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Zero-g Astronaut Pen for $1 Million
Original Meanings of Some Words
Chewing gum dates from Stone Age, researchers say
Why is US Standard railroad gauge 4 feet and 8.5 inches?
Famous Predictions...by Experts!
If I give an orange to my friend, I say to him, "I give you this orange."
Referee Letter on "Declaration of Independence"
A friend worked for a company that made IC's.
It seemed that every
few months their yields would go down to about
zero. Analysis of the
failures showed all sorts of organic material
was introduced into the
process somewhere, but they couldn't figure out
where. One evening,
someone was working late and came into the lab.
There he found the
maintenance crew cooking pizza in the chip curing
ovens!
Zero-g Astronaut Pen for $1 Million
During the heat of the space race in the 1960s, the US National
Aeronautics and Space Administration realized that astronauts
would have to be able to record certain things while performing their
duties and so it needed a writing utensil capable of writing in the
zero
gravity confines of its space capsules.
Of Course, a normal pen will not work since they are all gravity fed.
After considerable research and development spanning over two years,
the
working "Zero-g Astronaut Pen" was developed at a cost of approximately
$1 Million (in 1960s dollars!!). The initial production run was fifty
pens. The Soviet Union was faced with the same problem...but they issued
pencils!!!
Original Meanings of Some Words
service: The
word 'service' derives from the Latin word
meaning 'slave'. Service was the work expected
of slaves."
dean (dekan):
Corporal in Roman army in charge of
ten soldiers,
(legionnaires).
diploma:
Roman emperors give privelege, lands, rights to
soldiers who are honorably discharged.These are inscribed on
the inner surfaces of two bronz tablets held together by rings
on the long side and sealed by emperor with wax, these tablets
are called diploma (di-ploa; two-fold).
semester: Sex menstris- six-month-period
alcohol: Koh'l
is a Semitic word used in early Biblical
references and is the Arabic word for antimony sulfide, a
fine cosmetic powder, used as eye make-up by women of the
Middle East. In such countries as India and Yemen, they even
went so far as to throw the powder directly into their eyes to
increase their brilliance or sparkle. Other women used the
"normal" methods of application by making a paste of the powder
and rubbing it on the eyelids.
The original Arabic sense of pulverized antimony powder was the
original purpose of "al kuhl". It was refined by heating to a vapor,
then condensed to a solid to achieve an extremely fine powder (so
fine that a person couldn't feel the separate grains when they were
rubbed between the fingers) which was applied as an even stain for
eye makeup.
By the time alcohol entered English in the 16th century, its
meaning had broadened to include "any fine powder, especially one
derived by vaporizing a solid and then allowing the vapor to condense."
In 1753, liquid spirits which were derived by vaporization and
condensation were also known as alcohols, the best known was alcohol
(or spirit) of wine, and by extension, to the spirit of any fermented
liquor.
When Arabian alchemists invented the distillation of alcohol with a
similar process c. 1,000 a.d., they used the name for their product
from
the cosmetic process and alcohol has been doing things to the eyes
ever
since.
By the way, the antimony sulfide stone is still available in some Arabic
countries. I know because I bought one at a cosmetics store in Morocco.
punch:
A refreshing drink from East Indians requiring five ingredients:
"arrak, sugar; lemon; seasonings &water". Sanskrit number panca
means
"five".
siesta: Six hour (in the old 12-hour day running)
West Texas Intermediate crude oil: $14.68
Coca-Cola: $78.73
Milk: $126.00
Evian Water: $189.90
Orange Juice: $251.16
Snapple: $267.12
Perrier Water: $328.67
Lemon Oil: $390.88 ;
Crisco Oil: $435.12
Scope Mouthwash: $826.65
Sunflower Oil: $971.04
Olive Oil: $1,324.38
Real Maple Syrup: $1,787.52
Sesame Oil: $2,535.61
Jack Daniel's Bourbon: $4,133.26
Visine Eye Drops: $32,202.24
Flonase Rx Nasal Spray: $238,133.
