Today's Random Wikipedia Entry

E.161

2012-02-15T06:00:00.001-06:00

E.161 is an ITU-T recommendation that defines the assignment of the basic 26 Latin letters (A to Z) to the 12-key telephone keypad. Uses for this mapping include:

Multi-tap and predictive text systems
Forming phonewords from telephone numbers
Using alphabetic characters (e.g. as a mnemonic) in a personal identification number

ETSI ETS 300 640 and ISO 9995-8 also address this. Language-specific letters (e.g. ü, é, å, ä, ö) as well as other characters (e.g. ‘€’ or ‘@’) are not addressed and has led to a variety of inconsistent solutions for European languages.

Lupercalia

2012-02-14T06:00:00.000-06:00

Lupercalia was an ancient pastoral festival, observed on February 13 through 15 to avert evil spirits and purify the city, releasing health and fertility. Lupercalia subsumed Februa, an earlier-origin spring cleansing ritual held on the same date, which gives the month of February its name.

In Roman mythology, Lupercus is a god sometimes identified with the Roman god Faunus, who is the Roman equivalent of the Greek god Pan. Lupercus is the god of shepherds. His festival, celebrated on the anniversary of the founding of his temple on February 15, was called the Lupercalia.

The Lupercalia festival was partly in honor of Lupa, the she-wolf who suckled the infant orphans, Romulus and Remus, the founders of Rome,^[5] explaining the name of the festival, Lupercalia, or "Wolf Festival." The festival was celebrated near the cave of Lupercal on the Palatine Hill (the central hill where Rome was traditionally founded^[6]), to expiate and purify new life in the Spring. The Lupercal cave, which had fallen into a state of decay, was rebuilt by Augustus; the celebration of the festival had been maintained, as we know from the famous occurrence of it in 44 BC. A highly decorated cavern 50 feet (15 m) below Augustus' palace in the correct approximate location was discovered by archeologists in October 2007, which may prove to be the Lupercal cave when analyzed.

The religious ceremonies were directed by the Luperci, the "brothers of the wolf (lupus)", a corporation of priests of Faunus, dressed only in a goatskin, whose institution is attributed either to the Arcadian Evander, or to Romulus and Remus. The Luperci were divided into two collegia, called Quinctiliani (or Quinctiales) and Fabiani, from the gens Quinctilia (or Quinctia) and gens Fabia; at the head of each of these colleges was a magister. In 44 BC, a third college, the Julii, was instituted in honor of Julius Caesar, the first magister of which was Mark Antony. In imperial times the members were usually of equestrian standing.

The festival began with the sacrifice by the Luperci (or the flamen dialis) of two male goats and a dog. Next two young patrician Luperci were led to the altar, to be anointed on their foreheads with the sacrificial blood, which was wiped off the bloody knife with wool soaked in milk, after which they were expected to smile and laugh.

The sacrificial feast followed, after which the Luperci cut thongs from the skins of the victims, which were called februa, dressed themselves in the skins of the sacrificed goats, in imitation of Lupercus, and ran round the walls of the old Palatine city, the line of which was marked with stones, with the thongs in their hands in two bands, striking the people who crowded near. Girls and young women would line up on their route to receive lashes from these whips. This was supposed to ensure fertility, prevent sterility in women and ease the pains of childbirth. This tradition itself may survive (Christianised, and shifted to Spring) in certain ritual Easter Monday whippings.

By the 5th century, when the public performance of pagan rites had been outlawed, a nominally Christian Roman populace still clung to the Lupercalia in the time of Pope Gelasius I (494–96). Gelasius finally abolished the Lupercalia after a long dispute.

Dethklok

2012-02-13T06:00:00.000-06:00

Dethklok is both a virtual band featured in the Adult Swim animated program Metalocalypse, as well as a real band created to perform the band's melodic death metal music in live shows. The band was created by Brendon Small and Tommy Blacha. Dethklok is sometimes cited as an example of "comedy rock" on par with bands such as GWAR and Spinal Tap. The music heard on Metalocalypse is performed by Brendon Small, with others as needed. The first official Dethklok album was released on September 25, 2007, entitled The Dethalbum. The album debuted at number 21 on Billboard Magazine's Top 200 list. The band released Dethalbum II on September 29, 2009, and toured with Mastodon, High on Fire and Converge. Small and drummer Gene Hoglan performed on both albums.

In the Metalocalypse series, Dethklok is depicted as an extremely popular and successful death metal band. The band's fan base includes billions of metal fanatics, who frequently endanger themselves to watch the band perform live. With their widespread commercial success and lucrative sponsorship contracts, Dethklok is ranked as the world's seventh largest economy by the end of the second season.

The members of Dethklok are often portrayed as incompetent at almost everything not related to their profession. The band struggles to perform everyday tasks, including shopping for groceries, preparing food, and maintaining proper social relationships. They are often assisted by their manager and lawyer, Charles Foster Ofdensen, who frequently attempts to prevent the band from making poor decisions.

Mount Parnassus

2012-02-12T06:00:00.001-06:00

Mount Parnassus is a mountain of limestone in central Greece that towers above Delphi, north of the Gulf of Corinth, and offers scenic views of the surrounding olive groves and countryside. According to Greek mythology, this mountain was sacred to Apollo and the Corycian nymphs, and the home of the Muses.

Mount Parnassus is named after Parnassos, the son of the nymph Kleodora and the man Kleopompus. A city, of which Parnassos was leader, was flooded by torrential rains. The citizens ran from the flood, following wolves' howling, up the mountain slope. There the survivors built another city, and called it Lykoreia, which in Greek means "the howling of the wolves."

While Orpheus was living with his mother and his eight beautiful aunts on Parnassus, he met Apollo who was courting the laughing muse Thalia. Apollo became fond of Orpheus and gave him a little golden lyre, and taught him to play it. Orpheus's mother taught him to make verses for singing.

As the Oracle of Delphi was sacred to the god Apollo, so did the mountain itself become associated with Apollo. According to some traditions, Parnassus was the site of the fountain Castalia and the home of the Muses; according to other traditions, that honor fell to Mount Helicon, another mountain in the same range. As the home of the Muses, Parnassus became known as the home of poetry, music, and learning.

Parnassus was also the site of several unrelated minor events in Greek mythology.

In some versions of the Greek flood myth, the ark of Deucalion comes to rest on the slopes of Parnassus. This is the version of the myth recounted in Ovid's Metamorphoses.
Orestes spent his time in hiding on Mount Parnassus.
Parnassus was sacred to the god Dionysus.
The Corycian Cave, located on the slopes of Parnassus, was sacred to Pan and to the Muses.

Parnassus was also the home of Pegasus, the winged horse of Bellerophon.

Today, the slopes of Mount Parnassus are the location of two ski centres. The Parnassos Ski Centre is composed of two sections, Kellaria and Fterolakka, which together make up the largest ski center in Greece. A smaller ski centre (only two drag lifts) called Gerontovrahos is across a ridge from Kellaria. Parnassus is mined for its abundant supply of bauxite which is converted to aluminium oxide and then to aluminium.

Cordite

2012-02-10T06:00:00.000-06:00

Cordite is a family of smokeless propellants developed and produced in the United Kingdom from 1889 to replace gunpowder as a military propellant. Like gunpowder, cordite is classified as a low explosive because of its slow burning rates and consequently low brisance. These produce a subsonic deflagration wave rather than the supersonic detonation wave produced by brisants, or high explosives. The hot gases produced by burning gunpowder or cordite generate sufficient pressure to propel a bullet or shell to its target, but not enough to destroy the barrel of the firearm, or gun.

Cordite was used initially in the .303 British, Mark I and II, standard rifle cartridge between 1891 and 1915; however, shortages of cordite in World War I led to United States-developed smokeless powders being imported into the UK for use in rifle cartridges. Cordite was also used for large weapons, such as tank guns, artillery and naval guns. It has been used mainly for this purpose since the beginning of World War I by the UK and British Commonwealth countries. Its use was further developed in the early years of World War II, and as 2-and-3-inch-diameter (51 and 76 mm) Unrotated Projectiles for launching anti-aircraft weapons. Small cordite rocket charges were also developed for ejector seats made by the Martin-Baker Company. Cordite was also used in the detonation system of the Little Boy atomic bomb dropped over Hiroshima in August 1945.

Cordite is now obsolete, and it is no longer produced. Production ceased in the United Kingdom, around the end of the 20th century, with the closure of the last of the World War II cordite factories, ROF Bishopton. However, cordite propellant may still be encountered in the form of legacy ammunition dating from World War II onwards.

Niké

2012-02-09T06:00:00.000-06:00

In Greek mythology, Niké (Greek: Νίκη, "Victory") was a goddess who personified victory, also known as the Winged Goddess of Victory. The Roman equivalent was Victoria. Depending upon the time of various myths, she was described as the daughter of Pallas (Titan) and Styx (Water), and the sister of Kratos (Strength), Bia (Force), and Zelus (Zeal). Nike and her siblings were close companions of Zeus, the dominant deity of the Greek pantheon. According to classical (later) myth, Styx brought them to Zeus when the god was assembling allies for the Titan War against the older deities. Nike assumed the role of the divine charioteer, a role in which she often is portrayed in Classical Greek art. Nike flew around battlefields rewarding the victors with glory and fame.

Nike is seen with wings in most statues and paintings. Most other winged deities in the Greek pantheon had shed their wings by Classical times. Nike is the goddess of strength, speed, and victory. Nike was a very close acquaintance of Athena, and is thought to have stood in Athena's outstretched hand in the statue of Athena located in the Parthenon. Nike is one of the most commonly portrayed figures on Greek coins.

R. Lee Ermey

2012-02-08T06:00:00.000-06:00

Ronald Lee Ermey (born March 24, 1944) is a retired U.S. Marine Corps drill instructor and actor.

Ermey has often played the roles of authority figures, such as his breakout performance as Gunnery Sergeant Hartman in Full Metal Jacket, Mayor Tilman in the Alan Parker film Mississippi Burning, Bill Bowerman in Prefontaine, Sheriff Hoyt in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake, and plastic army men leader Sarge in the Toy Story films.

He has hosted two programs on the History Channel: Mail Call, in which he answered viewers' questions about various militaria both modern and historic; and Lock N' Load with R. Lee Ermey, which focused on the development of different types of weapons.

He is currently a candidate for the National Rifle Association board of directors.

Kilroy Was Here

2012-02-07T06:00:00.000-06:00

Kilroy was here is an American popular culture expression, often seen in graffiti. Its origins are debated, but the phrase and the distinctive accompanying doodle—a bald-headed man (possibly with a few hairs) with a prominent nose peeking over a wall with the fingers of each hand clutching the wall—is widely known among U.S. residents who lived during World War II.

The Oxford English Dictionary says simply that Kilroy was “The name of a mythical person.”

One theory identifies James J. Kilroy (1902–1962),an American shipyard inspector, as the man behind the signature. During World War II he worked at the Fore River Shipyard in Quincy, Massachusetts, where he claimed to have used the phrase to mark rivets he had checked. The builders, whose rivets J.J. Kilroy was counting, were paid depending on the number of rivets they put in. A riveter would make a chalk mark at the end of his or her shift to show where they had left off and the next riveter had started. Unscrupulous riveters discovered that, if they started work before the inspector arrived, they could receive extra pay by erasing the previous worker's chalk mark and chalking a mark farther back on the same seam, giving themselves credit for some of the previous riveter's work. J.J. Kilroy stopped this practice by writing "Kilroy was here" at the site of each chalk mark. At the time, ships were being sent out before they had been painted, so when sealed areas were opened for maintenance, soldiers found an unexplained name scrawled. Thousands of servicemen may have potentially seen his slogan on the outgoing ships and Kilroy's apparent omnipresence and inscrutability sparked a legend.

In the postwar United States the mischievous face and the phrase became a national joke. The outrageousness of the graffiti was not so much what it said, but where it turned up. The major Kilroy graffiti fad ended in the 1950s, but today people all over the world still scribble the character and "Kilroy was here" in schools, trains, and other similar public areas.

House of Cosbys

2012-02-06T06:00:00.001-06:00

House of Cosbys was an animated cartoon about a Bill Cosby fan who creates a cloning machine to clone a series of Cosbys, each with a different personality.

There were four episodes made by Justin Roiland, each about five minutes. An unofficial fifth episode was also made.

It was first aired on the internet television channel Channel 101, and was the first of Channel 101's programs to spend three consecutive months at number 1.

The cartoon, which is based loosely on a true story, features main character Mitchell Reynolds (voiced by Jeff Davis) who invents a cloning machine in order to create his own personal Bill Cosby to entertain him. He then begins cloning several more Cosbys to help him around the house, much like in the plot of the 1996 film Multiplicity. However, the quality of the clones seems to deteriorate as the process is repeated, and he decides to stop using the machine, but when one of the clones subversively activates it, he discovers that every tenth Cosby he clones has super powers. At the suggestion of Data Analysis Cosby (the first super-powered Cosby) they decide to continue cloning Cosbys so that their super powers can be used to help the world.

House of Cosbys was cancelled when series creator Justin Roiland and Channel 101's site administrator Dan Harmon received a cease and desist letter from Bill Cosby's attorney in June 2005. One of the issues under contention is whether House of Cosbys is covered under the fair use, as parody. Supporters point out that many TV shows like Family Guy and The Simpsons have used Cosby's likeness, and have not been sued. However, there also is the factor that House of Cosbys used risque subject matter not in accordance with Cosby's character and comedy.

As a result of the cease and desist letter, the fifth episode was created by a different contributor and functioned primarily as an attack on Bill Cosby and his attorney.

Steam Car

2012-02-05T06:00:00.001-06:00

A steam car is an automobile powered by a steam engine.

Steam locomotives, steam engines capable of propelling themselves along either road or rails, developed around one hundred years earlier than internal combustion engine cars although their weight restricted them to agricultural and heavy haulage work on roads. The light car developed contemporaneously with both steam and internal combustion engines, as both engineering and road building matured. As the steam car could use the vast experience of steam engines already developed with the steam railway locomotive, it initially had the advantage. In 1900 the steam car was broadly superior and even managed to hold absolute land speed records. By 1920 the internal combustion engine had progressed to such a point that the steam car was an anachronism.

Few steam cars have been built since the 1920s, although the technology is not implausible and projects intermittently occur to recreate a "modern" steam car with modern levels of convenience, performance and efficiency.

The greatest technical challenges to the steam car have focused on its boiler. This represents much of the total mass of the drivetrain, making the car heavier (an internal-combustion-engined car requires no boiler), and requires careful attention from the driver - although even the cars of 1900 had considerable automation to manage this. The single largest restriction is the need to supply feedwater to the boiler. This must either be carried and frequently replenished, or the car must also be fitted with a condenser, a further weight and inconvenience.

The steam car does have advantages, although most of these are now less important than in its heyday. The engine (excluding the boiler) is smaller and lighter than an internal combustion engine. It is also better suited to the speed and torque characteristics of the axle, thus avoiding the need for the heavy and complex transmission required for an internal combustion engine. The car is also quieter, even without a silencer.

Mr. Peanut

2012-02-04T06:00:00.000-06:00

Mr. Peanut is the advertising logo and mascot of Planters, an American snack-food company and division of Kraft Foods. He consists of a drawing of an anthropomorphic peanut in its shell dressed in the formal clothing of an old-fashioned gentleman: a top hat, monocle, white gloves, spats, and a cane.

Planters Peanuts was founded in 1906, in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania by Amedeo Obici. In 1916 the company held a contest to create a company logo. A fourteen year-old schoolboy named Antonio Gentile won the contest with his drawing of a Peanut Man and an artist later added spats, a top hat, a monocle, and a cane to the drawing, and Mr. Peanut was born.

By the mid-1930s, the raffish figure had come to symbolize the entire peanut industry. Mr. Peanut has appeared on almost every Planters package and advertisement. He is now one of the best-known icons in advertising history.

Mr. Peanut has appeared in many TV commercials as an animated cartoon character. More recent commercials have shown him computer animated in a real-world setting.

