Established in 1638, Harvard Library is the oldest library system in the United States.  Harvard has 28 libraries, a staff of 700, 6 million digitized and publicly available items, and 20 million books.  https://www.harvard.edu/campus/libraries/ 

Vitamin K is a fat-soluble vitamin that comes in two forms.  The main type is called phylloquinone, found in green leafy vegetables like collard greens, kale, and spinach.  The other type, menaquinones, are found in some animal foods and fermented foods.  Menaquinones can also be produced by bacteria in the human body.  Vitamin K helps to make various proteins that are needed for blood clotting and the building of bones.  Because vitamin K is fat-soluble, it is best to eat vitamin K foods with some fat to improve absorption.  So, drizzle some olive oil or add diced avocado to your favorite leafy green salad!  Link to information on all vitamins and minerals at https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/vitamin-k/   

Basque Country, the autonomous region in northern Spain and self-proclaimed “culinary nation” is well-known for pintxos in Bilbao’s Casco Viejo and the temples of Basque food in charming San Sebastián, the city with the highest concentration of Michelin stars in the world.  Pinched between San Sebastián and Bilbao, Getaria sits in an ideal spot on the Urola Coast, where throughout the year currents refresh the waters, alter the temperature, and even play with the salinity, creating a diverse environment for all sorts of fish and shellfish species.  Every day, fishing boats deliver the day’s catch to the port.  Workers carry the fish just a few meters to asadores—the city’s traditional, family-run seafood restaurants clustered by the water —where they’re laid on smoking parrillas (grills) and soon delivered to hungry customers, preferably with a bottle of txakoli, the dry local wine.  Long before tourists discovered the city, Getarian fishermen were cooking fish on charcoal grills set up inside their boats.  In the 1940s, the grills came ashore.  After weeks at sea, sailors returned to Getaria carrying loads of fish.  On their way home, they often stopped at bodegones (local bars) to drink wine and catch up on conversation.  While these establishments only served alcohol, many of the owners built parrillas outside so the sailors could cook their own fish, allowing them to stay longer and consume more wine.  “As this became a habit, other people who passed by the streets wanted to eat in these places, giving birth to the first asadores in the city,” says Maialen Gereka, owner of el Txoko, the city’s first asador opened by her grandfather in 1953.  Little more than bars with grills in the beginning, she adds, the original asadors didn’t have any plates or cutlery, so bread was the only utensil.  Juan Sebastián Elkano:  Getaria’s most famous son, known as the first sailor to circumnavigate the Earth, Elkano is also somewhat of a patron saint in the city’s parrilla tradition.  The navigator relied on grilled seafood on transoceanic voyages and bequeathed two grills in his will.  One of the most famous restaurants in town, Elkano, is named after him.  Rafael Tonon  https://www.eater.com/23078265/getaria-spain-guide-grilled-fish-basque-country  

“The American alligator recovered from a lake in Prospect Park in Brooklyn on February 19, 2023 is undergoing medical evaluation at the Bronx Zoo by veterinarians and animal care staff.  The alligator, which was lethargic and suffering from exposure to cold temperatures, is extremely emaciated.  After arriving at the Bronx Zoo, the animal was slowly warmed to an appropriate ambient temperature and received supportive care.  Too weak and unresponsive to eat on its own, the alligator, a female, is being tube-fed to provide her with nutrients as well as fluids, Vitamin B, antibiotics and an antifungal medication.  “When the nearly five-foot alligator was brought to the zoo by the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation, it presented as extremely emaciated weighing only 15 pounds.  An alligator of this size should typically weigh between 30-35 pounds.  Radiographs of the alligator, which is estimated to be between 5 and 6 years of age, show that she had ingested an approximately 4-inch wide bathtub stopper.  The Bronx Zoo, located on 265 acres of hardwood forest in Bronx, NY, opened on Nov. 8, 1899.  It is world-renowned for its leadership in the areas of animal welfare, husbandry, veterinary care, education, science and conservation.  The zoo is accredited by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA) and is the flagship park of the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) which manages the world’s largest network of urban wildlife parks including the Bronx Zoo, Central Park Zoo, Prospect Park Zoo, Queens Zoo and New York Aquarium.  https://newsroom.wcs.org/News-Releases/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/18742/Update-on-American-Alligator-Rescued-from-Prospect-Park-Lake.aspx 

