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
Friday, December 9, 2011
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
Friday, December 2, 2011
The Federal Trade Commission on Nov. 30 issued the National Do Not Call Registry Data Book for Fiscal Year 2011. The FTC's National Do Not Call Registry provides consumers with an easy way to stop unwanted telemarketing calls. In its third year of publication, the Data Book contains a wealth of information about the Registry for FY 2011, including: The number of active registrations and consumer complaint figures since the Registry began in 2003; FY 2011 complaint figures by month and complaint type; FY 2011 registration and complaint figures for all 50 states and the District of Columbia by population; The number of entities accessing the Registry by fiscal year; and An appendix on registration and complaint data by consumer state and area code. According to the Data Book, at the end of FY 2011 (September 30, 2011), the Do Not Call Registry contained 209,722,924 actively registered phone numbers, up from 201,542,535 at the end of FY 2010. In addition, the number of consumer complaints about unwanted telemarketing calls increased from 1,633,819 at the end of FY 2010 to 2,272,662 at the end of FY 2011.
http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2011/11/dnc.shtm
Congress passed the National School Lunch Act in 1946 to support commodity prices after World War II by reducing farm surpluses while providing food to schoolchildren. By 1970, the program was providing 22 million lunches on an average day, about a fifth of them subsidized. Since then, the subsidized portion has grown while paid lunches have declined, but not since 1972 have so many additional children become eligible for free lunches as in fiscal year 2010, 1.3 million. The number of students receiving subsidized lunches rose to 21 million last school year from 18 million in 2006-7, a 17 percent increase, according to an analysis by The New York Times of data from the Department of Agriculture, which administers the meals program. Eleven states, including Florida, Nevada, New Jersey and Tennessee, had four-year increases of 25 percent or more, huge shifts in a vast program long characterized by incremental growth.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/30/education/surge-in-free-school-lunches-reflects-economic-crisis.html?_r=1
The Beige Book, Nov. 30, 2011, a summary Overall economic activity increased at a slow to moderate pace since the previous report across all Federal Reserve Districts except St. Louis, which reported a decline in economic activity. District reports indicated that consumer spending rose modestly during the reporting period. Motor vehicle sales increased in a number of Districts, and tourism showed signs of strength. Business service activity was flat to higher since the previous report. Manufacturing activity expanded at a steady pace across most of the country. Overall bank lending increased slightly since the previous report, and home refinancing grew at a more rapid pace. Changes in credit standards and credit quality varied across Districts. Residential real estate activity generally remained sluggish, and commercial real estate activity remained lackluster across most of the nation. Single family home construction was weak and commercial construction was slow. Districts mostly reported favorable agricultural conditions. Activity in the energy and mining sectors increased since the previous report. Read more at: http://www.federalreserve.gov/FOMC/BeigeBook/2011/20111130/default.htm
Law schools know all about the tough conditions that await graduates, and many have added or expanded programs that provide practical training through legal clinics. But almost all the cachet in legal academia goes to professors who produce law review articles, which gobbles up huge amounts of time and tuition money. The essential how-tos of daily practice are a subject that many in the faculty know nothing about — by design. One 2010 study http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1646983 of hiring at top-tier law schools since 2000 found that the median amount of practical experience was one year, and that nearly half of faculty members had never practiced law for a single day. Christopher Langdell was appointed dean of the Harvard Law School in 1870 and began to rebrand legal education. Mr. Langdell introduced “case method,” which is the short answer to the question “What does law school teach you if not how to be a lawyer?” This approach cultivates a student’s capacity to reason and all but ignores the particulars of practice. Consider, for instance, Contracts, a first-year staple. It is one of many that originated in the Langdell era and endures today. In it, students will typically encounter such classics as Hadley v. Baxendale, an 1854 dispute about financial damages caused by the late delivery of a crankshaft to a British miller. Here is what students will rarely encounter in Contracts: actual contracts, the sort that lawyers need to draft and file. “We should be teaching what is really going on in the legal system,” says Edward L. Rubin, a professor and former dean at the Vanderbilt Law School, “not what was going on in the 1870s, when much of the legal curriculum was put in place.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/20/business/after-law-school-associates-learn-to-be-lawyers.html
ARL is a nonprofit membership organization of 126 research libraries in North America. The Association operates as a forum for the exchange of ideas and as an agent for collective action. Membership in ARL is institutional. http://www.arl.org/arl/membership/members.shtml