In 2006, Planters conducted an online poll to determine whether to add a bow tie, cufflinks, or a pocketwatch to Mr. Peanut. The public voted for no change.

While the character's television commercials were often accompanied by an elegant accented narrator, Mr. Peanut never had dialogue. On November 8, 2010, Planters announced that Mr. Peanut would officially be given a voice, supplied by American actor Robert Downey Jr.

Hussar

2012-02-03T06:00:00.000-06:00

Hussar refers to a number of types of light cavalry which originated in Hungary.

A type of irregular light horsemen was already well established by the 15th century in medieval Hungary. Etymologists are divided over the derivation of the word 'hussar'. Many scholars believe the word originated in Serbian as 'Husar', derived from the Latin root 'cursus' meaning 'raid'.

The hussars reportedly originated in bands of mostly Serbian warriors crossing into southern Hungary after the Turkish invasion of Serbia at the end of the 14th century. Initially they fought in small bands, but were reorganised into larger, trained, formations.

The first Hussar regiments were the light cavalry of the Black Army of Hungary, which took part in the war against the Ottoman Empire in 1485 and proved successful against the Turkish Spahis as well as against Bohemians and Poles. The Habsburg emperors hired Hungarian hussars as mercenaries to serve against the Ottoman Empire and on various battlefields throughout Europe.

The "father" of the US cavalry in 1777 was a Hungarian hussar named Kovács Mihály - Michael de Kovats.

The hussars played a prominent role as cavalry in the Napoleonic Wars (1796–1815). As light cavalrymen mounted on fast horses, they would be used to fight skirmish battles and for scouting. Most of the great European powers raised hussar regiments. The armies of France, Austria, Prussia, and Russia had included hussar regiments since the mid-18th century. In the case of Britain four light dragoon regiments were converted to hussars in 1806-1807.

On the eve of World War I there were still hussar regiments in the British (including Canadian), French, Spanish, German, Russian, Dutch, Danish, Swedish, Romanian and Austro-Hungarian armies. In most respects they had now become regular light cavalry, recruited solely from their own countries and trained and equipped along the same lines as other classes of cavalry.

After horse cavalry became obsolete, hussar units were generally converted to armoured units, though retaining their traditional titles. Hussar regiments still exist today, in the British Army (although amalgamations have reduced their number to two only), the French Army, the Swedish Army (Livregementets husarer, the Life Regiment Hussars), the Dutch Army and the Canadian Forces, usually as tank forces or light mechanised infantry.

Utah Teapot

2012-02-02T06:00:00.000-06:00

The Utah teapot or Newell teapot is a 3D computer model which has become a standard reference object (and something of an in-joke) in the computer graphics community. It is a mathematical model of an ordinary teapot of fairly simple shape, which appears solid, cylindrical and partially convex. A teapot primitive is considered the equivalent of a "hello world" program, as a way to create the easiest 3D scene with a somewhat complex model acting as basic geometry reference for scene and light setup.

The teapot model was created in 1975 by early computer graphics researcher Martin Newell, a member of the pioneering graphics program at the University of Utah.

Newell needed a moderately simple mathematical model of a familiar object for his work. His wife Sandra Newell suggested modelling their tea service since they were sitting down to tea at the time. He got some graph paper and a pencil, and sketched the entire teapot by eye.^{[citation needed]} Then he went back to the lab and edited bézier control points on a Tektronix storage tube, again by hand.

The teapot shape contains a number of elements that made it ideal for the graphics experiments of the time: it is round, contains saddle points, has a genus greater than zero because of the hole in the handle, can project a shadow on itself, and looks reasonable when displayed without a complex surface texture.

The real teapot is noticeably taller than the computer model because Newell's frame buffer used non-square pixels. Rather than distorting the image, Newell's colleague Jim Blinn reportedly scaled the geometry to cancel out the stretching, and when the model was shared with users of other systems, the scaling stuck. Height scale factor was 1.3.

The original, physical teapot was purchased from ZCMI (a department store in Salt Lake City, Utah) in 1974. It was donated to the Boston Computer Museum in 1984 where it was on display until 1990. It now resides in the ephemera collection at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California where it is catalogued as "Teapot used for Computer Graphics rendering" and bears the catalogue number X00398.1984.

With the advent first of computer generated short films, and then of full length feature films, it has become something of an in-joke to hide a Utah teapot somewhere in one of the film's scenes. For example, in the movie Toy Story the Utah teapot appears in a short tea-party scene.

Gordie Howe

2012-02-01T06:00:00.001-06:00

Gordon "Gordie" Howe, OC (born March 31, 1928) is a Canadian retired professional ice hockey player who played for the Detroit Red Wings and Hartford Whalers of the National Hockey League (NHL), and the Houston Aeros and New England Whalers in the World Hockey Association (WHA). Howe is often referred to as Mr. Hockey, and is generally regarded as one of the greatest hockey players of all time.

Howe is most famous for his scoring prowess, physical strength, and career longevity. He is the only player to have competed in the NHL in five (1940s through 1980s) different decades. A four-time Stanley Cup champion with the Red Wings, he won six Hart Trophies as the league's most valuable player and six Art Ross Trophies as the leading scorer. He was the recipient of the first NHL Lifetime Achievement Award in 2008.

Howe was also referred to during his career as Power, Mr. Everything, Mr. All-Star, The Most, The Great Gordie, The King of Hockey, The Legend, The Man, No. 9, and "Mr. Elbows" (for his tough physical play). His name and nickname, "Mr. Hockey", as well as his wife's nickname as "Mrs. Hockey", are registered trademarks.

Howe was born to parents Ab and Kate Howe in a farmhouse in Floral, Saskatchewan – one of nine children. When Gordie was nine days old, the Howes moved to Saskatoon, where his father worked as a labourer during the Depression. In the summers, Howe would work construction with his father. Howe was mildly dyslexic growing up, but was physically beyond his years at an early age. He began playing organized hockey at 8 years old, then left Saskatoon at 16 to pursue his hockey career.

Howe was an ambidextrous player, able to use the straight sticks of his era to shoot left or right-handed. He received his first taste of pro experience at fifteen years old when he was invited to a tryout for the New York Rangers in Brooklyn, but he did not make the team. A year later, he was noticed by Detroit Red Wings scout Fred Pinckney. He was signed by the Red Wings and assigned to their junior team in Galt, Ontario. However, due to a maximum amount of Western players allowed by the league and a preference to develop older players by the Red Wings, Howe's playing time with the team was initially limited.

Howe made his NHL debut in 1946 at the age of 18, playing right wing for the Detroit Red Wings, for which he wore #17 as a rookie. When Roy Conacher moved on to the Chicago Black Hawks after the 1946–47 season, however, Howe was offered Conacher's #9 which he would wear for the rest of his career.

Howe led Detroit to four Stanley Cups and to first place in regular season play for seven consecutive years (1948–49 to 1955–56), a feat never equaled in NHL history. During this time Howe and his linemates, Sid Abel and Ted Lindsay, were known collectively as "The Production Line", both for their scoring and as an allusion to Detroit auto factories. The trio dominated the league in such a fashion that in 1949–50, they finished one-two-three in league scoring.

The Red Wings were consistently contenders throughout the 1950s and early 1960s but began to slump in the late 60s. When Howe turned 40, in 1967–68, the league expanded from six to twelve teams and the number of scoring opportunities grew as the game schedule increased. Howe played the 1968–69 season on a line with Alex Delvecchio and Frank Mahovlich. Mahovlich was big, fast, and skilled, and Delvecchio was a gifted playmaker. The three were dubbed "The Production Line 3" and at forty-years-old, Howe reached new scoring heights, topping 100 points for the only time of his NHL career with 44 goals and a career-high 59 assists.

Howe remained with the Red Wings for two more seasons, but after twenty-five years, a chronic wrist problem forced him to retire after the 1970–71 season and he took a job in the Red Wings front office. At the beginning of 1972, he was offered the job as first head coach of the New York Islanders, but turned it down.^[10]

A year later, he was offered a contract to play with the Houston Aeros of the newly formed World Hockey Association, who had also signed his sons Mark and Marty to contracts. Dissatisfied with not having any meaningful influence in the Red Wings' office, he underwent an operation to improve his wrist and make a return to hockey possible, and he led his new team to consecutive championships. In 1974, at the age of 46, Howe won the Gary L. Davidson Trophy, awarded to the WHA's most valuable player (the trophy was renamed the Gordie Howe Trophy the following year). Howe played with the Aeros until 1977, when he and his sons joined the New England Whalers.

When the WHA folded in 1979, the renamed Hartford Whalers joined the NHL. While the Red Wings still held his NHL rights even though he'd retired eight years earlier, the Whalers and Red Wings reached a gentlemen's agreement in which the Red Wings agreed not to reclaim him. The 51-year-old Howe signed on for one final season playing in all 80 games of the schedule, helping his team to make the playoffs with fifteen goals. One particular honor was when Howe, Phil Esposito, and Jean Ratelle were selected to the mid-season all-star game by coach Scotty Bowman, as a nod to their storied careers before they retired. Howe had played in five decades of all-star games and he would skate alongside the second-youngest to ever play in the game, 19-year-old Wayne Gretzky. The Joe Louis Arena crowd gave him a standing ovation twice, lasting so long, he had to skate to the bench to stop people from cheering. He had one assist in the Whalers' 6–3 win.

Howe became good friends with Wayne Gretzky, who had idolized Howe as a young player, and who would later break many of Howe's scoring records and milestones.

Another milestone in a remarkable career was reached in 1997 when Howe played professional hockey in a sixth decade. He was signed to a one-game contract by the Detroit Vipers of the IHL and, almost 70-years-old, made a return to the ice for one shift. In doing so, he became the only player in hockey history to compete in six different decades at the professional level, having played in the NHL, WHA and IHL from the 1940s to 1990s.

At the time of his retirement, Howe's professional totals, including playoffs, for the NHL and WHA combined, were first. He finished with 2,421 games played, 1,071 goals, 1,518 assists, and 2,589 points. Wayne Gretzky has since passed him in goals (1,072), assists (2,297), and points (3,369), but not games played (1,767) or games played with one team (1,687). It is unlikely that anyone will surpass Howe's total professional games played.

In 1998, The Hockey News released their List of Top 100 NHL Players of All Time and listed Howe third overall, ahead of Mario Lemieux, but behind Wayne Gretzky and Bobby Orr.

Last Meal

2012-01-31T06:00:00.001-06:00

The last meal is a customary part of a Condemned Prisoner's last day. The day before the appointed time of execution, the prisoner receives the meal, as well as religious rites, if they desire. As a general rule, inmates may not ask for an alcoholic drink.

In many countries the prisoner may select what the last meal will be (within reason), and the authorities do their best to satisfy the request.

Although the history of this tradition is difficult to trace, most modern governments that execute prisoners subscribe to it.

The ancient Greeks, Chinese, and Romans all traditionally gave the condemned man a final meal. The Aztecs fed their human sacrifices for up to a year before killing them.

In pre-modern Europe, granting the condemned a last meal has roots in superstition: a meal was a highly symbolic social act. Accepting freely offered food symbolized making peace with the host. The guest agreed tacitly to take an oath of truce and symbolically abjured all vengeance. Consequentially, in accepting the last meal the condemned was believed to forgive the executioner, the judge, and witnesses. The ritual was supposed to prevent the condemned from returning as a ghost or revenant to haunt those responsible for their killing. As a superstitious precaution, the better the food and drink, the safer the condemned's oath of truce. Last meals were often public, and all parties involved in the penal process took part.

There were practical side effects of a peaceful last meal as well. It was crucial for the authorities that a public execution was a successful spectacle. If the mob believed something was wrong, things could get out of hand and place the condmned's guilt in doubt. The condemned's solemn last meal symbolized that they accepted the punishment. Additionally, prisoners were often served large quantities of alcoholic beverages to soothe them and bar them from execrating the authorities while ascending the scaffold. In Ancient Japan, samurai warriors would sometimes commit seppuku (ritual suicide) for a variety of reasons. Before the suicide, the Samurai would be served their favorite foods.

In the United States, most states give the meal a day or two before execution, and use the euphemism "special meal". Alcohol or tobacco is usually denied. An unorthodox or unavailable request will be replaced with a substitute. Some states place tight restrictions. For example, Texas limits last meals to food available within the prison system, though occasionally permitting food "from the free world". In Florida, the food for the last meal must be purchased locally and the cost is limited to $40.

Some prisoners have elected to share their last meals with another inmate (like Francis Crowley did with John Resko), or have the meal distributed among other inmates (like Raymond Fernandez).

Mint Mark

2012-01-30T06:00:00.001-06:00

A mint mark is an inscription on a coin indicating the mint where the coin was produced.

Mint marks were first developed to locate a problem. If a coin was underweight, or overweight, the mint mark would immediately tell where the coin was minted, and the problem could be located and fixed. Another problem which could occur would be a dishonest mint official debasing the coin, or putting less precious metal in the coin than specified. Debasing a coin, or otherwise tampering with it, was a very serious crime, often punishable by death in many civilizations. For example, in 1649, the directors of the Spanish colonial American Mint at Potosi, in what is today Bolivia, were condemned to death for seriously debasing the coinage. The initials of the assayer as well as the mint mark were immediate identifiers when the coins were inspected.

Examples of mint marks in United States coinage include P for the Philadelphia Mint, D for the Denver Mint, S for the San Francisco Mint, and W for the West Point Mint. In the past, CC for the Carson City Mint, C for the Charlotte Mint, D for the Dahlonega Mint, and O for the New Orleans Mint were used. Most coins of the Philadelphia Mint earlier than 1980 are unmarked, the notable exceptions being wartime nickels and the Susan B. Anthony Dollars starting 1979. Currently, the Lincoln cent is the only coin that does not always have a mint mark, using a "D" when struck in Denver but lacking a "P" when ostensibly struck at the Philadelphia mint; this practice allows additional minting of the coin at the San Francisco mint ("S") and West Point mint ("W") without the use of their respective mint marks to supplement coin production without the concern of creating scarce varieties. Generally modern "S" and "W" coins do not circulate, being mostly produced as bullion, commemorative, or proof coinage.

Although the US and several other countries use the initial letter of the city for its mint marks, this practice is not universal. For instance, Germany used A for Berlin, D for Munich, E for Muldenhutten, F for Stuttgart, G for Karlsruhe and J for Hamburg.

Many mints of the world commonly use a Privy mark, which is a symbol unique to each mint. The Royal Canadian Mint commonly uses a maple leaf privy mark. The Monnaie de Paris uses many different privy marks to denote each branch mint, including a torch, cornucopia, or thunderbolt.

Many Islamic coins bear an inscription telling which mint produced the coin. This inscription is often the name of the city where the coin was minted spelled out in Arabic script.

Several Euro Coins have mint marks of their respective Mint. See Identifying marks on euro coins for more information.

Pulgasari

2012-01-29T06:00:00.000-06:00

Pulgasari is a North Korean feature film produced in 1985, a giant-monster film similar to the Japanese Godzilla series. It was produced by South Korean director Shin Sang-ok, who had been kidnapped in 1978 by North Korean intelligence on the orders of Kim Jong-il, son of the then-ruling Kim Il-sung.

Teruyoshi Nakano and the staff from Japan's Toho studios, the creators of Godzilla, participated in creating the film's special effects. Kenpachiro Satsuma – the stunt performer who played Godzilla from 1984 to 1995 – portrayed Pulgasari, and when the Godzilla remake was released in Japan in 1998, he was quoted as saying he preferred Pulgasari to the American Godzilla.

The film is about a doll made of rice by a prisoner, which on coming into contact with blood, grows to become a giant metal-eating monster. Jonathan Ross stated that the film is intended to be a propaganda metaphor for the effects of unchecked capitalism and the power of the collective.

