Mar 6

 

 

Mar 6, 2021    Week: 9    Day:65                 |     Visibility: 10 miles

Local: H 52°\ L 30°\Ave. Sky Cover: 5%         Wind:  14mph/ Gusts:  27mph

Nearest Lightning: 938mi.                                 Moderate Risk of Fire:  Active fire:  434mi

Record:68° [1910]  Record: -2°[1935 ]             Mar. Averages: 53°/23° (6 days with moisture)            

Today’s Quote

A cloudy day is no match for a sunny disposition.

~William Arthur Ward

Random Tidbits

Unless you're a real science geek, chances are you never knew these elements even existed. Nonetheless, many of them form the foundations of modern life.

Dysprosium (Dy)

Dysprosium (atomic number 66), is named after the ancient Greek dysprositos, meaning "hard to get," appropriately enough. The soft, metallic substance is in big demand for electric motors, especially those in electric vehicles and wind turbines, which has earned dysprosium a place on the U.S. Department of Energy's list of critical materials for the green economy.

A Little Humor

Who is the bees favorite singer? Sting!

And Now This.....

A llama walked up to a mirror and immediately started ejecting saliva all over the place it was his spitting image.

Monthly Observations

 

Transgender Month of Action for Healthcare Equality Link Trisomy Awareness Month Link Vascular Abnormalities Awareness Month Women's History Month: Link Workplace Eye Wellness Month Worldwide Home Schooling Awareness Month Youth Art Month

 

Weekly Observations

Lent [Christian]	Thru 4/3
National Pasty Week Cancelled	Thru 3/6
Hearing Awareness Week Link LGBT Health Awareness Week Link National Cheerleading Week Nat’l Write A Letter of Appreciation Week National Ghostwriters Week National Invest in a Veteran Week  Link National Pet Sitters Week Link Return the Borrowed Books Week Telecommuter Appreciation Week Universal Human Beings Week Link Will Eisner Week   Link World Hearing Awareness Week Link	1-7
International Festival of Owls Week	5-7

 

Today’s Observations

America's Cup - 36th Finals begins
Day of The Dude Link
Dentist's Day

Dress Day
Genealogy Day  Link 
Iditarod: begins 
National Day of Unplugging: 5-6  Link    
National Dentist's Day Link
National Dress Day  Link
National Frozen Food Day Link 
National Oreo Day Link

National Play Outside Day Link 
Sock Monkey Day  
Sofia Kovalevskaya Math Day Link

My Sometimes-Long-Winded Thoughts

A nice day with blue sky. A little too much wind for me. I headed out early to do my weekly grocery shopping. Now I’m ready for the weekend.

The Pope is in Iraq. He is a brave man. I certainly would like to see the country and its rich history but will wait until there is peace for a couple of years. I hope his visit a complete success.

The vaccine rollout seems to be ahead of schedule. That’s good. I still have some time before my second dose, but it’s all good.

The Senate has been slowed on passing the relief bill when a Republican used a rule that the entire 680+ page bill must be read orally into the record. Sure glad I am not the reader.

Daily Puzzle

Answer: bottom of the page

This “burning rope” problem is a classic logic puzzle. You have two ropes that each take an hour to burn but burn at inconsistent rates. How can you measure 45 minutes? (You can light one or both ropes at one or both ends at the same time.)

Historical Events

1836 – The Battle (and fall) of the Alamo took place.

1857 – The Supreme Court of the United States ruled in the Dred Scott v. Sandford case. It stated that anyone brought into the United States as a slave, or their descendants could never be a United States citizen. The court of public opinion disagreed very vocally a few years later.

1899 – Bayer registered Aspirin as a trademark. Aspirin is considered by many to be the first wonder drug.

1930 – General Foods put the first individually packaged frozen foods – “Birds Eye Frosted Foods” on sale in Springfield, Massachusetts.

1943 – Norman Rockwell published Freedom from Want in The Saturday Evening Post with a matching essay by Carlos Bulosan as part of the ‘Four Freedoms Series.’

1950 – Silly Putty was introduced as a toy by Peter Hodgson. It was invented in 1943 by James Wright in an effort to make synthetic rubber.

1953 – James Watson and Francis Crick submitted to ‘Nature’ magazine their first article on the structure of DNA. It was published in the April 25th, 1953 issue.

1964 – Nation of Islam’s Elijah Muhammad officially gave boxing champion Cassius Clay the name of Muhammad Ali.

1981 – Walter Cronkite resigned as the main anchorman of The CBS Evening News

1983 – Country Music Television (CMT) began.

1985 – The song We Are the World was released.

1992 – The Michelangelo computer virus began to affect computers.

2001 – Napster began to block the transfer of copyrighted material over its peer-to-peer network. In July 2001, Napster shut down its entire network.

2015 US State Department charges 2 Vietnamese and a Canadian citizen with cyber-fraud, for stealing 1 billion email addresses for spam

2017 US President Donald Trump signs his second executive order barring travelers from 6 mostly Muslim countries for 90 days but leaves out Iraq

2018 World's oldest message in a bottle found in Western Australia, thrown from German ship Paula 132 years ago (12 June 1886)

2018 Pope Francis announces that murdered Salvadorean Archbishop Óscar Romero will be made a saint

2018 Forbes names Amazon founder Jeff Bezos the world's richest person for the first time at $112 billion, Bill Gates no. 2

2019 Facebook head Mark Zuckerberg reveals plans to turn the social media platform into a more "privacy-focused platform."

Birthdays Today

95 – Alan Greenspan, American economist

@88 – Michelangelo, Italian painter, sculptor (d. 1564)

@86 – Ed McMahon, comedian, game show host, announcer (d. 2009)

74 – John Stossel, American journalist, author

@70 – Bob Wills, Western swing musician, songwriter, bandleader (d. 1975)

58 – D.L. Hughley, American actor

@55 – Elizabeth Barrett Browning, English poet (d. 1861; long illness)

@52 – Lou Costello, American actor and comedian (d. 1959; cardiac arrest)

49 – Shaquille O’Neal, American basketball player

@36 – Cyrano de Bergerac, French author and playwright (d. 1655; killed?)

 

Puzzle Answer

Because they both burn inconsistently, you can’t just light one end of a rope and wait until it’s 75 percent of the way through. But this is what you can do: Light the first rope at both ends, and light the other rope at one end, all at the same time. The first rope will take 30 minutes to burn (even if one side burns faster than the other, it still takes 30 minutes). The moment the first rope goes out, light the other end of the second rope. Because the time elapsed of the second rope burning was 30 minutes, the remaining rope will also take 30 minutes; lighting it from both ends will cut that in half to 15 minutes, giving you 45 minutes all together.