OCLC is Online Computer Library Center, Inc. of Dublin, Ohio
In 1967, the presidents of the colleges and universities in the state of Ohio founded the Ohio College Library Center (OCLC) to develop a computerized system in which the libraries of Ohio academic institutions could share resources and reduce costs. OCLC’s first offices were in the Main Library on the campus of The Ohio State University (OSU), and its first computer room was housed in the OSU Research Center. It was from these academic roots that Frederick G. Kilgour, OCLC’s first president, oversaw the growth of OCLC from a regional computer system for 54 Ohio colleges into an international network. In 1977, the Ohio members of OCLC adopted changes in the governance structure that enabled libraries outside Ohio to become members and participate in the election of the Board of Trustees; the Ohio College Library Center became OCLC, Inc. In 1981, the legal name of the corporation became OCLC Online Computer Library Center, Inc. Today, OCLC serves more than 72,000 libraries of all types in the U.S. and 170 countries and territories around the world. http://www.oclc.org/uk/en/about/history/default.htm
WorldCat is a union catalog which itemizes the collections of 72,000 libraries in 170 countries and territories which participate in the Online Computer Library Center (OCLC) global cooperative. It is built and maintained collectively by the participating libraries. Created in 1971, it contains more than 246 million different records pointing to over 1.77 billion physical and digital assets in more than 470 languages. It is the world's largest bibliographic database. OCLC makes WorldCat itself available free to libraries, but the catalog is the foundation for other fee-based OCLC services (such as resource sharing and collection management). WorldCat was founded by Fred Kilgour in 1967. In 2003, OCLC began the "Open WorldCat" pilot program, making abbreviated records from a subset of WorldCat available to partner Web sites and booksellers, to increase the accessibility of its member libraries’ collections. In 2006, it became possible to search WorldCat directly at its website: http://www.worldcat.org/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WorldCat
The Top 25 US Public Libraries’ Collective Collection, as Represented in WorldCat by Brian Lavoie, OCLC Research Taken together, all US public library holdings in WorldCat comprise a collective collection of 22.7 million distinct publications. Nearly 15 million of these are also held by at least one ARL member library, leaving about a third of the US publics’ collection that is exclusive of ARL holdings. The addition of the collective holdings of non-ARL US academic libraries to the ARL collection yields a collection of more than 71 million publications, of which more than 16 million are also held by at least one US public library. This still leaves 28 percent of the US publics’ collective collection distinct from US academic library holdings.
http://www.oclc.org/research/publications/library/2011/lavoie-ndpl.pdf
The eyes of the world's media have been focused on Burma this week, for the first visit from a US Secretary of State since since 1955. Mrs Clinton used the term "Burma" but only sparingly, preferring to say "this country", but never apparently using the word "Myanmar", which is its official name. Why does the US not recognise the country's name? Nations and news organisations differ in what they call the country. The ruling military junta changed its name from Burma to Myanmar in 1989, a year after thousands were killed in the suppression of a popular uprising. Rangoon also became Yangon. The Adaptation of Expression Law also introduced English language names for other towns, some of which were not ethnically Burmese. The change was recognised by the United Nations, and by countries such as France and Japan, but not by the US and the UK.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-16000467
http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2011/11/dnc.shtm
Congress passed the National School Lunch Act in 1946 to support commodity prices after World War II by reducing farm surpluses while providing food to schoolchildren. By 1970, the program was providing 22 million lunches on an average day, about a fifth of them subsidized. Since then, the subsidized portion has grown while paid lunches have declined, but not since 1972 have so many additional children become eligible for free lunches as in fiscal year 2010, 1.3 million. The number of students receiving subsidized lunches rose to 21 million last school year from 18 million in 2006-7, a 17 percent increase, according to an analysis by The New York Times of data from the Department of Agriculture, which administers the meals program. Eleven states, including Florida, Nevada, New Jersey and Tennessee, had four-year increases of 25 percent or more, huge shifts in a vast program long characterized by incremental growth.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/30/education/surge-in-free-school-lunches-reflects-economic-crisis.html?_r=1
The Beige Book, Nov. 30, 2011, a summary Overall economic activity increased at a slow to moderate pace since the previous report across all Federal Reserve Districts except St. Louis, which reported a decline in economic activity. District reports indicated that consumer spending rose modestly during the reporting period. Motor vehicle sales increased in a number of Districts, and tourism showed signs of strength. Business service activity was flat to higher since the previous report. Manufacturing activity expanded at a steady pace across most of the country. Overall bank lending increased slightly since the previous report, and home refinancing grew at a more rapid pace. Changes in credit standards and credit quality varied across Districts. Residential real estate activity generally remained sluggish, and commercial real estate activity remained lackluster across most of the nation. Single family home construction was weak and commercial construction was slow. Districts mostly reported favorable agricultural conditions. Activity in the energy and mining sectors increased since the previous report. Read more at: http://www.federalreserve.gov/FOMC/BeigeBook/2011/20111130/default.htm
