Tuesday, October 4, 2016

Trivia Week: US Presidential Trivia





Continuing a week of trivia.  Today: US Presidents. 
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Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882-1945) is the only American president to be elected four times (1933-1945). After his service, the 22nd Amendment ratified in 1951, limited the presidential office to two terms.
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Harry S. Truman (1884-1972) used to get up at 5 o'clock in the morning to practice the piano for two hours.
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It has been open to conjecture as to whether William Taft, who weighed 150 kil;os/332 pounds, really did get stuck in the White House bathtub the first time he used it. Although a larger one was ordered, the truth of the story remains unknown. It comes from Ike Hoover, the chief White House usher during the Taft presidency. Hoover wrote a book, titled "42 Years in the White House," which published in 1932 and made mention of Taft getting stuck in the White House tub.



After Taft lost office in 1912, President Warren Harding appointed him Chief Justice of the United States, where he served until weeks before his death in 1930. He died at the age of 72. Taft, according to the National Archives, is the only person to hold the highest office in both the executive and judicial branches. The year after leaving the White House he lost 32 kilos/70 pounds and kept it off for the rest of his life.
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The term "O.K." is credited to Martin Van Buren who was raised in Kinderhook, New York. After he went into politics, Van Buren became known as "Old Kinderhook." Soon people were using the term O.K. referring to Van Buren and the word "okay" was derived.
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Harry S. Truman's mother, a Confederate sympathiser, refused to sleep in Lincoln's bed during a White House visit.

Harry S. Truman was also the first president to give a speech on television.


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At age 69, Ronald Reagan became the oldest person ever elected U.S. president.
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Franklin D. Roosevelt was paralysed from the disease polio; he served his entire presidency without the use of legs. The public was generally not aware.
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Witness to some of the bloodiest battles in history, Ulysses S. Grant could not stomach the sight of animal blood. Rare steak nauseated him.
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Theodore Roosevelt craved attention. It was said of him that he wanted to be the bride at every wedding and the corpse at every funeral.

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Monday, October 3, 2016

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Trivia Week: General Trivia


This week begins a week of Trivia. Unfortunately, if you’re not interested in Trivia, you will need to come back in a week’s time.

First up: General Trivia
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History of Trivia

From Wikipedia:

The ancient Romans used the word triviae to describe where one road split or forked into two roads. Triviae was formed from tri (three) and viae (roads) – literally meaning "three roads", and in transferred use "a public place" and hence the meaning "commonplace."

Trivialities, bits of information of little consequence was the title of a popular book by British aphorist Logan Pearsall Smith (1865-1946), first published in 1902 but popularised in 1918 (with More Trivia following in 1921 and a collected edition including both in 1933). It consisted of short essays often tied to observation of small things and commonplace moments. Trivia is the plural of trivium, "a public place." The adjectival form of this, trivialis, was hence translated by Smith as "commonplace."

In the 1918 version of his book Trivia, Smith wrote:
I KNOW too much; I have stuffed too many of the facts of History and Science into my intellectuals. My eyes have grown dim over books; believing in geological periods, cave dwellers, Chinese Dynasties, and the fixed stars has prematurely aged me.
In the 1960s, nostalgic college students and others began to informally trade questions and answers about the popular culture of their youth. The first known documented labeling of this casual parlor game as "Trivia" was in a Columbia Daily Spectator column published on February 5, 1965.[8] The authors, Ed Goodgold and Dan Carlinsky, then started the first organized "trivia contests". Their book Trivia (Dell, 1966) achieved a ranking on the New York Times best seller list; the book was an extension of the pair's Columbia contests and was followed by other Goodgold and Carlinsky trivia titles. In their second book, More Trivial Trivia, the authors criticised practitioners who were "indiscriminate enough to confuse the flower of trivia with the weed of minutiae"; Trivia, they wrote, "is concerned with tugging at heartstrings," while minutiae deals with such unevocative questions as "Which state is the largest consumer of Jell-O?" But over the years the word has come to refer to obscure and arcane bits of dry knowledge as well as nostalgic remembrances of pop culture. The board game Trivial Pursuit was released in 1982 and was a craze in the U.S. for several years thereafter. 
 
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Dolphins surf. They are frequently seen riding the bow wave of a ship and can ride the wake for more than an hour. They have also been regularly seen surfing waves to shore.

Dolphins riding the bow wave of a submarine

Dolphins and porpoises are mammals, not fish, with lungs instead of gills, so they breathe air. They also give birth to live young and nurse them after they're born. Differences between the two:


Dolphins live in large groups and show little fear of humans. They are outgoing and will often interact with humans and even swim alongside boats. Porpoises live in small pods of two to four animals and are shy, rarely approaching boats or people and rarely being seen at the surface unless they're coming up to breathe. Animals at marine shows are usually dolphins, not porpoises.
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Vitruvian Man

Some notes about Lenoardo Da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man: 
  • One of his best known works, it was actually only a sketch in one of his notebooks, c 1490.
  • It is named after the Roman architect Vitruvius, who wrote in his treatise De Architectura:
"For if a man be placed flat on his back, with his hands and feet extended, and a pair of compasses centered at his navel, the fingers and toes of his two hands and feet will touch the circumference of a circle described therefrom. And just as the human body yields a circular outline, so too a square figure may be found from it."
  • In their mathematical explorations, Vitruvius and Leonardo were looking for not just the ratios of man but of all creation, believeing that man (and presumably woman) is a microcosm of the universe. Leonardo wrote in a notebook in 1492:
"By the ancients man has been called the world in miniature; and certainly this name is well bestowed, because, inasmuch as man is composed of earth, water, air and fire, his body resembles that of the earth."
In other words, man is a microcosm of the universe.
Lavazza coffee ad by photographer Annie Leibovitz
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About 180 million to 200 million years ago, the entire land mass of the Earth was connected. This connected land mass is known as Pangea and is thought to have looked like this:


Over time the plates drifted apart and individual continents gained their identity. This idea of connected land masses goes a long way in observing various strong similarities in fossil characteristics in now quite disparate locations:

 
 
 
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Sunday, October 2, 2016

Quote for the Day



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Cheetahs

Byter Nando sent me an email as follows:
Hello Otto
I happened to get some info on this photographer: Michel Denis-Huot.
Could make an interesting story.
http://www.websites-host.com/cheetah-impala-kenya-huot.htmlKind regards
Thanks Nando.

