March 2010
428 posts
February 2010
214 posts
Jost Bürgi, Swiss astronomer and clockmaker, was born February 28, 1552. In telecommunications, there are such things as slave and master clocks. The master clock emits pulses that keep the other clocks on the same time. They are commonly used in schools.
Nike Drake - Time Has Told Me
walk the line
Acrobat and tightrope walker Charles Blondin was born today in 1824. He was the first man to walk across Niagra Falls, 2,000 feet in the air. He performed this show many times, with variations including blindfolded, or with a man on his back, or eating an omlet.
Tightrope walking is also called funambulism. I was going to write how his bravery should inspire us all to push ourselves to our...
map of the world
French cartographer Guillaume Delisle was born February 28, 1675. Other map makers of his time did not know how to properly utilize information from astronomers in respect to scale, and Delisle implemented new principles to his study, and the result was a set of entirely new pictures of the world.
For today: maybe you’re not seeing the whole picture.
muscle building for beginners
British Bodybuilder Oscar Heidenstam was born today in 1911. He wrote Muscle Building for Beginners.
Muscle memory is also called neuromuscular facilitation, and it is the system’s ability to memorize motor skills. There are two types of motor movement: fine and gross. Fine motor movements involve minute muscle groups and gross movements use large parts of the body’s muscle...
Rain, Donald Hall
poetry365:
Curled on the sofa, In the fetal position, Jane wept day And night, night and day. I could not touch her, I could do nothing. Melancholia fell Like rain over Ireland for weeks Without end. I never Belittled her sorrows or joshed at Her dreads and miseries. How admirable I found myself.
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Numerology and Scientific Celebrity
Italian psychologist Roberto Assagioli was born February 27, 1888. He introduced psychosynthesis.
Also born today, Dr Charles Best, in Maine in 1899. He and colleague Frederick Banting discovered insulin. In February 27, 1904, Russian physicist Yulii Borisovich Khariton was born, chief designer of the Soviet atomic bomb.
This is a photograph of the first Russian atomic test, Первая...
she'll be waiting in Istanbul
Constantine the first was born today, February 27 in the third century in Naissus.
Colossus of Constantine
horoscopes →
Henry Gustav Molaison was born today in 1926. He is better known in medical texts as H.M., an epileptic patient who lacked the ability to form new memories after a surgery to help stop his seizures. That was successful, but he then suffered from anterograde amnesia. He could learn new motor skills, but couldn’t remember learning them. Since his death, his brain has been involved in an...
lonesome cowboy bill
February 26th is also the birthday of Buffalo Bill and Johnny Cash. The two-day American Crossword Puzzle Tournament starts today at the Brooklyn Bridge Marriott, and the 24th annual Texas Cowboy Poetry Gathering begins in Alpine, Texas. I wouldn’t mind being at either of these conventions during tomorrow’s full moon.
Johnny Cash - Man in Black
Suicide Song by Tong Hogaland But now I am afraid I know too much to kill myself Though I would still like to jump off a high bridge At midnight, or paddle a kayak out to sea Until I turn into a speck, or wear a necktie made of knotted rope But people would squirm, it would hurt them in some way And I am too knowledgable now to hurt people imprecisely No longer do I live by the law of me ...
initiative comes to thems that wait
Author Anthony Burgess was born February 25, 1917. He wrote A Clockwork Orange.
Patti Smith - 25th Floor
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Numerology and Scientific Celebrity
The Cavendish experiment: Henry Cavendish died today in 1810. He discovered hydrogen, leading to the realization that water and air are mixtures rather than elements. He was also the first to measure the force of gravity, and the mass of the earth. The Air Up There
24 is the number of karats in pure gold, the number of frames per second in the average film, the number of cycles in a...
lbj and lady bird?
Today is the Romanian holiday of love, Dragobete. It’s known as the day when “birds are betrothed” — the day the birds nest and mate, and the first day of spring. Those who join in the celebration are supposed to be protected from illness for the rest of the year.
brothers grimm
The younger Grimm, Wilhelm, was born today in Germany in 1786. The above statue is of Liesel, the goose princess, and she stands in Gottingen, where both brothers taught at the university.
Watch
Jacques de Vaucanson was born today in France in 1709. He built the first automatic loom, and is credited as the builder of the first true robots. Initially conceived as androids to serve and clear dinner, he made the life-sized Flute Player, who could play twelve songs, and later The Tambourine Player and The Digesting Duck. Yup, it pooped.
For today: why don’t you see what...
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the legacy of personal space
Today is the Ancient Roman holiday Terminalia, a festival held in honor of the god Terminus, the god who protects boundary markers. Wolves use excrement to mark their borders. I guess it’s better than poop, but since sacrifice was involved, it was probably just as messy.
It’s the 23rd. Julius Caesar was stabbed 23 times. You don’t need to join the Tough Brets or anything,...
