3-23-14

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Flagstaff Almanac: Day: 082   / Week: 13  

Today: L 24°…H 56°… Ave. humidity: 33%

     Wind: ave:   13mph; Gusts:  27mph  

     Average Low: 24° Record Low:  -1° (1973)

    Average High: 52° Record High:  67° (1990)

Quote of the Day

 

Today’s Historical Highlights

1066 - 18th recorded perihelion passage of Halley's Comet

1743 - George Frideric Handel's oratorio "Messiah" premieres in London

1775 - Patrick Henry proclaims "Give me liberty or give me death"

1857 - Elisha Otis' 1st elevator installed (488 Broadway, NYC)

1889 - Pres Harrison opens Oklahoma for white colonization

1912 - Dixie Cup invented

1925 - Tennessee becomes 1st state to outlaw teaching theory of evolution

1929 - 1st telephone installed in White House

1966 - 1st official meeting after 400 years of Catholic & Anglican Church

1976 - International Bill of Rights goes into effect (35 nations ratifying)

1983 - US President Ronald Reagan introduces "Star Wars"-plan (SDI)

♫  Today’s Birthdays: ♫   

How many can you identify? Answers in Today’s Birthdays

 

My Free Rambling Thoughts   

Cuba is certainly calling.  I’ll pack tomorrow and head out Monday. Getting really excited. Weather has been nice in Havana, with occasional showers and day temps in the 80’s/nights in the high 60’s. Should be a great trip.

 

Guess I’m going to miss my daffodils this year. They have broken the ground, are about 4” of green leaves and growing every day, but not a bud in sight. By the time I get back, they will be gone. Oh well, can’t have everything.

 

Cheryl called this morning. She went out to her car this morning and had a flat tire. She called a friend to help her change it. Now she has to come to Flag on Sunday and find a place to repair or replace the tire. The dealership is closed but she didn’t know if it was still under warranty…the thing is only about 8 months old. Great way for her to start a vacation. She leaves Monday, driving, for CA to see her son and his family.

Game  Center (answers at the end of post)

Brain Teasers

A man's life was at an all time low. He lost his job, his wife, his house; and now his mom just died in a car accident. After the funeral, a man approached him and told him that his mom had taken a mortgage on the house and left him nothing except one thing. It was a note that read:

Dear my only son,

Thhaenrge! Tmhoe Bnaecykiyarsd

After he read the note, he finally got a smile on his face. What did his mom tell him in the note?

Lifestyle  Substance:     

Found on You Tube with some relevance to today

• Chaka Khan ~ I'm Every Woman

• Erich Fromm – Love

• First Four Minute Mile- (Roger Bannister)

• Honeymooners Parody - (Red Skelton, Vampira & Peter Lorre)

• Joan Crawford First Ever TV Interview

Books that Changed the World

Geographia by Ptolmeny

Ptolmeny is responsible for some of history’s most important texts on astronomy and mapping. Geographia, his guide to cartography, is considered the world’s first true attempt at creating a map of the world.

While Ptolmeny’s idea of the world might not look like the modern globe’s we have access to today, it’s still an impressive piece of work for the 2nd century. Many of the modern mapping techniques we use today still depend on the innovations made by Ptolmeny in his iconic treatise.

Breakthroughs that Changed the World

Optical lenses, 13th century

Refracting light through glass is one of those simple ideas that took a mysteriously long time to catch on. “The Romans had a glass industry, and there’s even a passage in Seneca about the optical effects of a glass bowl of water,” says Mokyr. But it was centuries before the invention of eyeglasses dramatically raised the collective human IQ, and eventually led to the creation of the microscope and the telescope.

OK Then…

 

Harper’s Index 

Percentage of smartphone-owning New Yorkers who admit to having made an online purchase during a funeral: 6

Unusual Fact of the Day

Frank Neuhauser won the first National Spelling Bee in 1925. His prize: $500 in gold and a meeting with Calvin Coolidge.

Joke-of-the-day

Once upon a time, there was a cat that died. When she got to heaven, God asked her how she liked being on earth. She told the Lord that it was awful -- she had to sleep in cold black alleys, where there was no food and life was hard. God told her that he was sorry it had had turned out that way -- but here, in heaven, she would be happy and He would give her the most comfortable, warm pillow to sleep on.. The cat lay down upon the pillow and was happy. A few days later, about a dozen mice that came to heaven together and God asked them how they had liked earth. The earth was no better for them than it was the cat. They explained to God that it was tough and exhausting and their feet were worn out from always running from cats and dogs and people. God felt bad for the mice and decided to give them roller-skates. One day God sees the cat again and asked her how she liked heaven. She explained that it was absolutely wonderful. The pillow he gave her was the most comfortable place that she had ever slept on, but even better than the pillow was the meals on wheels.