Bondo

2012-01-28T06:00:00.000-06:00

Bondo is a brand of two-part putty manufactured by 3M. Originally used mainly for automobile body repair, Bondo has been widely used by carpenters to repair wood. The Bondo brand of filler or putty is composed of a polyester resin that, when mixed with a hardener (an organic peroxide) or catalyst, turns into a putty which then sets and hardens. The user can apply the mixed Bondo body filler, sand it to the proper shape, and prime and paint it like the material around it. The term "Bondo" is a registered trademark in the United States and in many countries throughout the world.

Bondo body filler was developed as a replacement for body solder, or molten lead, that was formerly used for the same task. Body solder is much more durable, but may require more effort to apply. Lead-based solder poses toxic hazards for people and the environment due to the heavy metal components. Despite the fact that Bondo body fillers and other polyester body fillers are far safer to work with than their lead-based counterparts, they can still pose significant health risks. The fumes are quite toxic, and the hardeners can create burns in cases of prolonged skin contact. The use of gloves, a mask, and proper ventilation are all recommended when mixing and applying the filler.

When buying a used car, it is possible to check for damaged areas that have been repaired with significant amounts of body filler by walking around the car with a magnet, as the magnet will not be attracted to the body filler. Unscrupulous sellers may mix metal flakes into the body filler mixture before application in order to circumvent the magnet test. This test however, will not detect body filler on plastic, fiber glass, or carbon fiber components.

Joseph Paul Jernigan

2012-01-27T06:00:00.005-06:00

Joseph Paul Jernigan (January 31, 1954 – August 5, 1993) was a Texas murderer who was killed by lethal injection at 12:31 a.m, August 5, 1993.

In 1981, Jernigan was sentenced to death for stabbing and shooting 75-year-old Edward Hale, who discovered him stealing a microwave oven. Jernigan spent 12 years in prison before his final plea for clemency was denied. At the prompting of a prison chaplain, he agreed to donate his body for scientific research or medical use.

After execution, Jernigan's corpse was encased and frozen in a gelatin and water mixture in order to stabilize the specimen for cutting. The specimen was then “cut” in the axial plane at 1 millimeter intervals. Each of the resulting 1,871 “slices” were photographed in both analog and digital, yielding 15 gigabytes of data. In 2000, the photos were rescanned at a higher resolution, yielding more than 65 gigabytes.

The data is supplemented by axial sections of the whole body obtained by computed tomography, axial sections of the head and neck obtained by magnetic resonance imaging, and coronal sections of the rest of the body also obtained by magnetic resonance imaging.

The scanning, slicing and photographing took place at the University of Colorado's Health Sciences Center, where additional cutting of anatomical specimens continues to take place.

Snake handling

2012-01-26T06:00:00.000-06:00

Snake handling or serpent handling is a religious ritual in a small number of Pentecostal churches in the U.S., usually characterized as rural and Holiness. The practice began in the early 20th century in Appalachia, spreading to mostly coal mining towns. Practitioners believe serpent handling dates to antiquity and quote the Book of Mark and the Book of Luke to support the practice.

George Went Hensley (1880–1955), a preacher who left the Church of God (Cleveland, Tennessee) when the Church noticed him taking part in snake handling and set specific rules that made certain that that denomination would have nothing to do with those types of practices, is credited with creating the first holiness movement church dedicated to snake handling in the 1920s. Sister-churches later sprang up throughout the Appalachian region.

As in the early days, worshipers are still encouraged to lay hands on the sick (cf. Faith healing), speak in tongues (cf. Glossolalia), provide testimony of miracles, and occasionally consume poisons such as strychnine. Gathering mainly in homes and converted buildings, they generally adhere to strict dress codes such as uncut hair, no cosmetics and ankle-length dresses for women, and short hair and long-sleeved shirts for men. Most snake handlers preach against any use of all types of tobacco and alcohol.

Most religious snake handlers are still found in the Appalachian Mountains and other parts of the southeastern United States, especially in such states as Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Tennessee, West Virginia, and Ohio. However, they are gaining steady recognition from news broadcasts, movies and books about the non-denominational movement.

In 2001 there were about 40 small churches that practiced snake handling, most considered to be holiness-Pentecostals or charismatics. Some of the leaders in these churches have been bitten numerous times, as indicated by their distorted extremities. For example, the founder of modern snake handling in the Appalachian Mountains died from snakebite in 1955. In 1998, snake-handling evangelist John Wayne "Punkin" Brown died after being bitten by a timber rattler at the Rock House Holiness Church in rural northeastern Alabama.

The states of Alabama, Kentucky and Tennessee have passed laws against the use of venomous snakes and/or other reptiles in a place that endangers the lives of others, or without a permit. Most snake handling practices, therefore, take place in the homes of worshippers, which avoids the process of attempting to obtain a government permit for the church.

In July 2008, 10 people were arrested and 125 venomous snakes were confiscated as part of an undercover sting operation titled "Twice Shy." Pastor Gregory James Coots of the Full Gospel Tabernacle in Jesus Name was arrested and 74 snakes were seized from his home as part of the sting.

The practice is legal in the state of West Virginia.

Operation Pastorius

2012-01-25T06:00:00.000-06:00

Operation Pastorius was a failed plan for sabotage via a series of attacks by Nazi German agents inside the United States. The operation was staged in June 1942 and was to be directed against strategic U.S. economic targets. The operation was named by Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, chief of the German Abwehr, for Francis Daniel Pastorius, the leader of the first organized settlement of Germans in America.

Recruited for the operation were eight Germans who had lived in the United States. Two of them, Ernst Burger and Herbert Haupt, were American citizens. The others, George John Dasch, Edward John Kerling, Richard Quirin, Heinrich Harm Heinck, Hermann Otto Neubauer, and Werner Thiel, had worked at various jobs in the U.S.

Their mission was to stage sabotage attacks on American economic targets: hydroelectric plants at Niagara Falls; the Aluminum Company of America's plants in Illinois, Tennessee, and New York; locks on the Ohio River near Louisville, Kentucky; the Horseshoe Curve, a crucial railroad pass near Altoona, Pennsylvania, as well as the Pennsylvania Railroad's repair shops at Altoona; a cryolite plant in Philadelphia; Hell Gate Bridge in New York; and Pennsylvania Station in Newark, New Jersey. They were given a quick course in sabotage techniques, given nearly $175,000 in American money and put aboard two submarines to land on the east coast of the U.S.

Two of the Germans in New York, Dasch and Burger, decided to back out of the mission. Dasch went to Washington, D.C., and turned himself in to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. He was dismissed as a crackpot by numerous agents until he dumped his mission's entire budget of $84,000 on the desk of Assistant Director D.M. Ladd. At this point he was taken seriously and interrogated for hours. None of the others knew of the betrayal. Over the next two weeks, Burger and the other six were arrested. All eight were put on trial before a seven-member military tribunal on specific instructions from President Franklin D. Roosevelt. They were charged with 1) violating the law of war; 2) violating Article 81 of the Articles of War, defining the offense of corresponding with or giving intelligence to the enemy; 3) violating Article 82 of the Articles of War, defining the offense of spying; and 4) conspiracy to commit the offenses alleged in the first three charges.

Lawyers for the accused, who included Lauson Stone and Kenneth Royall, attempted to have the case tried in a civilian court but were rebuffed by the Supreme Court of the United States in Ex parte Quirin. The trial was held in the Department of Justice building in Washington. All eight defendants were found guilty and sentenced to death. Roosevelt commuted Burger's sentence to life and Dasch's to 30 years, because they had turned themselves in and provided information about the others. The others were executed on 8 August 1942 in the electric chair on the third floor of the District of Columbia jail and buried in a potter's field called Blue Plains in the Anacostia area of Washington. In 1948, President Harry S. Truman granted executive clemency to Dasch and Burger on the condition that they be deported to the American Zone of occupied Germany.

Nuralagus Rex

2012-01-24T06:00:00.000-06:00

The Minorcan Giant Lagomorph, Nuralagus rex, is an extinct rabbit that lived in the island of Minorca from the Messinian until around the middle of the Pliocene, when it became extinct (3 to 5 million years ago). During that time, both Majorca and Minorca were united in one large landform, allowing Myotragus balearicus to colonize the Minorcan Giant Lagomorph's habitat.

Fossils have been found of individuals which could have weighed up to 23 kg (50 lbs), although the estimated average body mass of the species is about 12 kg. They had small ears, tiny eyes, short legs and a short, straight and rigid vertebral column, very different from their living relatives.

According to paleontologist Josep Quintana Cardona, the Nuralagus didn't hop much if at all, as evident by its relatively short, stiff spine. No fossil remains of any rabbit eating predators have been found, so it is suggested that the lack of predators meant they didn't have a reason to maintain speed and agility,

Great Pacific Garbage Patch

2012-01-23T06:00:00.001-06:00

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch, also described as the Pacific Trash Vortex, is a gyre of marine litter in the central North Pacific Ocean located roughly between 135° to 155°W and 35°N to 42°N. The patch extends over an indeterminate area, with estimates ranging very widely depending on the degree of plastic concentration used to define the affected area. Although many media and advocacy reports have suggested the patch extends over an area larger than the continental U.S, recent research sponsored by the National Science Foundation suggests the affected area may be twice the size of Texas, while a recent study concluded that the patch might be even smaller. This can be attributed to the fact that there is no specific standard for determining the boundary between the “normal” and “elevated” levels of pollutants and what constitutes being part of the patch. The size is determined by a higher-than normal degree of concentration of pelagic debris in the water. Recent data collected from Pacific albatross populations suggest there may be two distinct zones of concentrated debris in the Pacific.

The Patch is characterized by exceptionally high concentrations of pelagic plastics, chemical sludge, and other debris that have been trapped by the currents of the North Pacific Gyre. Despite its size and density, the patch is not visible from satellite photography since it primarily consists of suspended particulates in the upper water column^{[citation needed]}. Since plastics break down to ever smaller polymers, concentrations of submerged particles are not visible from space, nor do they appear as a continuous debris field. Instead, the patch is defined as an area in which the mass of plastic debris in the upper water column is significantly higher than average.

Piltdown Man

2012-01-22T06:00:00.000-06:00

The "Piltdown Man" was the fossilised remains of a previously unknown early human, consisting of fragments of a skull and jawbone collected in 1912 from a gravel pit at Piltdown, East Sussex, England that were later discovered to be a hoax. The Latin name Eoanthropus dawsoni ("Dawson's dawn-man", after the collector Charles Dawson) was given to the specimen. The significance of the specimen remained the subject of controversy until it was exposed in 1953 as a forgery, consisting of 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 archeological hoax ever. It has been prominent for two reasons: the attention paid to the issue of human evolution, and the length of time (more than 40 years) that elapsed from its discovery to its full exposure as a forgery.

In 1912, the Piltdown man was believed to be the “missing link” between apes and humans by the majority of the scientific community. However, over time the Piltdown man lost its validity, as other discoveries such as Taung Child and Peking Man were found. R.W. Ehrich and G.M. Henderson note, “To those who are not completely disillusioned by the work of their predecessors, the disqualification of the Piltdown skull changes little in the broad evolutionary pattern. The validity of the specimen has always been questioned.” Eventually, in the 1940s and 1950s, more advanced dating technologies, such as the fluorine absorption test, scientifically proved that this skull was actually a fraud.

Binondo

2012-01-21T06:00:00.001-06:00

Binondo is an enclave in Manila primarily populated by ethnic Chinese living in the Philippines. It is the oldest Chinatown in the world, established in 1594. Historically, Binondo was the area where the Spanish permitted converted sangleys, their indigenous Filipino wives, and their mixed-race descendants, the mestizos de sangley or Chinese mestizos, to reside. Similarly, Parían, an area near Intramuros, was where the Spanish first restricted unconverted Chinese immigrants to live. They allowed sangley settlement at Parían because it was within the range of Intramuros cannons, and they felt they could control any uprising from the laborers.

Located across the Pasig River from Intramuros, Binondo has typified a small Chinese town. Locally it has been called "China Town". The district is the center of commerce and trade for all types of businesses run by ethnic Chinese merchants. Given the historic reach of Chinese trading in the Pacific, this district was already a hub of Chinese commerce before the first Spanish colonists came in 1521.

Hi-Riser

2012-01-20T06:00:00.000-06:00

Hi-Risers are a type of highly customized automobile, typically an inexpensive American-built sedan modified by significantly increasing the ground clearance and adding large-diameter wheels with low-profile tires. Depending on the model and build year, autos customized in this manner can be labeled "donk," "box," or "bubble."

Hi-risers originally grew out of the Dirty South subculture, but the trend has spread across the United States. Vehicles customized in the hi-riser style are distinguished by their oversized (even disproportionate) wheels, ranging from 22 inches to 30 inches or more in diameter, as well as fanciful custom paint-jobs and expensive audio equipment. Suspension modifications similar to those employed on lifted pickup trucks are made to give adequate clearance for the large wheels. Often the suspension is modified so the front end sits slightly higher than the rear end, giving the car a swaggering appearance. Because of the exaggerated look gained from installing a lifted suspension and enormous wheels, donks are also known as "hi-risers" or "sky-scrapers."

The most popular vehicles for these types of modifications are full-size Chevrolet models, namely the Impala, Caprice, Monte Carlo, and Chevelle. There are three main sub-types of hi-riser, although the distinctions are blurred and open to debate. Most hi-riser enthusiasts agree that a "donk" traditionally is a 1971 to 1976 Impala. They were given this name because the "Impala" symbol was referred to as a "donkey" by owners or "donk" for short. To complement the sloping rear, the suspension of donks are frequently higher in the front end than the rear, resulting in a nose-up stance. Other hi-risers are usually raised evenly, resulting in a more or less level stance. A box is another sub-type of hi-riser, usually a 1977-1990-era Impala or Caprice with a boxy or squared-off front and rear end. Other models that are frequently made into hi-risers include the G-body Buick Regal, Oldsmobile Cutlass, El Camino, Pontiac Grand Prix, and Pontiac Bonneville.

Other vehicles gaining in popularity as hi-risers are the Cadillac DeVille and Seville, as well as the Buick Roadmaster. Also gaining in popularity are the Ford Crown Victoria, Mercury Grand Marquis, and Lincoln Town Car sedans. These three are the last full sized, body-on-frame, RWD sedans of which the Lincoln Town Car is the only one still being sold for 2011. In fact, the Grand Marquis in particular is enjoying a slight sales surge due to the increasing popularity of buying them new and turning them into hi-risers. Several rappers have alluded to the Grand Marquis in their music. "Grand Marquis, paint job grape jelly."

Cliffhangers

2012-01-19T06:00:00.000-06:00

Cliffhangers was an American television series that debuted on February 27, 1979 on NBC.

Cliffhangers attempted to revive the genre of movie serials in a made-for-TV format. Each hour-long episode was divided into three 20-minute (including commercials) segments featuring different storylines. During the series' run, three serials were featured - a mystery, a science fiction/western hybrid, and a horror story:

"Stop Susan Williams": Susan Anton stars as a beautiful TV journalist investigating the murder of her brother, and stumbling on a vast international conspiracy.
"The Secret Empire": the adventures of a U.S. marshal (Geoffrey Scott) in the Old West who stumbles upon a futuristic underground city run by aliens.
"The Curse of Dracula": starring Michael Nouri as Count Dracula, who is living undercover as a college teacher in 1979 San Francisco.

The series was cancelled after only 10 episodes were aired, by which point only "The Curse Of Dracula" had reached its conclusion. However, one unaired episode (which did air overseas) featured the two concluding chapters of "The Secret Empire" as well as the final part of "Stop Susan Williams." American viewers later got a chance to see the concluding part of "Stop Susan Williams" in the TV-movie "The Girl Who Saved The World" which re-edited the eleven installments into a single two hour movie ("Curse Of Dracula" was also re-edited as two TV-movies for later airing).

"Cliffhangers" was, at the time, the most expensive TV series ever produced due to three simultaneous production units being required. The hope was that if, after 10-12 serial episodes, a serial caught on, that it could be spun off as a series, but the network soon tired of the financial burden and never let it build an audience. The fact that it aired opposite "Happy Days" and "Laverne and Shirley", which were the #1 and #2 most popular shows in television at the time, certainly didn't help.

