============================
Look at some of the landmarks of the world at:
http://www.burger.si/Index.htm
============================
Solar System Simulator
Want to see different and unusual images of our Solar System such and moons, planets or space craft? Then JPL's web is for you. They ave a Solar System Simulator and the are at:
http://space.jpl.nasa.gov/
It does require a little playing around to get the hang of it. I was looking at the moon Oberon and at first I was looking at the back and there was just a black place where no stars where shining. I had to change the direction I looked at it from to get any details. If the sun is not shinning on the side you pick then it is the dark.
============================
Movie Mistakes
Some people call them continuity flaws or just call them mistakes. This web site collects them and puts them out for everybody to see.
http://www.moviemistakes.com/
============================
The Phobia List
An extensive list of everything to be afraid of and the correct name from journals.
Here is a small part of the Phobias that begin with 'P':
Paraskavedekatriaphobia- Fear of Friday the 13th.
Parthenophobia- Fear of virgins or young girls.
Pathophobia- Fear of disease.
Patroiophobia- Fear of heredity.
Parturiphobia- Fear of childbirth.
Peccatophobia- Fear of sinning or imaginary crimes.
Pediculophobia- Fear of lice.
Pediophobia- Fear of dolls.
Pedophobia- Fear of children.
Peladophobia- Fear of bald people.
So go ahead and be frightened but at least know how to say it what it is you are frightened of.
http://phobialist.com/
============================
Red Green web site.
The official web site for that loveable Canadian import,
The Red Green Show. Buy episodes, and stuff (like a duck tape forever coffee mug) at:
http://www.redgreen.com/
============================
Exploratorium
Learn at kinds of neat things about Science, Art and Human Perception. Pushing the button that says "Don't push this button" makes strange things happen. It is smart enough for adults but simple enough not to scare kids away.
http://www.exploratorium.edu/
============================
The Instructables
This is a very unusual site. It has tutorials on how to make things. We are not talking bird houses and spice racks. How to make a Charlie Brown Christmas tree? Or how to make a Tyvek Projector Screen, an office chair that 'Tweets' (yes it uses Twitter) when you pass gas or how build a Tesla Coil. Strange and and cool stuff. For all you cheapos out there - No Cost.
http://www.instructables.com/
Bring tools. They even have a small battery-powered USB charger that will run your Ipod video for 3 hours or your Ipod mini for 30 hours or your Ipod shuffle for 60 hours.
============================
Now to the reasons to be happy this week
(or at least civil).
Here goes:
============================
monday 14 december
***The Official NoButtonButton*************
***
*** "Human beings are the only creatures on earth
***
*** that allow their children to come back home."
*** - Bill Cosby
******************************
birthdays:
1847 - Margaret Chase Smith was a Republican Senator from Maine. She was the first woman to be elected to both the U.S. House and the Senate. She was also the first woman to have her name placed in nomination for the U.S. Presidency at a major party's convention (1964 Republican Convention). The GOP choose Barry Goldwater and LBJ took him out. I think if they had gone with the much more moderate Smith they might have stood a chance.
1951 – Paul Zaloom, American actor, puppeteer and political satirist. He is sort of hard to explain so go figure it out yourself at his home page:
http://zaloom.com/
1954 – Steven MacLean, Canadian astronaut. I can hear you now "When did Canada get a space program?" Years ago. They work with us. Steve has flown on the Shuttle twice and is the current President of the Canadian Space Agency. He has over 21 days in floating around the Earth. Remember the great big honking arm that extends out of the cargo bay? Well who designed and built that puppy. Our friends in the Great White North, that's who. It is called Canadarm (I know, too cute). The robotic arm that walks over the International Space Station (like an inch worm) - it is Canadian.
events:
1836 – The Toledo War AKA the Ohio-Michigan War,unofficially ends.
The Toledo War (1835–1836), also known was the almost entirely bloodless boundary dispute between the U.S. state of Ohio and the adjoining territory of Michigan.
Varying interpretations of the laws passed between 1787 and 1805 caused the governments of Ohio and Michigan to both claim sovereignty over a 468 square mile region along the border. When Michigan sought statehood in the early 1830s, it sought to include the disputed territory within its boundaries. Ohio's Congressional delegation stopped Michigan's admission to the Union.
There followed a year of dueling law and the raising of militias until both states' forces faced each other across the Maumee River. They yelled at each other and fired their guns in the air and then under much pressure (economic and political) Michigan gave in so we good the keep Toledo and 'Tony Packco's Hungarian Hot Dogs'. I like them and have gone to Toledo just to have lunch there. Their are five locations now but the Original, down by there river (the one Klinger from M*A*S*H talked about) is the most fun.
Their web site:
http://www.tonypackos.com/
You can order the food and cook it at your house.
1947 – The National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR) is founded in Daytona Beach, Florida. Finally a way to get those Moonshine runners to go ligit.
