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Thursday, May 17, 2018
Small things 17 May
- Whoever suggested that whiskey or brandy was good to provide relief from a cold or flu likely wasn't a doctor, but I bet they sure loved whiskey and brandy. In fact I propose that those who continue to offer this advice are also bona fide whiskey lovers.
- Five syllables here; Seven more syllables there. Are you happy now?
- Poem by Hungry Cat:
I lick your nose.
I lick your nose again.
I drag my claws down your eyelids.
Oh, you're up?
Feed me.
- Proton: Electron! Where the hell are you? Electron: I'm not sure. I can tell you where I might be. Does that help?
- In biology, multiplication and division kinda mean the same thing.
- When they say "We're letting you go," what they really mean is "We're making you go."
- If you ever say "I don't care" and people don't believe you, just wave your hands in the air....
Just another day in NYC
I love the real look at how prevalent horse and carriage was and how carriages, the new motor cars and trolleys jockey for position on the streets, with no traffic lights or stop signs. The fashion is fascinating as well.
Things I learned lately 17 May
- Before the 17th century, just 5% of Europeans could read or write. Today, more than 90% of the world under age 25 can read and write.
- There are only 10 foods that all nutritionists agree are really good for you. Blueberries. Leafy greens. Avocados. Beans. Garlic. Lemon. Chia seeds. Sprouts. Quinoa. Wild salmon.
- Foxconn, the company that makes iPhones, employs 1.3 million people in China. One factory in Zhengzhou alone, employs 350,000 people.
- Sunsets on Mars are blue.
- The 588th Night Bomber Regiment, aka the 'Night Witches', were an all-female group of Russian fliers who went on bombing raids by the light of the moon in plywood biplanes. The pioneering women dropped more than 23,000 tons of bombs on Nazi targets, becoming a crucial Soviet asset in winning World War II. The Germans nicknamed them the Nachthexen, or 'night witches', because the whooshing noise their wooden planes made resembled that of a sweeping broom. This sound was the only warning the Germans had. The planes were too small to show up on radar or on infrared locators. They never used radios, so radio locators couldn't pick them up either.
- Turpentine was used as medicine around the 1820s. We know better now, of course.
Friday, May 11, 2018
Small things 11 May
- What is Groot's email address? i@mgroot
- The Ontario Conservative Party paid actors to pretend they were Doug Ford supporters. It was the most comprehensive arts program the Conservatives have ever been involved in.
- Imagine if every front yard was turned into a vegetable garden........ All we are saying.... Give peas a chance....
- "Customers will never love a company until the employees love it first." Simon Sinek
- Whoever invented knock-knock jokes should get a Nobel prize.....
- If the Silver Surfer and Iron Man teamed up, they'd be alloys.
- Organic chemistry is difficult. Those who study it have alkynes of trouble.
More misleading media headlines
Yes, except that it was NOT self-driving at the time, AND it was hit by another vehicle that had swerved into the wrong lane.
So - nothing to see here - move alone......
Homemade Big Mac
This guy made his version of a Big Mac.
Oh man.
If only this is what you got from McDonalds.
Everything that's wrong with our society summed up in the following headline
"Loblaw shareholders shoot down proposal for living wage."
Things I learned lately 11 May
- California became the first state in the US to require all new homes to be built with rooftop solar panels. The California Energy Commission voted unanimously in favour of the rule. Starting January 2020 any new home that's 3 stories or less, will need to include energy-harvesting solar panels on top, unless they are in the shade or the roof is too tiny.
- By 2020, it is estimated that Canada's marijuana industry will be bigger than its alcohol industry, possibly $6.5 billion.
- 53% of polled Canadians said it's not necessary for couples to tie the knot to spend their lives together, and 1 in 6 said they're not interested in the marriage at all.
- Google is working on visual positioning for Google Maps (see right). Using AI, Maps will be able to tell exactly where you are using what your phone's camera sees and help guide you to your destination while walking. Using augmented reality, Maps will also superimpose points of interest onto the image you see on the screen.
- Google Photos will soon be able to automatically add colour to old black and white photos.
- Americans got 3.4 billion spam calls in April.
- 250 years ago, 1/3 of children in the world's richest countries didn't live to see their 5th birthday.
