8/21/13


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Almanac: Flagstaff:  Week: 34/ Day: 233   
Today: H 83°L 48°
Wind: ave:   6mph; Gusts:  23mph  Ave. humidity:  61%
Average Low      Average High     Record Low        Record High
49°                        79°                        35° (1979)           88° (1949)

Quote of the Day



Today’s Historical Highlights
1st Lincoln-Douglas debate (Illinois)…1858
Clayton Lonetree, 1st marine court-martialed for spying, convicted…1987
Nat Turner slave revolt kills 55 (Southampton County, Virginia)…1831
Pueblo Indians takes possession of Santa Fé from Spanish…1680
US lightens trade embargo against Cuba…1975
William Seward Burroughs patents adding machine…1888

 Today’s Birthdays:    
How many can you identify?…answers in Today’s Birthdays



My Free Rambling Thoughts   
Lots of rain clouds, but still awaiting the arrival of the rain. This is our 5th wettest monsoon in history and the season isn’t over. This has moved Flag from ‘extreme drought’ to ‘very dry’. Good news for us.
 
Another school with a shooter…thankfully no injuries reported…in Georgia. There have been 8 incidents involving guns and educational facilities since Newtown, only 8 months ago. While I was shopping today, there was a guy a little younger than I am dressed in all black with gold ‘concealed weapons training’ with a phone number on his shirt. He was chatting up some guy in the parking lot how AZ law has changed and new ‘training’ is needed. I heard him say to the guy that the ‘stand your ground’ rule in AZ has changed its name to something else, but is still in force. Strange conversation in our little mountain town. While I glanced at this conversation, I couldn’t tell if the guy in black was carrying a weapon, but pretty sure he must have been. Hard to believe so many people are so paranoid that they have to carry a weapon to shop for groceries.
 
I like convenience, and I know that I have to sometimes pay a little more for it. But Norton Internet Security went too far. I know that I need to have some kind of protection on my computer and this program has done me well for many years. Today I got an email that I had signed up for automatic renewal and it was soon time to pay up. The cost was $69.99 for one year’s protection. That seemed a little high, so I went on line to check the price. New customers get a year for $39.99. I called their support line and after about 15 minutes I got a year for $49.99. I figured that the $20 savings was worth the time. Then when all was completed, there was $5.00 in tax. A 10% tax for buying something that is put on my computer with no physical software seems a little high. I don’t mind paying tax on my few internet purchases, as I get that everyone has overhead in their state and the state should get something, but I still say 10% is a tad high.

Game  Center (answers at the end of post)
Brain Teasers
Take the given words, and by moving a single letter from one word to the other, make a pair of synonyms, or near synonyms. For example, given: Boast - Hip, move the 's' from 'Boast' to 'Hip' creating two synonyms: Boat - Ship.
1. Our - Start 2. Strip - Tumble 3. Clause - Idea 4. Cash - Broom 5. Plight - Lam

Lifestyle  Substance:     
Found on You Tube with some relevance to today

Hmmmm…Tongue Twisters
V    
Vincent vowed vengeance very vehemently.

Not a Fan of Faux News, but this is crazy.



Ok, then?



Harper’s Index    
EPA: Portion of US river miles capable of supporting ‘healthy biological communities’: 1/5
Unusual Fact of the Day
Three months after Charlie Chaplin died his corpse was stolen by two Swiss mechanics in order to extort money from the family. The robbers were captured and Chaplin's body was found eleven weeks later. To prevent further attempts, he was reburied under concrete.
Joke-of-the-day
A boy was having a lot of difficulty in French class. To encourage him, his teacher said, "You'll know you're really beginning to get it when you start dreaming in French."
The boy ran into class all excited one day, saying, "Teacher, teacher! I had a dream last night and everyone was talking in French!"
"Great!" said the teacher; "what were they saying?"
"I don't know," the boy replied; "I couldn't understand them."
Rules of Thumb:   
Easy shortcuts to make an ‘educated’ guess
LOOKING GOOD ON TV
You always look 15 percent more serious on TV than you do in real life, so try to look 15 percent less serious when you are on camera.    
Yeah, It Really Happened
HANOVER, N.H. - U.S. researchers say new software can detect faked or altered photos using a geometric algorithm to locate inconsistent shadows not obvious to the naked eye. Computer scientists at Dartmouth College and the University of California, Berkeley, said the development could be significant step in the field of digital forensics, allowing investigators to differentiate between authentic images and computerized forgeries. The new method analyzes a variety of shadows in an image to determine if they are physically consistent with a single illuminating light source, allowing a forensic analyst to determine if a photo is physically plausible or the result of image fakery, a Dartmouth release said Monday. "Our method shifts the dialogue from 'does the lighting/shadow look correct?,' which is well known to be highly unreliable, to a discussion of whether an analyst has correctly selected the location of cast and attached shadows in an image, a far more objective task," Dartmouth computer scientist Hany Farid said. In one example, the method has been used to debunk claims the lighting and shadows in the famous 1969 moon landing photo are fake, the researchers said. "In this regard, our method lets humans do what computers are poor at -- understanding scene content -- and lets the computer do what humans are poor at -- assessing the validity of geometric constraints," Farid said.  
Somewhat Useless Information   
  • Dinosaurs probably lived to be between 75 to 300 years of age. Scientists figured this out from looking at the structure of their bones.
  • One way to tell the age of a fish is by looking at its scales. They have growth rings just like trees. These are called circuli. Clusters of them are called annuli. Each annuli show one year.
  • The northern fur seal, rather than using a layer of fat to keep it warm, depends on its thick fur with some 300,000 hairs per square inch.
  • The chameleon has a tongue that is 1.5 times the length of its body!
  • Did you know porpoises could surf? They are frequently seen riding the bow wave of a ship. They make no swimming motions and can ride the wake for more than an hour. They can also turn on their side or flip completely around.
  • Fish swimming at depths of 15,000 feet (almost 3 miles down!) can withstand a pressure of 7,000 pounds per square inch. They are able to live in these crushing depths by pumping gas into their swim bladder.