The series was created by Kenneth Johnson and staffed by many young writers who went on to become quite successful, including, Craig Faustus Buck, Harry Longstreet, Renee Longstreet, Andrew Schneider, Sam Egan, Richard Christian Matheson, and Jeri Taylor.

Uff Da

2012-01-18T06:00:00.000-06:00

Uff da is an expression of Norwegian origin adopted by Scandinavian-Americans in the 19th century. It is an exclamation that is relatively common in the Upper Midwestern states of the United States.

Uff da is often used in the Upper Midwest as a term for sensory overload. It can be used as an expression of surprise, astonishment, exhaustion, relief and sometimes dismay. For many, Uff da is an all-purpose expression with a variety of nuances, and covering a variety of situations. The expression has lost its original connotation, and it is increasingly difficult to specify what it means now in America. Within Midwestern culture, Uff da frequently translates into: I am overwhelmed. It has become a mark of Scandinavian roots, particularly for people from North Dakota, South Dakota, Wisconsin, northern Illinois Iowa, Minnesota, and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Uff da can often be used as an alternative for many common day swear words.

Marlin Perkins

2012-01-17T06:00:00.002-06:00

Richard Marlin Perkins (March 28, 1905 – June 14, 1986) was a zoologist best known as a host of the television program Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom from 1963 to 1985.

Marlin Perkins was born on March 28, 1905 in Carthage, Missouri, and attended public school there through eighth grade. In the fall of 1919, he entered Wentworth Military Academy. There Perkins demonstrated his fascination with snakes by keeping blue racer snakes in his room.

Perkins briefly attended the University of Missouri, but quit school to become a laborer at the Saint Louis Zoological Park. It was the start of a brilliant zoological career. He rose through the ranks, becoming the reptile curator in 1928. After being hired as a curator of the Buffalo Zoological Park in Buffalo, New York, Perkins was eventually promoted to director in 1938. He then served as director at the Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago, Illinois, from 1944 until 1962. During his time at the Lincoln Park Zoo, Perkins joined Sir Edmund Hillary as the zoologist for Hillary's 1960 Himalayan expedition to search for the legendary Yeti.

Perkins was the host of Zoo Parade, a television program that originated from the Lincoln Park Zoo when he was the director there. During a rehearsal of Zoo Parade, he was bitten by a timber rattlesnake, one of several bites from venomous snakes Perkins suffered throughout his career.

As a result of his work on Zoo Parade Perkins was offered the job in 1963 for which most Americans remember him: host of the famed nature show Wild Kingdom. The enormous fame he gained in his television career allowed Perkins to become an advocate for the protection of endangered species, and through Wild Kingdom he gave many Americans their first exposure to the conservation movement.

Perkins retired from active zookeeping in 1970 and from Wild Kingdom in 1985 for health reasons. Perkins remained with the Saint Louis Zoo as Director Emeritus until his death on June 14, 1986, when he died of cancer.

Because Walt Disney had fabricated footage of a mass suicide of lemmings in its film White Wilderness, CBC journalist Bob McKeown asked Marlin Perkins if he had done the same. Perkins, then in his eighties, "firmly asked for the camera to be turned off, then punched a shocked McKeown in the face."

In 1990, Marlin Perkins was inducted into the St. Louis Walk of Fame. A statue of Perkins also stands in Central Park in his hometown of Carthage, Missouri.

Gas House Gang

2012-01-16T06:00:00.000-06:00

The Gas House Gang was a New York street gang during the late nineteenth century.

Founded in the 1890s, the Gas House Gang was based in the Gas House district of Manhattan and controlled the area along Third Avenue from 11th to 18th Street. Specializing in armed robbery, the gang was estimated to have committed between 30 to 40 robberies a night as well as extorting money from local residents and operating brothels. The gang would continue to control the district for over two decades until it was eventually absorbed by the Five Points Gang in 1910.

Peach Melba

2012-01-15T06:00:00.000-06:00

The Peach Melba is a classic dessert, invented in 1892 or 1893 by the French chef Auguste Escoffier at the Savoy Hotel, London to honour the Australian soprano, Dame Nellie Melba (1861–1931). It combines two favourite summer fruits: peaches and raspberry sauce accompanying vanilla ice cream.

In 1892, Nellie Melba was performing in Wagner's opera Lohengrin at Covent Garden. The Duke of Orléans gave a dinner party to celebrate her triumph. For the occasion, Escoffier created a new dessert, and to display it, he used an ice sculpture of a swan, which is featured in the opera. The swan carried peaches which rested on a bed of vanilla ice cream and which were topped with spun sugar.

In 1900, Escoffier created a new version of the dessert. For the occasion of the opening of the Carlton hotel, where he was head chef, Escoffier omitted the ice swan and topped the peaches with raspberry purée. Other versions of this dessert use pears, apricots, or strawberries instead of peaches and / or use raspberry sauce or melted red currant jelly instead of raspberry purée.

January 13 is National Peach Melba Day in the United States.

Goody Two Shoes

2012-01-14T06:00:00.000-06:00

"Goody Two Shoes" is a popular song by Adam Ant. The song was released on the album Friend or Foe in 1982. The title phrase is a disparaging term for someone who is overly virtuous or conformist, and ultimately comes from the children's story The History of Little Goody Two-Shoes, published in 1765.

Following the dissolution of Adam and the Ants in early 1982, Adam Ant pursued a solo career. His debut as a solo artist, "Goody Two Shoes" was written by Adam Ant and Marco Pirroni and produced by Ant, Pirroni and Chris Hughes. The song details Ant's frustration with press intrusion, which was reinforced by the video and his clean cut image.

The song was an instant hit, reaching #1 on the UK singles chart for two weeks in June 1982 and later repeating the feat in Australia. Despite the success, this was his third and final #1 single. The song was his first and biggest hit on the Billboard Hot 100 in the US, peaking at #12.

Interestingly, there are two versions of the cover. The first has 'Adam and the Ants' across the top of the sleeve and the later version just 'Adam Ant'. This is probably due to the confusion around the timing of Adam going solo, particularly as the song was performed by three fifths of the band (Adam, Marco and Merrick).

The music video presents a stylized vision of a day in the life of Adam Ant, from dressing in the morning to performing on stage, to being hounded by the media. At the end of the day, he takes home a woman journalist played by British actress Caroline Munro.

Gilalite

2012-01-13T06:00:00.000-06:00

Gilalite is a copper silicate mineral with chemical composition of Cu₅Si₆O₁₇·7(H₂O).

It occurs as a retrograde metamorphic phase in a calc-silicate and sulfde skarn deposit. It occurs as fracture fillings and incrustations associated with diopside crystals. It is commonly found in the form of spherules of radial fibers.

It was first described for an occurrence in the Christmas porphyry copper mine in Gila County, Arizona in 1980 along with the mineral apachite.^[4] It derives its name from this locality. It has also been reported from the Goodsprings District, Clark County, Nevada; Juazeiro do Norte, Ceara State, Brazil and a slag area in Lavrion District, Attica, Greece.

Familiar

2012-01-12T06:00:00.002-06:00

In European folklore and folk-belief of the Mediaeval and Early Modern periods, familiar spirits, sometimes referred to simply as familiars, were supernatural entities that were believed to assist witches and cunning folk in their practice of magic. According to the records of the time, they would appear in numerous guises, often as an animal, but also at times as a human or humanoid figure, and were described as "clearly defined, three-dimensional… forms, vivid with colour and animated with movement and sound" by those alleging to have come into contact with them, unlike later descriptions of ghosts with their "smoky, undefined form[s]".

When they served witches, they were often thought to be malevolent, while when working for cunning-folk they were often thought of as benevolent, although there was some ambiguity in both cases. The former were often categorised as being demons, while the latter were more commonly thought of and described as being fairies.The main purpose of familiars is to serve the witch/young witch. The service the familiar would provide would be to protect the new witch coming into his/her new powers.

Jamkaran

2012-01-11T06:00:00.000-06:00

Jamkaran, Iran (on the outskirts of Qom) is the site of the Jamkaran Mosque, a popular pilgrimage site for Shi'ite Muslims. Local belief has it that the Twelfth Imam (Muhammad al-Mahdi) — a messiah figure Shia believe will lead the world to an era of universal peace — once appeared and offered prayers at Jamkaran. On Tuesday evenings especially large crowds of tens of thousands gather at Jamkaran to pray and to drop a note to the Imam in a well at the site, asking for help with some problem.

The mosque, six kilometres east of Qom, has long been a sacred place, at least since 373 A.H., 17th of Ramadan (22 February 984 C.E.), when according to the mosque website, one Sheikh Hassan ibn Muthlih Jamkarani is reported to have met Muhammad al-Mahdi along with the prophet Al-Khidr. Jamkarani was instructed that the land they were on was "noble" and that the owner — Hasan bin Muslim — was to cease cultivating it and finance the building of a mosque on it from the earnings he had accumulated from farming the land.

In the late 20th century, the mosque's reputation spread, and many pilgrims, particularly young people, began to come to it. In the rear of the mosque there is a "well of requests" where it is believed the Twelfth Imam once "became miraculously unhidden for a brief shining moment of loving communion with his Creator." Pilgrims tie small strings in a knot around the grids covering the holy well, which they hope will be received by the Imam Mahdi. Every morning custodians cut off the strings from the previous day.

Scythians

2012-01-10T06:00:00.000-06:00

The Scythians or Scyths were an ancient Iranian people of horse-riding nomadic pastoralists who throughout Classical Antiquity dominated the Pontic-Caspian steppe, known at the time as Scythia. Before 2006, they were believed to have ranged west of the Altai Mountains, until a royal burial was found to the east in Mongolia. By Late Antiquity the closely-related Sarmatians came to dominate the Scythians in the west. Much of the surviving information about the Scythians comes from the Greek historian Herodotus (c. 440 BC) in his Histories and Ovid in his poem of exile Epistulae ex Ponto, and archaeologically from the depictions of Scythian life shown in relief on exquisite goldwork found in Scythian burial mounds in Ukraine and Southern Russia.

The name "Scythian" has also been used to refer to various peoples seen as similar to the Scythians, or who lived anywhere in a vast area covering present-day Central Asia, Russia, and Ukraine—known until medieval times as Scythia. They have been described as "a network of culturally similar tribes." For example, the name of the Scythians has been used in reference to the Goths.

Y-Chromosome DNA testing performed on ancient Scythian skeletons dating to the Bronze and Iron Ages in the Siberian Krasnoyarsk region found that all but one of 11 subjects carried Y-DNA R1a1, with blue or green eye color and light hair common, suggesting mostly European origin of that particular population. A mummy of a Scythian warrior found in the Altai, Mongolia, 2005, which is believed to be about 2,500 years old, was found to be a 30-to-40 year-old man with blond hair of noble origin

Pearl of Lao Tzu

2012-01-09T06:00:00.000-06:00

The Pearl of Lao Tzu (also referred to as Pearl of Lao Tze and Pearl of Allah) is the largest known pearl in the world. It is not a gem-quality pearl, but is instead what is known as a "clam pearl" or "Tridacna pearl" from a giant clam. It measures 24 centimeters in diameter (9.45 inches) and weighs 6.4 kilograms (14.1 lb). It is an interesting piece of natural history surrounded by extraordinary stories and legends.

The pearl came from the Philippines. Wilburn Cobb, an American who brought the pearl from the Philippines in 1939 and owned it until his death in 1979, published an account of how he came to own it in Natural History Magazine. According to Cobb, he wanted to buy it from a Philippine tribal chief when he first heard of it in 1934, but the chief did not want to sell. However, in 1936 Cobb saved the life of the chief’s son, who was stricken with malaria, and was given the pearl as a token of gratitude.

In America, the pearl was exhibited at the Ripley's Believe It or Not! Odditorium in New York, valued at $3.5 million.

Much later, Cobb wrote a new account in the February 1969 Mensa Bulletin, this time promoting the pearl as an artifact of Chinese legend. He alleged he had been approached by a Chinese fellow named Li, who divulged a rich mythology. In short, the pearl had first been grown in a much smaller clam around a jade amulet inserted by a disciple of legendary sage Laozi more than 2 500 years ago, and been transferred over the centuries to ever larger clams, growing to record size. Wars had been fought over the artefact, and it had been sent off to the Philippines as a protective measure, where it was lost in a storm. Also according to Cobb, Li had tried to buy the pearl from him for $3.5 million.

After Cobb’s death in 1980, Peter Hoffman and Victor Barbish bought the pearl from his estate for the much smaller sum of $200,000. Barbish has claimed to have had further contact with other Li family members over the legendary status of his pearl. (The legend of a ”Pearl of Laozi”, however, is only known from the claims of Cobb and Barbish.)

When Victor Barbish borrowed money from a Joseph Bonicelli, he gave him an interest in the pearl. In 1990, Bonicelli took Barbish to court to collect his loan, and the court ruled that Hoffman, Barbish and Bonicelli were equal partners in the pearl. Bonicelli died in 1998, and after more legal proceedings the court ordered the pearl to be sold (it has not been), with a third of the money going to Bonicelli’s children.

The pearl is not on display to the public and is currently held as part of the probate inventory of Victor M. Barbish. The Pearl is presently owned in three equal shares by the heirs of Joe Bonicelli, Peter Hoffman, and Victor Barbish.

Gemologist Michael Steenrod in Colorado Springs has appraised the pearl at $60 million (1982) and $93 million (2007). Another 1982 appraisal, by Lee Sparrow of the San Francisco Gem Lab, put the pearl at $42 million.

Cupertino effect

2012-01-08T06:00:00.001-06:00

The Cupertino effect is the tendency of a spellchecker to suggest inappropriate words to replace misspelled words and words not in its dictionary.
The origin of the term is that the spelling "cooperation" was often changed to "Cupertino" by older spellcheckers with dictionaries containing only the hyphenated form "co-operation". (Cupertino is the home of Apple Inc., and thus would be in most computer spelling dictionaries.) Users sometimes clicked "Change All" without checking whether the spellchecker's first suggestion was correct to begin with, resulting in even official documents with phrases like "as well as valuable experience in international Cupertino".
More generally, "Cupertino Effect" means failing to check that a suggested word is appropriate. A common case is "definately" being changed to "defiantly" instead of "definitely". Benjamin Zimmer of Thinkmap, Inc. and the University of Pennsylvania has collected many examples of similar errors, including DeMeco Ryans as "Demerol" (in the New York Times), Voldemort as "Voltmeter" (in the Denver Post) and the Muttahida Qaumi Movement as "Muttonhead Quail".
The user need not always select an incorrect word for it to appear in the document; in WordPerfect 9 with factory default settings, any unrecognized word that was close enough to exactly one known word was automatically replaced with that word. Smartphones with dictionary supported virtual keyboards automatically replace possible mistakes with dictionary words.
Zimmer suggests that a possible misspelling that produced the Cupertino effect is "cooperatino". A member of the European Union translation service reports that the Cupertino change can happen to the word "cooperation" if the word processor's custom dictionary only has the hyphenated form "co-operation", and this was verified to have occurred using the spellchecker on an older version of Outlook Express.Cupertino has been present in Microsoft's custom dictionaries since at least 1989 (when Word 4 for Mac was released).
More sophisticated techniques for spell-checking in modern programs mean that the effect is much less of a problem than it used to be.

Discordianism

2012-01-07T06:00:00.000-06:00

Discordianism is the modern religion worshipping Eris (also known as Discordia), the Greco-Roman Goddess of Chaos. It was founded circa 1958–1959 by Malaclypse the Younger with the publication of its principal text, the Principia Discordia.

Discordianism is a "Ha Ha, Only Serious" 'joke', using humor to subversively spread what its members regard as a valid philosophy. To keep said beliefs from becoming dangerous fanaticism, they rely on self-subverting Dada-Zen humor, with varying degrees of success. There is some division as to whether it should be regarded as a parody religion, and if so to what degree.