On opening the link, I found the following heartwarming story and pics:
The Law of the Wild: 
Photographer Michel Denis-Huot on safari in Kenya's Masai Mara, captures amazing pictures of Cheetahs and Impalas:  
He describes his experience:  
"These three brothers (cheetahs) have been living together since they left their mother at about 18 months old,' he said. 'On the morning we saw them, they seemed not to be hungry, walking quickly but stopping sometimes to play together. At one point, they met a group of impala who ran away... But one youngster was not quick enough, and the brothers caught it easily."  
Pictures from his fascinating experience follow:




And then they just walked away without hurting him...  
Can we learn from some cheetahs?  
“You cannot do a kindness too soon, for you never know how soon it will be too late.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Comments:

  • The story comes from a Daily Mail article at:

  • That article, it has been said, distorted the true story by giving it a false happy ending. Indeed, the article even shows the first photograph above as the last photograph, saying that the impala made a quick getaway.
  • The complete series of photographs of the cheetahs and the impala can be seen on the website of the photographers at:

       The commentaries unfortunately are in French.
  • The last 3 photographs in the series, from that website, are:



  • One person has provided the following translation of the French commentary:
In Masai Mara, Kenya, three male cheetahs have lived together since they left their mother at 18 months of age. They became famous among all lovers of the Savannah. Very united and very playful, they are very difficult to follow for us photographers because they move constantly, both day and night and their territory is huge. You find them one day then the next day they are 30 km away! And they love to hunt at dusk, pouncing on the herds of wildebeest, without hesitation. One morning we found them at dawn and followed them. They stopped occasionally to play and moved on. They are obviously not hungry. But they cross the road right into a small group of fleeing impala but a young one does not run fast enough and the three brothers catch it without harm. They put it on the ground and then seem to lose interest. The small antelope is looking at the cheetahs, even sticking close by one of them. For over a quarter of an hour the cats stay with the young impala without harming him, other than to ask him or lick the paw on the head. And, finally, they decided to kill and eat him ...
  • There is discussion, however, as to whether the final 3 photographs are part of the same sequence, see:

Whatever the truth may be, it goes to show that in this day and age, with electronic communication and with technology at the highest level that it has ever been, we are also the age where there has been most misleading information, deception and communication manipulation.
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Saturday, October 1, 2016

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October 2016


Another month and Christmas coming closer.  As the northern hemisphere experiences Autumn, we in the southern hemisphere enjoy the delights of Spring.
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Each month Byter Brett R sends me a list of the special days for the coming month.

Just as Donald Trump said he was too much of a gentleman to mention certain things in the debate, with Huillary Clinton, which he then described as not having said, I will say that I am too much a gentleman to say that Brett heads his emails "That time of the month (again)." 

Brett's lists follwo, the daily ones being interactive, just click on.

Thanks Brett.

October, 2016 Bizarre and Unique Holidays

Month:
  • Adopt a Shelter Dog Month
  • American Pharmacist Month
  • Apple Jack Month
  • Awareness Month
  • Breast Cancer Awareness Month
  • Clergy Appreciation Month
  • Computer Learning Month
  • Cookie Month
  • Domestic Violence Awareness Month
  • Eat Country Ham Month
  • International Drum Month
  • Lupus Awareness Month
  • National Diabetes Month
  • National Pizza Month
  • National Vegetarian Month
  • National Popcorn Popping Month
  • Sarcastic Month
  • Seafood Month
Weekly Celebrations:
  • Week 1 Get Organized Week
  • Week 1 Customer Service Week
  • Week 2 Fire Prevention Week
  • Week 2 Pet Peeve Week
  • Week 3 Pastoral Care Week
October 2016 Daily Holidays, Special and Wacky Days:
1 International Frugal Fun Day - first Saturday of the month
1 World Card Making Day - first Saturday of the month
2 Oktoberfest in Germany ends, date varies
5 National Kale Day - first Wednesday of October
7 World Smile Day first Friday of month
10 Columbus Day - second Monday of month
12 Emergency Nurses Day- second Wednesday of month
12 National Fossil Day - Wednesday of Earth Sciences Week
12 Take Your Teddy Bear to Work Day -Second Wednesday of month
14 National Dessert Day - take an extra helping, or two
14 World Egg Day  - second Friday of month
15 Sweetest Day Third Saturday of month
20 Brandied Fruit Day    
21 National Pumpkin Cheesecake Day find a recipe, too.
22 Make a Difference Day-  fourth Saturday of the month, neighbors helping neighbors.
23  Mother-In-Law Day - fourth Sunday in October
27 National Tell a Story Day - in Scotland and the U.K.
28 Frankenstein Friday - last Friday in October
31 Carve a Pumpkin Day - no surprise here

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Regular readers will be aware that I am a member of a weekly trivia team called Lazarus, although sometimes we change our name for that night for a bit of fun.  Recent examples: Ben Dover, Neil Down, Haywood Jablome, Far Kurnell (Kurnell is a suburb of Sydney), Far Queue and so on.

Trivia organiser and MC, Graham, aka Mr Trivia, also sends a monthly summary of events and his follows as well.

Thanks Mr T.

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