Rear Admiral Grace Hopper, US Navy (Rtd) (often
cited as the world's
first professional, paid-for-programming, programmer), began her
career on the Naval Ordnance Computer Project at Harvard during
World War II. The machine was offically called the Automatic
Sequence Controlled Calculator, or ASCC, and contained bank upon
bank of relays to act as switches.
More popularly known as the Harvard Mk1, it was devised and run by a
martinet, Howard Aiken. He insisted that every that occurred to his
precious machine was entered into a log.
One hot afternoon, a fault arose. Grace Hopper traced it to a
particular bank of relays, where she found a dead - electrocuted -
moth caught between the jaws of one relay.
She took the moth out, stuck it solemnly in the log, wrote the time
by the side of it and, underneath, her first claim to immortality -
"De-bugging".
Chewing Gum Dates From Stone
Age,
Researchers Say
People have been chewing gum since the Stone Age, according to
archaeological research published Tuesday. A scientist said black
lumps of prehistoric tar with human tooth impressions had been found
in much of Northern Europe dating from about 7000 B.C. The size of
the
tooth marks suggest that the tar, made of birch bark, was mostly
chewed by children and teen-agers and that it could have doubled as
a
painkiller and a glue to remove young teeth.
Edward deBono's Thought Processes
In his book "The Six Thinking Hats" (Little-Brown and Co., 1985), Edward
deBono suggests that team members stay on task by focusing on one of
six
thought processes at any given time. Each thought process is signified
by a
different colored thinking hat. For example, team members may decide
that
they're going to put on their green hats so that they can focus on
creative
thinking. Later they might switch to their black hats and apply critical
judgement to the new ideas. If a team member becomes critical of ideas
during a brainstorming session, another member might remind him or
her to
"take off your black hat and put on your green hat."
Here's what the six different colored hats signify:
WHITE HAT: Looking at data and information in a neutral and objective manner;
GREEN HAT: Thinking creatively and devising new ideas;
YELLOW HAT: Applying optimism and a logical, positive view of things;
BLACK HAT: Exercising caution and critical judgement;
RED HAT: Exploringg feelings, intuitions, hunches and emotions;
BLUE HAT: Thinking about the thinking process.
Taken from: Prism (published by the Amer.Soc.for Eng'g Edu.),
December 1996, p.10
Why is US Standard Railroad Gauge
4 feet and 8.5 inches?
The US Standard railroad gauge (distance between the rails) is
4 feet, 8.5 inches. That's an exceedingly odd number. Why was that
gauge used? Because that's the way they built them in England,
and the US railroads were built by English expatriates.
Why did the English people build them like that? Because the
first rail lines were built by the same people who built the
pre-railroad tramways, and that's the gauge they used.
Why did "they" use that gauge then? Because the people who
built the tramways used the same jigs and tools that they used for
building wagons, which used that wheel spacing.
Okay! Why did the wagons use that odd wheel spacing? Well, if
they tried to use any other spacing the wagons would break on
some of the old, long distance roads, because that's the spacing of
the old wheel ruts.
So who built these old rutted roads? The first long distance
roads in Europe were built by Imperial Rome for the benefit of
their legions. The roads have been used ever since. And the
ruts? The initial ruts, which everyone else had to match for fear
of destroying their wagons, were first made by Roman war
chariots. Since the chariots were made for or by Imperial Rome
they were all alike in the matter of wheel spacing.
Thus, we have the answer to the original questions. The United
State standard railroad gauge of 4 feet, 8.5 inches derives from the
original specification for an Imperial Roman army war chariot.
Specs and Bureaucracies live forever.So, the next time you are handed
a specification and wonder what horse's ass came up with it, you may
be exactly right. Because the Imperial Roman chariots were made to
be
just wide enough to accommodate the back-ends of two war horses.