It has been likened to Zen, based on similarities with absurdist interpretations of the Rinzai school. Discordianism is centered on the idea that chaos is all that there is, and that disorder and order are both illusions that are imposed on chaos. These are referred to, respectively, as the "Eristic" and "Aneristic" illusions. Discordianism recognizes the positive aspects of chaos, discord, and dissent as valid and desirable qualities, in contrast with most religions, which idealize harmony and order.

It is difficult to estimate the number of followers and correctly identify Discordian groups. There is an encouragement to form schisms and cabals. Additionally, few adherents hold Discordianism as their only or primary faith.

Interview

2012-01-06T06:00:00.000-06:00

Interview is a magazine founded by artist Andy Warhol in late 1969. The magazine features intimate conversations between some of the world's biggest celebrities, artists, musicians, and creative thinkers. Interviews are usually unedited or edited in the eccentric fashion of Warhol's books and The Philosophy of Andy Warhol: From A to B and Back Again.

In the early days, complimentary copies of Interview were often given away to the "in-crowd"--this was the start of the magazine's circulation, which today hovers around 230,000. Toward the end of his life, as Warhol withdrew from everyday oversight of his magazine, a more conventional editorial style was introduced under editor Bob Colacello). However, Warhol continued to act as ambassador for the magazine, distributing issues in the street to passersby and creating ad hoc signing events on the streets of Manhattan.

The magazine (dubbed "The Crystal Ball Of Pop") has managed to stay true to form to this day - 60% features/ 40% glossy advertising - published, since shortly after Warhol's death in 1987, by Brant Publications, Inc. The magazine "relaunched" under Editorial Director Fabien Baron in September 2008, with an iconic cover featuring Kate Moss. Today "Interview" content can be found online on and via monthly apps available on iTunes.

Parcae

2012-01-05T06:00:00.002-06:00

In Roman mythology, the Parcae were the personifications of destiny, often called The Fates in English. Their Greek equivalent were the Moirae. They controlled the metaphorical thread of life of every mortal and immortal from birth to death. Even the gods feared the Parcae. Jupiter also was subject to their power.
The names of the three Parcae were:

Nona (Greek equivalent Clotho), who spun the thread of life from her distaff onto her spindle;
Decima (Greek Lachesis), who measured the thread of life with her rod;
Morta (Greek Atropos), who cut the thread of life and chose the manner of a person's death.

Mai Tai

2012-01-04T06:00:00.000-06:00

The Mai Tai is an alcoholic cocktail based on rum, Curaçao liqueur, and lime juice, popular in "Polynesian-style" settings.

It was purportedly invented at the Trader Vic's restaurant in Oakland, California in 1944. Trader Vic's rival, Don the Beachcomber, claimed to have created it in 1933 at his then-new eponymous bar (later a famous restaurant) in Hollywood. Don the Beachcomber's recipe is more complex than that of Vic and tastes quite different.

"Maita'i" is the Tahitian word for "good." The spelling of the drink, however, is two words.

The Trader Vic story of its invention is that the Trader (Victor J. Bergeron) created it one afternoon for some friends who were visiting from Tahiti. One of those friends, Carrie Guild, tasted it and cried out: "Maita'i roa ae!" (Literally "very good!", figuratively "Out of this world! The Best!") — hence the name.

The Mai Tai became such a popular cocktail in the 1950s and 1960s that virtually every restaurant, particularly tiki-themed restaurants or bars served them. The Mai Tai was also prominently featured in the popular Elvis Presley film Blue Hawaii.

Today, the Mai Tai is synonymous with Tiki culture, both of the past and present. Virtually every modern tiki gathering centers around the Mai Tai in some fashion. Contemporary tikiphiles are quite meticulous about the Mai Tai and insist that it be prepared according the traditional Trader Vic's recipe.

As of 2008, Trader Vic's Restaurant chain has begun to open small establishments called Mai Tai Bars, that primarily serve cocktails and pupus (appetizers).

John Doe

2012-01-03T06:00:00.002-06:00

The name "John Doe" is used as a placeholder name in a legal action, case or discussion for a male party, whose true identity is unknown or must be withheld for legal reasons. The name is also used to refer to a male corpse or hospital patient whose identity is unknown. This practice is widely used in the United States and Canada, but is rare in other English-speaking countries. The name Joe Bloggs is used in the U.K instead, as well as in Australia and New Zealand.

John Doe is sometimes used to refer to a typical male in other contexts as well, in a similar manner as John Q. Public, Joe Public or John Smith. The female equivalent of John is Jane Doe, whilst a child or baby whose identity is unknown may be referred to as Baby Doe.

The Doe names are often, though not always, used for anonymous or unknown defendants. Another set of names often used for anonymous parties, particularly plaintiffs, are Richard Roe for males and Jane Roe for females (as in the landmark U.S. Supreme Court abortion decision Roe v. Wade).

The name "John Doe", often spelled "Doo," along with "Richard Roe" or "Roo" were regularly invoked in English legal instruments to satisfy technical requirements governing standing and jurisdiction, beginning perhaps as early as the reign of England's King Edward III (1312–1377). This particular use became obsolete in the UK in 1852:

Bearing the actual name John Doe can cause difficulty, such as being stopped by airport security or suspected of being an incognito celebrity.

The Goon Show

2012-01-02T06:00:00.001-06:00

The Goon Show was a British radio comedy programme, originally produced and broadcast by the BBC Home Service from 1951 to 1960, with occasional repeats on the BBC Light Programme. The first series, broadcast between May and September 1951, was titled Crazy People; all subsequent series had the title The Goon Show, a title which Milligan was quoted as being inspired by a Popeye character.

The show's chief creator and main writer was Spike Milligan. The scripts mixed ludicrous plots with surreal humour, puns, catchphrases and an array of bizarre sound effects. Some of the later episodes feature electronic effects devised by the then-fledgling BBC Radiophonic Workshop, many of which were reused by other shows for decades afterwards. Many elements of the show satirised contemporary life in Britain, parodying aspects of show business, commerce, industry, art, politics, diplomacy, the police, the military, education, class structure, literature and film.

The show was released internationally through the BBC Transcription Service (TS). It was heard regularly from the 1950s in Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, India and Canada, although these TS versions were frequently edited to avoid controversial subjects. NBC began broadcasting the programme on its radio network from the mid-1950s. The programme exercised a considerable influence on the subsequent development of British and American comedy and popular culture. It was cited as a major influence by the Beatles, Monty Python and the American comedy team The Firesign Theater.

Baby New Year

2012-01-01T06:00:00.000-06:00

The Baby New Year is an American personification of the start of the New Year commonly seen in in editorial cartoons. The stereotypical representation of Baby New Year is as a male baby wearing nothing more than a diaper, a top hat and a sash across his torso that shows the year he is representing. Sometimes he is holding an hourglass or is otherwise associated with one. Often, he is not a complete newborn but is slightly older, because he is frequently shown standing on his own, barely walking, or having a small amount of head hair.

The myth associated with him is that he is a baby at the beginning of his year, but Baby New Year quickly grows up until he is an elderly bearded man like Father Time at the end of his year. At this point, he hands over his duties to the next Baby New Year.

In addition to being a mythical figure, the Baby New Year is sometimes a real person. The first baby born in any village or city in a certain year may be honored by being labeled as the official Baby New Year for that year. The official Baby New Year can be male or female, even though the mythical Baby New Year is nearly always male. Attempts to name an official Baby New Year for an entire country have sometimes been made, but generally there are multiple contenders and no single Baby New Year can be confirmed.

Fresnel Lens

2011-12-31T06:00:00.000-06:00

A Fresnel lens is a type of lens originally developed by French physicist Augustin-Jean Fresnel for lighthouses.

The design allows the construction of lenses of large aperture and short focal length without the mass and volume of material that would be required by a lens of conventional design. Compared to conventional bulky lenses, the Fresnel lens is much thinner, larger, and flatter, and captures more oblique light from a light source, thus allowing lighthouses to be visible over much greater distances.

The Fresnel lens reduces the amount of material required compared to a conventional spherical lens by dividing the lens into a set of concentric annular sections known as "Fresnel zones", which are theoretically limitless.

In the first (and largest) variations of the lens, each zone was actually a separate prism. Though a Fresnel lens might appear like a single piece of glass, closer examination reveals that it is many small pieces. It was not until modern computer-controlled milling equipment (CNC) could turn out large complex pieces that these lenses were manufactured from single pieces of glass.

Fresnel lens design allows a substantial reduction in thickness (and thus mass and volume of material), at the expense of reducing the imaging quality of the lens, which is why precise imaging applications such as photography still use conventional bulky (non-Fresnel) lenses.

Fresnel lenses are usually made of glass or plastic; their size varies from large (old historical lighthouses, meter size) to medium (book-reading aids, OHP viewgraph projectors) to small (TLR/SLR camera screens, micro-optics). In many cases they are very thin and flat, almost flexible, with thicknesses in the 1 to 5 millimeter range.

The idea of creating a thinner, lighter lens by making it with separate sections mounted in a frame is often attributed to Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon. The marquis de Condorcet (1743–1794) proposed grinding such a lens from a single thin piece of glass. French physicist and engineer Augustin-Jean Fresnel is most often given credit for the development of the multi-part lens for use in lighthouses. The first Fresnel lens was used in 1823 in the Cordouan lighthouse at the mouth of the Gironde estuary; its light could be seen from more than 20 miles (32 km) out.

Jalopy

2011-12-30T06:00:00.000-06:00

A jalopy is an old, decrepit, unreliable and often nonfunctional car which has limited mechanical abilities and is often rusty or dented or in an unmaintained shape. A jalopy is not a well kept antique car, but a car which is mostly rundown or beaten up. As a slang term in American English, "Jalopy" was noted in 1924 but is now slightly passé. The term was used extensively in the book On the Road by Jack Kerouac, first published in 1957, although written from 1947.

The origin of the word is unknown. It is possible that the non Spanish-speaking New Orleans-based longshoremen, referring to scrapped autos destined for Jalapa, Mexico scrapyards, pronounced the destination on the palettes "jalopies" rather than multiples or possessive of Jalapa.

During the 1930s, this word was used frequently when the market for used cars first started to grow. Cheap dealers could obtain the cars for very little, make aesthetic adjustments, and sell the car for much more. Early hot rodders also purchased jalopies as the basis for racers, and early stock car racing would be called "jalopy racing".

Mise en Place

2011-12-29T06:00:00.002-06:00

Mise en place (literally "putting in place") is a French phrase defined by the Culinary Institute of America as "everything in place", as in set up. It is used in professional kitchens to refer to organizing and arranging the ingredients (e.g., cuts of meat, relishes, sauces, par-cooked items, spices, freshly chopped vegetables, and other components) that a cook will require for the menu items that he or she expects to prepare during his/her shift.
Recipes are reviewed to check for necessary ingredients and equipment. Ingredients are measured out, washed, chopped, and placed in individual bowls. Equipment, such as spatulas and blenders, are prepared for use, and ovens are preheated. Preparing the mise en place ahead of time allows the chef to cook without having to stop and assemble items, which is desirable in recipes with time constraints.
It also refers to the preparation and layouts that are set up and used by line cooks at their stations in a commercial or restaurant kitchen.
The concept of having everything in its place as applied to the work in a kitchen is likely to have become a staple around the time of Auguste Escoffier, who is well known for his development of the brigade system of running a kitchen.

Johnson Wax Headquarters

2011-12-28T06:00:00.001-06:00

Johnson Wax Headquarters is the world headquarters and administration building of S. C. Johnson & Son in Racine, Wisconsin. Designed by American architect Frank Lloyd Wright for the company's president, Herbert F. "Hib" Johnson, the building was constructed from 1936 to 1939.

An example of streamlined design, the building has over 200 types of curved red bricks making up the exterior and interior of the building and Pyrex glass tubing from the ceiling and clerestories to let in soft light. The colors that Frank Lloyd Wright chose for the Johnson Wax building are cream (for the columns and mortar) and "Cherokee red" for the floors, bricks, and furniture. The furniture, also designed by the architect, and manufactured by Steelcase, Inc., echoes the curving lines of the building.

The construction of the Johnson Wax building created controversies for the architect. In the Great Workroom, the dendriform columns are 9 inches (23 cm) in diameter at the bottom and 18 feet (550 cm) in diameter at the top, on a wide, round platform that Wright termed, the "lily pad." This difference in diameter between the bottom and top of the column did not accord with building codes at the time.

Additionally, it was very difficult to properly seal the glass tubing of the clerestories and roof, thus causing leaks. This problem was not solved until rubber gaskets were placed between the tubes, and corrugated plastic was used in the roof to seal it, while mimicking the glass tubes.

Wright's chair design for Johnson Wax originally had only three legs, supposedly to encourage better posture (because one would have to keep both feet on the ground at all times to sit in it). However, the chair design proved too unstable, tipping very easily. Herbert Johnson, needing a new chair design, purportedly asked Wright to sit in one of the three-legged chairs and, after Wright fell from the chair, the architect designed new chairs for Johnson Wax with four legs; these chairs, and the other office furniture designed by Wright, are still in use.

The Johnson Wax buildings are on the National Register of Historic Places, and the Administration Building and the Research Tower were each chosen by the American Institute of Architects as two of seventeen buildings by the architect to be retained as examples of his contribution to American culture. In addition, the Administration Building and Research Tower were both designated National Historic Landmarks in 1976.

In 2008, the U.S. National Park Service submitted the Johnson Wax Headquarters and the Research Tower, along with nine other Frank Lloyd Wright properties, to a tentative list for World Heritage Status. The 10 sites have been submitted as one, total, site. The January 22, 2008 press release from the National Park Service website announcing the nominations states that, "The preparation of a Tentative List is a necessary first step in the process of nominating a site to the World Heritage List."

Thee Headcoats

2011-12-27T06:00:00.001-06:00

Thee Headcoats were a band comprising Billy Childish, Bruce Brand, and Johnny Johnson. Childish was featured on guitar and vocals, Brand on drums and backing vocals, and Johnson on bass. The band was the most prolific of Childish's many musical projects, releasing fourteen full length albums. Formed in Kent, England in the late 1980s, the band was well known for its garage rock sound, explicitly sticking to this format on almost all of their albums. The band's signature sound as well as their prolific writing has been attributed to Childish's love of simple, direct recording. The band has been on multiple labels including Billy's own Hangman Records and Sub Pop.

Described in the New York Times as 'the king of garage rock', Billy and Thee Headcoats actually grew out of the British punk scene of the 1970s (both Billy and Bruce Brand playing in The Pop Rivets. The band recorded songs by The Clash under the pseudonym Thee Stash. The band also recorded a tribute album to Bo Diddley called Bo in Thee Garage. On their debut album, the band recorded new versions of songs written by Son House including "John the Revelator" and "Child's Death Letter," both of which were later covered by The White Stripes upon whom Thee Headcoats were a great influence. These three influences give a good idea of what the band's sound was like; punk mixed with pure rhythmic rock 'n' roll and blues.

The band played their final concert on May 12, 2000 at the Dirty Water Club. Billy Childish went on to play with The Buff Medways from 1999 to 2006. His latest group is The Musicians of The British Empire.

Zoogz Rift

2011-12-26T06:00:00.002-06:00

Zoogz Rift (July 10, 1953-March 22, 2011) was a musician, painter and professional wrestling personality.

The Trouser Press describes Zoogz Rift as "an iconoclastic original" who is "as imaginative and stimulating as he is irritating and vitriolic." Rift was influenced by Frank Zappa and Captain Beefheart as well as Salvador Dalí and Ayn Rand. He began his recording career with the album Idiots on the Miniature Golf Course, released by Snout Records in 1979. His long-time collaborators include Richie Häss and John Trubee. Rift released several albums through SST Records during the 1980s. Keyboard Magazine, in a special "Experimental Music" issue, described Rift's album The Island of Living Puke as "moments of outstanding free-form rock, sandwiched between scrupulously obscene interruptions."