1962 – NASA's Mariner 2 becomes the first spacecraft to fly by Venus. Flying by is a good thing. The first craft to land on Venus lasted for 30 seconds. If you want to make a model of the Venusian atmosphere all you have to do is get some strong acid, put it in a pressure cooker and crank up the temperature to 800 degrees. Be sure and make all readings remotely by video camera and alert the fire department because wherever you do this something is going to burn (you if you aren't careful). So what I mean is DO NOT TRY THIS. It would take out a house faster than deep-frying a turkey on your back deck, in a wind storm.
holidays:
National Bouillabaisse Day - Bouillabaisse is a traditional Provençal fish stew originating from the port city of Marseille.
Bouillabaisse is a fish soup containing various kinds of cooked fish and shellfish and vegetables, flavored with a variety of herbs and spices such as garlic, orange peel, basil, bay leaf, fennel and saffron. There are at least three kinds of fish in a traditional bouillabaisse, typically scorpionfish, sea robin, and European conger, although about every other kind of fish and shell fish ends up in the soup at some point.
============================
tuesday 15 december
***The Official NoButtonButton*************
***
*** "Only a fool argues with a skunk,
***
*** a mule or the cook."
*** - Harry Oliver
******************************
birthdays:
1852 – Henri Becquerel, French physicist and the 1903 winner of the Nobel Prize in physics. The SI (metric) unit for radioactivity, the becquerel (Bq), is named after him.
1859 – L. L. Zamenhof, Polish inventor of Esperanto. He wanted to create a language that hopefully would be easy to learn and everyone would learn it and we would never fight any more wars. He even published some books under the pseudonym "Doktoro Esperanto", or "Doctor Hopeful". Ironically Esperanto was the official language of the Aggressor Forces in US Army War games.
If you want to try your hand at Esperanto there are five works on Project Gutenberg:
http://www.gutenberg.org/
1911 - Nicholas Peter Dallis was an American psychiatrist who had a practice in Toledo, Ohio. He was not complete so he got a second job - comic strip writer. He created 'Rex Morgan, M.D.', 'Judge Parker', and 'Apartment 3-G'. He did not draw the strips but he wrote the stories and the dialog. He kept his comics career separate from his medical practice by writing under pseudonyms, Dal Curtis and Paul Nichols. All three strips are still being drawn and have changed considerably. My parents don't like the art work on Apartment 3-G anymore. Judge Parker has the best art of the three. It is dramatic. If you want to see the strips goto the following links:
Rex Morgan, M.D.
http://www.kingfeatures.com/
Judge Parker
http://www.kingfeatures.com/
Apartment 3-G
http://www.kingfeatures.com/
events:
1791 – The United States Bill of Rights becomes law when ratified by the Virginia General Assembly. We still have a few of them. It is to bad that there was not an Amendment to guarantee a right of privacy. I think it is to late to save it now.
1891 – James Naismith introduces the first version of basketball, with thirteen rules, a peach basket nailed to either end of his school's gymnasium, and two teams of nine players. No provisions for drug testing were provided for in the rules.
1941 – The American Federation of Labor adopts a no-strike policy in war industries.
1955 - Jens Olsen's World Clock or Verdensur is an advanced astronomical clock which is displayed in Copenhagen City Hall. The clock consists of 12 movements and has over 14,000 parts. It is a mechanical clock and is wound once a week. It keeps track of lunar and solar eclipses, positions of the planets, a perpetual calendar and just plain time. The fastest gear completes a revolution each ten seconds, and the slowest will take 25,753 years to rotate once (I am not to confident that one will ever make it).
I took quite a while to do the calculations to create the clock, two years to make the drawings and twelve years to build it. On this day in 1941 it was started by King Frederick IX and Jens Olsen's (the designer) youngest grandchild Birgit.
holidays:
Zamenhof Day - Celebrated by users of Esperanto around the world.
National Lemon Cupcake Day - Random food day.
============================
wednesday 16 december
***The Official NoButtonButton*************
***
*** "When I eventually met Mr Right I had
***
*** no idea that his first name was Always."
*** - Rita Rudner
******************************
birthdays:
1917 – Sir Arthur C. Clarke, British science fiction author, inventor, and futurist. His most famous novel is "2001 A Space Odyssey", but I don't think that the book was all that good. It was developed at the same time the movie was and part of the book includes themes from some of his short stories such as "The Sentinel" and "Encounter in the Dawn".
"The Fountains of Paradise" (building an elevator to geosynchronous orbit) and "Against the Fall of Night" (the twilight of mankind in year 10 billion) are much more interesting books. The title "Against the Fall of Night" is taken from a poem by A.E.Houseman that one of the stanzas goes like this:
Here, on the level sand,
Between the sea and land,
What shall I build or write
Against the fall of night?
1928 – Philip K. Dick, American writer (almost all SciFi). He wrote "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" So what you say, well it is the book that "Blade Runner" is based on. Other books of his that were turned into movies are:
Total Recall "We Can Remember It for You Wholesale"
Confessions d'un Barjo "Confessions of a Crap Artist"
Screamers "Second Variety"
Minority Report "The Minority Report"
Impostor "Impostor"
Paycheck "Paycheck"
A Scanner Darkly "A Scanner Darkly"
Next "The Golden Man"
Radio Free Albemuth "Radio Free Albemuth"
King of the Elves "The King of the Elves" (due in 2012)
1945 - Yukio Hattori is best known as an expert commentator on the Japanese TV show 'Iron Chef'. Hattori is also the president of the Hattori Nutrition College; the Iron Chef end credits mention that the program is "produced in cooperation with" the College. Hattori received a Ph.D. in medicine from Showa University.