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2637  February 27, 2023  

25 Historical Crime, Mystery, and Horror Novels to Look Forward to in 2023 by Molly Odintz  List of titles include:

Kevin Jared Hosein, Hungry Ghosts

Hester Fox, The Last Heir to Blackwood Library

Brendan Slocumb, Symphony of Secrets

Sarah Penner, The London Seance Society

https://lithub.com/25-historical-crime-mystery-and-horror-novels-to-look-forward-to-in-2023/   

Steve Cochran (born Robert Alexander Cochran, (1917–1965) was an American film, television and stage actor.  He attended the University of Wyoming.  After a stint working as a cowboy, Cochran developed his acting skills in local theatre and gradually progressed to Broadway, film and television.  After stints as a cowpuncher and railroad station hand, he studied at the University of Wyoming, where he also played basketball.  Impulsively, he quit college in 1937 and decided to go straight to Hollywood to become a star.  Working as a carpenter and department store detective during his early adulthood, Cochran also gained experience appearing in summer stock.  In the early 1940s he worked with the Shakespeare Festival in Carmel, California, where he played Orsino in Twelfth Night, Malcolm in Macbeth, Horatio in Hamlet and the title role in Richard III.  He then performed in plays for the Federal Theatre Project in Detroit.  Cochran was rejected for military service in World War II because of a heart murmur, but he directed and performed in plays at a variety of Army camps.  He was appearing with Constance Bennett in a touring production of Without Love in December 1943 when he was signed by Sam Goldwyn.  On Broadway, Cochran appeared in Hickory Stick (1944).  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Cochran

This tomato-cucumber salad will last in the fridge for at least three to four days—simply drain off any liquid it releases before serving.  You can make the tahini sauce directly in a lidded jar, which makes storage easy.  You can even cook the eggs ahead of time.  Keep them in their shell, then peel and slice them just before serving.  Grace Elkus   https://www.thekitchn.com/roasted-eggplant-sabich-bowl-22997684   

Jane Austen began writing a novel after staying at Goodnestone Park in Kent with her brother Edward and his wife in 1796.  It was originally titled First Impressions, and was written between October 1796 and August 1797.  On 1 November 1797 Austen's father sent a letter to London bookseller Thomas Cadell to ask if he had any interest in seeing the manuscript, but the offer was declined by return post.  Austen made significant revisions to the manuscript for First Impressions between 1811 and 1812.  As nothing remains of the original manuscript, we are reduced to conjecture.  She later renamed the story Pride and Prejudice around 1811/1812, when she sold the rights to publish the manuscript to Thomas Egerton for £110 (equivalent to £7,800 in 2021).  In the years between the completion of First Impressions and its revision into Pride and Prejudice, two other works had been published under that name:  a novel by Margaret Holford and a comedy by Horace Smith.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pride_and_Prejudice   

Glass artist Dale Chihuly will bring his whimsical, colorful works to the Missouri Botanical Garden.  Chihuly and his crew created 18 installations throughout the garden’s 79 acres.  The exhibit, “Chihuly in the Garden 2023,” opens May 2 and runs through October 15.  Valerie Schremp Hahn  See pictures at https://www.stltoday.com/entertainment/arts-and-theatre/glass-artist-chihuly-will-bring-most-ambitious-exhibition-to-missouri-botanical-garden/article_88ce623e-0e0f-5830-bad9-0fd11ce2da1f.html   

Come, live in my heart and pay no rent. - Samuel Lover, songwriter, composer, novelist, and artist (24 Feb 1797-1868)   