Law schools know all about the tough conditions that await graduates, and many have added or expanded programs that provide practical training through legal clinics. But almost all the cachet in legal academia goes to professors who produce law review articles, which gobbles up huge amounts of time and tuition money. The essential how-tos of daily practice are a subject that many in the faculty know nothing about — by design. One 2010 study http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1646983 of hiring at top-tier law schools since 2000 found that the median amount of practical experience was one year, and that nearly half of faculty members had never practiced law for a single day. Christopher Langdell was appointed dean of the Harvard Law School in 1870 and began to rebrand legal education. Mr. Langdell introduced “case method,” which is the short answer to the question “What does law school teach you if not how to be a lawyer?” This approach cultivates a student’s capacity to reason and all but ignores the particulars of practice. Consider, for instance, Contracts, a first-year staple. It is one of many that originated in the Langdell era and endures today. In it, students will typically encounter such classics as Hadley v. Baxendale, an 1854 dispute about financial damages caused by the late delivery of a crankshaft to a British miller. Here is what students will rarely encounter in Contracts: actual contracts, the sort that lawyers need to draft and file. “We should be teaching what is really going on in the legal system,” says Edward L. Rubin, a professor and former dean at the Vanderbilt Law School, “not what was going on in the 1870s, when much of the legal curriculum was put in place.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/20/business/after-law-school-associates-learn-to-be-lawyers.html
ARL is a nonprofit membership organization of 126 research libraries in North America. The Association operates as a forum for the exchange of ideas and as an agent for collective action. Membership in ARL is institutional. http://www.arl.org/arl/membership/members.shtml
OCLC is Online Computer Library Center, Inc. of Dublin, Ohio
In 1967, the presidents of the colleges and universities in the state of Ohio founded the Ohio College Library Center (OCLC) to develop a computerized system in which the libraries of Ohio academic institutions could share resources and reduce costs. OCLC’s first offices were in the Main Library on the campus of The Ohio State University (OSU), and its first computer room was housed in the OSU Research Center. It was from these academic roots that Frederick G. Kilgour, OCLC’s first president, oversaw the growth of OCLC from a regional computer system for 54 Ohio colleges into an international network. In 1977, the Ohio members of OCLC adopted changes in the governance structure that enabled libraries outside Ohio to become members and participate in the election of the Board of Trustees; the Ohio College Library Center became OCLC, Inc. In 1981, the legal name of the corporation became OCLC Online Computer Library Center, Inc. Today, OCLC serves more than 72,000 libraries of all types in the U.S. and 170 countries and territories around the world. http://www.oclc.org/uk/en/about/history/default.htm
WorldCat is a union catalog which itemizes the collections of 72,000 libraries in 170 countries and territories which participate in the Online Computer Library Center (OCLC) global cooperative. It is built and maintained collectively by the participating libraries. Created in 1971, it contains more than 246 million different records pointing to over 1.77 billion physical and digital assets in more than 470 languages. It is the world's largest bibliographic database. OCLC makes WorldCat itself available free to libraries, but the catalog is the foundation for other fee-based OCLC services (such as resource sharing and collection management). WorldCat was founded by Fred Kilgour in 1967. In 2003, OCLC began the "Open WorldCat" pilot program, making abbreviated records from a subset of WorldCat available to partner Web sites and booksellers, to increase the accessibility of its member libraries’ collections. In 2006, it became possible to search WorldCat directly at its website: http://www.worldcat.org/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WorldCat
The Top 25 US Public Libraries’ Collective Collection, as Represented in WorldCat by Brian Lavoie, OCLC Research Taken together, all US public library holdings in WorldCat comprise a collective collection of 22.7 million distinct publications. Nearly 15 million of these are also held by at least one ARL member library, leaving about a third of the US publics’ collection that is exclusive of ARL holdings. The addition of the collective holdings of non-ARL US academic libraries to the ARL collection yields a collection of more than 71 million publications, of which more than 16 million are also held by at least one US public library. This still leaves 28 percent of the US publics’ collective collection distinct from US academic library holdings.