While his main role on the show was as a commentator, Hattori took the place of Chairman Kaga at least once when the chairman boycotted Kitchen Stadium to protest the poor performance of his Iron Chefs. Hattori also challenged the Iron Chefs at least twice and lost both times. Alton Brown does his job on the US version of 'Iron Chef'. For a picture of all the Japanese Iron Chefs and Chairman Kaga goto:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
events:
1431 – Henry VI of England is crowned King of France at Notre Dame in Paris. Everybody has ruled, owned, invaded or pillage everywhere in Europe.
1773 – Boston Tea Party – Members of the Sons of Liberty disguised as Mohawks dump crates of tea into Boston harbor as a protest against the Tea Act. That was not the only 'Tea Party' held in the colonies but it seems to be the only one that we remember. The brig 'Good Intent' was forced to return (fully loaded) to England because it carried some tea. in October 1774, the cargo brig 'Peggy Stewart' was set afire and with sails and colors flying, burned to the waterline. The fire was punishment for attempting to break the boycott on tea imports, which had been imposed, in retaliation for the British treatment of the people of Boston following the Boston Tea Party. This event became known as the "Annapolis Tea Party".
1826 – Benjamin W. Edwards rides into Mexican controlled Nacogdoches, Texas and declares himself ruler of the Republic of Fredonia. Many consider the short lived (less than a month) Fredonia revolution as the very first battle of the Texas Revolution. The bulk of the Texas Revolution lasted less than 7 months, but occasional skirmishes and sea battles continued for 11 years.
1947 – William Shockley, John Bardeen and Walter Brattain build the first practical point-contact transistor. The computer you are running so you can read this has hundreds of thousands, if not millions of transistors in it.
1997 - "Dennō Senshi Porygon", literally "Computer Soldier Porygon", is the thirty-eighth episode of the Pokémon anime's first season. It was broadcast on this day (in Japan) and never broadcast again, anywhere in the world. No tapes, no DVDs, no nothing. Why? Of the 4.6 million viewers 12,000 suffered blurred vision, headaches, dizziness and nausea. 685 viewers (all children) had seizures and were transported to local hospitals, 150 were admitted and 2 stayed hospitalized for over two weeks. Flashing Red and Blue screens triggered all the problems. The episodes is banned everywhere. Personally 'Bridezilla' does the same for me.
holidays:
National Chocolate Covered Anything Day.... I'm 'anything'... hint.
============================
thursday 17 december
***The Official NoButtonButton*************
***
*** "Americans will put up with anything
***
*** provided it doesn't block traffic."
*** - Dan Rather
******************************
birthdays:
1873 – Ford Madox Ford, English writer primarily remember for the novel "The Good Soldier: A Tale of Passion". It is set just before World War I and chronicles the tragedies of the lives of two seemingly perfect couples. The novel is told using a series of flashbacks in non-chronological order, a literary technique pioneered by Ford. My wife hates this type of story telling. I find it is really cool if done well. The book Catch 22 was full of flashbacks and it was a great (and occasionally confusing) book. Imagine growing up with the name Ford Ford.
1900 - Dame Mary Lucy Cartwright DBE was a leading 20th-century British mathematician.
(Disclaimer: I am not sure what language the following verbage is written in. If anybody recognizes it please give me a shout.)
In 1930 Cartwright went to Girton College, Cambridge. She continued working on the topic of her doctoral thesis (zeros of entire functions). She solved one of the open problems which was posed at a lecture. Her theorem, now known as Cartwright's theorem, gives an estimate for the maximum modulus of an analytic function that takes the same value no more than p times in the unit disc. To prove the theorem she used a new approach, applying a technique introduced by Lars Ahlfors for conformal mappings.
(I read this half a dozen times and I am just as confused as the first time.)
1937 - John Kennedy Toole was an American novelist from New Orleans, best known for his Pulitzer Prize-winning novel "A Confederacy of Dunces". When he submitted it he was rejected. He got depressed and drank a lot and killed himself. In 1980 it was published and was awarded a Pulitzer Prize in 1981. Since then it has sold 1.5 million copies and been translated into 17 additional languages. DON'T GIVE UP. Failure is not falling on your face. Failure is refusing to get back up.
events:
Wow today is an amazing day for Aerospace. Tons of flying and space related things.
http://www.burger.si/Index.htm
1903 – The Wright Brothers make their first powered and heavier-than-air flight in the Wright Flyer at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. Now it takes longer get searched than the first flight was in the air and you have to walk farther to the gate than the distance of the first flight.
National Maple Syrup Day
1947 – First flight of the Boeing B-47 Stratojet strategic bomber.
1950 - The F-86 Sabre's first mission over Korea.
1957 – The United States successfully launches the first Atlas ICBM at Cape Canaveral, Florida. Originally it was designed to deliver (with extreme prejudice) nuclear weapons to the Soviet Union, now, ironically, the Atlas V has Russian designed and built NPO Energomash RD-180 engines. Pratt and Whitney company has obtained a license to build the engines in the US.