Saturday, May 05, 2018
Songs that are 40 years old this year (2018)
Cheap Trick - Surrender
Devo - I can't get no satisfaction
Dire Straits - Sultans of swing
Elvis Costello - Pump it up
Talking Heads - Take me to the river
The Cars - Good times roll / Just what I needed
Van Halen - You really got me / Runnin' with the devil
The Police - Roxanne / Can't stand losing you
Bee Gees - Stayin' alive / Night fever
Boney M - Rivers of babylon
Wings - With a little luck
Rolling Stones - Miss you
Taste of Honey - Boogi oogie oogie
Exile - Kiss you all over
Nick Gilder - Hot child in the city
Anne Murray - You needed me
Donna Summer - MacArthur park
Kate Bush - Wuthering heights
10CC - Dreadlock holiday
Van Halen - Aint talkin bout love
Eddie Money - Baby hold on
Gerry Rafferty - Baker street
Styx - Blue coller man
Barry Manilow - Copacabana
Kansas - Dust in the wind
Steely Dan - FM
Genesis - Follow you follow me
Wings - Goodnight tonight
Heart - Heartless / Straight on
Toto - Hold the line
Foreigner - Hot blooded
Gino Vannelli - I just wanna stop
Bonnie Tyler - It's a heartache
Joe Walsh - Life's been good
Sweet - Love is like oxygen
Walter Egan - Magnet and steel
Ace Frehley - New York groove
Bob Seger - Still the same
Al Stewart - Time passages
ELO - Turn to stone
The Who - Who are you?
Thursday, May 03, 2018
Small things 3 May
- The only problem with the first 30 minutes of exercise is that only 2 minutes have gone by....
- Tired of getting parking tickets? Just take your wipers off.
- Make deals with the devil while you're still a child. Contracts signed by minors aren't legally binding.
- The risk with getting too high, is that you might order a pizza, and open the box upside down and think they punked you with a crust-only pizza.
- Is it crazy how saying sentences backwards creates backwards sentences saying how crazy it is?
- Sometimes I look at pictures other people have posted online and say things like, "Hey!! I have that shed too!"
- The word 'nun' is just the letter n doing a cartwheel.
- When someone says "I need my space", that is NOT an invitation to remove all the furniture from their home.
- Fake fact: A group of kangaroos is called a kangacrew. No? Kangagang?
- UPS driver job requirements:
Should be dyslexic
Must be able to ring a doorbell and sprint 30 metres back to truck
Look good in brown shorts
Illegal parking skills beneficial
Food truck names, real and imagined
Pipelines
To these people - your heart is in the right place. I get it. Pipelines are risky. They have the potential to cause significant, sometimes irreversible damage to the environment. Oil tanker ships aren't much better. Neither are rail cars full of oil. Incidentally, rail cars full of oil is more of what will likely be passing through BC if the pipelines don't get built. I'm mentioning that fact because some folks have convinced themselves that if the oil pipeline is successfully blocked, it's problem solved. Nope. The oil will still get to the west coast, just via other means, and it will most definitely be via rail.
One problem I have with this stance though, is that unlike Northern Gateway, which would have built a risky pipeline in virgin territory, Kinder Morgan's project expands on what is already there. It's like protesting the adding of a lane on a freeway. It's a little bit redundant. And, as I mentioned previously, it's a bit like insisting that the extra lane shouldn't be built, and thinking that the added traffic won't go somewhere else, if you follow my analogy.
In my humble opinion, you're protesting the wrong thing. You shouldn't be protesting pipelines. You need to address the source of the problem. The source is the world's reliance, and most especially our own reliance, on fossil fuel. They are building a pipeline because people still want to buy our oil. People still want our oil because they still haven't weaned themselves off of it for making plastics, gasoline, heating oil, diesel, and all the other things we make from oil.
I personally believe that the best way to stop new pipelines from being built is to cure the world's need for oil. Starting with ourselves. Alberta has a carbon tax, but we don't (unlike other jurisdictions) offer any incentive to buy electric cars. Nor do we insist that new homes get built to a higher R rating, to use less (or even no) fuel to heat our homes. I could go on.
So if you really want to make a difference, start putting your focus on the source of the demand for the oil in the first place. Going back to my analogy, don't protest the extra lanes in the freeway. Insist that more people take the bus or train.
Things I learned lately 3 May
- Neil Finn, formerly of the band Crowded House, and Mike Campbell, formerly of Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, are now part of Fleetwood Mac. Lindsay Buckingham is out.
- President Donald Trump's longtime personal physician, Dr. Harold Bornstein said on Tuesday that a 2015 letter declaring then-candidate Trump to be in "astonishingly excellent" health, was actually dictated by Trump himself. "He dictated that whole letter. I didn't write that letter."
- Fort Connah is the last remaining post of the British Hudson's Bay Company in the US (possibly Canada too?). It played a vital role in the fur trade. It is off highway 93, near Post Creek, Montana.
- Scientists may have found evidence that humans 10,000 years ago hunted / fought giant sloths.
- By the early 1980s, Israel had routinized the aggregation and purification of the country's wastewater and built a parallel water infrastructure system to transport treated water to farms. Today, nearly 90% of Israel's sewage is treated to an ultra pure level for agricultural use.
- The Royal New Zealand Air Force has no combat capable aircraft. No fighter jets or bombers.
- Southdale Mall was the first fully indoor mall ever built, in 1956, in Edina MN.
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