http://www.oclc.org/research/publications/library/2011/lavoie-ndpl.pdf
The eyes of the world's media have been focused on Burma this week, for the first visit from a US Secretary of State since since 1955. Mrs Clinton used the term "Burma" but only sparingly, preferring to say "this country", but never apparently using the word "Myanmar", which is its official name. Why does the US not recognise the country's name? Nations and news organisations differ in what they call the country. The ruling military junta changed its name from Burma to Myanmar in 1989, a year after thousands were killed in the suppression of a popular uprising. Rangoon also became Yangon. The Adaptation of Expression Law also introduced English language names for other towns, some of which were not ethnically Burmese. The change was recognised by the United Nations, and by countries such as France and Japan, but not by the US and the UK.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-16000467
Thursday, December 1, 2011
Products native to Latin America--unknown in Europe, Asia and Africa during the Middle Ages: Bean, Cacao, chocolate , Corn or maize , Peanut, Hot or chilli pepper, capsicum or sweet or bell pepper, Pineapple, Potato, Squash or marrow, zucchini, pumpkin, Tomato, Turkey, Vanilla http://www.oldcook.com/en/history-products_america
Quinine is a natural white crystalline alkaloid having antipyretic (fever-reducing), antimalarial, analgesic (painkilling), anti-inflammatory properties and a bitter taste. Quinine is an effective muscle relaxant, long used by the Quechua Indians of Peru to halt shivering due to low temperatures. The Peruvians would mix the ground bark of cinchona trees with sweetened water to offset the bark's bitter taste, thus producing tonic water. Quinine has been used in unextracted form by Europeans since at least the early 17th century. Quinine was first used to treat malaria in Rome in 1631. During the 17th century, malaria was endemic to the swamps and marshes surrounding the city of Rome. Malaria was responsible for the death of several popes, many cardinals and countless common Roman citizens. Most of the priests trained in Rome had seen malaria victims and were familiar with the shivering brought on by the febrile phase of the disease. The Jesuit brother Agostino Salumbrino (1561–1642), an apothecary by training who lived in Lima, observed the Quechua using the bark of the cinchona tree for that purpose. At the first opportunity, Salumbrino sent a small quantity to Rome to test as a malaria treatment. In the years that followed, cinchona bark was known as Jesuit's bark or Peruvian Bark and became one of the most valuable commodities shipped from Peru to Europe. The form of quinine most effective in treating malaria was found by Charles Marie de La Condamine in 1737. Quinine was isolated and named in 1820 by French researchers Pierre Joseph Pelletier and Joseph Bienaimé Caventou. The name was derived from the original Quechua (Inca) word for the cinchona tree bark, "quina" or "quina-quina", which roughly means "bark of bark" or "holy bark". Prior to 1820, the bark was first dried, ground to a fine powder and then mixed into a liquid (commonly wine) which was then drunk. To maintain their monopoly on cinchona bark, Peru and surrounding countries began outlawing the export of cinchona seeds and saplings beginning in the early 19th century. The Dutch government persisted in its attempt to smuggle the seeds, and by the 1930s Dutch plantations in Java were producing 22 million pounds of cinchona bark, or 97% of the world's quinine production. During World War II, Allied powers were cut off from their supply of quinine when the Germans conquered The Netherlands and the Japanese controlled the Philippines and Indonesia. The United States, however, had managed to obtain four million cinchona seeds from the Philippines and began operation of cinchona plantations in Costa Rica. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quinine
Learn how about foods and how to pronounce them: quinoa, achiote, clafouti, and fregola. http://www.oprah.com/blogs/Sounds-Weird-Tastes-Good
Facebook, in a proposed settlement with the FTC, has agreed to get users' permission before changing privacy settings. It would also have privacy audits every other year for 20 years. According to an eight-count complaint, the FTC alleged that Facebook told users that third-party apps they installed would have access to only as much information as the apps needed to operate but took far more. It also alleged that personal information labeled as to be shared only with friends had been shared with third-party apps when a friend installed the apps. The FTC also accused Facebook of sharing personal information with advertisers. Facebook did not admit to violating any law. The proposed settlement notes that the company denies the FTC's allegations. But Facebook has agreed to get express consent from users before changing how it shares their information. An issue of growing concern at the FTC is facial recognition, which Facebook rolled out last year. The FTC said it would hold a workshop on facial recognition next week. "If they unveil a new product that uses facial recognition technology, they would have to address the privacy concerns," said Maneesha Mithal, associate director in the FTC's division of privacy and identity protection. The proposed settlement is open to public comment until Dec. 30 and requires a final vote by the FTC's commissioners.