The official name was first the XB-65 because the missile was considered a bomber. Then it was changed to SM-65", in 1962, it became "CGM-16". The 'C' stood for 'coffin', (it was stored in a container laying on its side). The Atlas was raised, fueled and launched in the open. The Atlas-F was called the HGM-16 (stored vertically in a 'Hardened Ground' silo). The most advanced Atlas V is basically three Atlas missiles strapped together.
1969 – The SALT I talks begin.
1969 – Project Blue Book: The United States Air Force closes its study of UFOs, stating that sightings were generated as a result of "A mild form of mass hysteria, Individuals who fabricate such reports to perpetrate a hoax or seek publicity, psychopathological persons, and misidentification of various conventional objects." So the Air Force is saying that if you see a UFO you are a nut, conman, criminal or just plain wrong. So when somebody does see a real space craft from some other planet the Air Force is not going to believe them. They will have to land on the White House lawn and have Klatu stroll around, to get any notice.
holidays:
National Maple Syrup Day - There was a band in the 70's that had a semi-nude model pour syrup over herself and then pose. It was a mess, she stuck to everything and had a couple of injuries trying to get everything off. Some things just should not be done. So be careful how you celebrate the day. You should probably stick :) to more edible applications.
============================
friday 18 december
***The Official NoButtonButton*************
***
*** "A word to the wise ain't necessary -
***
*** it's the stupid ones that need the advice."
*** - Bill Cosby
******************************
birthdays:
1856 - Sir Joseph John “J. J.” Thomson, OM, FRS was a British physicist credited for the discovery of the electron, of isotopes, and he invented the mass spectrometer. I am sure that Abby Sciuto (a character on the TV show NCIS) loves him for inventing the Mass Spec. It is one of her favorite machines. JJ won a Nobel Prize for discovering electrons.
1870 - Saki - Well that is a pen name he really was Hector Hugh Munro and was a British writer, whose witty and sometimes macabre stories satirised Edwardian society and culture. He is considered a master of the short story and is often compared to O. Henry and Dorothy Parker. One of his few novels was "When William Came: A Story of London Under the Hohenzollerns", is a fantasy about a life in London after a successful German invasion of Britain (more of a WWI Germany).
Some of his works are on Project Gutenberg at:
http://www.gutenberg.org/
1890 – Edwin Armstrong, American inventor. Some inventor. One of his patents was for FM radio. HOT, HOT, HOT. He used the electrons the JJ discovered to a wonderful purpose.
1904 – George Stevens, American film director. These are some of the movies that he directed that I liked or that I think are important:
1935 Annie Oakley Barbara Stanwyck
1939 Gunga Din Cary Grant, Doug Fairbanks, Victor McLaglen
1941 Penny Serenade Cary Grant, Irene Dunne
1942 Woman of the Year Spencer Tracy, Katharine Hepburn
1942 The Talk of the Town Cary Grant, Jean Arthur, Ronald Colman
1948 I Remember Mama Irene Dunne
1953 Shane Alan Ladd (First Technicolor film)
1956 Giant Elizabeth Taylor, Rock Hudson, James Dean
1959 The Diary of Anne Frank Millie Perkins, Joseph Schildkraut
1965 Greatest Story Ever Told Max von Sydow
events:
1620 – The Mayflower lands in present-day Plymouth, Mass with 102 Pilgrims on board.
1642 – Abel Tasman becomes first European to land in New Zealand (and Tasmania but that is a different day).
1912 –The Piltdown Man is found in the Piltdown Gravel Pit, by Charles Dawson. For the next 41 years it was though to be the remains of on of human's early ancestors. actually id was the lower jawbone of an orangutan that had been deliberately combined with the skull of a fully developed modern human.
The Piltdown hoax is perhaps the most famous paleontological hoax in history.
1987 – Larry Wall releases the first version of the Perl programming language. Perl is nicknamed "the Swiss Army chainsaw of programming languages" due to its flexibility and adaptability. Perl was originally designed to make it easier for Larry to make his reports so it provides the easy manipulation of text files. But it is also used for graphics programming, system administration, network programming, applications that require database access and CGI programming on the Web. So it is very cool to know.
The latest stable version of Perl is 5.10.1 released last September. Perl 6 should be out in the fairly near future. You can download and study Perl (it's free) at:
http://www.perl.org/
1996 – The Oakland, California school board passes a resolution officially declaring "Ebonics" a language or dialect. And wild jocularity ensued. Actually the out-going school board passed the resolution and the incoming new school board first amended then dropped the resolution.
My personal feelings about Ebonics is that it is not the language that most successful people in this country speak. If you want to pursue the better jobs you need to speak the same language as the ones who are going to be hiring you. Oprah doesn't speak Ebonics on her show and neither does Tyra, Obama, Jessie Jackson, Tavis Smiley, Sidney Poitier, Bill Cosby or most of the successful Black men and women in the US do not speak Ebonics. Nelson Mandela speaks better English than many US citizens and it isn't even his first language.
holidays:
Wear a Plunger On Your Head Today Day - Please, Please, Please use a new, clean one.
