setting the precedent for using site materials and bold, large-scale design elements (the use of native fieldstone and rough-hewn wood at the bottom of the Grand Canyon was deemed the only practical thing to do). The Bright Angel Lodge also has a remarkable "geological fireplace" in the lodge's History Room, with rocks arranged floor to ceiling in the same order as the geologic strata in the canyon walls. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Jane_Colter
Entertainers who thought outside the box
Hedy Lamarr In 1941, she co-invented a jamproof radio guidance system for torpedoes.
Marlon Brando He devised a cooling system using seawater.
Barbara Cartland Working with the Royal Air Force, she conceived of the first long-distance-tow-gliders for troops.
Kevin Costner He has invested $26 million in the development of a machine that uses a centrifuge to separate crude oil from seawater.
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/book-review-hedys-folly-by-richard-rhodes-12012011.html
7 September 1710 – 2 July 1715
Despite his earlier intention of remaining at home, Gulliver returns to the sea as the captain of a merchantman as he is bored with his employment as a surgeon. On this voyage he is forced to find new additions to his crew who he believes to have turned the rest of the crew against him. His crew then mutiny, and after keeping him contained for some time resolve to leave him on the first piece of land they come across and continue as pirates. He is abandoned in a landing boat and comes first upon a race of (apparently) hideous deformed and savage humanoid creatures to which he conceives a violent antipathy. Shortly thereafter he meets a horse and comes to understand that they call themselves Houyhnhms (which in their language means "the perfection of nature"), and that they are the rulers, while the deformed creatures called Yahoos are human beings in their base form. Gulliver becomes a member of the horse's household, and comes to both admire and emulate the Houyhnhnms and their lifestyle, rejecting his fellow humans as merely Yahoos endowed with some semblance of reason which they only use to exacerbate and add to the vices Nature gave them. However, an Assembly of the Houyhnhnms rules that Gulliver, a Yahoo with some semblance of reason, is a danger to their civilization, and expels him. He is then rescued, against his will, by a Portuguese ship, and is surprised to see that Captain Pedro de Mendez, a Yahoo, is a wise, courteous and generous person. He returns to his home in England, but he is unable to reconcile himself to living among Yahoos and becomes a recluse, remaining in his house, largely avoiding his family and his wife, and spending several hours a day speaking with the horses in his stables.
See illustrations at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulliver's_Travels
Read Gulliver's Travels at: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/829
YAHOO AS BACKRONYM
Yahoo! began as a student hobby and evolved into a global brand that has changed the way people communicate with each other, find and access information and purchase things. The two founders of Yahoo!, David Filo and Jerry Yang, Ph.D. candidates in Electrical Engineering at Stanford University, started their guide in a campus trailer in February 1994 as a way to keep track of their personal interests on the Internet. Before long they were spending more time on their home-brewed lists of favorite links than on their doctoral dissertations. Eventually, Jerry and David's lists became too long and unwieldy, and they broke them out into categories. When the categories became too full, they developed subcategories ... and the core concept behind Yahoo! was born. The Web site started out as "Jerry and David's Guide to the World Wide Web" but eventually received a new moniker with the help of a dictionary. The name Yahoo! is an acronym for "Yet Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle," but Filo and Yang insist they selected the name because they liked the general definition of a yahoo: "rude, unsophisticated, uncouth."
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/misc/history.html
A backronym or bacronym is a phrase constructed purposely, such that an acronym can be formed to a specific desired word. Backronyms may be invented with serious or humorous intent, or may be a type of false or folk etymology. The word is a combination (a portmanteau or a blend) of backward and acronym, and has been defined as a "reverse acronym". Its earliest known citation in print is as "bacronym" in the November 1983 edition of the Washington Post monthly neologism contest. The newspaper quoted winning reader "Meredith G. Williams of Potomac" defining it as the "same as an acronym, except that the words were chosen to fit the letters". Backronyms can be constructed for educational purposes, for example to form mnemonics. An example of such a mnemonic is the Apgar score, used to assess the health of newborn babies. The rating system was devised by and named after Virginia Apgar, but ten years after the initial publication, the backronym APGAR was coined in the US as a mnemonic learning aid: Appearance, Pulse, Grimace, Activity, and Respiration. Alcoholics Anonymous and other 12-step programs use backronyms as teaching tools, similar to slogans such as "one day at a time", or "Let go, let God", but often with an ironic edge. For example, a slip may be expanded as "Sobriety Losing Its Priority", and denial as "Don't Even Notice I Am Lying".
Backronyms are also created as jokes, often expressing consumer loyalties or frustration. For example, the name of the restaurant chain Arby's is a play on "RB", referring to "roast beef" as well as the company's founders, the Raffel brothers. An advertising campaign in the 1980s created a backronym with the slogan "America’s Roast Beef, Yes Sir!" Many companies or products spawn multiple humorous backronyms, with positive connotations asserted by supporters or negative ones by detractors. For example, Ford, the car company founded by Henry Ford, was said to stand for "First On Race Day" among aficionados but disparaged as "Fix Or Repair Daily" and "Found On Road, Dead" by critics. Likewise Fiat was in the 70's and 80's jokingly said by some American critics to stand for "Fix it again Tony".
NASA named its ISS treadmill the Combined Operational Load-Bearing External Resistance Treadmill (COLBERT) after Stephen Colbert. The backronym was a lighthearted compromise in recognition of the comedian's ability to sway NASA's online vote for the naming of an ISS module. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backronym
WISE AS ACRONYM
The Wellness Initiative for Students at Eastman, or WISE, is a series of events, workshops, and resources throughout the academic year. These services are meant to support the well-being of students and complement the academic rigor of the Eastman School of Music. Two of the free programs are yoga and boxing. http://www.esm.rochester.edu/studentlife/wise/
Using twin telescopes at the Keck Observatory in Hawaii, astronomers have discovered 18 new Jupiter-like planets orbiting massive stars. Researchers at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), surveyed about 300 stars, and focussed on those dubbed “retired” A-type stars that are more than one and a half times more massive than the sun. "It's the largest single announcement of planets in orbit around stars more massive than the sun, aside from the discoveries made by the Kepler mission," John Johnson, first author on the paper, said. The study has been recently published in The Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series. http://www.hindustantimes.com/HTNext/LifeAndUniverse/Massive-18-new-planets-discovered/Article1-777412.aspx
Charles Dickens (1812–1870) was Britain's first true literary superstar. In his time, he attracted international adulation, and many of his books became instant classics. Today, his popularity continues unabated, and his work remains not only widely read but widely adapted for stage and screen. The Morgan Library & Museum's collection of Dickens manuscripts and letters is the largest in the United States and is one of the two greatest collections in the world, along with the holdings of Britain's Victoria and Albert Museum. The exhibit Charles Dickens at 200 celebrates the bicentennial of the great writer's birth in 1812 with manuscripts of his novels and stories, letters, books, photographs, original illustrations, and caricatures. Purchase tickets and find links to lectures, programs and online exhibition at: http://www.themorgan.org/exhibitions/exhibition.asp?id=48
The exhibit is showing at the Morgan Library & Museum, 225 Madison Avenue, New York (212) 685-0008 through February 12, 2012. For hours and admission prices, see: http://www.themorgan.org/visit/default.asp
Mary Elizabeth Jane Colter (1869 –1958) was an American architect and designer. As a child, Mary Colter traveled with her family through frontier Minnesota, Colorado and Texas in the years after the American Civil War. After her father died in 1886, Colter attended the California School of Design in San Francisco. In 1901, the Fred Harvey Company (of the famous Harvey Houses) offered her the job of decorating the Alvarado Hotel in Albuquerque. Colter began working full-time for the company in 1910, moving from interior designer to architect. For the next thirty years, working as one of few female architects and in rugged conditions, Colter completed 21 projects for Fred Harvey. She created a series of landmark hotels and commercial lodges through the southwest, including the La Posada, the 1922 Phantom Ranch buildings at the bottom of the Grand Canyon, and five structures on the south rim of the Grand Canyon: the Hopi House (1905), Hermit's Rest (1914), the observatory Lookout Studio (1914), the 70-foot Desert View Watchtower (1932) with its hidden steel structure, and the Bright Angel Lodge (1935). The Bright Angel became a de facto model for subsequent National Park Service and Civilian Conservation Corps structures in the following years, influencing the look and feel of an entire architectural genre some call National Park Service rustic, and setting the precedent for using site materials and bold, large-scale design elements (the use of native fieldstone and rough-hewn wood at the bottom of the Grand Canyon was deemed the only practical thing to do). The Bright Angel Lodge also has a remarkable "geological fireplace" in the lodge's History Room, with rocks arranged floor to ceiling in the same order as the geologic strata in the canyon walls. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Jane_Colter
Entertainers who thought outside the box
Hedy Lamarr In 1941, she co-invented a jamproof radio guidance system for torpedoes.
Marlon Brando He devised a cooling system using seawater.
Barbara Cartland Working with the Royal Air Force, she conceived of the first long-distance-tow-gliders for troops.
Kevin Costner He has invested $26 million in the development of a machine that uses a centrifuge to separate crude oil from seawater.