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-facebook-privacy-20111130,0,74780.story
News release from FTC, Facebook Settles FTC Charges That It Deceived Consumers By Failing To Keep Privacy Promises, 11/29/11 http://ftc.gov/opa/2011/11/privacysettlement.shtm
Nutcracker follow-up due to reader interest
The Imperial Mariinsky Theatre and its predecessor, the Bolshoi Kamenny Theatre, hosted the premieres of many of the operas of Mikhail Glinka, Modest Mussorgsky, and Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. At the behest of the theatre director Ivan Vsevolozhsky, both the Imperial Ballet and the Imperial Opera were relocated to the Mariinsky Theatre in 1886, as the Bolshoi Kamenny Theatre was considered unsafe. It was there that the renowned choreographer Marius Petipa presented many of his masterpieces, including such staples of the ballet repertory as The Sleeping Beauty in 1890, The Nutcracker in 1892, Raymonda in 1898, and the definitive revival of Swan Lake (with Lev Ivanov) in 1895. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mariinsky_Theatre
Earlier this year Amazon worked out a deal with California delay a start to collecting sales taxes until September 2012, after the state passed a law to require it. http://www.law.com/jsp/cc/PubArticleCC.jsp?id=1202513941879 More states – possibly all of them – are expected to follow its example. Currently, Amazon and other online sellers take advantage of a loophole in national sales-tax policy that requires a “physical presence” in the state for tax collection. Amazon had claimed its operations didn’t constitute a physical presence in California, and therefore, the “use tax” applied, which means customers are supposed to keep track of their purchases where sales tax isn’t collected and pay tax each year to their state. The Marketplace Fairness Act http://enzi.senate.gov/uploads/marketplacebill.pdf has been proposed in the Senate by a bipartisan group, and would close loopholes everywhere. However, critics point out that Amazon could benefit from the legislation, as it will offer to handle sales-tax chores for merchants selling through its site for a fee, according to MultiChannel Merchant, a marketing industry site.
http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2011/11/30/amazon-sales-tax-loopholes-likely-to-end-next-year/
New York City rang in the holiday season November 30 lighting the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree during a ceremony. The tree with its 30,000 lights (5 miles worth), will be on until Jan. 7. The first Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center was set up in 1931.
December 1: World AIDS Day; Great Union Day in Romania (1918)
1822 Pedro I was crowned the first Emperor of Brazil, less than two months after he actually began his reign on October 12.
1913 Ford Motor Company began operating the world's first moving assembly line for the mass production of automobiles.
1925 The Locarno Treaties were formally signed in London, establishing post-First World War territorial settlements.
1955 In a key event in the African-American Civil Rights Movement, Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to give up her seat on a public bus to a white man in Montgomery, Alabama, sparking the Montgomery Bus Boycott.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:About
Quinine is a natural white crystalline alkaloid having antipyretic (fever-reducing), antimalarial, analgesic (painkilling), anti-inflammatory properties and a bitter taste. Quinine is an effective muscle relaxant, long used by the Quechua Indians of Peru to halt shivering due to low temperatures. The Peruvians would mix the ground bark of cinchona trees with sweetened water to offset the bark's bitter taste, thus producing tonic water. Quinine has been used in unextracted form by Europeans since at least the early 17th century. Quinine was first used to treat malaria in Rome in 1631. During the 17th century, malaria was endemic to the swamps and marshes surrounding the city of Rome. Malaria was responsible for the death of several popes, many cardinals and countless common Roman citizens. Most of the priests trained in Rome had seen malaria victims and were familiar with the shivering brought on by the febrile phase of the disease. The Jesuit brother Agostino Salumbrino (1561–1642), an apothecary by training who lived in Lima, observed the Quechua using the bark of the cinchona tree for that purpose. At the first opportunity, Salumbrino sent a small quantity to Rome to test as a malaria treatment. In the years that followed, cinchona bark was known as Jesuit's bark or Peruvian Bark and became one of the most valuable commodities shipped from Peru to Europe. The form of quinine most effective in treating malaria was found by Charles Marie de La Condamine in 1737. Quinine was isolated and named in 1820 by French researchers Pierre Joseph Pelletier and Joseph Bienaimé Caventou. The name was derived from the original Quechua (Inca) word for the cinchona tree bark, "quina" or "quina-quina", which roughly means "bark of bark" or "holy bark". Prior to 1820, the bark was first dried, ground to a fine powder and then mixed into a liquid (commonly wine) which was then drunk. To maintain their monopoly on cinchona bark, Peru and surrounding countries began outlawing the export of cinchona seeds and saplings beginning in the early 19th century. The Dutch government persisted in its attempt to smuggle the seeds, and by the 1930s Dutch plantations in Java were producing 22 million pounds of cinchona bark, or 97% of the world's quinine production. During World War II, Allied powers were cut off from their supply of quinine when the Germans conquered The Netherlands and the Japanese controlled the Philippines and Indonesia. The United States, however, had managed to obtain four million cinchona seeds from the Philippines and began operation of cinchona plantations in Costa Rica. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quinine