National Roast Suckling Pig Day - This almost makes me want to be a vegetarian.
http://www.burger.si/Index.htm
============================
Solar System Simulator
Want to see different and unusual images of our Solar System such and moons, planets or space craft? Then JPL's web is for you. They ave a Solar System Simulator and the are at:
http://space.jpl.nasa.gov/
It does require a little playing around to get the hang of it. I was looking at the moon Oberon and at first I was looking at the back and there was just a black place where no stars where shining. I had to change the direction I looked at it from to get any details. If the sun is not shinning on the side you pick then it is the dark.
============================
Movie Mistakes
Some people call them continuity flaws or just call them mistakes. This web site collects them and puts them out for everybody to see.
http://www.moviemistakes.com/
============================
The Phobia List
An extensive list of everything to be afraid of and the correct name from journals.
Here is a small part of the Phobias that begin with 'P':
Paraskavedekatriaphobia- Fear of Friday the 13th.
Parthenophobia- Fear of virgins or young girls.
Pathophobia- Fear of disease.
Patroiophobia- Fear of heredity.
Parturiphobia- Fear of childbirth.
Peccatophobia- Fear of sinning or imaginary crimes.
Pediculophobia- Fear of lice.
Pediophobia- Fear of dolls.
Pedophobia- Fear of children.
Peladophobia- Fear of bald people.
So go ahead and be frightened but at least know how to say it what it is you are frightened of.
http://phobialist.com/
============================
Red Green web site.
The official web site for that loveable Canadian import,
The Red Green Show. Buy episodes, and stuff (like a duck tape forever coffee mug) at:
http://www.redgreen.com/
============================
Exploratorium
Learn at kinds of neat things about Science, Art and Human Perception. Pushing the button that says "Don't push this button" makes strange things happen. It is smart enough for adults but simple enough not to scare kids away.
http://www.exploratorium.edu/
============================
The Instructables
This is a very unusual site. It has tutorials on how to make things. We are not talking bird houses and spice racks. How to make a Charlie Brown Christmas tree? Or how to make a Tyvek Projector Screen, an office chair that 'Tweets' (yes it uses Twitter) when you pass gas or how build a Tesla Coil. Strange and and cool stuff. For all you cheapos out there - No Cost.
http://www.instructables.com/
Bring tools. They even have a small battery-powered USB charger that will run your Ipod video for 3 hours or your Ipod mini for 30 hours or your Ipod shuffle for 60 hours.
============================
Now to the reasons to be happy this week
(or at least civil).
Here goes:
============================
monday 14 december
***The Official NoButtonButton*************
***
*** "Human beings are the only creatures on earth
***
*** that allow their children to come back home."
*** - Bill Cosby
******************************
birthdays:
1847 - Margaret Chase Smith was a Republican Senator from Maine. She was the first woman to be elected to both the U.S. House and the Senate. She was also the first woman to have her name placed in nomination for the U.S. Presidency at a major party's convention (1964 Republican Convention). The GOP choose Barry Goldwater and LBJ took him out. I think if they had gone with the much more moderate Smith they might have stood a chance.
1951 – Paul Zaloom, American actor, puppeteer and political satirist. He is sort of hard to explain so go figure it out yourself at his home page:
http://zaloom.com/
1954 – Steven MacLean, Canadian astronaut. I can hear you now "When did Canada get a space program?" Years ago. They work with us. Steve has flown on the Shuttle twice and is the current President of the Canadian Space Agency. He has over 21 days in floating around the Earth. Remember the great big honking arm that extends out of the cargo bay? Well who designed and built that puppy. Our friends in the Great White North, that's who. It is called Canadarm (I know, too cute). The robotic arm that walks over the International Space Station (like an inch worm) - it is Canadian.
events:
1836 – The Toledo War AKA the Ohio-Michigan War,unofficially ends.
The Toledo War (1835–1836), also known was the almost entirely bloodless boundary dispute between the U.S. state of Ohio and the adjoining territory of Michigan.
Varying interpretations of the laws passed between 1787 and 1805 caused the governments of Ohio and Michigan to both claim sovereignty over a 468 square mile region along the border. When Michigan sought statehood in the early 1830s, it sought to include the disputed territory within its boundaries. Ohio's Congressional delegation stopped Michigan's admission to the Union.
There followed a year of dueling law and the raising of militias until both states' forces faced each other across the Maumee River. They yelled at each other and fired their guns in the air and then under much pressure (economic and political) Michigan gave in so we good the keep Toledo and 'Tony Packco's Hungarian Hot Dogs'. I like them and have gone to Toledo just to have lunch there. Their are five locations now but the Original, down by there river (the one Klinger from M*A*S*H talked about) is the most fun.
Their web site:
http://www.tonypackos.com/
You can order the food and cook it at your house.
1947 – The National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR) is founded in Daytona Beach, Florida. Finally a way to get those Moonshine runners to go ligit.