Zoogz Rift booked the UWF (Universal Wrestling Federation) in 1993. He left the promotion in March 1994, but returned in May 1995 to become Vice-President, alongside founder Herb Abrams. After Abrams died in 1996, the UWF promotion closed and Zoogz was left without a job. He hosted an online wrestling show, entitled Puke-A-Mania that provides a weekly assessment of WWE and TNA promotions, with Zoogz giving insight on wrestling issues. His rants on the show included the pushing of former WWF superstar Warlord, and his fascination with possibly training 60-year-old Vince McMahon to become a main-event wrestler. With Zoogz' former experience in wrestling, he claims he can train any man, via the techniques of the Golden Crab, as stated in Episode #3 of Puke-A-Mania. Zoogz Rift died peacefully on March 22, 2011. His death was due to serious complications from diabetes which he had been battling for well over a decade.

Gävle goat

2011-12-25T06:00:00.000-06:00

The Gävle Goat (known in Swedish as Julbocken i Gävle or Gävlebocken), located at Slottstorget ("Castle Square") in central Gävle, is a giant version of a traditional Swedish Yule Goat figure made of straw. It is erected each year over a period of two days by a local association called the Southern Merchants in time for the start of advent. Another version is erected by a group of students from the Natural Science Club of the School of Vasa. The Natural Science Club's goat holds the world record for the largest Yule Goat, but since 1994 the Southern Merchants' goats have been larger and have had more publicity. The goats have become the subject of a 'tradition' of regularly being torched by vandals.

The history of the Gävle Goat began in 1966. An advertising consultant, Stig Gavlén, came up with the idea of making a giant version of the traditional Swedish Yule Goat and placing it in the square. Ironically, considering its later history, the design of the first goat was assigned to the then chief of the Gävle fire department, Gavlén's brother Jesper Gavlén. The construction of the goat was carried out by the fire department, and they erected the goat each year from 1966 to 1970 and from 1986 to 2002. The first goat was financed by a man named Harry Ström. On 1 December 1966, a 13-metre (43 ft) tall, 7-metre (23 ft) long, 3-tonne goat was erected in the square. However, at the stroke of midnight on New Year's Eve, the goat went up in flames.

The goat has since had a history of being burnt down roughly every other year, 2009 being the 24th time. The financing for the initial goats came from a group of businessmen known as the Southern Merchants (Söders Köpmän), so named because all their members were located on the southern side of Gavleån ("Gavle river"), a river that runs through central Gävle dividing the town into north and south.

In 1971, the Southern Merchants became so frustrated with the continual burning of their goats, that for 15 years they stopped building them, and the task was taken up by the Natural Science Club of the School of Vasa. The Natural Science Club's Yule Goat fared no better; besides being burnt and vandalised, one year it was even run over by a car. From 1988 onward, English bookmakers made it possible to bet on the goat's destiny.

In 1996 the Southern Merchants introduced webcams to monitor the goat 24 hours a day, with little or no success. On 27 November 2004 the Gävle Goat's homepage was hacked into and one of the two official webcams changed to display "Burn Bockjaevel" (translation: Burn the damn Goat) in the left corner of its live feed. One year, while security guards were posted around the goat in order to prevent further vandalism, the temperature dropped far below zero. As the guards ducked into a nearby restaurant to escape the cold, the vandals struck. Before they even had a chance to raise their glasses they saw flames shooting from the goat through the restaurant window.

During the weekend of December 3-4, 2005 a series of attacks on public Yule Goats across Sweden were carried out; The Gävle Goat was burnt on December 3, which escalated into a frenzy of copycat goat-burning across Sweden. The Visby goat on Gotland burned down, the Yule Goat in Söderköping, Östergötland was torched, and there was an attack on a goat located in Lycksele, Västerbotten. That goat escaped with only minor burn marks on the legs.

Jamón serrano

2011-12-24T06:00:00.000-06:00

Jamón serrano is a type of jamón (dry-cured Spanish ham), which is generally served raw in thin slices, or occasionally diced. The French jambon de Bayonne and Italian prosciutto crudo are similar. A foreleg prepared in the same manner is called paleta.

Fresh hams are trimmed and cleaned, then stacked and covered with salt for about two weeks in order to draw off excess moisture and preserve the meat from spoiling. The salt is then washed off and the hams are hung to dry for about six months. Finally, the hams are hung in a cool, dry place for six to eighteen months, depending on the climate, as well as the size and type of ham being cured. The drying sheds (secaderos) are usually built at higher elevations, which is why the ham is called mountain ham.

The majority of Serrano hams are made from the Landrace breed of white pig and are not to be confused with the much more expensive and entirely different Jamón ibérico. These hams were known as a delicacy even in the days of the Roman Empire. Though not expensive in Spain and the European Union, duties imposed on imported meats and exchange rates makes these hams more costly outside the Union. Where available, the meat can usually be purchased sliced, in chunks, or as a complete, bone-in ham.

Harrison Bergeron

2011-12-23T06:00:00.000-06:00

"Harrison Bergeron" is a satirical, dystopian science fiction short story written by Kurt Vonnegut and first published in October 1961. Originally published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, the story was re-published in the author's collection Welcome to the Monkey House in 1968.

In the story, social equality has been achieved by handicapping the more intelligent, athletic or beautiful members of society. For example, strength is handicapped by the requirement to carry weight, beauty by the requirement to wear a mask and so on. All this equality is due to the 211th, 212th, and 213th amendments to the United States Constitution. This process is central to the society, designed so that no one will feel inferior to anyone else.

Harrison Bergeron, the protagonist of the story, has exceptional intelligence, strength, and beauty, and thus has to bear enormous handicaps. Despite these societal handicaps, he is able to invade a TV station, declare himself Emperor, strip himself of his handicaps, then dance with a ballerina whose handicaps he has also discarded. Both are shot dead by the brutal and relentless Handicapper General, who demonstrates the hypocrisy of such equality in the first place. The story is framed by an additional perspective from Bergeron's parents, who are watching the incident on TV, but because of his father's handicaps, and his mother's merely average intelligence, they cannot concentrate enough to remember it.

Stiv Bators

2011-12-22T06:00:00.001-06:00

Steven John Bator, known as Stiv Bators (October 22, 1949 – June 3, 1990), was an American punk rock vocalist and guitarist from Youngstown, Ohio. He is best remembered for his bands, The Dead Boys and The Lords of the New Church.

In the course of his career Bators was involved with a variety of bands beyond those for which he was best known. These short-term bands included Hormones, with Dennis Comeau and Andre Siva, Frankenstein, The Wanderers and The Whores of Babylon (with Dee Dee Ramone and Johnny Thunders). He also recorded as a solo artist with Bomp! Records.

It was as the lead singer and driving force of the Dead Boys, however, that Bators helped pioneer the punk rock sound, look and attitude. The band quickly became a popular staple at CBGB's, the music club in New York City's East Village. The Dead Boys were featured in the independent punk rock film Punking Out (1978), Live at CBGB's (1977) and Crash 'n' Burn (1977).

Bators formed The Lords of the New Church later in 1981 with Brian James of The Damned and Dave Tregunna of Sham 69. The Lords became notorious for their live shows. A devotee of Iggy Pop, Bators had developed a fearless reputation in his Dead Boys days and continued such antics with The Lords, the most famous being the time he reportedly hanged himself during a show.

Later, the punk vocalist gained additional exposure through more mainstream film. In 1981, Bators co-starred in the satirical John Waters film, Polyester. Seven years later, Bators made a memorable cameo appearance as "Dick Slammer", lead singer of "The Blender Children", in the offbeat comedy, Tapeheads, starring John Cusack and Tim Robbins.

The Lords of the New Church broke up in 1989, when Bators injured his back and guitarist Brian James secretly began advertising for a replacement singer. When Bators found out he played the encore of the band's final show donning a T-shirt with James' newspaper ad printed across the front, he then proceeded to fire the remaining members on-stage.

In the summer of 1990, Bators was struck by a taxi in Paris. He was taken to hospital but reportedly left before seeing a doctor, after waiting several hours. Reports indicate that he died in his sleep as the result of a concussion. Dave Tregunna said that Bators, a fan of rock legend Jim Morrison, had earlier requested that his ashes be spread over Morrison's Paris grave and that his girlfriend complied.

However, in the director's commentary of the film "Polyester," in which Bators starred, John Waters, in relating Bators death, stated that Bator's girlfriend had snorted his ashes.

Queen Carola's Parotia

2011-12-21T06:00:00.000-06:00

The Queen Carola's Parotia, Parotia carolae, also known as Queen Carola's Six-wired Bird of Paradise is a medium-sized, up to 26 cm long, bird of paradise. The males, like all members in its genus, are mostly black and have three ornamental spatule head wires attaching behind each eye and elongated display feathers on the sides that form a tutu-like "skirt" during courtship. Unlike most other parotias, it also has white flank plumes, a gold-and-white crest, golden whiskers and eyebrow, and iridescent throat as well as breast feathers. The female is an overall brown bird barred greyish below. Queen Carola's Parotia often includes the enigmatic Berlepsch's Parotia as a subspecies, but information gained when it was rediscovery in 2005

hardened the case for considering it a separate species.

One of the most colorful parotias, the Queen Carola's Parotia inhabits the mid-mountain forests of central New Guinea. The diet consists mainly of fruits and arthropods. The stunning courtship dance of this species was described in detail by Scholes (2006). It is similar to that of Lawes's Parotia, but modified to present the iridescent throat plumage and the flank tufts to best effort.

The name commemorates Queen Carola of Vasa, the wife of King Albert I of Saxony.

Germania

2011-12-20T06:00:00.002-06:00

Germania is a painting by Philipp Veit created in March 1848 during the Revolutions of 1848. It was used as an allegoric decoration in the National Assembly in Frankfurt's Paulskirche, where it concealed the organ. It was meant as a symbol of a united democratic Germany and remained a national personification until the end of World War I.

Today Germania is located in the Germanisches Nationalmuseum in Nuremberg.

Gum Arabic

2011-12-19T06:00:00.001-06:00

Gum arabic, also known as gum acacia, chaar gund, char goond or meska, is a natural gum made of hardened sap taken from two species of the acacia tree; Acacia senegal and Acacia seyal. The gum is harvested commercially from wild trees throughout the Sahel from Senegal and Sudan to Somalia, although it has been historically cultivated in Arabia and West Asia. Gum arabic is a complex mixture of polysaccharides and glycoproteins that is used primarily in the food industry as a stabilizer. It is edible and has E number E414. Gum arabic is a key ingredient in traditional lithography and is used in printing, paint production, glue, cosmetics and various industrial applications, including viscosity control in inks and in textile industries, although less expensive materials compete with it for many of these roles. While gum arabic is now produced throughout the African Sahel, it is also still harvested and used in the Middle East. For example, Palestinians use the natural gum to make a chilled, sweetened, and flavored gelato-like dessert.

Schienenzeppelin

2011-12-18T06:00:00.000-06:00

The Schienenzeppelin or rail zeppelin was an experimental railcar which resembles a zeppelin airship in appearance. It was designed and developed by the German aircraft engineer Franz Kruckenberg in 1929. Propulsion was by means of a propeller located at the rear, and only a single example was ever built.

The train was built at the beginning of 1930 in the Hannover-Leinhausen works of the German Imperial Railway "Deutsche Reichsbahn" company. The work was completed by autumn of the same year. The train was 25.85 metres (84.8 ft) long and had just two axles, with a wheelbase of 19.6 m (64 ft). The height was 2.8 metres (9 ft 2 in). As originally built it had a BMW VI 12 cylinder petrol aircraft engine of 600 horsepower (450 kW) driving a four-bladed (later two-bladed), fixed pitch wooden propeller. The driveshaft was raised 7 degrees above the horizontal to give the vehicle some downwards thrust. The chassis of Schienenzeppelin was designed aerodynamically having some resemblance to the era's popular Zeppelin airships and it was built in aircraft style to reduce weight. The interior of the railcar was spartan and designed in Bauhaus-style.

On 10 May 1931, the train exceeded a velocity of 200 km/h (120 mph) for the first time. Afterwards, it was exhibited to the general public throughout Germany. On 21 June 1931, the train set a new world railway speed record of 230 km/h (140 mph) on the Berlin–Hamburg line between Karstädt and Dergenthin, which was not surpassed by any other train until 1954. The railcar still holds the land speed record for a petrol powered rail vehicle. This high speed was attributable, amongst other things, to its low weight, which was only 20.3 tonnes.

In 1939 the rail zeppelin was finally dismantled because its material was needed by the German army.

The failure of Schienenzeppelin has been attributed to everything from the dangers of using an open propeller in crowded railway stations to fierce competition between Kruckenberg's company and the Deutsche Reichsbahn's separate efforts to build highspeed railcars.

Fool's Gold Loaf

2011-12-17T06:00:00.000-06:00

Fool's Gold Loaf is a sandwich made by the Colorado Mine Company, a five-star restaurant in Denver, Colorado. The sandwich consists of a single warmed, hollowed-out loaf of bread filled with one jar of creamy peanut butter, one jar of grape jelly, and a pound of bacon. The name of the sandwich is derived from its price of $49.95. In later years, it was priced closer to $100 for the sandwich and a bottle of Dom Pérignon.

On the night of February 1, 1976, Elvis Presley was at his home Graceland in Memphis, Tennessee, entertaining Capt. Jerry Kennedy of the Denver, Colorado, police force, and Ron Pietrafeso of Colorado's Strike Force Against Crime. The three men began discussing the sandwich, and Presley decided he wanted one right then. The Mine Company was a five-star restaurant known for its rip-roaring parties and as the 'place' to be seen at the time. Presley had been to the restaurant before, while in Denver.

Kennedy and Pietrafeso were friends of the owners and hung out there often, so they were driven to the Memphis airport and boarded Presley's private jet, the Lisa Marie, and flew the two hours to Denver. When they arrived in Denver at 1:40 AM, the plane taxied to a special hangar where the passengers were greeted by Buck Scott, the owner of the Colorado Mine Company, and his wife Cindy who had brought 22 fresh Fool's Gold Loaves for the men. They spent three hours in the hangar eating the sandwiches, washing them down with Perrier and champagne. Presley invited the pilots of the plane, Milo High and Elwood Davis, to join them. When they were done, they flew back to Memphis without ever having left the Denver airport.

Stutz Bearcat

2011-12-16T06:00:00.000-06:00

The Stutz Bearcat was a well known American sports car of the pre and post World War One period.

Essentially, the Bearcats were a shorter (120" wheelbase vs 130"), lighter version of the standard Stutz passenger cars chassis. It was originally powered by a 390 cubic-inch, 60 horsepower straight-4 engine produced by the Wisconsin Motor Company. Common with racing and sports cars of the period, it featured minimal bodywork consisting of a "dog house" hood, open bucket seats, a tiny "monocle" windscreen in front of the driver, and a cylindrical fuel tank on a short rear deck. Production Bearcats differed from the factory "White Squadron" racers by having fenders, lights and a trunk. Factory literature from 1913 describes the Bearcat as "The Stutz Bearcat, designed to meet the needs of the customer desiring a car built along the lines of a racing car with a slightly higher gear ratio than out normal torpedo roadster, has met with great favor with motor car owners and meets the demand for a car of this class."

Overall, its low weight, balance, and power made it an excellent racer. For example, in 1912, Stutz Bearcats won 25 of the 30 auto races in which they were entered. In 1915 a stock Bearcat was also the car used in Erwin "Cannon Ball" Baker's record coast-to-coast drive, inspiration for the later Cannonball Run outlaw race and film spin-offs. Baker drove his Bearcat from California to New York in eleven days, seven hours, and fifteen minutes, shattering the previous record.

The original production Bearcat was introduced in the Series A of 1912. The first public mention of the car (then spelled “Bear Cat” ) is in an advertisement in the 1912 program for the Indianapolis 500 mile race. This ad also was the first to use the soon to be famous Stutz slogan “The Car that made good in a day” referring to the Stutz racer’s 11th place finish in the 1911 Indianapolis 500. As previously mentioned, that was truthful advertising as the Bearcat was essentially a road-going version of the racer with fenders and lights added. The Series E of 1913 brought electric lights and starting. A six-cylinder option was available for an extra $250.00. The doorless body style would last through 1916. A sales catelog lists the available colors for the Series E as Vermillion, Monitor Gray, or Mercedes Red. Wire wheels were listed as a $125 option.