Learn how about foods and how to pronounce them: quinoa, achiote, clafouti, and fregola. http://www.oprah.com/blogs/Sounds-Weird-Tastes-Good
Facebook, in a proposed settlement with the FTC, has agreed to get users' permission before changing privacy settings. It would also have privacy audits every other year for 20 years. According to an eight-count complaint, the FTC alleged that Facebook told users that third-party apps they installed would have access to only as much information as the apps needed to operate but took far more. It also alleged that personal information labeled as to be shared only with friends had been shared with third-party apps when a friend installed the apps. The FTC also accused Facebook of sharing personal information with advertisers. Facebook did not admit to violating any law. The proposed settlement notes that the company denies the FTC's allegations. But Facebook has agreed to get express consent from users before changing how it shares their information. An issue of growing concern at the FTC is facial recognition, which Facebook rolled out last year. The FTC said it would hold a workshop on facial recognition next week. "If they unveil a new product that uses facial recognition technology, they would have to address the privacy concerns," said Maneesha Mithal, associate director in the FTC's division of privacy and identity protection. The proposed settlement is open to public comment until Dec. 30 and requires a final vote by the FTC's commissioners.
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-facebook-privacy-20111130,0,74780.story
News release from FTC, Facebook Settles FTC Charges That It Deceived Consumers By Failing To Keep Privacy Promises, 11/29/11 http://ftc.gov/opa/2011/11/privacysettlement.shtm
Nutcracker follow-up due to reader interest
The Imperial Mariinsky Theatre and its predecessor, the Bolshoi Kamenny Theatre, hosted the premieres of many of the operas of Mikhail Glinka, Modest Mussorgsky, and Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. At the behest of the theatre director Ivan Vsevolozhsky, both the Imperial Ballet and the Imperial Opera were relocated to the Mariinsky Theatre in 1886, as the Bolshoi Kamenny Theatre was considered unsafe. It was there that the renowned choreographer Marius Petipa presented many of his masterpieces, including such staples of the ballet repertory as The Sleeping Beauty in 1890, The Nutcracker in 1892, Raymonda in 1898, and the definitive revival of Swan Lake (with Lev Ivanov) in 1895. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mariinsky_Theatre
Earlier this year Amazon worked out a deal with California delay a start to collecting sales taxes until September 2012, after the state passed a law to require it. http://www.law.com/jsp/cc/PubArticleCC.jsp?id=1202513941879 More states – possibly all of them – are expected to follow its example. Currently, Amazon and other online sellers take advantage of a loophole in national sales-tax policy that requires a “physical presence” in the state for tax collection. Amazon had claimed its operations didn’t constitute a physical presence in California, and therefore, the “use tax” applied, which means customers are supposed to keep track of their purchases where sales tax isn’t collected and pay tax each year to their state. The Marketplace Fairness Act http://enzi.senate.gov/uploads/marketplacebill.pdf has been proposed in the Senate by a bipartisan group, and would close loopholes everywhere. However, critics point out that Amazon could benefit from the legislation, as it will offer to handle sales-tax chores for merchants selling through its site for a fee, according to MultiChannel Merchant, a marketing industry site.
http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2011/11/30/amazon-sales-tax-loopholes-likely-to-end-next-year/
New York City rang in the holiday season November 30 lighting the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree during a ceremony. The tree with its 30,000 lights (5 miles worth), will be on until Jan. 7. The first Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center was set up in 1931.
December 1: World AIDS Day; Great Union Day in Romania (1918)
1822 Pedro I was crowned the first Emperor of Brazil, less than two months after he actually began his reign on October 12.
1913 Ford Motor Company began operating the world's first moving assembly line for the mass production of automobiles.
1925 The Locarno Treaties were formally signed in London, establishing post-First World War territorial settlements.
1955 In a key event in the African-American Civil Rights Movement, Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to give up her seat on a public bus to a white man in Montgomery, Alabama, sparking the Montgomery Bus Boycott.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:About
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