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/book-review-hedys-folly-by-richard-rhodes-12012011.html
Thursday, December 8, 2011
Books as Comfort by Karen Ballum
Unread books are full of possibilities -- there's more to learn and new worlds to discover. I've been using books to escape since before I could read. Re-reading books is like visiting old friends. There are books I read with the seasons -- Dickens at Christmas, something scary and gothic in autumn. When I crave independence I re-read L.M. Montgomery's The Blue Castle. If I need to laugh I grab something from Christopher Moore. When I find myself getting the itch to learn something I grab one of the many history volumes I stock up for just such occasions. Are there books or authors you read at certain times or when you are in certain moods? Do you stock up on books for some day in the future? http://www.blogher.com/bookclub/books-comfort
Add two names to the periodic table of elements, although you may want to write them in pencil for now. The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry — the scientific body that is the keeper of the list of elements — unveiled Dec. 1 the proposed names for elements 114 and 116: flerovium (atomic symbol Fl) and livermorium (atomic symbol Lv). If you do not like them, now is the time to voice your objections. The chemistry union will have a five-month comment period open to anyone.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/02/science/names-proposed-for-new-elements-on-periodic-table.html
IUAPC Periodic Table of the Elements: http://old.iupac.org/reports/periodic_table/
Libraries have a certain amount of space and a certain amount of money. The careful culling of books is painstaking work. Not only are there challenges that come from the limited space and the vast number of new books that come out every year (and month) (and week), but the number of functions that library users are looking for from libraries is increasing as well. Libraries have book sales and, in some cases, permanent bookstores for books they don't want to keep (there's a bookstore just like that at the University of Florida). On top of that, there are growing initiatives to create "shared print repositories," where books can be stored offsite and remain available for retrieval when they're needed. It's not as convenient as keeping books on-site, but it means you can still give your users access to that book. There's also some help to be found in some of the same technologies that have sometimes been pitted against the printed book. There's a massive online library catalog called WorldCat that helps librarians (and others) know how many copies of a book other libraries are holding. It would presumably not be as big of a deal to get rid of a book 3,000 other libraries have as it is to dispose of one of the last three copies of something that remain available for borrowers.
Thanks, Sam. Read much more at: http://www.npr.org/blogs/monkeysee/2011/10/12/141265066/hard-choices-do-libraries-really-destroy-books
The popular, painted calabash gourds of the Caribbean, Mexico and Central America come from a native tropical American tree that belongs to the Bignonia Family (Bignoniaceae), along with catalpa and jacaranda trees. Although calabash gourds can be large, they are not the largest tree-bearing fruit. Another unrelated cauliflorous tree called jackfruit (Artocarpus heterophylla) bears the world's most massive tree-bearing fruits from its trunk and lower branches. Native to the Indo-Malaysian region, the jackfruit is grown throughout the tropics for its pulpy, edible fruits which may reach nearly 3 feet (1 m) in length and weigh up to 75 pounds (34 kg). Jackfruit and its close relative, breadfruit (A. altilis), belong to the diverse Mulberry Family (Moraceae). Dried calabash gourds are painted in bright colors and are fashioned into all sorts of decorative and useful objects, including shakers, bowls and containers. Read much more at The Wild & Wonderful World of Gourds: http://waynesword.palomar.edu/ww0503.htm
Note that the Kora is a plucked harp-lute with a large calabash (gourd) body.
Jimmy Durante signed off his radio program with "Good night, Mrs. Calabash." He added "wherever you are" after the first year. At a National Press Club meeting in 1966 Durante revealed that it was a tribute to his first wife, Jeanne, who died in 1943.
Modern sanctuary for two avid cyclists in Southeast Portland
On a frigid winter evening, after the sun has dipped behind the trees, Tim Butler heads out for a bike ride. Shedding his daytime financial-analyst apparel in favor of cycling garb, he traverses the rainy streets for an hour or two before heading home for the night. His wife, Sue, one of the top cyclists in the world, makes dinner; she took a three-hour bicycle ride earlier in the day and has her suitcases packed in preparation for yet another race over the weekend. Eighteen bicycles, all Cannondales except for a single Litespeed, are lined up in the garage. The Butlers discuss recent rides and flat tires while they eat. The couple lives and breathes on two wheels, so it comes as no surprise that they built their home around their shared obsession. “We were running out of space at our condo, and we had overtaken the whole communal boiler room with our bikes,” Sue explains of their impetus to build a house. “And coming home from cyclocross races, we’d traipse upstairs in muddy clothes to use the community washing machines.” So the two enlisted the help of Path Architecture, a local firm headed by Ben Kaiser and Corey Martin, to create a home that not only evokes their love of the outdoors but also meets their need to restore both bodies and bicycles. Because the Butlers prefer unobstructed spaces, there are only two doors inside: one for the guest bedroom and one for the bathroom. The rest of the 2,000-square-foot interior is a series of expansive rooms that spiral up and around the fireplace. Sparsely furnished, the emphasis is on the sense of space and the view rather than on belongings—it’s a place for the couple to relax after hard days on their bikes. Perched on the third floor, overlooking the back courtyard, the master bedroom is a light-filled aerie. In temperate weather, the Butlers slide open the six-foot door to the adjoining porch and lie in bed watching the clouds drift above the treetops. “You can’t see the other houses. It’s like you’re in a tree house,” Sue says. As for the Butlers’ bicycles, those live across the courtyard in an outbuilding divided into two spaces. The first space, at the end of the driveway, is a garage for bicycles. Inside, bicycles hang on hooks in neat lines. Rows of labeled plastic bins hold spare parts, nutrition bars, and gels. A stacked washer and dryer in the corner stand at the ready for muddy jerseys and tights. Outside, there’s even a warm-water hose for washing off dirty bicycles on cold, rainy days. The other half of the outbuilding is separated from the mud and grease of the bicycle storage area by a small breezeway. The main room is a home gym that features what Sue calls the “Wall of Fame”—photos of the pair’s racing exploits. The pictures document Sue’s impressive rise in just five years from complete cycling novice to a competitor in last year’s UCI Cyclocross World Championships (she’s sponsored by MonaVie Cannondale). In the corner, at the top of two large Columbia basalt stone steps (another reference to the Gorge), sits a slender cedar bench that leads into an all-cedar custom sauna furnished with more movable benches. “It’s really nice after a cold ride,” says Sue. “When it’s chilly, Tim takes a shower, then goes in the sauna, and he’s as happy as a clam.” Amara Holstein January 2010
See pictures and slideshow at: http://www.portlandmonthlymag.com/home-and-garden/articles/architecture-path-0110/
Bicyclists' house built for two, a December 2, 2011 update by Nancy Keates
Tall and narrow, reflecting the limitations of a skinny lot, the 2,800-square-foot two-bedroom, 2½-bathroom house looks like a mini, modern, wood-clad version of a high rise. Horizontal wood slats compensate for its verticalness, and a cedar wall that rings the house and garage creates the look of a compound. Exterior wood louvers slide across the windows to act as sun screens. See amazing pictures at: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204262304577068260202452078.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
Botts' dots are round nonreflective raised pavement markers. In many U.S. states and in several other countries, Botts' dots are used (along with reflective raised pavement markers) to mark lanes on highways and arterial roads. They provide tactile feedback to drivers when they move across designated travel lanes, and are analogous to rumble strips. Botts' dots are named after Dr. Elbert Dysart Botts, a California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) engineer credited with overseeing the research that led to the development of the markers. Botts' dots are most commonly white but may also be yellow when used to substitute for the yellow lines that divide opposing directions of traffic in North America. The dots are made of various ceramic materials, or plastics like polyester. On some roads, lanes are marked only with a mix of Botts' dots and conventional reflective markers, eliminating the need to repaint lane divider lines. Botts' dots are rarely used in regions with substantial snowfall, because snow plows damage or dislodge them. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Botts'_dots
The term bouma is sometimes used in the work of cognitive psychology to mean the shape of a cluster of letters, often a whole word. It is a reduction of "Bouma-shape", which was probably first used in Paul Saenger's 1997 book Space between Words: The Origins of Silent Reading, although Saenger himself attributes it to Insup & Maurice Martin Taylor. Its origin is in reference to hypotheses by a prominent vision researcher, H. Bouma, who studied the shapes and confusability of letters and letter strings. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bouma
Brussels, 06 December 2011 - The European Commission has opened formal antitrust proceedings to investigate whether international publishers Hachette Livre (Lagard̬re Publishing, France), Harper Collins (News Corp., USA), Simon & Schuster (CBS Corp., USA), Penguin (Pearson Group, United Kingdom) and Verlagsgruppe Georg von Holzbrinck (owner of inter alia Macmillan, Germany) have, possibly with the help of Apple, engaged in anti-competitive practices affecting the sale of e-books in the European Economic Area (EEA), in breach of EU antitrust rules. The opening of proceedings means that the Commission will treat the case as a matter of priority. It does not prejudge the outcome of the investigation. The Commission will in particular investigate whether these publishing groups and Apple have engaged in illegal agreements or practices that would have the object or the effect of restricting competition in the EU or in the EEA. The Commission is also examining the character and terms of the agency agreements entered into by the above named five publishers and retailers for the sale of e-books. The Commission has concerns, that these practices may breach EU antitrust rules that prohibit cartels and restrictive business practices (Article 101 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union РTFEU). Thanks, Julie.