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2636  February 24, 2023 

Alfredo di Lelio, inventor of the fettuccine that bears his name, was born in Rome in 1883 and got his start at the family restaurant in Piazza Rosa, which later vanished to make room for the shopping arcade now known as Galleria Sordi.  He was still a child when he began helping out at the family business run by his mother, Angelina.  One of the first American references to the dish turns up in the 1922 novel Babbitt, by Sinclair Lewis, which was quite popular in its day.  At one point in the story, the protagonist meets an upper-class American lady who confesses her infatuation with Rome.  But the object of her affection is not the city’s paintings, music or antiquities:  rather, it’s the “little trattoria on the Via della Scrofa where you get the best fettuccine in the world.”  But it was only in 1927 that this Roman speciality got its true consecration, an investiture presided over—and how could it be otherwise, given the theatrical flair that went into the dish—by two Hollywood stars:  Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks.  Actually, the pair had already eaten at Alfredo’s in 1920, while on their honeymoon.  Seven years later they came back, bearing an unexpected gift with enormous publicity potential:  a gold fork and spoon engraved with the dedication “To Alfredo the King of the noodles.”  Luca Cesari  https://lithub.com/the-invention-of-fettuccine-alfredo-a-love-story/

Dime Mystery Magazine was an American pulp magazine published from 1932 to 1950 by Popular Publications.  Titled Dime Mystery Book Magazine during its first nine months, it contained ordinary mystery stories, including a full-length novel in each issue, but it was competing with Detective Novels Magazine and Detective Classics, two established magazines from a rival publisher, and failed to sell well. With the October 1933 issue the editorial policy changed, and it began publishing horror stories.  Under the new policy, each story's protagonist had to struggle against something that appeared to be supernatural, but would be revealed to have an everyday explanation.  The new genre became known as "weird menace" fiction; the publisher, Harry Steeger, was inspired to create the new policy by the gory dramatizations he had seen at the Grand Guignol theater in Paris.  Most of the stories in Dime Mystery were low-quality pulp fiction, but some well-known authors appeared in the magazine, including Edgar Wallace, Ray Bradbury, Norvell Page, and Wyatt Blassingame.  The last few issues appeared under the title 15 Mystery Stories.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dime_Mystery_Magazine   

Astronomically, our planet’s seasons change on four particular days each year, two solstices, one in June and one in December, and two equinoxes (one in March and one in September).  The particular dates are targeted by scientists at the boundary between our seasons because of a series of factors based upon the relationship between the Earth and the Sun, the tilt in the Earth’s axis and how those factors play out for all of us living here on the third rock from the Sun.  Earth’s seasons are a direct result of the Earth’s 23° tilt in the Earth’s axis, known as an axial tilt.  Without an axial tilt, we would not have seasons in the way that we do and life on this planet could have developed much differently to account for more constant weather and climate conditions at each latitude of our planet.  This obliquity means that during certain parts of the year, the Southern Hemisphere is slightly more exposed to the Sun’s rays while they Northern Hemisphere is less exposed and vice versa.  This results in a variety of effects for our planet ranging from significant temperature shifts and meteorological differences as well as more or less light and energy coming from the Sun, which we know as seasons.  Occurring in June and December, the solstice marks either the start of winter or the start of summer.  In the Northern Hemisphere, the June Solstice heralds the astronomical beginning of summer and is the day with the most daylight in the year.  In the most northerly regions of the planet days or weeks may pass without the sun actually setting below the horizon while in Antarctica is may remain dark for a comparable amount of time.  The opposite is true for the December Solstice when summer begins in the Southern Hemisphere and winter starts in the North.  The solstice (combining the Latin words sol for “Sun” and sistere for “To Stand Still”) is the point where the Sun appears to reach either its highest or lowest point in the sky for the year and thus ancient astronomers came to know the day as one where the Sun appeared to stand still.  Equinoxes happen directly between the solstices and mark the beginning of the Spring and Fall seasons.  The term equinox, like solstice, finds its origin in Latin with the roots aequus meaning “Equal” and nox meaning “Night.”  Astronomers define the equinox as the moment the Earth’s Equator on its axis passes the same plane of the Sun’s equator, but its name reveals more of what we experience of these March and September dates here on Earth as most places on the planet on the day of the Equinox will experience roughly as much night time as day time, hence “Equal Night.”  Doug Ray  See graphics at https://www.fi.edu/blog/solstice-equinox   