* Coca-Cola was originally green.
* Every day more money is printed for the game of Monopoly than for
the U.S.
Treasury.
* The Hawaiian alphabet has 12 letters.
* Men can read smaller print than women; however, women can hear better.
* Chances that an American lives within 50 miles of where he or she grew up: 1 in 2.
* Amount American Airlines saved in 1987 by eliminating one olive from
each
salad served first class: $40,000
* City with the most Rolls Royce's per capita: Hong Kong
* State with the highest percentage of people who walk to work: Alaska
(before or after they try to start their car?)
* Chances of a white Christmas in New York: 1 in 4
* Estimated percentage of American adults who go on a diet each year: 44%
* Barbie's measurements if she were life size: 39-23-33
* Percentage of Americans who say that God has spoken to them: 36%
* Percentage of Americans who regularly attend religious services: 43%
* Portion of Harvard students who graduate with honors: 4/5
* Only food that does not spoil: honey
* Polar bears are left-handed.
* Intelligent people have more zinc and copper in their hair.
* Eskimos never gamble.
* Mark Twain didn't graduate from elementary school.
* Jupiter is bigger than all the other planets combined.
* Hot water is heavier than cold.
* The parachute was invented by da Vinci in 1515.
* Starfish have eight eyes--one at the end of each leg.
* Iceland consumes more Coca-cola per capita than any other nation.
* First novel ever written on a typewriter was "Tom Sawyer" by Mark Twain.
* There are more collect calls on Father's Day than any other day of the year.
* It is possible to lead a cow upstairs but not downstairs.
1.111,111,111 x 111,111,111 = 12,345,678,987,654,321
2.Rene Descartes came up with the theory of
coordinate geometry by looking at a fly walk across a
tiled ceiling.
3.If a statue in the park of a person on a horse has
both front legs in the air, the person died in battle; if
the horse has one front leg in the air, the person died
as a result of wounds received in battle; if the horse
has all four legs on the ground, the person died of
natural causes.
4.Ballroom dancing is a major at Brigham Young
University. (but you knew that didn't you)
5.Some biblical scholars believe that Aramaic (the
language of the ancient Bible) did not contain an easy
way to say 'many things' and used a term which has
come down to us as 40. This means that when the
bible in many places refers to '40 days,' they meant
many days.
6.No word in the English language rhymes with
month, orange, silver, and purple.
7.Clans of long ago that wanted to get rid of their
unwanted people without killing them use to burn their
houses down - hence the expression 'to get fired.'
8.Canada is an Indian word meaning 'Big Village'.
9.There are two credit cards for every person in the
United States.
10.Only two people signed the Declaration of
Independence on July 4th, John Hancock and Charles
Thomson. Most of the rest signed on August 2, but the
last signature wasn't added until 5 years later.
11.'I am.' is the shortest complete sentence in the
English language.
12.The term 'the whole 9 yards' came from WWII
fighter pilots in the South Pacific. When arming their
airplanes on the ground, the .50 caliber machine
gun ammo belts measured exactly 27 feet, before
being loaded into the fuselage. If the pilots fired all
their ammo at a target, it got 'the whole 9 yards.'
13.The original story from Tales of 1001 Arabian Nights
begins, 'Aladdin was a little Chinese boy.'
14.Winston Churchill was born in a ladies' room during
a dance.
15.The most common name in the world is
Mohammed.
16.Captain Jean-Luc Picard's fish was named
Livingston.
17.The 'y' in signs reading 'ye olde..' is properly
pronounced with a 'th' sound, not 'y'.
The 'th' sound does not exist in Latin, so
ancient
Roman occupied (present day) England use the rune
'thorn' to represent 'th' sounds. With the advent of the
printing press the character from the Roman alphabet
which closest resembled thorn was the lower case 'y'.
18.The word 'samba' means 'to rub navels together.'
19.The international telphone dialing code for
Antarctica is 672.