The Series S Bearcat of 1917 brought the first large change to the model. While it retained the 120” wheelbase its body now featured an enclosed cockpit with step over sides. It continued to be right hand drive with external gearshift and brake levers. The main change was under the hood where a new Stutz-designed 360 C.I. 16-valve 4 cylinder engine resided. It was cast in a single block had a heat treated nickel crank and camshafts. 1919’s Series G was similar, but the mid-1919 Series H body’s featured cut down sides to make cockpit entrance easier. The H also introduced new colors including yellow, Royal Red, or Elephant Gray. By the end of 1919 price for a Bearcat had risen to $3250 (the same price as the roadster and slightly less than the touring coupe). The 1920 Series K was again similar but prices had risen to $3900 in the wake of a postwar auto sales boom. The 1921 series K featured a new “DH” engine with a detachable head was introduced but a switch to left hand drive in the following KLDH (L for left) meant the end of the Bearcat since its narrow front seat and cockpit did not leave room for centrally located gear and brake levers. By 1922, the famed Bearcat name was missing from model lists and sales literature. For 1923, the roadster was renamed the Bearcat, but the name would again disappear in 1924.

The Bearcat name was reintroduced in 1931. The depression had not been kind to Stutz, so the name was used as a way to boost sales. The new Bearcat had the DV-28 (28 valve) eight cylinder engine and each car came with an affidavit saying the car had been tested at 100 m.p.h. It was a small coupe featuring dual side mount spare tires and a rakish dip in the doors, similar to current (and future) sports cars. The car lasted through 1933. The same year, the model range was enhanced by the “Super Bearcat” powered by the DV-32 engine. Unlike it standard model, it offered full weather protection and higher performance . Sitting on a 116 inch wheelbase, it featured a light-weight fabric body built by Weymann. Stutz production ended in 1934.

The Kathmandu Post

2011-12-15T06:00:00.000-06:00

The Kathmandu Post is a major daily newspaper published in Nepal. Centred in the capital Kathmandu, it is one of the largest English-language newspapers in the country. The Kathmandu Post is independently owned, and is published by Kantipur Publications, the owners of Nepal's largest selling newspaper, the Nepali-language Kantipur. It is a member of the Asia News Network, an alliance of nineteen Asian newspapers.

In October 2007, the offices of The Kathmandu Post were attacked by the All Nepal Printing and Publication Workers' Union, a group connected to the former Maoist rebels. The printing press was vandalised, stopping the paper from being published. Two hundred journalists and legal professionals marched in Kathmandu in protest at the attacks.

Slate Industry

2011-12-14T06:00:00.000-06:00

The slate industry is the industry related to the extraction and processing of slate. Slate is either quarried from a slate quarry or reached by tunneling in a slate mine. Common uses for slate include as a roofing material, a flooring material, gravestones and memorial tablets, and for electrical insulation. Slate mines are found around the world and the major slate mining region in the United Kingdom is Wales: in Cornwall there are a number of slate quarries (famously the village of Delabole) and in the Lake District there are numerous slate mines and quarries.

90% of Europe's natural slate used for roofing originates from the Slate Industry in Spain.

In the remainder of Continental Europe and the Americas Portugal, Italy, Germany, Brazil, the east coast of Newfoundland, the Slate Valley of Vermont and New York, and Virginia are important producing regions. The Slate Valley area, centering on a town called Granville in the state of New York is one of the places in the world where colored slate (i.e. slate which is not grey or blue) is obtained.

Gleek

2011-12-13T06:00:00.001-06:00

Gleek is a fictional character appearing in the animated series Super Friends and its related spinoffs. He debuted in The All New Superfriends Hour, which first aired September 10, 1977. Gleek's vocalizations were provided by Michael Bell.

Gleek is a blue "space monkey" and the pet of Zan and Jayna, the Wonder Twins. Gleek is often used as comic relief for the series, as the character often gets into mischief. A joke involving Gleek often ends episodes of the Super Friends in which he appears. Gleek has a stretchable, prehensile tail which can be quite useful. Gleek is also highly intelligent, as he clearly understands spoken English, even somewhat complicated concepts such as the various stages of simple strategic planning.

He communicates through the use of sign language, acting out scenes, and chattering in an unintelligible alien tongue. Gleek also helps the Twins when they need to travel: Jayna becomes an eagle, Zan becomes water, and Gleek produces a bucket to hold Zan while Jayna carries them both. A joke observation about this is that Gleek's other power is to materialize a bucket out of nowhere on demand. Possibly unrelated, the verb "to gleek" is the projection or "spitting" of saliva from the submandibular gland underneath the tongue.

Eupeodes Corollae

2011-12-12T06:00:00.000-06:00

Eupeodes corollae is a very common European species of hoverfly. Adults are 6–11 millimetres (0.24–0.43 in) in body length. Males and females have different marking on the abdomen; males have square commas on tergites 3 and 4, whereas females have narrow commas. Larvae feed on aphids. This species has been used experimentally in glasshouses as a method of aphid control, and to control scale insects and aphids in fruit plantations. They were found to be partial to the fruit, eating more fruit than aphids.

E. corollae is found across Europe, North Africa and Asia. Adults are often migratory.

Luna Park

2011-12-11T06:00:00.000-06:00

Luna Park is a name shared by dozens of currently operating and defunct amusement parks that have opened on almost every continent except Antarctica since 1903. The first to use the name was the second major amusement park at Coney Island, designed by Charles I.D. Looff, who subsequently designed Seattle, Washington's Luna Park, which opened in 1907. The spaceship in the Pan-American Exposition ride "A Trip to the Moon" gave its name to these parks... and to dozens that followed over the next century.

In 1905, Frederick Ingersoll was already making a reputation for his pioneering work in roller coaster construction and design (he also designed scenic railroad rides) when he opened Luna Parks in Pittsburgh and Cleveland, the first two amusement parks to be covered with electric lighting (the former was adorned with 67,000 light bulbs; the Cleveland park had 50,000). Ultimately he opened 44 Luna Parks around the world, the first chain of amusement parks.

Despite the death of Ingersoll in 1927 and the closing of most of his Luna Parks, the name's popularity continued with newer parks with the name opening with regularity. As a result, "Lunapark" now translates into "amusement park" in Bulgarian, Croatian, Dutch, German, Greek, Hebrew, Italian, Macedonian, Polish, Russian, and Turkish.

Castelmagno

2011-12-10T06:00:00.001-06:00

Castelmagno is a cheese with Protected designation of origin status from the north-west Italian region Piedmont. It is a cheese which has been made for many centuries: the earliest known mention of it dates to 1277, but in all likelihood its origins are much earlier.

The cheese has traditionally been made in the Valle Grana in the south-west of the Province of Cuneo, where production is permitted today within the boundaries of the communes of Castelmagno, Pradleves and Monterosso Grana.

Castelmagno is a semi-hard, half-fat cheese produced from whole cows milk, obtained from cattle of the Piedmontese breed fed on fresh forage or hay from mixed meadows or pasture. On occasion some milk from sheep or goats may may be added to the cows’ milk. Aside from being eaten on its own Castelmagno can be part of countless recipes, such as in fondue or veloutees and can be eaten along with rice, pasta, polenta, thinly sliced raw beef meat (carpaccio) or grilled vegetables.

Thiol

2011-12-09T06:00:00.000-06:00

In organic chemistry, a thiol is a organosulfur compound that contains a carbon-bonded sulfhydryl (-C-SH or R-SH) group (where R represents an alkane, alkene, or other carbon-containing moiety). Thiols are the sulfur analogue of alcohols.

Many thiols have strong odours resembling that of garlic. The odours of thiols are often strong and repulsive, particularly for those of low molecular weight. Skunk spray is composed mainly of low molecular weight thiol compounds. These compounds are detectable by the human nose at concentrations of only 10 parts per billion.

Thiols are also responsible for a class of wine faults caused by an unintended reaction between sulfur and yeast and the "skunky" odour of beer that has been exposed to ultraviolet light.

However, not all thiols have unpleasant odours. For example, grapefruit mercaptan, a monoterpenoid thiol, is responsible for the characteristic scent of grapefruit. This effect is present only at low concentrations. The pure mercaptan has an unpleasant odour.

Natural gas distributors began adding thiols, originally ethanethiol, to natural gas, which is naturally odourless, after the deadly 1937 New London School explosion in New London, Texas. Most gas odourants utilized currently contain mixtures of mercaptans and sulfides, with t-butyl mercaptan as the main odour constituent. In situations where thiols are used in commercial industry, such as liquid petroleum gas tankers and bulk handling systems, the use of an oxidizing catalyst is used to destroy the odour. A copper-based oxidation catalyst neutralizes the volatile thiols and transforms them into inert products.

Thiols are often referred to as mercaptans. The term mercaptan is derived from the Latin mercurium captans (capturing mercury) because the thiolate group bonds so strongly with mercury compounds.

Francis E. Dec

2011-12-08T06:00:00.001-06:00

Francis E. Dec (January 6, 1926 – January 21, 1996) was a U.S. lawyer from Hempstead Village, New York, disbarred for fraud in 1959, and later known for the bizarre socio-political tracts of conspiracy theories he mass-mailed to the media. Often denouncing a "Worldwide Mad Deadly Communist Gangster Computer God" mind-controlling mankind, Dec is considered to have been a paranoid schizophrenic of the influencing-machine delusion kind, and is often referred to as a "kook".

Not unlike Ed Wood, Dec later became a cult figure referenced in underground culture. He was the subject of a 1994 book chapter, a 1998 comics, and a 1999 stage play; he also made his way into the folklores of the Discordians and the Church of the SubGenius. His rants have been reprinted in a 1983 issue of Robert Crumb's magazine Weirdo and circulated since 1986 from recordings by KROQ-FM host Doc Britton; they have been sampled in 1991 and 2004 by Psychic TV, in 2004 by Venetian Snares, and inspired a Coldcut album in 2005; they have been archived as outsider art by UbuWeb and WFMU; they spawned a fanclub and website; they have also been used as a gauge in 1994 for "kook typography" and in 1998 for the entropy of the undeciphered Voynich manuscript.

Murex

2011-12-07T06:00:00.000-06:00

Murex is a genus of medium to large sized predatory tropical sea snails. These are carnivorous marine gastropod molluscs in the family Muricidae, the murexes or rock snails.

The common name "murex" is also used for a large number of species in the family Muricidae, most of which in the past were originally given the Latin generic name Murex, but most of which have now been grouped in other newer genera.

The word murex was used by Aristotle in reference to these kinds of snails, thus Murex is arguably one of the oldest classical shell names still in use by the scientific community.

This genus includes many showy members, their elongate shells highly sculptured with spines or fronds. The inner surfaces of their ornate shells are often brightly colored.

Costly and labor-intensive dyes Tyrian purple (or royal purple) and Tekhelet were historically made by the ancient Phoenicians using mucus from the hypobranchial gland of two species commonly referred to as "murex", Murex brandaris and Murex trunculus, which are the older names for Haustellum brandaris and the Hexaplex trunculus.

This dye was used in royal robes, other kinds of special ceremonial or ritual garments, or garments indicating high rank. It is theorized that the dye was the same dye as that which featured prominently in the ancient Temple in Jerusalem, the clothing of the High Priest (or Kohen Gadol) officiating there; it is sometimes still used by Jews today in the ritual fringes (tzitzit) on four-cornered garments. A consensus has yet to be achieved regarding the Biblical source of the "blue" dye.

¡Ay, caramba!

2011-12-06T06:00:00.002-06:00

¡Ay, caramba! comes from the Spanish interjection ¡ay! (denoting surprise or pain) and caramba (a minced oath, a euphemism for carajo, an interjection expressing pain or surprise similar to "ouch" or "gee"), which is an exclamation used today in surprise (usually positive) in Spanish. The term caramba is also used in Portuguese, where it used to be a minced oath for caralho, the Portuguese equivalent of the Spanish carajo (a vulgar word for penis), both of which descend from the Latin "caraculus"

The exclamation was the signature nickname of the flamenco dancer and singer, La Caramba, in the 1780s in Madrid. Her head-dress of brightly coloured ribbons became known as a caramba too.

The phrase is regularly used by stereotyped Mexicans in (especially Wild West) fiction, for example the adventures of Zagor, Tex Willer or Lucky Luke and select Warner Brothers cartoons, such as the bull Daffy Duck encounters in the 1947 cartoon Mexican Joyride.^{[citation needed]}

Also often used in frustration by the character General Alcazar in The Adventures of Tintin comic books by Hergé.

Ay Caramba! was the name of a 1998–2006 Spanish-language television series featuring funny home videos. It was broadcast on Mexico's TV Azteca network.

The fictional character Bart Simpson from the American animated sitcom The Simpsons further popularized the phrase in modern pop culture. It became one of his most notable catchphrases. Bart said the line not always in positive surprise, but in negative/general surprise as well.

Pepper's ghost

2011-12-05T06:00:00.000-06:00

Pepper's ghost is an illusionary technique used in theater and in some magic tricks. Using a plate glass and special lighting techniques, it can make objects seem to appear or disappear, or make one object seem to morph into another. It is named after John Henry Pepper, who first demonstrated the technique in the 1860s.

In 1862, inventor Henry Dircks developed the Dircksian Phantasmagoria, a technique used to make a ghost appear onstage. He tried unsuccessfully to sell his idea to theaters. His method would require theaters to be completely rebuilt just to support the effect. Later in the year, Dircks set up a booth at the Royal Polytechnic, where it was seen by John Pepper.

Pepper realized that the method could be modified to make it easy to incorporate into existing theaters. Pepper first showed the effect during a scene of Charles Dickens's The Haunted Man, to great success. Pepper's implementation of the effect tied his name to it permanently. Though he tried many times to give credit to Dircks, the title "Pepper's ghost" stuck.

In order for the illusion to work, the viewer must be able to see into the main room, but not into the hidden mirror room. The edge of the glass may be hidden by a cleverly designed pattern in the floor. Both rooms may be identical mirror-images; this approach is useful in making objects seem to appear or disappear. This effect can also be used to make an actor reflected in the mirror appear to turn into an actor behind the mirror (or vice versa).

The mirror room may instead be painted black, with only light-coloured objects in it. When light is cast on the objects, they reflect strongly in the glass, making them appear as ghostly images superimposed in the visible room. The world's largest implementation of this illusion can be found at the Haunted Mansion and Phantom Manor attractions at several Walt Disney Parks and Resorts theme parks. Here, a 90-foot (27 m)-long scene features a single Pepper's ghost effect. Guests travel along an elevated mezzanine, looking through a 30-foot (9.1 m)-tall pane of glass into an empty ballroom. Animatronic ghosts move in hidden black rooms beneath and above the mezzanine.

The reflections in the glass, which is vertical rather than angled, create the appearance of three-dimensional, translucent ghosts. These swarm through the ballroom, seeming to interact with props in the physical ballroom, disappearing when the lights on the animatronics are turned off.

Flak Tower

2011-12-04T06:00:00.000-06:00

Flak towers (German: Flaktürme) were 8 complexes of large, above-ground, anti-aircraft gun blockhouse towers constructed in the cities of Berlin, Hamburg, and Vienna from 1940 onwards. They were used by the Luftwaffe to defend against Allied air raids on these cities during World War II. They also served as air-raid shelters for tens of thousands of people and to coordinate air defence.

After the RAF's raid on Berlin in 1940, Adolf Hitler ordered the construction of 3 massive flak towers to defend the capital from air attack. The flak towers, the design of which Hitler took personal interest in and even made some sketches for, were constructed in a mere 6 months.