http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/11/1509&format=HTML&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en
Unread books are full of possibilities -- there's more to learn and new worlds to discover. I've been using books to escape since before I could read. Re-reading books is like visiting old friends. There are books I read with the seasons -- Dickens at Christmas, something scary and gothic in autumn. When I crave independence I re-read L.M. Montgomery's The Blue Castle. If I need to laugh I grab something from Christopher Moore. When I find myself getting the itch to learn something I grab one of the many history volumes I stock up for just such occasions. Are there books or authors you read at certain times or when you are in certain moods? Do you stock up on books for some day in the future? http://www.blogher.com/bookclub/books-comfort
Add two names to the periodic table of elements, although you may want to write them in pencil for now. The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry — the scientific body that is the keeper of the list of elements — unveiled Dec. 1 the proposed names for elements 114 and 116: flerovium (atomic symbol Fl) and livermorium (atomic symbol Lv). If you do not like them, now is the time to voice your objections. The chemistry union will have a five-month comment period open to anyone.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/02/science/names-proposed-for-new-elements-on-periodic-table.html
IUAPC Periodic Table of the Elements: http://old.iupac.org/reports/periodic_table/
Libraries have a certain amount of space and a certain amount of money. The careful culling of books is painstaking work. Not only are there challenges that come from the limited space and the vast number of new books that come out every year (and month) (and week), but the number of functions that library users are looking for from libraries is increasing as well. Libraries have book sales and, in some cases, permanent bookstores for books they don't want to keep (there's a bookstore just like that at the University of Florida). On top of that, there are growing initiatives to create "shared print repositories," where books can be stored offsite and remain available for retrieval when they're needed. It's not as convenient as keeping books on-site, but it means you can still give your users access to that book. There's also some help to be found in some of the same technologies that have sometimes been pitted against the printed book. There's a massive online library catalog called WorldCat that helps librarians (and others) know how many copies of a book other libraries are holding. It would presumably not be as big of a deal to get rid of a book 3,000 other libraries have as it is to dispose of one of the last three copies of something that remain available for borrowers.
Thanks, Sam. Read much more at: http://www.npr.org/blogs/monkeysee/2011/10/12/141265066/hard-choices-do-libraries-really-destroy-books
The popular, painted calabash gourds of the Caribbean, Mexico and Central America come from a native tropical American tree that belongs to the Bignonia Family (Bignoniaceae), along with catalpa and jacaranda trees. Although calabash gourds can be large, they are not the largest tree-bearing fruit. Another unrelated cauliflorous tree called jackfruit (Artocarpus heterophylla) bears the world's most massive tree-bearing fruits from its trunk and lower branches. Native to the Indo-Malaysian region, the jackfruit is grown throughout the tropics for its pulpy, edible fruits which may reach nearly 3 feet (1 m) in length and weigh up to 75 pounds (34 kg). Jackfruit and its close relative, breadfruit (A. altilis), belong to the diverse Mulberry Family (Moraceae). Dried calabash gourds are painted in bright colors and are fashioned into all sorts of decorative and useful objects, including shakers, bowls and containers. Read much more at The Wild & Wonderful World of Gourds: http://waynesword.palomar.edu/ww0503.htm
Note that the Kora is a plucked harp-lute with a large calabash (gourd) body.
Jimmy Durante signed off his radio program with "Good night, Mrs. Calabash." He added "wherever you are" after the first year. At a National Press Club meeting in 1966 Durante revealed that it was a tribute to his first wife, Jeanne, who died in 1943.
Modern sanctuary for two avid cyclists in Southeast Portland
On a frigid winter evening, after the sun has dipped behind the trees, Tim Butler heads out for a bike ride. Shedding his daytime financial-analyst apparel in favor of cycling garb, he traverses the rainy streets for an hour or two before heading home for the night. His wife, Sue, one of the top cyclists in the world, makes dinner; she took a three-hour bicycle ride earlier in the day and has her suitcases packed in preparation for yet another race over the weekend. Eighteen bicycles, all Cannondales except for a single Litespeed, are lined up in the garage. The Butlers discuss recent rides and flat tires while they eat. The couple lives and breathes on two wheels, so it comes as no surprise that they built their home around their shared obsession. “We were running out of space at our condo, and we had overtaken the whole communal boiler room with our bikes,” Sue explains of their impetus to build a house. “And coming home from cyclocross races, we’d traipse upstairs in muddy clothes to use the community washing machines.” So the two enlisted the help of Path Architecture, a local firm headed by Ben Kaiser and Corey Martin, to create a home that not only evokes their love of the outdoors but also meets their need to restore both bodies and bicycles. Because the Butlers prefer unobstructed spaces, there are only two doors inside: one for the guest bedroom and one for the bathroom. The rest of the 2,000-square-foot interior is a series of expansive rooms that spiral up and around the fireplace. Sparsely furnished, the emphasis is on the sense of space and the view rather than on belongings—it’s a place for the couple to relax after hard days on their bikes. Perched on the third floor, overlooking the back courtyard, the master bedroom is a light-filled aerie. In temperate weather, the Butlers slide open the six-foot door to the adjoining porch and lie in bed watching the clouds drift above the treetops. “You can’t see the other houses. It’s like you’re in a tree house,” Sue says. As for the Butlers’ bicycles, those live across the courtyard in an outbuilding divided into two spaces. The first space, at the end of the driveway, is a garage for bicycles. Inside, bicycles hang on hooks in neat lines. Rows of labeled plastic bins hold spare parts, nutrition bars, and gels. A stacked washer and dryer in the corner stand at the ready for muddy jerseys and tights. Outside, there’s even a warm-water hose for washing off dirty bicycles on cold, rainy days. The other half of the outbuilding is separated from the mud and grease of the bicycle storage area by a small breezeway. The main room is a home gym that features what Sue calls the “Wall of Fame”—photos of the pair’s racing exploits. The pictures document Sue’s impressive rise in just five years from complete cycling novice to a competitor in last year’s UCI Cyclocross World Championships (she’s sponsored by MonaVie Cannondale). In the corner, at the top of two large Columbia basalt stone steps (another reference to the Gorge), sits a slender cedar bench that leads into an all-cedar custom sauna furnished with more movable benches. “It’s really nice after a cold ride,” says Sue. “When it’s chilly, Tim takes a shower, then goes in the sauna, and he’s as happy as a clam.” Amara Holstein January 2010
See pictures and slideshow at: http://www.portlandmonthlymag.com/home-and-garden/articles/architecture-path-0110/
Bicyclists' house built for two, a December 2, 2011 update by Nancy Keates
Tall and narrow, reflecting the limitations of a skinny lot, the 2,800-square-foot two-bedroom, 2½-bathroom house looks like a mini, modern, wood-clad version of a high rise. Horizontal wood slats compensate for its verticalness, and a cedar wall that rings the house and garage creates the look of a compound. Exterior wood louvers slide across the windows to act as sun screens. See amazing pictures at: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204262304577068260202452078.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
Botts' dots are round nonreflective raised pavement markers. In many U.S. states and in several other countries, Botts' dots are used (along with reflective raised pavement markers) to mark lanes on highways and arterial roads. They provide tactile feedback to drivers when they move across designated travel lanes, and are analogous to rumble strips. Botts' dots are named after Dr. Elbert Dysart Botts, a California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) engineer credited with overseeing the research that led to the development of the markers. Botts' dots are most commonly white but may also be yellow when used to substitute for the yellow lines that divide opposing directions of traffic in North America. The dots are made of various ceramic materials, or plastics like polyester. On some roads, lanes are marked only with a mix of Botts' dots and conventional reflective markers, eliminating the need to repaint lane divider lines. Botts' dots are rarely used in regions with substantial snowfall, because snow plows damage or dislodge them. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Botts'_dots
The term bouma is sometimes used in the work of cognitive psychology to mean the shape of a cluster of letters, often a whole word. It is a reduction of "Bouma-shape", which was probably first used in Paul Saenger's 1997 book Space between Words: The Origins of Silent Reading, although Saenger himself attributes it to Insup & Maurice Martin Taylor. Its origin is in reference to hypotheses by a prominent vision researcher, H. Bouma, who studied the shapes and confusability of letters and letter strings. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bouma
Brussels, 06 December 2011 - The European Commission has opened formal antitrust proceedings to investigate whether international publishers Hachette Livre (Lagard̬re Publishing, France), Harper Collins (News Corp., USA), Simon & Schuster (CBS Corp., USA), Penguin (Pearson Group, United Kingdom) and Verlagsgruppe Georg von Holzbrinck (owner of inter alia Macmillan, Germany) have, possibly with the help of Apple, engaged in anti-competitive practices affecting the sale of e-books in the European Economic Area (EEA), in breach of EU antitrust rules. The opening of proceedings means that the Commission will treat the case as a matter of priority. It does not prejudge the outcome of the investigation. The Commission will in particular investigate whether these publishing groups and Apple have engaged in illegal agreements or practices that would have the object or the effect of restricting competition in the EU or in the EEA. The Commission is also examining the character and terms of the agency agreements entered into by the above named five publishers and retailers for the sale of e-books. The Commission has concerns, that these practices may breach EU antitrust rules that prohibit cartels and restrictive business practices (Article 101 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union РTFEU). Thanks, Julie.
