Jun 6

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Jun. 6, 2019 Week: 22 \ Day: 157

86004:   H 73° \ L 46° \ Average Sky Cover: 80% 

Nearest wildfire:  11mi. Nearest lightning:  12mi

Wind:   7mph\Gusts:  11mph

Visibility: 10 mi

Record High: 90°[2010]   Record Low: 28°[1971]

Jun Averages: 78°\42° (1 day with rain)

Today’s Quote

Our happiness depends on wisdom all the way. Sophocles

Random Tidbits

Although it's called a "Cuban sandwich" it did not originate in Cuba. It was invented in Tampa, Florida, specifically Ybor City, which was home to many Cuban immigrants in the 20th century.

Observances This Week

International Clothesline Week: 1-8 
National Lemonade Days: 1-9 Link

Bed Bug Awareness Week: 2-8
Black Single Parents Week: 2-8 
Community Health Improvement Week (CHI): 2-8  Link
End Mountain Top Removal Week:  2-8  Link 
National Business Etiquette Week:  2-8 
National Headache Awareness Week: 2-8  Link 
National Sun Safety Week: 2-8  Link
Pet Appreciation Week: 2-8  Link

Hemp History Week: 3-9  Link

Great American Brass Band Week: 6-9  Link
Superman Days: 6-9  Link

Observances for Today

Atheists Pride Day Link
D-Day, WWII
Drive-In Movie Day
National Eyewear Day  Link
National Gardening Exercise Day

National Gingerbread Day

National Higher Education Day

National Yo-Yo Day

Russian Language Day Link
YMCA Day (Organization, not the song.)

My Rambling Thoughts

Another cloudy day, hoping for more rain than yesterday. There was lots of lightning, thunder, but only a sprinkle of moisture.

I had a nice conversation with our Focus leader yesterday. She is doing much better and expects to make the trip on the Siberian RR. Her Doc says the pain is from muscle spasms, not any bone break. That was good news.

I got a phone call this morning, looks like I’ll have a couple of visitors tonight and tomorrow night. I cleaned the bathroom, got towels and linens ready. All good.

Everyone knows there are a lot of migrants in ‘camps’ in the US. Today it was announced that the children in those camps will no longer get education services, recreational services, or legal services. The administration says it is out of money. What a crock. 45’s next book will be entitled How to Radicalize Youth against America. Just what America needs…thousands of non-English speaking youth just sitting around.

When I was in Tonalea, on the Navajo Nation, there were no programs for youth during the summer. In my college days I had volunteered to run a youth program in Broomfield for migrant children during the summer. Kids in both areas were bored and getting in trouble around the community. Therefore, I started a summer camp with free breakfast, free bus rides, free activities, and free lunch. It ran from 8a-1p. During the year our school had 250 students. The first day of camp had about 50 kids. By the end of the first week we had over 300 kids (3-18 years old). The program ran for 3 summers and was a huge success. I still run into those kids, now parents and grandparents. They always mention how great the summer camp was.

PUZZLE OF THE DAY

Answer at the bottom of this page

Alice secretly picks two different integers by an unknown process and puts them in two envelopes. Bob chooses one of the two envelopes randomly (with a fair coin toss) and shows you the number in that envelope. Now you must guess whether the number in the other, closed envelope is larger or smaller than the one you have seen.

Is there a strategy which gives you a better than 50% chance of guessing correctly, no matter what procedure Alice used to pick her numbers?

Today’s Significant Historical Events

1200’s

1242 24 wagonloads of Talmudic books burned in Paris

1500’s

1536 Mexico begins its inquisition

1600’s

1683 The Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, England, opens as the world's first university museum

1700’s

1752 3rd great fire in Moscow in 2 weeks; 1/3 of city destroyed

1772 Haitian explorer Jean Baptiste-Pointe Dusable settles in Chicago

1795 Fire destroy 1/3 of Copenhagen

1800’s

1816 10" of snowfall in New England, part of a "year without a summer" which followed the eruption of Mount Tambora in Indonesia

1844 Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA) formed by George Williams in London

1882 Electric iron patented by Henry W Seely, NYC

1882 Ethiopia: Shewan forces of Menelik defeat the Gojjame army in the Battle of Embabo. The Shewans capture Negus Tekle Haymanot of Gojjam, and heir victory leads to a Shewan hegemony over the territories south of the Abay River.