With concrete walls up to 3.5 metres thick, flak towers were considered to be invulnerable to attack with the usual ordnance carried by Allied bombers. Aircraft generally appeared to have avoided the flak towers. The towers were able to sustain a rate of fire of 8000 rounds per minute from their multi-level guns, with a range of up to 14 km in a full 360-degree field of fire.

The flak towers had also been designed with the idea of using the above-ground bunkers as a civilian shelter, with room for 10,000 civilians, and even a hospital ward, inside. The towers, during the fall of Berlin, formed their own communities, with up to 30,000 or more Berliners taking refuge in a single tower during the battle. These towers, much like the keeps of medieval castles, were some of the safest places in a fought-over city, and so the flak towers were some of the last places to surrender to USSR forces, eventually being forced to capitulate as supplies dwindled.

The Soviets, in their assault on Berlin, found it difficult to inflict significant damage on the flak towers, even with some of the largest Soviet guns, such as the 203 mm howitzers. Soviet forces generally manoeuvered around the towers, and eventually sent in envoys to seek their submission. Unlike much of Berlin, the towers tended to be fully stocked with ammunition and supplies, and the gunners even used their anti-aircraft 20 mm cannons to defend against assault by ground units

For a time after the war, the conversion to representative objects with decorated facades was planned. After the war was lost, the demolition of the towers was in most cases unfeasible and many remain to this day.

Sideburns

2011-12-03T06:00:00.001-06:00

Sideburns or sideboards are patches of facial hair grown on the sides of the face, extending from the hairline to below the ears and worn with an unbearded chin. The term sideburns is a 19th-century corruption of the original burnsides, named after American Civil War general Ambrose Burnside, a man known for his unusual facial hairstyle that connected thick sideburns by way of a moustache, but left the chin clean-shaven.

Sideburns can be worn and grown in combination with other styles of facial hair, such as the moustache or goatee, but once they extend from ear to ear via the chin they cease to be sideburns and become a beard, chinstrap beard, or chin curtain.

In ancient history, Alexander the Great is depicted with sideburns in a mosaic from Pompeii.

Following the eighteenth century, when European men west of Poland were universally clean-shaven, sideburns, like beards, began to grow in popularity during the Napoleonic period. The trend eventually made its way to Meiji Japan, in the first wave of Western fashion there. The return of facial hair in Western Europe began as a military fashion, at first inspired by the heroic sideburns sported by hussar regiments.

Nineteenth century sideburns were often far more extravagant than those seen today, similar to what are now called mutton chops. As with beards, sideburns went quickly out of fashion in the early twentieth century, and in the First World War in order to secure a seal on a gas mask, men had to be clean-shaven; this did not affect mustaches.

Sideburns gained new connotations in 1960s hippie subculture: the struggle of a New Jersey youth to wear sideburns to his public high school graduation made a newspaper article in 1967 and in the 1970s among youth subcultures such as hippies and skinheads. Sideburns also became a symbol of the gay club scenes of San Francisco and Sydney, primarily Lambchops.

Because of their multifarious history, sideburns may be seen as stuffily Victorian and ultra-conservative, a sign of rebelliousness, or merely an artifact of current fashion.

Murder

2011-12-02T06:00:00.000-06:00

Murder is the unlawful killing of another human being with "malice aforethought", and generally this state of mind distinguishes murder from other forms of unlawful homicide (such as manslaughter).

As the loss of a human being inflicts enormous grief upon the individuals close to the victim, as well as the fact that the commission of a murder is highly detrimental to the good order within society, most societies both present and in antiquity have considered it a most serious crime worthy of the harshest of punishment.

In most countries, a person convicted of murder is typically given a long prison sentence, possibly a life sentence where permitted, and in some countries, the death penalty may be imposed for such an act.

A person who commits murder is called a murderer ; the term murderess, meaning a woman who murders, has largely fallen into disuse.

Rapini

2011-12-01T06:00:00.000-06:00

Rapini (also known as Broccoli Rabe (or Raap or Raab), Broccoletti, Broccoli di Rape, Cime di Rapa, Rappi, Friarielli (in Naples), and Grelos) is a common vegetable in the cuisines of Southern Italy (in particular Bari and Sicily), Galicia, China, and Portugal. The plant is a member of the Brassiceae tribe of the Brassicaceae, whose taxonomy is very difficult. Rapini is classified scientifically as Brassica rapa subspecies rapa, in the same subspecies as the turnip, but has had various other designations, including Brassica rapa ruvo, Brassica rapa rapifera, Brassica ruvo, Brassica campestris ruvo.

Rapini has many spiked leaves that surround a green bud which looks very similar to a small head of broccoli. There may be small yellow flowers blooming from the buds, which are edible.

The flavor of rapini has been described as nutty, bitter, and pungent.

Rapini is a source of vitamins A, C, and K, as well as potassium, calcium, and iron.

The vegetable probably descends from a wild herb, a relative of the turnip, that grew either in China or the Mediterranean region. It is similar in shape to the Chinese Brassica oleracea cultivar called kai-lan.

Rapini is now grown throughout the world. It is available all year long, but its peak season is fall to spring in the Northern Hemisphere.

A common preparation involves sauteing it with garlic over low heat for 10 - 15 minutes.

Zorro

2011-11-30T06:00:00.004-06:00

Zorro is a fictional character created in 1919 by New York-based pulp writer Johnston McCulley. The character has been featured in numerous books, films, television series, and other media.

Zorro (Spanish for fox) is the secret identity of Don Diego de la Vega (originally Don Diego Vega), a nobleman and master living in the Spanish colonial era of California. The character has undergone changes through the years, but the typical image of him is a dashing black-clad masked outlaw who defends the people of the land against tyrannical officials and other villains. Not only is he much too cunning and foxlike for the bumbling authorities to catch, but he delights in publicly humiliating those same foes.

Zorro (often called Señor or El Zorro in early stories) debuted in McCulley's 1919 story The Curse of Capistrano, serialized in five parts in the pulp magazine All-Story Weekly.^[1] At the denouement, Zorro's true identity is revealed to all.

Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford, on their honeymoon, selected the story as the inaugural picture for their new studio, United Artists, beginning the character's cinematic tradition. The story was adapted as The Mark of Zorro in 1920, which was a success. McCulley's story was re-released by the publisher Grosset & Dunlap under the same title, to tie in with the film.

Due to public demand fueled by the film, McCulley wrote over 60 additional Zorro stories starting in 1922. The last, The Mask of Zorro (not to be confused with the 1998 film), was published posthumously in 1959. These stories ignore Zorro's public revelation of his identity. The black costume that modern audiences associate with the character stems from Fairbanks' smash hit movie rather than McCulley's original story, and McCulley's subsequent Zorro adventures copied Fairbanks's Zorro rather than the other way around. McCulley died in 1958, just as the Disney-produced Zorro television show was becoming phenomenally successful.

Rotary International

2011-11-29T06:00:00.001-06:00

Rotary International is an organization of service clubs known as Rotary Clubs located all over the world. The stated purpose of the organization is to bring together business and professional leaders to provide humanitarian service, encourage high ethical standards in all vocations, and help build goodwill and peace in the world. It is a secular organization open to all persons regardless of race, color, creed, gender, or political preference. There are 33,976 clubs and over 1.22 million members worldwide. The members of Rotary Clubs are known as Rotarians. Members usually meet weekly for breakfast, lunch or dinner, which is a social event as well as an opportunity to organize work on their service goals.

Rotary's best-known motto is "Service above Self", and its secondary motto is "They profit most who serve best".

Fables of Faubus

2011-11-28T06:00:00.000-06:00

"Fables of Faubus" is a song composed by jazz bassist and composer Charles Mingus. One of Mingus' most explicitly political works, the song was written as a direct protest against Arkansas governor Orval E. Faubus, who in 1957 sent out the National Guard to prevent the integration of Little Rock Central High School by nine African American teenagers.

The song was first recorded for Mingus' 1959 album, Mingus Ah Um. Columbia refused to allow the lyrics to the song to be included, and so the song was recorded as an instrumental on the album. It was not until October 20, 1960 that the song was recorded with lyrics, for the album Charles Mingus Presents Charles Mingus, which was released on the more independent Candid label. Due to contractual issues with Columbia, the song could not be released as "Fables of Faubus", and so the Candid version was titled "Original Faubus Fables". The personnel for the Candid recording were Charles Mingus (bass, vocals), Dannie Richmond (drums, vocals), Eric Dolphy (alto saxophone), and Ted Curson (trumpet). The vocals featured a call-and-response between Mingus and Richmond. Critic Don Heckman commented of the unedited "Original Faubus Fables" in a 1962 review that it was "a classic Negro put-down in which satire becomes a deadly rapier-thrust. Faubus emerges in a glare of ridicule as a mock villain whom no-one really takes seriously. This kind of commentary, brimful of feeling, bitingly direct and harshly satiric, appears far too rarely in jazz."

The song, either with or without lyrics, was one of the compositions which Mingus returned to most often, both on record and in concert.

Supernumerary Nipple

2011-11-27T06:00:00.000-06:00

A supernumerary nipple (also known as a third nipple, accessory nipple, polythelia or the related condition: polymastia) is an additional nipple occurring in mammals, including humans. Often mistaken for moles, supernumerary nipples are diagnosed at a rate of 1 in 18 males and 1 in approximately 50 female humans.

The nipples appear along the two vertical "milk lines", which start in the armpit on each side, run down through the typical nipples and end at the groin. They are classified into eight levels of completeness from a simple patch of hair to a milk-bearing breast in miniature.

Polythelia refers to the presence of an additional nipple alone while polymastia denotes the much rarer presence of additional mammary glands.

Although usually presenting on the milk line, pseudomamma can appear as far away as the foot.

Bungalow

2011-11-26T06:00:00.000-06:00

A bungalow is a type of house, with varying meanings across the world. Common features to many (but not all) of these definitions include being detached, low-rise (single, or one-and-a-half storeys), and the use of verandahs.

The term originated in India, deriving from the Gujarati baṅgalo, which in turn derives from the Hindustani baṅglā, meaning "Bengali" and used elliptically for a "house in the Bengal style". Such houses were traditionally small, only one story and thatched, and had a wide veranda.

The term is first found in English from 1696, where it was used to describe "bungales or hovells" in India for English sailors of the East India Company.

Later it became used for the spacious homes or official lodgings of officials of the British Raj, and was so known in Britain and later America, where it initially had high status and exotic connotations, and began to be used in the late 19th century for large country or suburban houses built in an Arts and Crafts or other Western vernacular style - essentially as large cottages, a term also sometimes used. Later developers began to use the term for smaller houses.

In Britain and North America a bungalow today is a residential house, normally detached, which is either single story, or has a second story built into a sloping roof, usually with dormer windows. Full vertical walls are therefore only seen on one story, at least on the front and rear elevations. Usually the houses are relatively small, especially from recent decades, though early examples may be large, in which case the term bungalow tends not to be used today.

Jaguar Mark X

2011-11-25T06:00:00.000-06:00

The Jaguar Mark X (pronounced mark ten) was the top-of-the-range saloon car built by the British manufacturer Jaguar from 1961 to 1970, originally aimed at the United States market. The Mark X succeeded the Mark IX as the company's large saloon model.

The modern Jaguar face, four headlamps set into rounded front fenders with a vaned grill, first appeared on the Mark X. The interior is the last Jaguar with abundant standard woodwork, including the dashboard, escutcheons, window trim, a pair of large bookmatched fold out rear picnic tables, and a front seat pull-out picnic table stowed beneath the instrument cluster. Over time, air conditioning and a sound-proof glass division between the front and rear seats were added as options.

The Mark X was the first Jaguar saloon to feature independent rear suspension. Front suspension used double wishbones with coil springs and telescopic dampers. Initially Jaguar's XK in-line six-cylinder engine was featured, with 3781 cc. A 9:1 compression ration was standard, but an alternative 8:1 compression ratio was available as an option. Transmission options were manual, manual with overdrive or automatic. The arrival of the 4.2-litre power unit coincided with the introduction of a newly developed all-synchromesh four-speed gear box replacing the venerable box inherited by the 3.8-litre Mark X from the Mark IX which had featured synchromesh only on the top three ratios. Many domestic market cars and almost all cars destined for the important North American markets left the factory with a Borg Warner automatic gear-box.

From its introduction until the arrival in 1992 of the low-slung XJ220, the Mark X stood as one of the widest production Jaguars ever built.

California Über Alles

2011-11-24T06:00:00.000-06:00

"California Über Alles" was the first single by the Dead Kennedys. The record was released in June 1979 on Optional Music with "The Man with the Dogs" as the b-side. The title track was re-recorded for the band's first album, Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables (1980), and the version that appeared on this single, as well as the single's b-side, are available on the rarities album Give Me Convenience or Give Me Death (1987).

The song focuses on Jerry Brown, the Governor of California 1975-1983 and 2011–present, and is sung from his perspective. An imaginary Brown outlines a hippie-fascist vision for America, in which his "suede denim secret police" kill un-cool people with "organic poison gas" chambers.

The lyrics were written by Jello Biafra and John Greenway, and Biafra composed the music in one of his rare attempts at composing on bass.

Venn diagram

2011-11-23T06:00:00.000-06:00

A Venn diagram or set diagram is a diagram that shows all hypothetically possible logical relations between a finite collection of sets (aggregation of things). Venn diagrams were conceived around 1880 by John Venn. They are used to teach elementary set theory, as well as illustrate simple set relationships in probability, logic, statistics, linguistics and computer science.

Venn diagrams normally comprise overlapping circles. The interior of the circle symbolically represents the elements of the set, while the exterior represents elements which are not members of the set. Shapes other than circles can be employed, and this is necessary for more than three sets. Venn diagrams do not generally contain information on the relative or absolute sizes (cardinality) of sets; i.e. they are schematic diagrams.

Venn diagrams were introduced in 1880 by John Venn (1834–1923) in a paper entitled "On the Diagrammatic and Mechanical Representation of Propositions and Reasonings" in the "Philosophical Magazine and Journal of Science", about the different ways to represent propositions by diagrams. The use of these types of diagrams in formal logic, according to Ruskey and M. Weston (2005), is "not an easy history to trace, but it is certain that the diagrams that are popularly associated with Venn, in fact, originated much earlier. They are rightly associated with Venn, however, because he comprehensively surveyed and formalized their usage, and was the first to generalize them".

Texas School Book Depository

2011-11-22T06:00:00.001-06:00

The Texas School Book Depository (now the Dallas County Administration Building) is the former name of a seven-floor building facing Dealey Plaza in Dallas, Texas (U.S.). Located on the northwest corner of Elm and North Houston Streets, at the western end of downtown Dallas, its address is 411 Elm Street. The building is notable for its connection to the assassination of U.S. President John F. Kennedy. According to two of three United States government investigations, an employee in the building, Lee Harvey Oswald, acting alone, fatally shot the president from a sixth floor window on the southeast corner. (The third investigation, the House Select Committee on Assassinations, concluded that the assassination was likely the result of a conspiracy.) The case, however, was never adjudicated in the jurisdiction in which it occurred owing, in part, to the death of the accused assassin. The structure is a Recorded Texas Historic Landmark.

Knocker-Up

2011-11-20T06:00:00.000-06:00

A Knocker-up (sometimes known as a knocker-upper) was a profession in England and Ireland that started during and lasted well into the Industrial Revolution and at least as late as the 1920s , before alarm clocks were affordable or reliable. A knocker-up's job was to rouse sleeping people so they could get to work on time.

The knocker-up used a trucheon or short, heavy stick to knock on the clients' doors or a long and light stick, often made of bamboo, to reach windows on higher floors. In return, the knocker-up would be paid a few pence a week. The knocker-up would not leave a client's window until they were assured the client had been awoken.

There were large numbers of people carrying out the job, especially in larger industrial towns such as Manchester. Generally the job was carried out by elderly men and women but sometimes police constables supplemented their pay by performing the task during early morning patrols.

Great Expectations, by Charles Dickens, includes a brief description of a knocker-up. Hindle Wakes a play written by Stanley Houghton and then a movie (of the same title) directed by Maurice Elvey, includes a knocker-up.