Rules of Thumb:   

Easy shortcuts to make an ‘educated’ guess

AVOIDING OVERFITTING IN NEURAL NETWORKS

You will get overfitting in your neural network if you have more weights than data points.    

Yeah, It Really Happened

A Pennsylvania man tried to prove a point about his neighborhood having a poop problem by bringing a big, brown bag of dog droppings to a municipal meeting on Thursday night. Ken Guldin presented a large grocery bag full of dog feces as evidence at a meeting with Lower Macungie Township commissioners to prove that poop was an issue in the age-restricted community of Wild Cherry Knoll. When board of commissioners President Ryan Conrad asked "Is that dog feces?" Guldin answered with a "yes," according to The Express-Times. Even though Guldin informed Conrad that the poop was double-bagged, the commissioner requested that the stinky sack be taken off the table. "I appreciate that you're willing to clean it up, but we don't need that..." he said. The Times asked Guldin, 68, to estimate how much poop was in the bag. "I didn't weigh it this time," he responded. Guldin had previously picked up 9.5 pounds of poop in his community during the fall and said that the bag he brought to the commissioners' meeting probably weighed at least that much.  

Somewhat Useless Information   

• The equinox occurs twice per year when the sun is directly above the Earth’s equator and day and night are of equal length. The first day of spring is marked by the vernal equinox.

• An equinox is different from a solstice, where the sun hits its northernmost or southernmost position. Solstices mark the beginning of summer (June) and winter (December).

• The term equinox comes from the Latin word equinoxium, meaning "equality between day and night."

• The holiday Easter always falls on the first Sunday after the first full moon after the vernal equinox. This year, Easter is on Sunday, April 20.

• The ancient Egyptians built the Great Sphinx of Giza on the west bank of the Nile to directly face the rising sun on the vernal equinox.

• The Mayan city Chichen Itza has been the celebratory site for "The Return of the Sun Serpent" since ancient times on the spring equinox. The sun, when it sets, creates a triangular shadow on the El Castillo pyramid which creates the image of a descending snake that’s said to be the feather serpent god Kukulkan.

Calendar Information        

Happening This Week:
17-23

Act Happy Week
Flood Awareness Week
Wellderly Week
Wildlife Week
World Folktales & Fables Week
21-27

Week of Solidarity with People's Struggling Against Racism & Discrimination
23-29

Tsunami Awareness Week
Pediatric Nurse Practioner Week
National Protocol Officer's Week
National Cleaning Week
Meat Free Week
National LGBT Health Awareness Week

Today Is                                                                      

·        Black Marriage Day-since 2003 to encourage Black couples

·        Liberty Day-1996-to ensure Civics teaching

·        Near Miss Day-1989 for asteroid that was only 500,000 miles from earth

·        OK Day-1839-1^st time OK in print

·        World Meteorological Day

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·        Republic Day (Pakistan-1956- as an Islamic Republic)

Today’s Events through History  

1490 - 1st dated edition of Maimonides "Mishneh Torah" published

1868 - University of California founded (Oakland California)

2013 - The US Senate approves its first budget in four years by a margin of 50–49

Today’s Birthdays                                                           

Roger Bannister, 1st to run a 4 minute mile (5/6/54) is 85

Karen English, (former Rep-D-Arizona) is 65

Chaka Khan, [Stevens], rocker (Rufus-I am Every Woman) is 61

Moses Malone, NBA center (Hawks, Bucks, '76ers) is 59

Richard Grieco, actor (21 Jump Street, Booker) is 49

Jason Kidd, NBA guard (Phoenix Suns, Dallas Mavericks) is 41

Perez Hilton (Mario Armando Lavandeira, Jr), TV personality and blogger is 36

Remembered for being born today

1769-1839 - William Smith, geologist (Strata Identified by Organized Fossils)

1823-1885 - Schuyler Colfax, (R) 17th VP

1857-1915 - Fannie Farmer, actress (namesake of a candy company)

1900-1980 - Erich Fromm, Frankfurt Germany, psychologist (Sane Society)

1904-1977 - Joan Crawford, [Lucille Le Sueur], Texas, actress (Mildred Pierce)

Today’s Historical Obits                                                           

Desmond Doss, soldier and 1st conscientious objector Medal of Honor recipient, 2006, @87

Elizabeth Taylor, English-American actress, heart failure, 2011, @79

Barney Clark, 1st artificial heart recipient, after 112 days, 1983, @62

Peter Lorre, actor (Casino Royale), stroke, 1964, @59

Brain Teasers

If you don't understood what it read, it said:

"Hang in There! Money is in the back yard."

Explanation:

ThHaEnRgE! TmHoE BnAeCyKiYARsD

If you can read, you can see the "hang" is literally in "there" and "money is" is literally in "the backyard". By the way, the mom hid the money in the garden, if you were wondering.

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  §