Wednesday, February 19, 2014
Sunday, February 16, 2014
Friday, February 14, 2014
Sunday, February 2, 2014
A lozenge
Candies to soothe the throat date back to 1000 BC in Egypt's Twentieth Dynasty, when they were made from honey flavored with citrus, herbs, and spices. In the 19th century, physicians discovered morphine and heroin, which suppress coughing at its source—the brain. Popular formulations of that era included Smith Brothers Cough Drops, first advertised in 1852, and Luden's, created in 1879. Concern over the risk of opioid dependence led to the development of alternative medications
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Throat_lozenge
A lozenge (◊), often referred to as a diamond, is a form of rhombus. The definition of lozenge is not strictly fixed, and it is sometimes used simply as a synonym (from the French losange) for rhombus. Most often, though, lozenge refers to a thin rhombus—a rhombus with acute angles of 45°.[1] The lozenge shape is often used in parquetry and as decoration on ceramics, silverware and textiles. It also features in heraldry and playing cards.
The lozenge motif dates as far back as the Neolithic and Paleolithic period in Eastern Europe and represents a sown field and female fertility.[2] The ancient lozenge pattern often shows up in Diamond vault architecture, in traditional dress patterns of Slavic peoples, and in traditional Ukrainian embroidery. The lozenge pattern also appears extensively in Celtic art, art from the Ottoman Empire, and ancient Phrygian art.[3]
The lozenge symbolism is one of the main female symbols in Berber carpets.[4] Common Berber jewelry from the Aurès Mountains or Kabylie in Algeria also uses this pattern as a female fertility sign.
In 1658, the English philosopher Sir Thomas Browne published The Garden of Cyrus subtitled The Quincunciall Lozenge, or Network Plantations of the Ancients where he outlined the mystical interconnection of art, nature and the Universe. He suggested that ancient plantations used the quincunx pattern that revealed the "mystical mathematics of the city of Heaven"[5] and proof of the wisdom of God.
Lozenges appear as symbols in ancient classic element systems, in amulets, and in religious symbolism. In a suit of playing cards, diamonds is in the shape of a lozenge.
Saturday, February 1, 2014
Friday, January 31, 2014
Thursday, January 30, 2014
Wednesday, January 29, 2014
Tuesday, January 28, 2014
Fwd: 3 cylinder
Nissan has a new small 1.5-liter turbocharged three-cylinder engine.
‘Holding the lightweight engine (at right) is Nismo president Shoichi Miyatani, and he's likely smiling because that 40-kilogram (88-pound) engine packs quite a punch with 400 horsepower and 280 pound-feet of torque. Nissan would like to take a moment to point out this engine's power-to-weight is better than the engines currently used in Formula One racecars.’
Thursday, January 2, 2014
Wednesday, December 25, 2013
Introducing Bengal cat to a new kitten for first time
This is a series of about 6 videos that I like.
Check out this video on YouTube:
http://youtu.be/EhRuG0D-WsU
Check out this video on YouTube:
http://youtu.be/EhRuG0D-WsU
Tuesday, December 17, 2013
What to do if you get in an accident.
Today I interviewed with a police officer over an accident that happened in March where someone rear ended me and then took off. The license plate number that I was able to recall at the time of the accident might not have been valid according to the police. If you get in an accident, the first thing you should do is use your camera phone to take pictures.
Sunday, December 15, 2013
Saturday, December 14, 2013
Re: For the Chess player with everything
I saw this. I think that it is gross...
On Sat, Dec 14, 2013 at 4:32 PM, mikgri wrote:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-57615154-1/taxidermy-chess-play-with-rooks-and-dead-rodents/
Tuesday, November 26, 2013
Wednesday, November 6, 2013
Monday, November 4, 2013
No calculator nor computer can do this without special software. It is too many digits.
- In 1977 at the Southern Methodist University she was asked to give the 23rd root of a 201-digit number; she answered in 50 seconds.[1][4] Her answer—546,372,891—was confirmed by calculations done at the U.S. Bureau of Standards by the UNIVAC 1101 computer, for which a special program had to be written to perform such a large calculation.[11]
- On June 18, 1980, she demonstrated the multiplication of two 13-digit numbers — 7,686,369,774,870 × 2,465,099,745,779 — picked at random by the Computer Department ofImperial College, London. She correctly answered 18,947,668,177,995,426,462,773,730 in 28 seconds.[2][3] This event is mentioned in the 1982 Guinness Book of Records.[2][3]
Such feats are well beyond any remotely normal human brain. One has to wonder how different her brain had to be?
The only reasonable way to imagine that she could take a 23rd root of an extremely large number is to be able to accurately convert the number to a logarithm, do a division and then calculate an exponent in her head. This is the process that people used slide rules to calculate much smaller numbers. Doing this on paper could take hours. The software on your computer couldn't handle this. There probably are special programs that can handle it.
If that was her method, then she would have to have extremely large tables of logarithms memorized. However, if she was this brilliant, maybe she came up with other ways of solving math problems.
Friday, October 18, 2013
Scott McCloud: Understanding comics
I am not sure that this video presents anything new, but I love listening to intelligent people speak ...
Friday, October 11, 2013
Tuesday, September 10, 2013
Saturday, September 7, 2013
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