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Pancakes on Wednesdays
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Welcome to Pancakes on Wednesdays. Wednesday, February 4, 2004 |
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Here is an amalgamation of trivial facts and seemingly useless data. Do not forget to hit the hyperlinks. We have links, lots of them. 
From the Radixionary |
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The art of counting on the fingers. To describe it so is to severely underestimate the skill of those who employed this technique. For it was not just a matter of using the whole finger, as some of us still do when we suffer temporary numerical embarrassment. After all, every finger has a knuckle, two joints and three bones (one joint and two bones for the thumb) and all of them, on both hands, were used to count up to 9,999. There are descriptions of the method from the Middle East, Asia and other places, and by the Venerable Bede from the north-east of England in the eighth century AD. Paintings exist from more than four thousand years ago showing Egyptians counting in this way, and we know it was common in classical Greece and Rome. Related methods were used in some civilizations to negotiate prices between buyer and seller, with the hands hidden under a cloth, in a serious exchange reminiscent of paper-scissors-stone, or that ancient finger game called morra in Italy. The word is from Greek daktulos, finger, plus –nomia, related to nomos, law, that we use to mark some specified area of knowledge. |
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| Happy Birthday Fernand Léger 1881 
He painted objects in space without perspective or support: `the real subject is the object.' Later in life he began to free himself from his fear of the machine, and he painted, in brilliant colors, humans and animals attempting to struggle clear of the geometry of the mechanized world |
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| Happy Birthday Charles Lindbergh 1902 Early in the morning on May 20, 1927 Charles A. Lindbergh took off in The Spirit of St. Louis from Roosevelt Field near New York City. Flying northeast along the coast, he was sighted later in the day flying over Nova Scotia and Newfoundland. From St. Johns, Newfoundland, he headed out over the Atlantic, using only a magnetic compass, his airspeed indicator, and luck to navigate toward Ireland. The flight had captured the imagination of the American public like few events in history. Citizens waited nervously by their radios, listening for news of the flight. When Lindbergh was seen crossing the Irish coast, the world cheered and eagerly anticipated his arrival in Paris. A frenzied crowd of more than 100,000 people gathered at Le Bourget Field to greet him. When he landed, less than 34 hours after his departure from New York, Lindbergh became the first person to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean. 
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I am an excellent driver. Born Texas, USA, Nelson is remembered as one of the most consistent golfers of all time.
Nelson's is a remarkable story. He grew up close to Ben Hogan and both men caddied at the same golf club. Although Nelson turned professional in 1932. 
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Happy Birthday Rosa Parks 1913 In the long struggle against segregation, there was only one "Mother of the Civil Rights Movement." In 1955, a 42-year-old African-American seamstress engaged in a simple act of civil disobedience that launched a pivotal event in the civil rights movement. 
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Happy Birthday Dick Seaman 1913 I am an excellent driver.
The 1934 ex Dick Seaman 1935 Mille Miglia team car entered by Dean Butler |
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As a yuppie opened the door of his BMW, a car suddenly raced by, smashed the door and tore it off. When police arrived, the yuppie cried: "Look what they've done to my precious Beemer!"
"You yuppies are so materialistic, you make me sick!" the officer replied. "You're so worried about your darned BMW, you haven't even noticed that your left arm has been ripped off!"
"Ohmygod!" cried the yuppie, staring at his bloody shoulder.
"Where's my Rolex?!"
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Happy Birthday Ida Lupino 1918 
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| Happy Birthday Today's Wednesday field trip takes us to Mad Ludwig's Castle... 
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Happy Birthday Betty Friedan 1921 The housewives Betty Friedan interviewed in the '60s expressed an existential emptiness at the core. They stayed at home and defined themselves by what their husbands did and what their families needed. Within that decade, though, a new women's movement would convince half of all Americans that it wasn't they themselves who had the problem. It was the patriarchy: a male-dominated system that confined women to a support role they didn't even realize they were playing. 
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Happy Birthday
Conrad Bain 1923 
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Roses are red
Violets are blue
a to the n plus b to the n does not equal
c to the n for all n greater than two |
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Happy Birthday Gary Conway 1936 
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Japanese Ice cream Chicken Wing Ice Cream (Nagoya Tebasaki) Nagoya is famous for its poultry, so it shouldn't come as a surprise that the taste of this ice cream is best described as foul. It actually tastes like a fried chicken wing, which is fine if that's what you're eating, but not if you're tucking into some ice cream. Would you like some Octopus or Eel with your Ice Cream? 