http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/11/1509&format=HTML&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en
Wednesday, December 7, 2011
FROM THE CENTER FOR SCIENCE IN THE PUBLIC INTEREST
Mycoprotein, the novel ingredient in Quorn-brand frozen meat substitutes, is made from processed mold (Fusarium venenatum). Though the manufacturer's (Marlow Foods) advertising and labeling implied that the product is "mushroom protein" or "mushroom in origin," the mold (or fungus) from which it is made does not produce mushrooms. Rather, the mold is grown in liquid solution in large tanks. It has been used in the United Kingdom since the 1990s and has also been sold in continental Europe. Quorn foods have been marketed in the United States since 2002. The chunks of imitation meat are nutritious, but the prepared foods in which they are used may be high in fat or salt. http://www.cspinet.org/reports/chemcuisine.htm#mycoprotein
Summary of the safety of food additives http://www.cspinet.org/reports/chemcuisine.htm#safety_summary
Manhattan is home to some of the country's oldest and most celebrated pizzerias, but the great metropolis also holds many mediocre slices. Colin Hagendorf has tasted it all. Hagendorf, a 28-year-old Brooklyn resident, may know New York-style pizza more exhaustively than any other living soul. During a 2½-year quest, he has sampled nearly every pie sold by the slice in Manhattan. The feat—involving 362 slice joints—is unmatched by any modern-day enthusiast, according to local pizza experts. Mr. Hagendorf began in August 2009 at Grandpa's Place near 211th Street and Broadway—in Manhattan's northernmost neighborhood—and worked his way down to the island's southern tip. He excluded from consideration national chains and cafeterias that don't make their own pizzas. The results are chronicled on Mr. Hagendorf's website, Slice Harvester, as well as in printed 'zines he assembles at copy shops and sells for $3 apiece—only slightly more than the price of the average cheese slice. The reviews are deeply personal and occasionally blue, written in the confessional manner of a pizza-obsessed Lenny Bruce. Each pizzeria gets a grade, from zero to an exalted eight. For Mr. Hagendorf, the best slices display balance above all, cheese and sauce used in moderation upon a solid yet supple crust. His slice-eating endeavor was born after a cross-country trip in 2009, when he grew outraged at a New York-style pizza served in Colorado Springs, Colo. After hearing him berate that, friends jokingly suggested Mr. Hagendorf market himself as a consultant for out-of-town pizzerias. Aaron Rutkoff http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203935604577064641987645430.html
Top Ten New York City Food Blogs
http://www.blogs.com/topten/top-10-new-york-city-food-blogs/
Farro is a food product consisting of the grains of certain wheat species in whole form. The exact definition is debated. It is sold dried and is prepared by cooking in water until soft, but still crunchy (many recommend first soaking over night). It may be eaten plain, though it is often used as an ingredient in dishes such as salads and soups. It is sometimes ground into flour and used to make pasta or bread. There is much confusion or disagreement about exactly what farro is. Emmer, spelt, and einkorn are called farro in Italy, sometimes (but not always) distinguished as farro medio, farro grande, and farro piccolo, respectively. Regional differences in what is grown locally and eaten as farro, as well as similarities between the three grains, may explain the confusion. Barley and farro may be used interchangeably because of their similar characteristics. Spelt is much more commonly grown in Germany and Switzerland and, though called dinkel there, is eaten and used in much the same way, and might therefore be considered farro. Common wheat may also be prepared and eaten much like farro, in which form it is often referred to as wheatberries. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farro
In the hyperconnected Western world, our preoccupation with technology is evident in the glut of new expressions now in common parlance. Cringeworthy they may be, but expressions such as 'Let's take this offline, 'Do you have bandwidth?' and 'My brain needs a reboot' signify tech has become interwoven into our language. The birth of new words, and new meanings for existing words, are the most obvious signs of what technology has wrought in linguistic terms. A significant number of new words are being driven into the language because of the increasingly pervasive role technology plays in our lives, according to lexicographer John Simpson, a senior editor of the Oxford English Dictionary. "Digital technology is one of the main motivating forces behind new vocabulary," he tells silicon.com.
See the A-Z of tech-inspired words at: http://www.silicon.com/technology/software/2011/11/21/from-lolcat-to-textspeak-how-technology-is-shaping-our-language-39747927/print/
Think outside the box
Give non-electronic modest gifts such as books, magazines, games (Apples to Apples, Scrabble), homemade items (soaps, candles, food, crafts), service ("IOU" for certain number of visits, phone calls, postcards or letters, preparing meals, cleaning house, mowing grass or shoveling snow), money (individual or charity). Keep in mind that many gift cards and tickets for shows or concerts are never used.
See "Gifts That Say You Care" by Nicholas D. Kristof at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/04/opinion/sunday/kristof-gifts-that-say-you-care.html
Feedback to A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg
From: Petronella J.C. Elema Subject: pharaoh Def: 1. A title of an ancient Egyptian ruler. 2. A tyrant.
Pharaoh (or faro) was the name of a card game as well -- all the rage in the 18th and even 19th century, with whole fortunes being gambled away!
From: Jamie Polichak Subject: Massachusett / Wampanoag is no longer extinct
Massachusett/Wampanoag is no longer extinct. It has been revived, with work beginning in 1993 by people of Wampanoag ancestry and the linguistics department at MIT. It is the subject of a PBS documentary We Still Live Here.
http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/we-still-live-here/film.html
From: Clyde Johnson Subject: wampum
In my study of the American Indian I found it fascinating that wampum was also used as a record (history) of events in the life of the tribe by the pictograms that were woven into the wampum belt.
How much a person eats can be affected by the colors of the dinnerware and tablecloth, suggests a new study published in the Journal of Consumer Research. Previous research has shown the size of a dinner plate influences the quantity of food people consume—the larger the dish, the bigger the portion, and vice versa. A series of experiments by two U.S. researchers found participants served themselves significantly more food if the color contrast between the dinnerware and the food was low—for example, cream-colored pasta on a white plate. Overserving was reduced, however, when the contrast was more pronounced, for instance, by offering pasta with red tomato sauce on a white plate, the study found. The opposite occurred when dinnerware was contrasted with an underlying tablecloth. When the color difference was high, as with a white plate on a black tablecloth, for instance, participants served themselves about 10% larger portions than when the contrast was low. Excess portion size was essentially eliminated when contrast was removed, such as a white plate on a white tablecloth. The experiments, which involved about 200 participants 18 to 39 years old, were based on an optical illusion described by philosopher Franz Delboeuf in 1865. He discovered that if the same-size circle is placed inside two separate circles with different circumference sizes, the inner circles appear to be different sizes as well. Ann Lukits
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204753404577066253349009674.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
See Plate Size and Color Suggestibility: The Delboeuf Illusion's Bias on Serving and Eating Behavior by Koert Van Ittersum and Brian Wansink, Journal of Consumer Research http://www.jstor.org/pss/10.1086/662615
The Delboeuf illusion is an optical illusion of relative size perception. In the best-known version of the illusion, two circles of identical size have been placed near to each other and one is surrounded by an annulus; the surrounded circle then appears larger than the non-surrounded circle if the annulus is close, while appearing smaller than the non-surrounded circle if the annulus is distant. See example of the illusion at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delboeuf_illusion
Product placement, or embedded marketing, is a form of advertisement, where branded goods or services are placed in a context usually devoid of ads, such as movies, music videos, the story line of television shows, or news programs. The product placement is often not disclosed at the time that the good or service is featured. Product placement is an investment for brands trying to reach a niche audience, and there are strong reasons for investors to expect that film product placement will increase consumer awareness of a particular brand. Firms paid $722 million in fees, free product placement, and promotional support for film placement in 2005, and by 2010, spending on film placement is predicted to surge to 1.8 billion. In 2002, Volkswagen spent a estimated $200 million in fees to be integrated into NBC Universal films. Among the famous silent films to feature product placement was Wings (1927), the first film to win the Academy Award for Best Picture. It contained a plug for Hershey's chocolate. In Fritz Lang's film "M" released in (1931) there is a prominent banner display on a stair case in one scene for Wrigley's PK Chewing Gum which is right in the viewers eye for around 20-30 seconds. Another early example in film occurs in Horse Feathers (1932) where Thelma Todd's character falls out of a canoe and into a river. She calls for a life saver and Groucho Marx's character tosses her a Life Savers candy. The film It's a Wonderful Life (1946), directed by Frank Capra, depicts a young boy with aspirations to be an explorer, displaying a prominent copy of National Geographic. See many examples of placement, some "extreme," at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Product_placement Examples of reverse product placement (fictional brands brought to life) are Dunder Mifflin copy paper coming from television show The Office, and Bubba Gump Shrimp Co, coming from the film Forrest Gump.