20.The glue on Israeli postage stamps is certified
kosher.
21.The little bags of netting for gas lanterns (called
'mantles') are radioactive so much so that they will set
of an alarm at a nuclear reactor.
22.Mel Blanc (the voice of Bugs Bunny) was allergic to
carrots.
23.Each unit on the Richter Scale is equivalent to a
power factor of about 32. So a 6 is 32 times more
powerful than a 5! Though it goes to 10, 9 is estimated
to be the point of total tectonic destruction (2 is the
smallest that can be felt unaided.)
24.Cinderella's slippers were originally made out of
fur. The story was changed in the 1600s by a translator.
25.It was the left shoe that Aschenputtel (Cinderella)
lost at the stairway, when the prince tried to follow her.
26.Until 1965, driving was done on the left-hand side
on roads in Sweden. The conversion to right-hand was
done on a weekday at 5pm. All traffic stopped as
people switched sides. This time and day were chosen
to prevent accidents where drivers would have gotten
up in the morning and been too sleepy to realize *this*
was the day of the changeover.
27.Donald Duck's middle name is Fauntleroy.
28.The very first bomb dropped by the Allies on Berlin
during World War II killed the only elephant in the
Berlin Zoo.
29.Dr. Seuss pronounced 'Seuss' such that it rhymed
with 'rejoice.'
30.In Casablanca, Humphrey Bogart never said 'Play it
again, Sam.'
31.Sherlock Holmes never said 'Elementary, my dear
Watson.'
32.Captain Kirk never said 'Beam me up, Scotty,' but
he did say, 'Beam me up, Mr. Scott'.
33.Duelling is legal in Paraguay as long as both parties
are registered blood donors.
34.More people are killed annually by donkeys than
die in air crashes.
35.The characters Bert and Ernie on Sesame Street
were named after Bert the cop and Ernie the taxi driver
in Frank Capra's 'Its A Wonderful Life.'
36.The flag of the Philippines is the only national flag
that is flown differently during times of peace or war. A
portion of the flag is blue, while the other is red. The
blue portion is flown on top in time of peace and the
red portion is flown in war time.
37.Armored knights raised their visors to identify
themselves when they rode past their king. This
custom has become the modern military salute.
38.The 'huddle' in football was formed due a deaf
football player who used sign language to
communicate and his team didn't want the opposition
to see the signals he used and in turn huddled around
him.
39.Goethe couldn't stand the sound of barking dogs
and could only write if he had an apple rotting in the
drawer of his desk.
40.If you are locked in a completely sealed room, you
will die of carbon dioxide poisoning first before you
will die of oxygen deprivation.
41.Carnivorous animals will not eat another animal
that has been hit by a lightning strike.
42.The term, 'It's all fun and games until someone
loses an eye' is from Ancient Rome. The only rule
during wrestling matches was, 'No eye gouging.'
Everything else was allowed, but the only way to be
disqualified is to poke someone's eye out.
43.Mr. Rogers is an ordained minister.
44.Sir Isaac Newton was an ordained priest in the
Church of England.
45.A 'jiffy' is an actual unit of time for 1/100th of a
second.
46.The average person falls asleep in seven minutes.
47.Certain frogs can be frozen solid then thawed, and
continue living.
48.The phrase 'rule of thumb' is derived from an old
English law which stated that you couldn't beat your
wife with anything wider than your thumb.
49.The Baby Ruth candy bar was actually named after
Grover Cleveland's baby daughter, Ruth.
50.Hershey's Kisses are called that because the
machine that makes them looks like it's kissing the
conveyor belt.
51.Steve Young, the San Francisco 49ers quarterback,
is the great-great-grandson of Mormon leader Brigham
Young.
52.Money isn't made out of paper, it's made out of
linen.
53.Every time you lick a stamp, you're consuming 1/10
of a calorie.