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| Happy Birthday Florence LaRue (The Fifth Dimension) 1944 
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Mixin' pancakes,
Stirrin' pancakes,
Pop 'em in the pan;
Fryin' pancakes,
Flippin' pancakes,
Catch 'em if you can! |
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Happy Birthday Alice Cooper 1948 
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Happy Birthday
Pamela Franklin 1950 Although now (unfortunately) a mere footnote in film history, Pamela Franklin had at one time both the ability and the momentum to have gone all the way to the top of her profession. Born in Tokyo, Japan on February 4, 1950 to British parents, Pamela Franklin spent her childhood living in Hong Kong, Australia, and Ceylon. 
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About a Hundred Dollars! Recently, THE UNCOVEROR sent three staff members to Horse Branch, Arkansas. They were to investigate a rash of bizarre livestock birth defects, including a two-headed calf, and Siamese triplet piglets. The Horse Branch Inn, the only motel in town, had only one room available. The three men had to share it. They were initially told that the room would cost thirty dollars. Each man gave the clerk ten. After a while, the clerk realized that he had overcharged them. The actual price of the room was twenty six dollars. He instructed the cleaning lady to take our investigative team their money back, totaling four dollars. She realized that she could not divide four dollars evenly among three men. They decided to let her keep one as a tip. Each man got back one dollar. At first nothing seemed strange, but the more staff writer, Randolph Carter Smith thought about it, he was sure something did not add up. Initially, each man had paid ten dollars for the room, 10+10+10=30 
After they had their refunds, each man had paid nine dollars for the room. 9+9+9=27. They tipped the cleaning lady one dollar. 27+1=28! 
There were supposed to be thirty. Two dollars were missing. We have racked our brains trying to figure this out. Smith thinks this is a curious mathematical conundrum that a mathematician could probably explain. His partners, Investigator, Randall Johnson, and photographer, William Power are sure this is some kind of new scam being run by motel owners. They want an explanation of where the two dollars went. The team was so dismayed, and confused that they forgot to investigate the mutant livestock! |
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One of the pivotal events that helped bring about the American Revolution took place on March 5, 1770. This event was the Boston Massacre. The patriots would use this incident to further their cause of fighting against British tyranny. |
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Happy Birthday Lawrence Taylor 1959 We are counting cards. 
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Don't forget the Maple Syrup Photosynthate is largely composed of large molecules (sucrose) that are expensive to transport and is moved by a process called TRANSLOCATION from sites of synthesis (source) to sites of use or storage (sink) via the PHLOEM A. The evidence: Aphid experiments and maple syrup and C14 labeled CO2 studies. The flow rate is about 1 meter per hour which is too fast for diffusion. B. Girdling blocks translocation  |
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On this day: 1783 - Britain declared a formal cessation of hostilities with its former colonies, the United States of America. |
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On this day Treaty of Paris 
Cornwallis surrenders to Washington at Yorktown. The real cessation of hostilities 
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On this day 1789 - Electors unanimously chose George Washington to be the first president of the United States. 
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| On this day 1847 - In Maryland, the first U.S. Telegraph Company was established. 
.--. .- -. -.-. .- -.- . ... --- -. .-- . -.. -. . ... -.. .- -.-- ... Pancakes on Wednesdays |
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On this day:
1901 - "Captain Jinks of the Horse Marines" opened in New York City. 
Captain Jinks of the Horse Marines
I'm Captain Jinks of the Horse Marines
I feed my horse on corn and beans,
And sport young ladies in their teens
Tho' a Captain in the Army.
I teach the ladies how to dance
How to dance, how to dance
I teach the ladies how to dance
For I'm the pet of the Army
cho: I'm Captain Jinks of the Horse Marines
I feed my horse on corn and beans,
And often live beyond my means
Tho' a Captain in the Army.
I joined the Corps when twenty-one
Of course I thought it capital fun
When the enemy comes, of course I run
For I'm not cut out for the Army.
When I left home, mamma she cried
Mamma she cried, mamma she cried,
When I left home, mamma she cried,
"He's not cut out for the Army."
The first time I went out for drill
The bugler sounding made me ill
Of the battlefield I'd had my fill
For I'm not cut out for the Army,
The officers, they all did shout
They all did shout, they all did shout,
The officers, they all did shout,
"Why, kick him out of the Army!" |
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On this day:
The Russo-Japanese War of 1904-05, which began with the Japanese naval attack on Port Arthur, had its roots in the simultaneous determination of both Japan and Russia to develop 'spheres of influence' in the Far East, mainly at the expense of China. |
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1936 - Radium E. became the first radioactive substance to be produced synthetically.
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