Mycoprotein, the novel ingredient in Quorn-brand frozen meat substitutes, is made from processed mold (Fusarium venenatum). Though the manufacturer's (Marlow Foods) advertising and labeling implied that the product is "mushroom protein" or "mushroom in origin," the mold (or fungus) from which it is made does not produce mushrooms. Rather, the mold is grown in liquid solution in large tanks. It has been used in the United Kingdom since the 1990s and has also been sold in continental Europe. Quorn foods have been marketed in the United States since 2002. The chunks of imitation meat are nutritious, but the prepared foods in which they are used may be high in fat or salt. http://www.cspinet.org/reports/chemcuisine.htm#mycoprotein
Summary of the safety of food additives http://www.cspinet.org/reports/chemcuisine.htm#safety_summary
Manhattan is home to some of the country's oldest and most celebrated pizzerias, but the great metropolis also holds many mediocre slices. Colin Hagendorf has tasted it all. Hagendorf, a 28-year-old Brooklyn resident, may know New York-style pizza more exhaustively than any other living soul. During a 2½-year quest, he has sampled nearly every pie sold by the slice in Manhattan. The feat—involving 362 slice joints—is unmatched by any modern-day enthusiast, according to local pizza experts. Mr. Hagendorf began in August 2009 at Grandpa's Place near 211th Street and Broadway—in Manhattan's northernmost neighborhood—and worked his way down to the island's southern tip. He excluded from consideration national chains and cafeterias that don't make their own pizzas. The results are chronicled on Mr. Hagendorf's website, Slice Harvester, as well as in printed 'zines he assembles at copy shops and sells for $3 apiece—only slightly more than the price of the average cheese slice. The reviews are deeply personal and occasionally blue, written in the confessional manner of a pizza-obsessed Lenny Bruce. Each pizzeria gets a grade, from zero to an exalted eight. For Mr. Hagendorf, the best slices display balance above all, cheese and sauce used in moderation upon a solid yet supple crust. His slice-eating endeavor was born after a cross-country trip in 2009, when he grew outraged at a New York-style pizza served in Colorado Springs, Colo. After hearing him berate that, friends jokingly suggested Mr. Hagendorf market himself as a consultant for out-of-town pizzerias. Aaron Rutkoff http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203935604577064641987645430.html
Top Ten New York City Food Blogs
http://www.blogs.com/topten/top-10-new-york-city-food-blogs/
Farro is a food product consisting of the grains of certain wheat species in whole form. The exact definition is debated. It is sold dried and is prepared by cooking in water until soft, but still crunchy (many recommend first soaking over night). It may be eaten plain, though it is often used as an ingredient in dishes such as salads and soups. It is sometimes ground into flour and used to make pasta or bread. There is much confusion or disagreement about exactly what farro is. Emmer, spelt, and einkorn are called farro in Italy, sometimes (but not always) distinguished as farro medio, farro grande, and farro piccolo, respectively. Regional differences in what is grown locally and eaten as farro, as well as similarities between the three grains, may explain the confusion. Barley and farro may be used interchangeably because of their similar characteristics. Spelt is much more commonly grown in Germany and Switzerland and, though called dinkel there, is eaten and used in much the same way, and might therefore be considered farro. Common wheat may also be prepared and eaten much like farro, in which form it is often referred to as wheatberries. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farro
In the hyperconnected Western world, our preoccupation with technology is evident in the glut of new expressions now in common parlance. Cringeworthy they may be, but expressions such as 'Let's take this offline, 'Do you have bandwidth?' and 'My brain needs a reboot' signify tech has become interwoven into our language. The birth of new words, and new meanings for existing words, are the most obvious signs of what technology has wrought in linguistic terms. A significant number of new words are being driven into the language because of the increasingly pervasive role technology plays in our lives, according to lexicographer John Simpson, a senior editor of the Oxford English Dictionary. "Digital technology is one of the main motivating forces behind new vocabulary," he tells silicon.com.
See the A-Z of tech-inspired words at: http://www.silicon.com/technology/software/2011/11/21/from-lolcat-to-textspeak-how-technology-is-shaping-our-language-39747927/print/
Think outside the box
Give non-electronic modest gifts such as books, magazines, games (Apples to Apples, Scrabble), homemade items (soaps, candles, food, crafts), service ("IOU" for certain number of visits, phone calls, postcards or letters, preparing meals, cleaning house, mowing grass or shoveling snow), money (individual or charity). Keep in mind that many gift cards and tickets for shows or concerts are never used.
See "Gifts That Say You Care" by Nicholas D. Kristof at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/04/opinion/sunday/kristof-gifts-that-say-you-care.html
Feedback to A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg
From: Petronella J.C. Elema Subject: pharaoh Def: 1. A title of an ancient Egyptian ruler. 2. A tyrant.
Pharaoh (or faro) was the name of a card game as well -- all the rage in the 18th and even 19th century, with whole fortunes being gambled away!
From: Jamie Polichak Subject: Massachusett / Wampanoag is no longer extinct
Massachusett/Wampanoag is no longer extinct. It has been revived, with work beginning in 1993 by people of Wampanoag ancestry and the linguistics department at MIT. It is the subject of a PBS documentary We Still Live Here.
http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/we-still-live-here/film.html
From: Clyde Johnson Subject: wampum
In my study of the American Indian I found it fascinating that wampum was also used as a record (history) of events in the life of the tribe by the pictograms that were woven into the wampum belt.
How much a person eats can be affected by the colors of the dinnerware and tablecloth, suggests a new study published in the Journal of Consumer Research. Previous research has shown the size of a dinner plate influences the quantity of food people consume—the larger the dish, the bigger the portion, and vice versa. A series of experiments by two U.S. researchers found participants served themselves significantly more food if the color contrast between the dinnerware and the food was low—for example, cream-colored pasta on a white plate. Overserving was reduced, however, when the contrast was more pronounced, for instance, by offering pasta with red tomato sauce on a white plate, the study found. The opposite occurred when dinnerware was contrasted with an underlying tablecloth. When the color difference was high, as with a white plate on a black tablecloth, for instance, participants served themselves about 10% larger portions than when the contrast was low. Excess portion size was essentially eliminated when contrast was removed, such as a white plate on a white tablecloth. The experiments, which involved about 200 participants 18 to 39 years old, were based on an optical illusion described by philosopher Franz Delboeuf in 1865. He discovered that if the same-size circle is placed inside two separate circles with different circumference sizes, the inner circles appear to be different sizes as well. Ann Lukits
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204753404577066253349009674.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
See Plate Size and Color Suggestibility: The Delboeuf Illusion's Bias on Serving and Eating Behavior by Koert Van Ittersum and Brian Wansink, Journal of Consumer Research http://www.jstor.org/pss/10.1086/662615
The Delboeuf illusion is an optical illusion of relative size perception. In the best-known version of the illusion, two circles of identical size have been placed near to each other and one is surrounded by an annulus; the surrounded circle then appears larger than the non-surrounded circle if the annulus is close, while appearing smaller than the non-surrounded circle if the annulus is distant. See example of the illusion at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delboeuf_illusion
Product placement, or embedded marketing, is a form of advertisement, where branded goods or services are placed in a context usually devoid of ads, such as movies, music videos, the story line of television shows, or news programs. The product placement is often not disclosed at the time that the good or service is featured. Product placement is an investment for brands trying to reach a niche audience, and there are strong reasons for investors to expect that film product placement will increase consumer awareness of a particular brand. Firms paid $722 million in fees, free product placement, and promotional support for film placement in 2005, and by 2010, spending on film placement is predicted to surge to 1.8 billion. In 2002, Volkswagen spent a estimated $200 million in fees to be integrated into NBC Universal films. Among the famous silent films to feature product placement was Wings (1927), the first film to win the Academy Award for Best Picture. It contained a plug for Hershey's chocolate. In Fritz Lang's film "M" released in (1931) there is a prominent banner display on a stair case in one scene for Wrigley's PK Chewing Gum which is right in the viewers eye for around 20-30 seconds. Another early example in film occurs in Horse Feathers (1932) where Thelma Todd's character falls out of a canoe and into a river. She calls for a life saver and Groucho Marx's character tosses her a Life Savers candy. The film It's a Wonderful Life (1946), directed by Frank Capra, depicts a young boy with aspirations to be an explorer, displaying a prominent copy of National Geographic. See many examples of placement, some "extreme," at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Product_placement Examples of reverse product placement (fictional brands brought to life) are Dunder Mifflin copy paper coming from television show The Office, and Bubba Gump Shrimp Co, coming from the film Forrest Gump.
Tuesday, December 6, 2011
Brenda Priddy runs an international photo syndicate, Brenda Priddy & Co. Her business card reads “Automotive Spy Photography.” “People claim that we do industrial espionage,” she says, “but we do it all from public areas and without breaking any laws. Basically we spend hours and hours doing surveillance and stakeouts, hoping to catch sight of a future car.” This isn’t as easy as it sounds. Automakers take myriad measures to protect forthcoming models. They cloak vehicles during transport. They create “mules,” cars with updated running gear hidden under the body of a current model. And they use camouflage—darkened trim, grafted prosthetics, black vinyl patches, or arresting paint patterns. “If you catch an action shot of our vehicles driving, you won’t be able to catch a clear shot of a feature line on the exterior,” says Corey Davis, who, as General Motors’ former quality audit supervisor for pre-production operations, was responsible for camouflage inspection. The subterfuge may seem absurd, but for automakers the stakes are huge. Not only are they working to prevent their intellectual property from being appropriated by their competitors, they’re also defending their current products, especially those that remain unsold. http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/how-new-car-models-end-up-unmasked-11232011.html
The Fish Barcode of Life Initiative (FISH-BOL), is a global effort to coordinate an assembly of a standardised reference sequence library for all fish species, one that is derived from voucher specimens with authoritative taxonomic identifications. The benefits of barcoding fishes include facilitating species identification for all potential users, including taxonomists; highlighting specimens that represent a range expansion of known species; flagging previously unrecognized species; and perhaps most importantly, enabling identifications where traditional methods are not applicable. See map showing major fisheries regions of the Food and Agriculture Organization, United Nations (FAO) at: http://www.fishbol.org/
U.S. Route 6 (US 6), also called the Grand Army of the Republic Highway, a name that honors an American Civil War veterans association, is a main route of the U.S. Highway system, running east-northeast from Bishop, California to Provincetown, Massachusetts. Until 1964, it continued south from Bishop to Long Beach, California, and was a transcontinental route. After U.S. Route 20, it is the second-longest U.S. highway in the United States and the longest continuous highway. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Route_6
The University of Pittsburgh owns one of the rare, complete sets of John James Audubon’s Birds of America. It is considered to be the single most valuable set of volumes in the collections of the University Library System (ULS). Only 120 complete sets are known to exist. While Audubon was creating Birds of America, he was also working on a companion publication, namely, his Ornithological Biography. Both of these sets were acquired by William M. Darlington in the mid-nineteenth century and later donated, as part of his extensive library, to the University of Pittsburgh. The Darlington Digital Library http://digital.library.pitt.edu/d/darlington/ includes significant historical materials, such as rare books, maps, atlases, illustrations, and manuscripts, the ULS charted an ambitious course to digitize a large portion of Mr. Darlington’s collection, including the Birds of America.