Los Angeles's full name is "El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora la Reina de
los Angeles de
Porciuncula."
101 Dalmatians and Peter Pan (Wendy) are the only
two Disney cartoon features with both
parents that are present and don't die throughout
the movie.
In England, the Speaker of the House is not allowed to speak.
Your stomach has to produce a new layer of mucus
every two weeks otherwise it will digest
itself.
Al Capone's business card said he was a used furniture dealer.
The Ramses brand condom is named after the great
pharaoh Ramses II who fathered over
160 children.
Dueling is legal in Paraguay as long as both parties are registered blood donors.
Sylvia Miles had the shortest performance ever
nominated for an Oscar with "Midnight
Cowboy." Her entire role lasted only six minutes.
Charles Lindbergh took only four sandwiches with him on his famous transatlantic flight.
The phrase "rule of thumb" is derived from an
old English law which stated that you couldn't
beat your wife with anything wider than your
thumb.
Studies show that if a cat falls off the seventh floor of a building
it has about thirty percent
less chance of surviving than a cat that falls off the twentieth floor.
It supposedly takes about
eight floors for the cat to realize what is occurring, relax and correct
itself.
Famous Predictions.... by Experts
"Everything that can be invented has been invented."
--Charles H. Duell, Office of Patents, 1899
"There will never be a bigger plane built."
--A Boeing engineer, after the first flight of
the 247,
a twin engine plane that carried ten people.
"Ours has been the first, and doubtless to be the last, to visit
this profitless locality." -- Lt. Joseph Ives after visiting
the Grand Canyon in 1861.
"There is not the slightest indication that nuclear
energy will
ever be obtainable. It would mean that the atom
would have to
be shattered at will." -- Albert Einstein, 1932
"We don't like their sound. Groups of guitars are on the way out."
--Decca executive, 1962, after turning down the Beatles.
"It will be years--not in my time--before a woman
will become Prime
Minister." --Margaret Thatcher, 1974
"With over 50 foreign cars already on sale here, the Japanese auto
industry isn't likely to carve out a big slice of the US market."
--Business Week, August 2, 1968
"Computers may weigh no more than 1.5 tons."
--Popular Mechanics, 1949
"There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home."
--Ken Olson, president of Digital Equipment Corp. 1977
"This telephone' has too many shortcomings to
be seriously considered
as a means of communication." --Western Union
memo, 1876
"No imaginable commercial value. Who would pay for a message sent
to nobody in particular?" --David Sarnoff's associates in response
to his urging investment in the radio in the 1920's.
"Who wants to hear actors talk?" --H.M. Warner, Warner Brothers, 1927.
"I'm just glad it'll be Clark Gable who's falling on his face and
not Gary Cooper." --Gary Cooper, after turning down
the lead role in Gone With The Wind.
"Market research reports say America likes crispy
cookies, not
soft and chewy cookies like you make."
--Response to Debbi Fields' idea of Mrs. Fields' Cookies
"We don't need you. You haven't got through college yet."
--Hewlett Packard excuse to Steve Jobs, who founded
Apple Computers instead.
"I think there's a world market for about five
computers."
--Thomas J. Watson, chairman of the board of
IBM.
"The bomb will never go off. I speak as an expert in explosives."
--Admiral William Leahy, U.S. Atomic Bomb Project.
"Airplanes are interesting toys, but they are
of no military value
whatsoever."
--Marechal Ferdinand Fock, Professor of Strategy,
Ecole Superieure de Guerre
"Stocks have reached a permanently high plateau."
--Irving Fisher, Professor of Economics, Yale University, 1929
"No matter what happens, the U.S. Navy is not
going to be caught
napping." --U.S. Secretary of Navy, December
4, 1941
"While theoretically and technically television may be feasible,
commercially and financially it is an impossibility."
--Lee DeForest, inventor
"Radio has no future. Heavier-than-air flying
machines are
impossible. X-rays will prove to be a hoax."