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2635  February 22, 2023 

The term Rust Bowl derived from Dust Bowl, was soon was bent into Rust Belt, and then it stuck like a barb.  The first known use of the term was in a politician’s speech in 1982.  Akron, because it was so closely tied to a single industry, one that was disappearing like an exhale in the quick of a Lake Erie winter, was feeling a sudden and profound loss of identity.  The term Rust Belt was sucked hard into that void and there it would stay.  Literary Hub  from The Hard Way on Purpose (2014) by David Giffels   

Robert Allan Caro (born October 30, 1935) is an American journalist and author known for his biographies of United States political figures Robert Moses and Lyndon B. Johnson.  After working for many years as a reporter, Caro wrote The Power Broker (1974), a biography of New York urban planner Robert Moses, which was chosen by the Modern Library as one of the hundred greatest nonfiction books of the twentieth century.  He has since written four of a planned five volumes of The Years of Lyndon Johnson (1982, 1990, 2002, 2012), a biography of the former president.  Consequentially, he has been described as "the most influential biographer of the last century."  For his biographies, he has won two Pulitzer Prizes in Biography, two National Book Awards (including one for Lifetime Achievement), the Francis Parkman Prize (awarded by the Society of American Historians to the book that "best exemplifies the union of the historian and the artist"), three National Book Critics Circle Awards, the Mencken Award for Best Book, the Carr P. Collins Award from the Texas Institute of Letters, the D. B. Hardeman Prize, and a Gold Medal in Biography from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.  In 2010 President Barack Obama awarded Caro the National Humanities Medal.  Due to Caro's reputation for exhaustive research and detail, he is sometimes invoked by reviewers of other writers who are called "Caro-esque" for their own extensive research.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Caro   

Drunken beans recipe correction  https://www.rachelcooks.com/frijoles-borrachos/#wprm-recipe-container-33571  Because you start with dried beans, this recipe takes a little time.  It’s pretty much all hands-off time and plus, you get to enjoy the delicious aroma while they cook.  Just let your pot of beans simmer gently on the stove, and enjoy the fragrance.  Thank you Muse reader!   

Feb. 7, 2023  In the 1890s, the estate of T.C. Williams Sr. gave the University of Richmond’s law school $25,000.  Eventually, UR named the school for Williams.  But in 2022, UR removed the name, citing Williams’ ownership of enslaved workers.  And now his descendants are asking for their money back—with interest.  The family has asked for $51 million.  Two members say the university has not provided documentation proving Williams’ ownership of enslaved people, and has not engaged the family in conversation.  A spokesperson for UR said the records are publicly available and that the university has not referred to the law school by Williams’ name in 20 years.  Eric Kolenich  https://richmond.com/news/local/education/a-family-wants-its-132-year-old-donation-to-the-university-of-richmond-refunded/article_045796ec-a631-11ed-b8c1-97582815b503.html   

A most popular Polish-American tradition is celebrated on Tuesday before Ash Wednesday.  You may have heard it called Fat Thursday or Tłusty Czwartek (pronounced Twoosti Chvartek).  In Polish-American culture, Pączki Day (punch-key) is a once-a-year event and is only celebrated on Fat Tuesday, the day before Ash Wednesday, which always falls in the seventh week before Easter.  People will ask for pączkis, not realizing that pączki is already the plural of pączek (punch-ek). Pączki are very rich donuts, deep fried and then filled with fruit or cream filling and covered with powdered sugar or icing.  Ash Wednesday marks the beginning of Lent. Traditionally, Lent was 40 days of fasting, meaning only one meal a day and full fasting on Friday.  Any rich foods were not allowed.  The Tuesday before Lent, people of Poland used up food so that it would not be spoiled or wasted.  Families would use up their eggs, butter and sugar and fruit by treating themselves one last time before Lent began with these rich donuts.  This tradition was started in the medieval age during the reign of August III.  https://www.canr.msu.edu/news/pczki_day_a_polish_tradition_becomes_an_american_tradition   

Jokes of the proper kind, properly told, can do more to enlighten questions of politics, philosophy, and literature than any number of dull arguments. - Isaac Asimov, scientist and writer (1920-1992)   