1889 Great Fire in Seattle destroys 25 downtown blocks

1900’s

1900 US Congress pass an act authorizing a civil code and government for the territory of Alaska after gold discoveries bring lawlessness and disorder to the area

1925 Walter Chrysler founds automobile manufacturer Chrysler Corporation

1941 Giants use plastic batting helmets for 1st time

1942 1st nylon parachute jump (Hartford Ct-Adeline Gray)

1944 Operation Overlord: D-Day begins as the 150,000 strong Allied Expeditionary Force lands in Normandy, France, during World War II

1949 Orapin Chaiyakan becomes the first Thai woman to be elected to the Parliament of Thailand

1960 Roy Orbison releases "Only the Lonely"

1968 Senator Robert F. Kennedy dies from his wounds after he was shot the previous night

1974 47th National Spelling Bee: Julie Ann Junkin wins spelling hydrophyte

1977 Supreme Court tosses out automatic death penalty laws

1981 Maya Yang Lin wins competition to design the Vietnam War Memorial

1984 Video game Tetris is first released in the Soviet Union by Alexey Pajitnov

1988 George H. W. Bush makes campaign promise to support reparations for WW II to Japanese-American internees (promise broken, May 1989)

1993 Punsalmaagiyn Otsjirbat recognized as President of Mongolia

1999 Largest jailbreak in Brazilian history at the Putim maximum security prison in Brazil, 345 prisoners run from the main gate. In the ensuing manhunt, two fugitives are killed and five innocent bystanders are accidentally jailed.

2000’s

2002 A near-Earth asteroid estimated at 10 metres diameter explodes over the Mediterranean Sea between Greece and Libya. Resulting explosion estimated to have a force of 26 kilotons, more powerful than the Nagasaki atomic bomb.

2005 The United States Supreme Court votes to ban medical marijuana in Gonzales v. Raich.

2018 French man announced to have won France's €1 million My Lottery for the second time in 2 years, with odds of 1 in 16 trillion

2018 Special pedestrian lane introduced just for "phubbers" slow-walking smartphone users in Xi'an, China

Birthdays Today

1901 Sukarno,

(d. 1970: @69: kidney failure)

1st President of Indonesia (1945-67),

born in Surabaya, Java

1926 Tom Ryan,

(d. 2019: @92)

comic strip cartoonist (Tumbleweeds)

80’s

80- Gary U.S. Bonds [

Gary Levone Anderson,],

American blues singer and songwriter (New Orleans),

born in Jacksonville, Florida

70’s

72- Robert Englund,

American actor (Freddy vs. Jason, A Nightmare on Elm Street),

born in Glendale, California

60’s

60- Colin Quinn,

American comedian

30’s

32- Daniel Logan,

New Zealand actor (Boba Fett-Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones),

born in Auckland, New Zealand

Historical Obits Today

90’s

@91-2013 Esther Williams,

American swimmer and actress (Dangerous when Wet)

80’s

@85-1961 Carl Jung,

Swiss Psychiatrist (founded analytic psychology)

@83-1976 J. Paul Getty,

American oil magnate and billionaire (Getty Oil)

@83-1946 Gerhart Hauptmann,

German author (Before Dawn - Nobel 1912)

@80-1979 Jack Haley,

American actor (The Wizard of Oz)

@80-1956 Hiram Bingham,

American Archaeologist (Incan site of Machu Picchu)

70’s

@73-2005 Anne Bancroft

[Anna Italiano],

American actress, director, screenwriter, singer (Graduate, Miracle Worker),

dies from uterine cancer

60’s

@64-1991 Stan Getz

[Stanley Gayetski],

American jazz tenor saxophonist (Benny Goodman, Jimmy Dorsey),

dies of liver cancer

@63-1799 Patrick Henry,

American Revolutionary and Founding Father famous for his "Give me liberty or give me death" speech,

dies of stomach cancer

@62-1941 Louis Chevrolet,

American automotive pioneer

dies of complications after surgery

50’s

@57-1993 James Bridges,

writer/director (Paper Chase),

dies of cancer

40’s

@42-1968 Robert F. Kennedy, (Sn-D-NY),

assassinated in LA by Sirhan Sirhan

Puzzle answer:

Choose any strictly decreasing function F on the set of all integers which takes values between 0 and 1. Now, if you see the number X in Bob’s envelope, guess with probability F(X) that this number is smaller. If the two numbers in the envelopes are A and B, then your probability of guessing correctly is equal to:

F(A) * 0.5 + (1 – F(B)) * 0.5 = 0.5 + 0.5 * (F(A) – F(B)) > 50%.