--William Thomson, Lord Kelvin English scientist,
1899
If I give an orange to my friend,
I say to him,
"I give you this orange."
If a lawyer does it, he says it this way:
"Know all men by these presents that I hereby give, grant, bargain,
sell, release, convey, transfer, and quitclaim all my right, title,
interest, benefit, and use whatever in, of, and concerning this
chattel, otherwise known as an orange, or citrus orantium, together
with all the appurtenances thereto of skin, pulp, pip, rind, seeds,
and juice, to have and to hold the said orange together with its
skin, pulp, pip, rind, seeds, and juice, for his own use and behoof,
to himself and his heirs in fee simple forever, free from all liens,
encumbrances, easements, limitations, restraints, or conditions
whatsoever, any and all prior deeds, transfers or other documents
whatsoever, now or anywhere made to the contrary notwithstanding,
with full power to bite, cut, suck, or otherwise eat the said
orange or to give away the same with or without its skin, pulp, pip,
rind, seeds, or juice."
Referee Letter on
"Declaration of Independence"
The Court of King George III
London, England
July 10, 1776
Mr. Thomas Jefferson
c/o The Continental Congress
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Dear Mr. Jefferson:
We have read your "Declaration of Independence" with great interest.
Certainly, it represents a considerable undertaking, and many of your
statements do merit serious consideration. Unfortunately, the Declaration
as a whole fails to meet recently adopted specifications for proposals
to
the Crown, so we must return the document to you for further refinement.
The questions which follow might assist you in your process of revision:
1. In your opening paragraph you use the phrase "the Laws
of Nature and
Nature's God." What are these laws? In what way are they the criteria
on which you base your central arguments? Please document with
citations from the recent literature.
2. In the same paragraph you refer to the "opinions of
mankind." Whose
polling data are you using? Without specific evidence, it seems to
us the "opinions of mankind" are a matter of opinion.
3. You hold certain truths to be "self-evident." Could
you please
elaborate. If they are as evident as you claim then it should not be
difficult for you to locate the appropriate supporting statistics.
4. "Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" seem to
be the goals of
your proposal. These are not measurable goals. If you were to say that
"among these is the ability to sustain an average life expectancy in
six of the 13 colonies of at last 55 years, and to enable newspapers
in the colonies to print news without outside interference, and to
raise the average income of the colonists by 10 percent in the next
10 years," these could be measurable goals. Please clarify.
5. You state that "Whenever any Form of Government becomes
destructive of
these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it,
and to institute a new Government...." Have you weighed this assertion
against all the alternatives? What are the trade-off considerations?
6. Your description of the existing situation is quite
extensive. Such a
long list of grievances should precede the statement of goals, not
follow it. Your problem statement needs improvement.
7. Your strategy for achieving your goal is not developed
at all. You
state that the colonies "ought to be Free and Independent States,"
and
that they are "Absolved from All Allegiance to the British Crown."
Who
or what must change to achieve this objective? In what way must they
change? What specific steps will you take to overcome the resistance?
How long will it take? We have found that a little foresight in these
areas helps to prevent careless errors later on. How cost-effective
are
your strategies?
8. Who among the list of signatories will be responsible
for implementing
your strategy? Who conceived it? Who provided the theoretical research?
Who will constitute the advisory committee? Please submit an organization
chart and vitas of the principal investigators.
9. You must include an evaluation design. We have been
requiring this
since Queen Anne's War.
10. What impact will your problem have? Your failure to
include any
assessment of this inspires little confidence in the long-range
prospects of your undertaking.
11. Please submit a PERT diagram, an activity chart, itemized
budget, and
manpower utilization matrix.
We hope that these comments prove useful in revising your "Declaration
of
Independence." We welcome the submission of your revised proposal.
Our due date for unsolicited proposals is July 31, 1776.
Ten copies with original signatures will be required.
Sincerely,
Management Analyst to the British Crown
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