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2634 February 20, 2023

Lucian Michael Freud (1922–2011) was a British painter and draughtsman, specialising in figurative art, and is known as one of the foremost 20th-century English portraitists.  He was born in Berlin, the son of architect Ernst L. Freud and the grandson of Sigmund Freud.  Freud got his first name "Lucian" from his mother in memory of the ancient writer Lucian of Samosata.  His family moved to England in 1933, when he was 10 years old, to escape the rise of Nazism.  He became a British naturalized citizen in 1939.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucian_Freud   

Lucian of Samosata (c. 125–after 180) was a Hellenized Syrian satirist, rhetorician and pamphleteer who is best known for his characteristic tongue-in-cheek style, with which he frequently ridiculed superstition, religious practices, and belief in the paranormal.  Everything that is known about Lucian's life comes from his own writings, which are often difficult to interpret because of his extensive use of sarcasm.  Lucian had an enormous, wide-ranging impact on Western literature.  Works inspired by his writings include Thomas More's Utopia, the works of François Rabelais, William Shakespeare's Timon of Athens and Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucian   

Flavored with dark beer, molasses, and lime juice, it’s so so good!   Sauté bacon, chopped onions, jalapeño peppers, and garlic in a Dutch oven until the bacon is cooked and the veggies are softened.  Deglaze the pan with a bottle of dark Mexican beer.  Now it’s time for your beans to party.  Dump the pinto beans in the pan, along with broth, molasses, brown sugar, and seasonings.  The beans will absorb the beer and the broth, and get soft.  Let them simmer for at least a couple of hours, stirring occasionally to make sure they aren’t sticking.  To make drunken beans vegetarian, simply leave out the bacon, sauté the chopped onions and jalapeño in two teaspoons olive or avocado oil, and substitute vegetable broth for the chicken broth.  posted by Rachel  https://www.53.com/login.html   

JOHANNSEN AND LEBLANC  This site contains scanned materials drawn from two major dime novel collections in Rare Books and Special Collections at Northern Illinois University:  the Albert Johannsen and Edward T. LeBlanc Collections.  Albert Johannsen (1871-1962) was a professor of petrology and a dime novel collector.  Besides dime novels, he collected igneous rocks (his collection of 5,000 specimens was left to the University of Chicago), first editions of Dickens, coins, stamps, autographs, cigar boxes, and whatever else caught his interest.  After retirement, he left behind his career in geology to focus his energy on these hobbies, particularly his passion for collecting dime novels.  Browse digitized titles from the Johannsen Collection or search our online catalog, which includes titles not yet digitized.  Edward T. LeBlanc (1918-2008) was the editor of the Dime Novel Round-Up from 1952 to 1994 and, like Johannsen, a self-taught bibliographer of dime novels.  Although never published, his 13-binder bibliography provides a comprehensive listing of nearly every dime novel series and story, which LeBlanc reportedly began compiling at the age of 15.  Browse digitized titles from the Edward T. LeBlanc Collection or search our online catalog, which includes many titles not yet digitized.    https://dimenovels.lib.niu.edu/about/johannsen-and-leblanc   

The Collected Works of Billy the Kid:  Left-Handed Poems is a verse novel by Michael Ondaatje, published in 1970.  It chronicles and interprets important events in the life of William Bonney, aka Billy the Kid, and his conflict with Sheriff Pat Garrett.  The book presents a series of poems not necessarily in chronological order which fictionalize and relate Bonney's more famous exploits, after the end of the Lincoln County War.  On its release, the volume received largely positive reviews.  Most notably, it received the Governor General's Literary Award for poetry in 1970 from the Canadian Arts Council.  Ondaatje would go on to write another award-winning novel, The English Patient, and several others.  Ondaatje adapted the novel into a play.  It premiered in Toronto in multiple times, notably at the Dallas Theater Center, the Stratford Festival and the Toronto Free Theatre.  Ondaatje gave permission for the work to be the subject of a new adaptation by English theater director Dan Jemmett in 2007.  Originally produced in Pittsburgh, PA, by Quantum Theatre, the new vision was created by the company of five actors and Jemmett.  Ondaatje agreed for the work to be adapted as a chamber opera by the English composer Gavin Bryars, with the libretto made by Jean Lacornerie, who staged the work.  The novel was also a source of inspiration for the 2012 album Lonesome Dreams by Lord Huron.  While the album is not a direct adaptation of the work, there are several similar plot themes and general storytelling style.  Some of these themes are carried forward in some fashion to their second album, Strange Trails (2015), although the influence is somewhat less pronounced.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Collected_Works_of_Billy_the_Kid:_Left-Handed_Poems   