http://digital.library.pitt.edu/a/audubon/
A ruminant is a mammal of the order Artiodactyla that digests plant-based food by initially softening it within the animal's first compartment of the stomach, principally through bacterial actions, then regurgitating the semi-digested mass, now known as cud, and chewing it again. The process of rechewing the cud to further break down plant matter and stimulate digestion is called "ruminating". There are about 150 species of ruminants which include both domestic and wild species. Ruminating mammals include cattle, goats, sheep, giraffes, bison, moose, elk, yaks, water buffalo, deer, camels, alpacas, llamas, antelope, pronghorn, and nilgai. Taxonomically, the suborder Ruminantia includes all those species except the camels, llamas, and alpacas, which are Tylopoda. Therefore, the term 'ruminant' is not synonymous with Ruminantia. The word "ruminant" comes from the Latin ruminare, which means "to chew over again". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruminant
The most significant gesture in business and in life is a handshake. In many cultures it is the unspoken message that accompanies our words. A handshake often takes place when you meet someone new, when you are greeting someone you haven't seen in a while, when you leave a party or meeting, when you offer congratulations or when you agree on a contract or working arrangement. Historians agree that the handshake was most likely developed several hundred years ago in England as a method to communicate that you were empty-handed and unarmed during a meeting. Weapons were often concealed in the left sleeve so shaking was done with the left hand. As more people began to travel without weapons it became common to shake with the right hand. http://ezinearticles.com/?Shaking-Hands-Throughout-History-and-Around-the-World&id=715550
Lucy King's work proved that beehive "fences" can keep elephants out of African farmers' fields or compounds. The animals are scared of bees, which can sting them inside their trunks, and flee when they hear buzzing. Dr King received the Unep/CMS Thesis Prize at the Convention on Migratory Species (CMS) meeting in Norway.
Working in Kenya, she and her team showed that more than 90% of elephants will flee when they hear the sounds of buzzing bees. Subsequently, they also found that elephants produce a special rumble to warn their fellows of the danger.
They used the findings to construct barriers where beehives are woven into a fence, keeping the elephants away from places where people live and grow food. A two-year pilot project involving 34 farms showed that elephants trying to go through the fences would shake them, disturbing the bees. Later, the fences were adopted by farming communities in three Kenyan districts - who also made increased amounts of money from selling honey. "Dr Lucy King has designed a constructive solution that considers the needs of migratory animals but also the economic benefits to the local communities linked to species conservation," said CMS executive secretary Elizabeth Maruma Mrema. The elephants run away from bees - and from the lands that people have settled. As Africa's population grows, competition for space between people and elephants is becoming more serious, and there are fatalities on both sides. The same is true in parts of Asia. Sri Lanka alone sees the deaths of an estimated 60 people and 200 elephants each year from conflict.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-15836079
Revolution! The Atlantic World Reborn New York Historical Society
November 11, 2011 - Apr 15 2012 Exhibition will travel; venues to be determined
The exhibition explores the enormous transformations in the world’s politics and culture between the 1763 triumph of the British Empire in the Seven Years' War and the end of the Napoleonic Wars. Responding to growing public interest in the history of other cultures, Revolution! compares three globally influential revolutions in America, France and Haiti. The story of the 18th-century Atlantic revolutions is explained as a global narrative. Find address of museum and hours open at: http://www.nyhistory.org/exhibitions/revolution-the-atlantic-world-reborn
Browse the collection of the Patricia D. Klingenstein Library at: http://www.nyhistory.org/library
Q. Well, Doctor, what have we got--a Republic or a Monarchy? A. A Republic, if you can keep it.
The response is attributed to Benjamin Franklin--at the close of the Constitutional Convention of 1787, when queried as he left Independence Hall on the final day of deliberation--in the notes of Dr James McHenry, one of Maryland's delegates to the convention. http://www.bartleby.com/73/1593.html
Law enforcement’s use of cell phones and GPS devices to track an individual’s movements brings into sharp relief the challenge of reconciling technology, privacy, and law. Beyond the Constitution, a miscellany of statutes and cases may apply to these tracking activities. One such statute is the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986 (ECPA), P.L. 99-508, 100 Stat. 1848 (1986), which protects individual privacy and governs the methods by which law enforcement may retrieve electronic communications information for investigative purposes, including pen registers, trap and trace devices, wiretaps, and tracking devices. The primary debate surrounding cell phone and GPS tracking is not whether they are permitted by statute but rather what legal standard should apply: probable cause, reasonable suspicion, or something less. Legislation has been introduced in the 112th Congress that proposes to update, clarify, or, in some instances, strengthen the privacy interests protected under the law and give law enforcement a clearer framework for obtaining crucial crime-fighting information. Read Governmental Tracking of Cell Phones and Vehicles: The Confluence of Privacy, Technology, and Law by Richard M. Thompson December 1, 2011 Congressional Research Service 7-5700 www.crs.gov R42109 at: https://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/intel/R42109.pdf
Dec. 6 in History 1884: The Washington Monument in Washington, D.C., is completed.
http://www.siftingsherald.com/mobiletopstories/x1904671249/Morning-Minutes-Dec-6
The Fish Barcode of Life Initiative (FISH-BOL), is a global effort to coordinate an assembly of a standardised reference sequence library for all fish species, one that is derived from voucher specimens with authoritative taxonomic identifications. The benefits of barcoding fishes include facilitating species identification for all potential users, including taxonomists; highlighting specimens that represent a range expansion of known species; flagging previously unrecognized species; and perhaps most importantly, enabling identifications where traditional methods are not applicable. See map showing major fisheries regions of the Food and Agriculture Organization, United Nations (FAO) at: http://www.fishbol.org/
U.S. Route 6 (US 6), also called the Grand Army of the Republic Highway, a name that honors an American Civil War veterans association, is a main route of the U.S. Highway system, running east-northeast from Bishop, California to Provincetown, Massachusetts. Until 1964, it continued south from Bishop to Long Beach, California, and was a transcontinental route. After U.S. Route 20, it is the second-longest U.S. highway in the United States and the longest continuous highway. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Route_6
The University of Pittsburgh owns one of the rare, complete sets of John James Audubon’s Birds of America. It is considered to be the single most valuable set of volumes in the collections of the University Library System (ULS). Only 120 complete sets are known to exist. While Audubon was creating Birds of America, he was also working on a companion publication, namely, his Ornithological Biography. Both of these sets were acquired by William M. Darlington in the mid-nineteenth century and later donated, as part of his extensive library, to the University of Pittsburgh. The Darlington Digital Library http://digital.library.pitt.edu/d/darlington/ includes significant historical materials, such as rare books, maps, atlases, illustrations, and manuscripts, the ULS charted an ambitious course to digitize a large portion of Mr. Darlington’s collection, including the Birds of America.
http://digital.library.pitt.edu/a/audubon/
A ruminant is a mammal of the order Artiodactyla that digests plant-based food by initially softening it within the animal's first compartment of the stomach, principally through bacterial actions, then regurgitating the semi-digested mass, now known as cud, and chewing it again. The process of rechewing the cud to further break down plant matter and stimulate digestion is called "ruminating". There are about 150 species of ruminants which include both domestic and wild species. Ruminating mammals include cattle, goats, sheep, giraffes, bison, moose, elk, yaks, water buffalo, deer, camels, alpacas, llamas, antelope, pronghorn, and nilgai. Taxonomically, the suborder Ruminantia includes all those species except the camels, llamas, and alpacas, which are Tylopoda. Therefore, the term 'ruminant' is not synonymous with Ruminantia. The word "ruminant" comes from the Latin ruminare, which means "to chew over again". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruminant
The most significant gesture in business and in life is a handshake. In many cultures it is the unspoken message that accompanies our words. A handshake often takes place when you meet someone new, when you are greeting someone you haven't seen in a while, when you leave a party or meeting, when you offer congratulations or when you agree on a contract or working arrangement. Historians agree that the handshake was most likely developed several hundred years ago in England as a method to communicate that you were empty-handed and unarmed during a meeting. Weapons were often concealed in the left sleeve so shaking was done with the left hand. As more people began to travel without weapons it became common to shake with the right hand. http://ezinearticles.com/?Shaking-Hands-Throughout-History-and-Around-the-World&id=715550
Lucy King's work proved that beehive "fences" can keep elephants out of African farmers' fields or compounds. The animals are scared of bees, which can sting them inside their trunks, and flee when they hear buzzing. Dr King received the Unep/CMS Thesis Prize at the Convention on Migratory Species (CMS) meeting in Norway.