1962 – NASA's Mariner 2 becomes the first spacecraft to fly by Venus. Flying by is a good thing. The first craft to land on Venus lasted for 30 seconds. If you want to make a model of the Venusian atmosphere all you have to do is get some strong acid, put it in a pressure cooker and crank up the temperature to 800 degrees. Be sure and make all readings remotely by video camera and alert the fire department because wherever you do this something is going to burn (you if you aren't careful). So what I mean is DO NOT TRY THIS. It would take out a house faster than deep-frying a turkey on your back deck, in a wind storm.
holidays:
National Bouillabaisse Day - Bouillabaisse is a traditional Provençal fish stew originating from the port city of Marseille.
Bouillabaisse is a fish soup containing various kinds of cooked fish and shellfish and vegetables, flavored with a variety of herbs and spices such as garlic, orange peel, basil, bay leaf, fennel and saffron. There are at least three kinds of fish in a traditional bouillabaisse, typically scorpionfish, sea robin, and European conger, although about every other kind of fish and shell fish ends up in the soup at some point.
============================
tuesday 15 december
***The Official NoButtonButton*************
***
*** "Only a fool argues with a skunk,
***
*** a mule or the cook."
*** - Harry Oliver
******************************
birthdays:
1852 – Henri Becquerel, French physicist and the 1903 winner of the Nobel Prize in physics. The SI (metric) unit for radioactivity, the becquerel (Bq), is named after him.
1859 – L. L. Zamenhof, Polish inventor of Esperanto. He wanted to create a language that hopefully would be easy to learn and everyone would learn it and we would never fight any more wars. He even published some books under the pseudonym "Doktoro Esperanto", or "Doctor Hopeful". Ironically Esperanto was the official language of the Aggressor Forces in US Army War games.
If you want to try your hand at Esperanto there are five works on Project Gutenberg:
http://www.gutenberg.org/
1911 - Nicholas Peter Dallis was an American psychiatrist who had a practice in Toledo, Ohio. He was not complete so he got a second job - comic strip writer. He created 'Rex Morgan, M.D.', 'Judge Parker', and 'Apartment 3-G'. He did not draw the strips but he wrote the stories and the dialog. He kept his comics career separate from his medical practice by writing under pseudonyms, Dal Curtis and Paul Nichols. All three strips are still being drawn and have changed considerably. My parents don't like the art work on Apartment 3-G anymore. Judge Parker has the best art of the three. It is dramatic. If you want to see the strips goto the following links:
Rex Morgan, M.D.
http://www.kingfeatures.com/
Judge Parker
http://www.kingfeatures.com/
Apartment 3-G
http://www.kingfeatures.com/
events:
1791 – The United States Bill of Rights becomes law when ratified by the Virginia General Assembly. We still have a few of them. It is to bad that there was not an Amendment to guarantee a right of privacy. I think it is to late to save it now.
1891 – James Naismith introduces the first version of basketball, with thirteen rules, a peach basket nailed to either end of his school's gymnasium, and two teams of nine players. No provisions for drug testing were provided for in the rules.
1941 – The American Federation of Labor adopts a no-strike policy in war industries.
1955 - Jens Olsen's World Clock or Verdensur is an advanced astronomical clock which is displayed in Copenhagen City Hall. The clock consists of 12 movements and has over 14,000 parts. It is a mechanical clock and is wound once a week. It keeps track of lunar and solar eclipses, positions of the planets, a perpetual calendar and just plain time. The fastest gear completes a revolution each ten seconds, and the slowest will take 25,753 years to rotate once (I am not to confident that one will ever make it).
I took quite a while to do the calculations to create the clock, two years to make the drawings and twelve years to build it. On this day in 1941 it was started by King Frederick IX and Jens Olsen's (the designer) youngest grandchild Birgit.
holidays:
Zamenhof Day - Celebrated by users of Esperanto around the world.
National Lemon Cupcake Day - Random food day.
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wednesday 16 december
***The Official NoButtonButton*************
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*** "When I eventually met Mr Right I had
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*** no idea that his first name was Always."
*** - Rita Rudner
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birthdays:
1917 – Sir Arthur C. Clarke, British science fiction author, inventor, and futurist. His most famous novel is "2001 A Space Odyssey", but I don't think that the book was all that good. It was developed at the same time the movie was and part of the book includes themes from some of his short stories such as "The Sentinel" and "Encounter in the Dawn".
"The Fountains of Paradise" (building an elevator to geosynchronous orbit) and "Against the Fall of Night" (the twilight of mankind in year 10 billion) are much more interesting books. The title "Against the Fall of Night" is taken from a poem by A.E.Houseman that one of the stanzas goes like this:
Here, on the level sand,
Between the sea and land,
What shall I build or write
Against the fall of night?
1928 – Philip K. Dick, American writer (almost all SciFi). He wrote "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" So what you say, well it is the book that "Blade Runner" is based on. Other books of his that were turned into movies are:
Total Recall "We Can Remember It for You Wholesale"
Confessions d'un Barjo "Confessions of a Crap Artist"
Screamers "Second Variety"
Minority Report "The Minority Report"
Impostor "Impostor"
Paycheck "Paycheck"
A Scanner Darkly "A Scanner Darkly"
Next "The Golden Man"
Radio Free Albemuth "Radio Free Albemuth"
King of the Elves "The King of the Elves" (due in 2012)
1945 - Yukio Hattori is best known as an expert commentator on the Japanese TV show 'Iron Chef'. Hattori is also the president of the Hattori Nutrition College; the Iron Chef end credits mention that the program is "produced in cooperation with" the College. Hattori received a Ph.D. in medicine from Showa University.