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2633  February 17, 2023 

Tongue Twisters by Ogden Nash (1902-1971)  tortley turtley torpor (the tortoise)  speechless, songless, whistleless (the caterpillar)  ornithological debacle (the grackle)   

7 POPULAR MYTHS ABOUT NUTRITION ​
by Alex Winfield  https://www.csuohio.edu/recreationcenter/7-popular-myths-about-nutrition   

The Robert Louis Stevenson Museum is a museum in Samoa, which commemorates the life of the Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson.  The museum displays a curated version of his residence, as Stevenson lived in it.  Its establishment was funded by overseas donations.  The house is presented as if Stevenson was still alive and guided tours are run daily.  Stevenson's grave on Mount Vaea can also be accessed from the museum.  Most of the photography relating to Stevenson's life in Samoa is held at the Writer's Museum in Edinburgh, Scotland.  This museum also holds guns which Stevenson used in Samoa, as well a collection of sea shells and Samoan ethnographic objects which he acquired there.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Louis_Stevenson_Museum   

Samoa, officially the Independent State of Samoa and until 1997 known as Western Samoa, is a Polynesian island country consisting of two main islands (Savai'i and Upolu); two smaller, inhabited islands (Manono and Apolima); and several smaller, uninhabited islands, including the Aleipata Islands (Nu'utele, Nu'ulua, Fanuatapu and Namua).  The capital city is Apia. The Lapita people discovered and settled the Samoan Islands around 3,500 years ago.  They developed a Samoan language and Samoan cultural identity.  See graphics at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samoa   

Literally translated as “stir-fried rice cake,” tteokbokki is a beloved Korean rice cake dish with many variations and a rich history.  It’s also spelled ddukbokki, ddeokbokki, dukbokki or topokki.  This spicy rice cake dish is enormously popular as a street food and also often enjoyed at home.  Tteokbokki is made with a type of rice cake called garaetteok a cylinder-shaped white rice cake made with short grain rice.  The thick type is sliced into thin oval shapes for making tteokguk (rice cake soup), while thinner, shorter rice cakes are used for making tteokbokki, hence the name tteokbokki tteok.  It was developed in 1953, the year the Korean War ended, by a woman named Ma Bok-rim in the Sindang-dong neighborhood in Seoul.  The chewy rice cake in a spicy gochujang sauce instantly became popular as an affordable comfort snack.  posted by Hyosun  Find recipe at https://www.koreanbapsang.com/tteokbokki-spicy-stir-fried-rice-cakes/  You can find these rice cakes freshly made, refrigerated, or frozen at Korean markets.  They come in various shapes and sizes.   

Alexander Turnbull Library  The Library opened its doors to the people of New Zealand on 28 June 1920.  It is now a division of the National Library of New Zealand, and its collections and services are housed within the National Library building in Wellington.  The Alexander Turnbull Library holds New Zealand’s national documentary heritage collections.  https://natlib.govt.nz/collections/a-z/alexander-turnbull-library-collections   

TED Talks as a love letter to libraries, librarians and the community they serve  https://www.ted.com/playlists/683/a_love_letter_to_libraries   

http://librariansmuse.blogpost.com  Issue 2632  February 15, 2023 

As the polestar of Tuscany, Florence is also one of the region’s 10 provinces. Positioned in central Italy, about 145 miles north of Rome and 190 miles south of Milan, the city is in a dynamic locale.  The Arno River––one of the most significant rivers in Italy––streams through the center, eventually spilling into the Tyrrhenian Sea.  For beach lovers, the east end of the Italian Riviera is about a 90-minute trip.  Meanwhile, beautiful villages amid a verdant landscape—lie within a short drive.  Florence’s gastronomy options include six Michelin-starred establishments and an array of trattorias, ristorantes and spots pouring wine from the region.  “Italy’s most famous wine bar, Enoteca Pinchiorri, is almost as revered as the Uffizi museum,” Emilia Marinig, marketing director at Querciabella said.  Tracey Kaler  https://www.mansionglobal.com/articles/drinking-in-the-charms-of-historic-florence-italy-01674131051   