Working in Kenya, she and her team showed that more than 90% of elephants will flee when they hear the sounds of buzzing bees. Subsequently, they also found that elephants produce a special rumble to warn their fellows of the danger.
They used the findings to construct barriers where beehives are woven into a fence, keeping the elephants away from places where people live and grow food. A two-year pilot project involving 34 farms showed that elephants trying to go through the fences would shake them, disturbing the bees. Later, the fences were adopted by farming communities in three Kenyan districts - who also made increased amounts of money from selling honey. "Dr Lucy King has designed a constructive solution that considers the needs of migratory animals but also the economic benefits to the local communities linked to species conservation," said CMS executive secretary Elizabeth Maruma Mrema. The elephants run away from bees - and from the lands that people have settled. As Africa's population grows, competition for space between people and elephants is becoming more serious, and there are fatalities on both sides. The same is true in parts of Asia. Sri Lanka alone sees the deaths of an estimated 60 people and 200 elephants each year from conflict.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-15836079
Revolution! The Atlantic World Reborn New York Historical Society
November 11, 2011 - Apr 15 2012 Exhibition will travel; venues to be determined
The exhibition explores the enormous transformations in the world’s politics and culture between the 1763 triumph of the British Empire in the Seven Years' War and the end of the Napoleonic Wars. Responding to growing public interest in the history of other cultures, Revolution! compares three globally influential revolutions in America, France and Haiti. The story of the 18th-century Atlantic revolutions is explained as a global narrative. Find address of museum and hours open at: http://www.nyhistory.org/exhibitions/revolution-the-atlantic-world-reborn
Browse the collection of the Patricia D. Klingenstein Library at: http://www.nyhistory.org/library
Q. Well, Doctor, what have we got--a Republic or a Monarchy? A. A Republic, if you can keep it.
The response is attributed to Benjamin Franklin--at the close of the Constitutional Convention of 1787, when queried as he left Independence Hall on the final day of deliberation--in the notes of Dr James McHenry, one of Maryland's delegates to the convention. http://www.bartleby.com/73/1593.html
Law enforcement’s use of cell phones and GPS devices to track an individual’s movements brings into sharp relief the challenge of reconciling technology, privacy, and law. Beyond the Constitution, a miscellany of statutes and cases may apply to these tracking activities. One such statute is the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986 (ECPA), P.L. 99-508, 100 Stat. 1848 (1986), which protects individual privacy and governs the methods by which law enforcement may retrieve electronic communications information for investigative purposes, including pen registers, trap and trace devices, wiretaps, and tracking devices. The primary debate surrounding cell phone and GPS tracking is not whether they are permitted by statute but rather what legal standard should apply: probable cause, reasonable suspicion, or something less. Legislation has been introduced in the 112th Congress that proposes to update, clarify, or, in some instances, strengthen the privacy interests protected under the law and give law enforcement a clearer framework for obtaining crucial crime-fighting information. Read Governmental Tracking of Cell Phones and Vehicles: The Confluence of Privacy, Technology, and Law by Richard M. Thompson December 1, 2011 Congressional Research Service 7-5700 www.crs.gov R42109 at: https://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/intel/R42109.pdf
Dec. 6 in History 1884: The Washington Monument in Washington, D.C., is completed.
http://www.siftingsherald.com/mobiletopstories/x1904671249/Morning-Minutes-Dec-6
Monday, December 5, 2011
wampum (WOM-puhm) noun
1. Beads made from shells, strung in strands, belts, etc. used for ceremonial purposes, jewelry, and money.
2. Money.
Short for Massachusett wampompeag, from wampan (white) + api (string) + -ag, plural suffix. Massachusett, now extinct, was a member of the Algonquian language family spoken in the US and Canada. Earliest documented use: 1636.
pharaoh (FAR-o) noun
1. A title of an ancient Egyptian ruler.
2. A tyrant.
Via Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, from Egyptian pr-o, from pr (house) + o (great). The designation was for the palace but later used to refer to the king, just as White House can refer to the US President. Earliest documented use: around 1175. Egyptian is an extinct language of ancient Egypt.
mantissa (man-TIS-uh) noun
1. An addition of little importance.
2. The decimal part of a logarithm or the positive fractional part of a number.
Via Latin mantisa/mantissa (makeweight, something put in a scale to complete a needed weight), from a now extinct language, Etruscan, once spoken in what is now Tuscany, Italy. Earliest documented use: 1641. A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg
Feedback to A.Word.A.Day
From: Peter Nau Subject: DIOXIDE error
"What is special about the word DIOXIDE? You don't have to be a chemist to know that it reads the same upside down."
Not true, and a chemist would know better, since symmetry is very important to chemists. Stand on your head, read DIOXIDE, and you'll see what I mean. The usual meaning for "upside down" is to rotate something by 180 degrees, which doesn't achieve what you have in mind. The word does read the same if you fold over the word in place, top to bottom -- or if you read its reflection in a mirror placed along the top or bottom edge of the word. Furthermore, if it's written on a piece of paper, it reads the same upside down, if you flip the paper over (top to bottom) and read it with a strong light shining through the paper. Yes, this is a symmetry problem. Any word has the same property if its spelling exclusively comprises some of these upper case letters: BCDEHIOX. The letters are the same upon top/bottom reflection (as described above). The reason this happens, is that if you draw a horizontal line across the middle of the letters, the top and bottom of each letter are mirror images of each other. 'K' can be written so as to have this property, but it usually isn't.
From: Peter Langston Subject: verisimilitude
You wrote: The word verisimilitude has alternating consonants and vowels. Can you find a longer word with this property? Yes, here are a few: adenolipomatosis, aluminosilicate, anatomicomedical, categorematical, epicoracohumeral, epatomelanosis, hepatoperitonitis, heterometabolic, katakinetomeric, medicobotanical,
overimaginative, papulovesicular, parasitological, pericanalicular, reticulatoramose, reticulatovenose, retinopapilitis, semimineralized, superacidulated, superoratorical, vesiculotubular.
From: Zack Fisher Subject: yob
The creation of words and names by reversing the spelling of (other) words brings to mind Horace Miner's classic article Body Ritual Among The Nacirema. The article was published in The American Anthropologist in June 1956 and describes the quaint body rituals among the highly superstitious Nacirema people. The Nacirema believe that "...the human body is ugly and that its natural tendency is to debility and disease." The article specifies various customs, including daily purification rituals, acquiring potions and charms from medicine men, and visiting the Latipso temple where "...ceremonies are so harsh that it is phenomenal that a fair proportion of the really sick natives who enter the temple ever recover." The article uses professional and slightly condescending language, as befits an anthropological study of such a backward tribe. This is all very well until you realize that "Nacirema" is "American" spelled backwards and "Latipso" is "[H]ospital" in reverse. The article makes a fun and educational read.
From: Nancy Gill Subject: spelled backwards
Knitters who make a mistake and un-knit what they have done back to the point of the error are said to be "tink"-ing their work -- knit spelled backwards.
Dec. 7, 2011 marks the 70th anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. President Roosevelt called the unprovoked attack "a day that will live in infamy." Almost overnight, the United States moved from an officially neutral observer to a key participant in a world-wide war. By attacking the United States, Japan brought the world's greatest industrial complex, a skilled and resolved labor force and the largest supply of strategic raw materials into the war on the side of the Allies. The war turned into global conflict involving every major power in the world. Find links to interviews and more at: http://ohsweb.ohiohistory.org/enews/1111d.shtml
In an effort to hold onto sales of cholesterol fighter Lipitor after the drug loses patent protection at the end of this month, Pfizer is planning to sell the pills at generic prices directly to patients. If successful, the risky move could rewrite the industry's playbook for selling medicines. To stem the exodus, Pfizer has partnered with Diplomat Specialty Pharmacy in Flint, Mich., to mail Lipitor to patients who order the pills directly through the pharmacy. Diplomat would bill the patients' health plans. Those that have contracted with Pfizer would pay about a generic price for Lipitor, while plans that didn't would pay a higher price. Long term, Pfizer is kick-starting sales in fast-growing emerging markets like China, where the drug maker is betting that growing numbers of people diagnosed with high cholesterol will pay more for a so-called branded generic version of the drug than cheaper no-names. The effort may provide a new road map for selling prescription drugs, one no longer circumscribed by 20 years of patent protection and a 1984 law that sought to curb drug spending by authorizing generics following a patent's expiration. Johathan D. Rockoff Read much more at:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203710704577052350701638614.html
The vine has a long history in Southern Italy. Oenotria, the land of vines, is what the Greeks affectionately called the modern-day ‘Mezzogiorno,’ the southern part of the Italian boot, in addition to Sicily. (It is important to know that) Southern Italy was effectively a Greek colony in the centuries before Christ, so much so, that the south was known as ‘Magna Graecia,’ literally ‘Greater Greece.’ When they colonized Southern Italy they brought with them one of the markers of civilization, the vine. Technically, the Phoenicians were the first to bring the vine, but it was the Greeks who brought both viticulture and viniculture, essentially a wine-making culture. http://www.colonialspirits.com/wine/oenotria-part-1
Italian wine is wine produced in Italy, a country which is home to some of the oldest wine-producing regions in the world. Italy is the world's largest wine producer, responsible for approximately one-fifth of world wine production in 2005. Italian wine is exported largely around the world and has market share of over 10% in most Asian countries like India. More than 1 million vineyards are under cultivation. Etruscans and Greek settlers produced wine in the country long before the Romans started developing their own vineyards in the 2nd century BC. Roman grape-growing and winemaking was prolific and well-organized, pioneering large-scale production and storage techniques like barrel-making and bottling. Italy's classification system has four classes of wine, with two falling under the EU category Quality Wine Produced in a Specific Region (QWPSR) and two falling under the category of 'table wine'. The four classes are:
Table Wine:
Vino da Tavola (VDT) - Denotes simply that the wine is made in Italy. The label usually indicates a basic wine, made for local consumption.