While his main role on the show was as a commentator, Hattori took the place of Chairman Kaga at least once when the chairman boycotted Kitchen Stadium to protest the poor performance of his Iron Chefs. Hattori also challenged the Iron Chefs at least twice and lost both times. Alton Brown does his job on the US version of 'Iron Chef'. For a picture of all the Japanese Iron Chefs and Chairman Kaga goto:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
events:
1431 – Henry VI of England is crowned King of France at Notre Dame in Paris. Everybody has ruled, owned, invaded or pillage everywhere in Europe.
1773 – Boston Tea Party – Members of the Sons of Liberty disguised as Mohawks dump crates of tea into Boston harbor as a protest against the Tea Act. That was not the only 'Tea Party' held in the colonies but it seems to be the only one that we remember. The brig 'Good Intent' was forced to return (fully loaded) to England because it carried some tea. in October 1774, the cargo brig 'Peggy Stewart' was set afire and with sails and colors flying, burned to the waterline. The fire was punishment for attempting to break the boycott on tea imports, which had been imposed, in retaliation for the British treatment of the people of Boston following the Boston Tea Party. This event became known as the "Annapolis Tea Party".
1826 – Benjamin W. Edwards rides into Mexican controlled Nacogdoches, Texas and declares himself ruler of the Republic of Fredonia. Many consider the short lived (less than a month) Fredonia revolution as the very first battle of the Texas Revolution. The bulk of the Texas Revolution lasted less than 7 months, but occasional skirmishes and sea battles continued for 11 years.
1947 – William Shockley, John Bardeen and Walter Brattain build the first practical point-contact transistor. The computer you are running so you can read this has hundreds of thousands, if not millions of transistors in it.
1997 - "Dennō Senshi Porygon", literally "Computer Soldier Porygon", is the thirty-eighth episode of the Pokémon anime's first season. It was broadcast on this day (in Japan) and never broadcast again, anywhere in the world. No tapes, no DVDs, no nothing. Why? Of the 4.6 million viewers 12,000 suffered blurred vision, headaches, dizziness and nausea. 685 viewers (all children) had seizures and were transported to local hospitals, 150 were admitted and 2 stayed hospitalized for over two weeks. Flashing Red and Blue screens triggered all the problems. The episodes is banned everywhere. Personally 'Bridezilla' does the same for me.
holidays:
National Chocolate Covered Anything Day.... I'm 'anything'... hint.
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thursday 17 december
***The Official NoButtonButton*************
***
*** "Americans will put up with anything
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*** provided it doesn't block traffic."
*** - Dan Rather
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birthdays:
1873 – Ford Madox Ford, English writer primarily remember for the novel "The Good Soldier: A Tale of Passion". It is set just before World War I and chronicles the tragedies of the lives of two seemingly perfect couples. The novel is told using a series of flashbacks in non-chronological order, a literary technique pioneered by Ford. My wife hates this type of story telling. I find it is really cool if done well. The book Catch 22 was full of flashbacks and it was a great (and occasionally confusing) book. Imagine growing up with the name Ford Ford.
1900 - Dame Mary Lucy Cartwright DBE was a leading 20th-century British mathematician.
(Disclaimer: I am not sure what language the following verbage is written in. If anybody recognizes it please give me a shout.)
In 1930 Cartwright went to Girton College, Cambridge. She continued working on the topic of her doctoral thesis (zeros of entire functions). She solved one of the open problems which was posed at a lecture. Her theorem, now known as Cartwright's theorem, gives an estimate for the maximum modulus of an analytic function that takes the same value no more than p times in the unit disc. To prove the theorem she used a new approach, applying a technique introduced by Lars Ahlfors for conformal mappings.
(I read this half a dozen times and I am just as confused as the first time.)
1937 - John Kennedy Toole was an American novelist from New Orleans, best known for his Pulitzer Prize-winning novel "A Confederacy of Dunces". When he submitted it he was rejected. He got depressed and drank a lot and killed himself. In 1980 it was published and was awarded a Pulitzer Prize in 1981. Since then it has sold 1.5 million copies and been translated into 17 additional languages. DON'T GIVE UP. Failure is not falling on your face. Failure is refusing to get back up.
events:
Wow today is an amazing day for Aerospace. Tons of flying and space related things.
http://www.burger.si/Index.htm
1903 – The Wright Brothers make their first powered and heavier-than-air flight in the Wright Flyer at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. Now it takes longer get searched than the first flight was in the air and you have to walk farther to the gate than the distance of the first flight.
National Maple Syrup Day
1947 – First flight of the Boeing B-47 Stratojet strategic bomber.
1950 - The F-86 Sabre's first mission over Korea.
1957 – The United States successfully launches the first Atlas ICBM at Cape Canaveral, Florida. Originally it was designed to deliver (with extreme prejudice) nuclear weapons to the Soviet Union, now, ironically, the Atlas V has Russian designed and built NPO Energomash RD-180 engines. Pratt and Whitney company has obtained a license to build the engines in the US.