Google's parent company, Alphabet, lost $100 billion in market value on Wednesday (Feb. 8, 2023) after its new artificial intelligence technology produced a factual error in its first demo.  It's a bruising reception for Bard, the conversational bot that Google launched as a competitor to Microsoft's headline-making darling, ChatGPT.  In the fateful ad that ran on Google's Twitter feed this week, the company described Bard as "a launchpad for curiosity" and a search tool to "help simplify complex topics."  But the James Webb Telescope didn't discover exoplanets.  The European Southern Observatory's very large telescope took the first pictures of those special celestial bodies in 2004, a fact that NASA confirms.  Emily Olson  https://www.npr.org/2023/02/09/1155650909/google-chatbot--error-bard-shares   

sneakernet  (SNEE-kuhr-net)  noun  The transfer of electronic information by physically moving it (storing it on a device and moving the device), instead of doing it over a computer network.  From sneaker (a shoe popular in everyday use) + net, alluding to someone carrying a disk, memory key, etc. from one computer to another.  The shoes were called sneakers because their rubber soles made them very quiet.  Earliest documented use:  1984.  In the beginning, you put data on magnetic tapes and shipped it to wherever it needed to go.  When moving large amount of data, even with today’s gigaspeed networks, sometimes it’s faster to copy data on a device and carry it to its destination.  Even companies like Google and Amazon use sneakernets, transferring large amount of data in trucks.  Amazon, for example, uses special semi-trucks they call Snowmobiles to transfer data from a customer site to their own cloud network.  A.WordA.Day with Anu Garg  

From:  Joe Silber  Subject:  Sneakernet  A concept related to sneakernet is outlined in RFC 1149, Standard for the Transmission of IP Datagrams on Avian Carriers, and is known as CPIP (Carrier Pigeon Internet Protocol).
From: P. Larry Nelson  Subject:  Sneakernet   It may well be that the first documented use of sneakernet was 1984, but we in the IT biz were using the term in the 70s.  And it was hauling programs and their input data on 80-column punch cards in boxes across campus to the main computer center to be fed into their big IBM 360/75 mainframe computer or the smaller IBM 1401.  One would wait a day or two, then get a phone call that the job(s) had run and to come pick up the cards and printed output.  There was networking, but it was just the big mainframe that was connected to other universities and national labs over DOD’s ARPANET (forerunner of the Internet).  There was no campus-wide networking for a few years to come.  Then came floppynet a few years later--transferring programs/data on floppy disk drives.  AWADmail Issue 1073   

Super Bowl LVII was an American football game played to determine the champion of the National Football League (NFL) for the 2022 season. It was played on Sunday, February 12, 2023, at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona, with kickoff time at 4:30 PM MST (UTC-7).  The American Football Conference (AFC) champion Kansas City Chiefs defeated the National Football Conference (NFC) champion Philadelphia Eagles, 38–35.  It was the fourth Super Bowl hosted by the Phoenix metropolitan area, with the most recent previously being Super Bowl XLIX in 2015, also held at State Farm Stadium (then called University of Phoenix Stadium).  The game was televised nationally by Fox.  The halftime show was headlined by Rihanna.  Fox charged up to about $7 million for a 30-second Super Bowl commercial.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Bowl_LVII

 February 13 is World Radio Day, which is recognized by the United Nations to highlight the importance of radio for sharing information, promoting diversity of ideas, and reaching remote communities and vulnerable people, and its role in emergency communication during disasters.  United Nations Radio was established on Febrary 13, 1946.  Wiktionary   

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2631  February 13, 2023