Calendar Information        
Happening This Week:
15-21
National Aviation Week
18-24
Little League Baseball World Series
Minority Enterprise Development Week

Today Is                                                                      
·        Earth Over Shoot Day or Ecological Debt Day: humanity’s resource consumption for the year exceeds Earth’s capacity to regenerate those resources that year
·        National Medical Dosimetrist Day (play an important role in the care of patients who are fighting cancer)
·        Poet's Day
·        Senior Citizen's Day
^^^
·        US: Hawaii: Admission Day (1959; 50th)

Today’s Events through History  
"Our Lady of Candlemas of Mayagüez (Puerto Rico)" church founded, the basis for 
     founding the city…1760
American Bar Association organizes at Sarasota, NY…1878
Curly Lambeau & Green Bay Football Club granted NFL franchise…1922
French convince local trives to attack British Fort Charles in Maine several settlers
      killed…1689
Germans storm up Hill 262 (Mont Ormel) Normandy…1944
Jarvis Island is discovered by the crew of the ship, Eliza Frances…1821
Pres Harry Truman ends Lend-Lease program…1945
Tiger Woods wins PGA Championship; first golfer since Ben Hogan in 1953 to 
     win 3 majors in a calendar year…2000
Tlingit Indians destroy Fort Selkirk, Yukon Territory…1852
Virgin Mary, St. Joseph, St. John the Evangelist, reportedly appear in Knock, 
     County Mayo, Ireland…1879

Today’s Birthdays                                                           
Usain Bolt, Jamaica, sprinter (3x Olympic Gold 2008) is 27
Jackie DeShannon, Hazel Kentucky, singer (What the World Needs Now) is 69
Brody Jenner, actor, son of Bruce is 30
Jim McMahon, NFL QB (Bears, Chargers, Eagles) is 54
Kenny Rogers, singer (Through the Years) is 75
Harry Smith, TV co-anchor (CBS Morning Show) is 62
Clarence Williams III, actor (Mod Squad, 52 Pick Up, Purple Rain) is 74

Remembered for being born today
Philip II Augustus, 1st great Capetian king of France [1165-1223]
[William] Count Basie, Red Bank NJ, jazz musician (Blazing Saddles) [1904-1984]
Wilt Chamberlain, NBA great center (LA Laker, 5 time MVP) [1936-1999]
William Murdoch, Scottish inventor (gas lighting)[1754- 1839]
Blossom Rock, actress, (Grandmamma-Addams Family) [1895-1978]

Today’s Historical Obits                                                           
Benigno S Aquino Jr, Philippines opposition leader…killed…1983…at 50
Siobhan Dowd, British/Irish writer…breast cancer…2007…at 47
Isaac Sweers, Dutch fleet admiral/Civil rights activist…1673…at 51
Leon Trotsky, Russian revolutionary…icepicked…1940…at 60

Brain Teasers
1. Sour - Tart 2. Trip - Stumble 3. Cause - Ideal 4. Crash - Boom 5. Light - Lamp
Disclaimer: All opinions are mine…feel free to agree or disagree.
All ‘data’ info is from the internet sites and is usually checked with at least one other source, but I have learned that every site has mistakes and sadly once out the information is out there, many sites simply copy it and is therefore difficult to verify. Also for events occurring before the Gregorian calendar was adopted [1582] the dates may not be totally accurate.
§    And That Is All for Now  §

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Flagstaff, Arizona, United States
I retired in '06--at the ripe old age of 57. I enjoy blogging, photography, traveling, and living life to it's fullest.