The official name was first the XB-65 because the missile was considered a bomber. Then it was changed to SM-65", in 1962, it became "CGM-16". The 'C' stood for 'coffin', (it was stored in a container laying on its side). The Atlas was raised, fueled and launched in the open. The Atlas-F was called the HGM-16 (stored vertically in a 'Hardened Ground' silo). The most advanced Atlas V is basically three Atlas missiles strapped together.
1969 – The SALT I talks begin.
1969 – Project Blue Book: The United States Air Force closes its study of UFOs, stating that sightings were generated as a result of "A mild form of mass hysteria, Individuals who fabricate such reports to perpetrate a hoax or seek publicity, psychopathological persons, and misidentification of various conventional objects." So the Air Force is saying that if you see a UFO you are a nut, conman, criminal or just plain wrong. So when somebody does see a real space craft from some other planet the Air Force is not going to believe them. They will have to land on the White House lawn and have Klatu stroll around, to get any notice.
holidays:
National Maple Syrup Day - There was a band in the 70's that had a semi-nude model pour syrup over herself and then pose. It was a mess, she stuck to everything and had a couple of injuries trying to get everything off. Some things just should not be done. So be careful how you celebrate the day. You should probably stick :) to more edible applications.
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friday 18 december
***The Official NoButtonButton*************
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*** "A word to the wise ain't necessary -
***
*** it's the stupid ones that need the advice."
*** - Bill Cosby
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birthdays:
1856 - Sir Joseph John “J. J.” Thomson, OM, FRS was a British physicist credited for the discovery of the electron, of isotopes, and he invented the mass spectrometer. I am sure that Abby Sciuto (a character on the TV show NCIS) loves him for inventing the Mass Spec. It is one of her favorite machines. JJ won a Nobel Prize for discovering electrons.
1870 - Saki - Well that is a pen name he really was Hector Hugh Munro and was a British writer, whose witty and sometimes macabre stories satirised Edwardian society and culture. He is considered a master of the short story and is often compared to O. Henry and Dorothy Parker. One of his few novels was "When William Came: A Story of London Under the Hohenzollerns", is a fantasy about a life in London after a successful German invasion of Britain (more of a WWI Germany).
Some of his works are on Project Gutenberg at:
http://www.gutenberg.org/
1890 – Edwin Armstrong, American inventor. Some inventor. One of his patents was for FM radio. HOT, HOT, HOT. He used the electrons the JJ discovered to a wonderful purpose.
1904 – George Stevens, American film director. These are some of the movies that he directed that I liked or that I think are important:
1935 Annie Oakley Barbara Stanwyck
1939 Gunga Din Cary Grant, Doug Fairbanks, Victor McLaglen
1941 Penny Serenade Cary Grant, Irene Dunne
1942 Woman of the Year Spencer Tracy, Katharine Hepburn
1942 The Talk of the Town Cary Grant, Jean Arthur, Ronald Colman
1948 I Remember Mama Irene Dunne
1953 Shane Alan Ladd (First Technicolor film)
1956 Giant Elizabeth Taylor, Rock Hudson, James Dean
1959 The Diary of Anne Frank Millie Perkins, Joseph Schildkraut
1965 Greatest Story Ever Told Max von Sydow
events:
1620 – The Mayflower lands in present-day Plymouth, Mass with 102 Pilgrims on board.
1642 – Abel Tasman becomes first European to land in New Zealand (and Tasmania but that is a different day).
1912 –The Piltdown Man is found in the Piltdown Gravel Pit, by Charles Dawson. For the next 41 years it was though to be the remains of on of human's early ancestors. actually id was the lower jawbone of an orangutan that had been deliberately combined with the skull of a fully developed modern human.
The Piltdown hoax is perhaps the most famous paleontological hoax in history.
1987 – Larry Wall releases the first version of the Perl programming language. Perl is nicknamed "the Swiss Army chainsaw of programming languages" due to its flexibility and adaptability. Perl was originally designed to make it easier for Larry to make his reports so it provides the easy manipulation of text files. But it is also used for graphics programming, system administration, network programming, applications that require database access and CGI programming on the Web. So it is very cool to know.
The latest stable version of Perl is 5.10.1 released last September. Perl 6 should be out in the fairly near future. You can download and study Perl (it's free) at:
http://www.perl.org/
1996 – The Oakland, California school board passes a resolution officially declaring "Ebonics" a language or dialect. And wild jocularity ensued. Actually the out-going school board passed the resolution and the incoming new school board first amended then dropped the resolution.
My personal feelings about Ebonics is that it is not the language that most successful people in this country speak. If you want to pursue the better jobs you need to speak the same language as the ones who are going to be hiring you. Oprah doesn't speak Ebonics on her show and neither does Tyra, Obama, Jessie Jackson, Tavis Smiley, Sidney Poitier, Bill Cosby or most of the successful Black men and women in the US do not speak Ebonics. Nelson Mandela speaks better English than many US citizens and it isn't even his first language.
holidays:
Wear a Plunger On Your Head Today Day - Please, Please, Please use a new, clean one.
National Roast Suckling Pig Day - This almost makes me want to be a vegetarian.
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