Indicazione Geografica Tipica (IGT) - Denotes wine from a more specific region within Italy. This appellation was created in 1992 for wines that were considered to be of higher quality than simple table wines, but which did not conform to the strict wine laws for their region. Before the IGT was created, "Super Tuscan" wines such as Tignanello were labeled Vino da Tavola.
QWPSR:
Denominazione di Origine Controllata (DOC)
Denominazione di Origine Controllata e Garantita (DOCG)
Find a list of Italian wines and Italy's 20 wine regions at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_wine
December 5: Day of Ashura (Islam, 2011); St Nicholas's Eve in various European countries; Father's Day in Thailand
1484 – Pope Innocent VIII issued the papal bull Summis desiderantes affectibus, giving Dominican Inquisitor Heinrich Kramer explicit authority to prosecute witchcraft in Germany.
1952 – The "Great Smog" began in London and lasted for five days, causing 12,000 deaths and leading to the Clean Air Act 1956.
See a picture of The Karnataka High Court, the High Court of the Indian state of Karnataka, is housed in a building named Attara Kacheri, meaning "eighteen offices" and more at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page
1. Beads made from shells, strung in strands, belts, etc. used for ceremonial purposes, jewelry, and money.
2. Money.
Short for Massachusett wampompeag, from wampan (white) + api (string) + -ag, plural suffix. Massachusett, now extinct, was a member of the Algonquian language family spoken in the US and Canada. Earliest documented use: 1636.
pharaoh (FAR-o) noun
1. A title of an ancient Egyptian ruler.
2. A tyrant.
Via Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, from Egyptian pr-o, from pr (house) + o (great). The designation was for the palace but later used to refer to the king, just as White House can refer to the US President. Earliest documented use: around 1175. Egyptian is an extinct language of ancient Egypt.
mantissa (man-TIS-uh) noun
1. An addition of little importance.
2. The decimal part of a logarithm or the positive fractional part of a number.
Via Latin mantisa/mantissa (makeweight, something put in a scale to complete a needed weight), from a now extinct language, Etruscan, once spoken in what is now Tuscany, Italy. Earliest documented use: 1641. A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg
Feedback to A.Word.A.Day
From: Peter Nau Subject: DIOXIDE error
"What is special about the word DIOXIDE? You don't have to be a chemist to know that it reads the same upside down."
Not true, and a chemist would know better, since symmetry is very important to chemists. Stand on your head, read DIOXIDE, and you'll see what I mean. The usual meaning for "upside down" is to rotate something by 180 degrees, which doesn't achieve what you have in mind. The word does read the same if you fold over the word in place, top to bottom -- or if you read its reflection in a mirror placed along the top or bottom edge of the word. Furthermore, if it's written on a piece of paper, it reads the same upside down, if you flip the paper over (top to bottom) and read it with a strong light shining through the paper. Yes, this is a symmetry problem. Any word has the same property if its spelling exclusively comprises some of these upper case letters: BCDEHIOX. The letters are the same upon top/bottom reflection (as described above). The reason this happens, is that if you draw a horizontal line across the middle of the letters, the top and bottom of each letter are mirror images of each other. 'K' can be written so as to have this property, but it usually isn't.
From: Peter Langston Subject: verisimilitude
You wrote: The word verisimilitude has alternating consonants and vowels. Can you find a longer word with this property? Yes, here are a few: adenolipomatosis, aluminosilicate, anatomicomedical, categorematical, epicoracohumeral, epatomelanosis, hepatoperitonitis, heterometabolic, katakinetomeric, medicobotanical,
overimaginative, papulovesicular, parasitological, pericanalicular, reticulatoramose, reticulatovenose, retinopapilitis, semimineralized, superacidulated, superoratorical, vesiculotubular.
From: Zack Fisher Subject: yob
The creation of words and names by reversing the spelling of (other) words brings to mind Horace Miner's classic article Body Ritual Among The Nacirema. The article was published in The American Anthropologist in June 1956 and describes the quaint body rituals among the highly superstitious Nacirema people. The Nacirema believe that "...the human body is ugly and that its natural tendency is to debility and disease." The article specifies various customs, including daily purification rituals, acquiring potions and charms from medicine men, and visiting the Latipso temple where "...ceremonies are so harsh that it is phenomenal that a fair proportion of the really sick natives who enter the temple ever recover." The article uses professional and slightly condescending language, as befits an anthropological study of such a backward tribe. This is all very well until you realize that "Nacirema" is "American" spelled backwards and "Latipso" is "[H]ospital" in reverse. The article makes a fun and educational read.
From: Nancy Gill Subject: spelled backwards
Knitters who make a mistake and un-knit what they have done back to the point of the error are said to be "tink"-ing their work -- knit spelled backwards.
Dec. 7, 2011 marks the 70th anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. President Roosevelt called the unprovoked attack "a day that will live in infamy." Almost overnight, the United States moved from an officially neutral observer to a key participant in a world-wide war. By attacking the United States, Japan brought the world's greatest industrial complex, a skilled and resolved labor force and the largest supply of strategic raw materials into the war on the side of the Allies. The war turned into global conflict involving every major power in the world. Find links to interviews and more at: http://ohsweb.ohiohistory.org/enews/1111d.shtml
In an effort to hold onto sales of cholesterol fighter Lipitor after the drug loses patent protection at the end of this month, Pfizer is planning to sell the pills at generic prices directly to patients. If successful, the risky move could rewrite the industry's playbook for selling medicines. To stem the exodus, Pfizer has partnered with Diplomat Specialty Pharmacy in Flint, Mich., to mail Lipitor to patients who order the pills directly through the pharmacy. Diplomat would bill the patients' health plans. Those that have contracted with Pfizer would pay about a generic price for Lipitor, while plans that didn't would pay a higher price. Long term, Pfizer is kick-starting sales in fast-growing emerging markets like China, where the drug maker is betting that growing numbers of people diagnosed with high cholesterol will pay more for a so-called branded generic version of the drug than cheaper no-names. The effort may provide a new road map for selling prescription drugs, one no longer circumscribed by 20 years of patent protection and a 1984 law that sought to curb drug spending by authorizing generics following a patent's expiration. Johathan D. Rockoff Read much more at:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203710704577052350701638614.html
The vine has a long history in Southern Italy. Oenotria, the land of vines, is what the Greeks affectionately called the modern-day ‘Mezzogiorno,’ the southern part of the Italian boot, in addition to Sicily. (It is important to know that) Southern Italy was effectively a Greek colony in the centuries before Christ, so much so, that the south was known as ‘Magna Graecia,’ literally ‘Greater Greece.’ When they colonized Southern Italy they brought with them one of the markers of civilization, the vine. Technically, the Phoenicians were the first to bring the vine, but it was the Greeks who brought both viticulture and viniculture, essentially a wine-making culture. http://www.colonialspirits.com/wine/oenotria-part-1
Italian wine is wine produced in Italy, a country which is home to some of the oldest wine-producing regions in the world. Italy is the world's largest wine producer, responsible for approximately one-fifth of world wine production in 2005. Italian wine is exported largely around the world and has market share of over 10% in most Asian countries like India. More than 1 million vineyards are under cultivation. Etruscans and Greek settlers produced wine in the country long before the Romans started developing their own vineyards in the 2nd century BC. Roman grape-growing and winemaking was prolific and well-organized, pioneering large-scale production and storage techniques like barrel-making and bottling. Italy's classification system has four classes of wine, with two falling under the EU category Quality Wine Produced in a Specific Region (QWPSR) and two falling under the category of 'table wine'. The four classes are:
Table Wine:
Vino da Tavola (VDT) - Denotes simply that the wine is made in Italy. The label usually indicates a basic wine, made for local consumption.
Indicazione Geografica Tipica (IGT) - Denotes wine from a more specific region within Italy. This appellation was created in 1992 for wines that were considered to be of higher quality than simple table wines, but which did not conform to the strict wine laws for their region. Before the IGT was created, "Super Tuscan" wines such as Tignanello were labeled Vino da Tavola.
QWPSR:
Denominazione di Origine Controllata (DOC)
Denominazione di Origine Controllata e Garantita (DOCG)
Find a list of Italian wines and Italy's 20 wine regions at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_wine
December 5: Day of Ashura (Islam, 2011); St Nicholas's Eve in various European countries; Father's Day in Thailand
1484 – Pope Innocent VIII issued the papal bull Summis desiderantes affectibus, giving Dominican Inquisitor Heinrich Kramer explicit authority to prosecute witchcraft in Germany.
1952 – The "Great Smog" began in London and lasted for five days, causing 12,000 deaths and leading to the Clean Air Act 1956.
See a picture of The Karnataka High Court, the High Court of the Indian state of Karnataka, is housed in a building named Attara Kacheri, meaning "eighteen offices" and more at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page
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