Trivia & Miscellaneous

[David Baxter PhD]

I saw this story on CBC.

Nature is amazing. What an awesome and strange journey. I wonder what she was looking for. I hope she found it.

 

[Daniel E.]

The History of CTRL + ALT + DELETE - Mental Floss

... In the fall of 1981, the IBM PC hit shelves—a homely gray box beneath a monitor that spit out green lines of type. Marketing experts predicted that the company would sell a modest 241,683 units in the first five years; company execs thought that estimate was too optimistic. They were all wrong. IBM PC sales would reach into the millions, with people of all ages using the machines to play games, edit documents, and crunch numbers. Computing would never be the same.

And yet, few of these consumers were aware of Bradley’s shortcut quietly lingering in their machines. It wasn’t until the early 1990s, when Microsoft’s Windows took off, that the shortcut came to prominence. As PCs all over the country crashed and the infamous “blue screen of death” plagued Windows users, a quick fix spread from friend to friend: ctrl+alt+del. Suddenly, Bradley’s little code was a big deal. Journalists hailed “the three-finger salute” as a saving grace for PC owners—a population that kept growing...

 

[Daniel E.]

Straight leg raise - Wikipedia

The straight leg raise, also called Lasègue's sign, Lasègue test or Lazarević's sign, is a test done during a physical examination to determine whether a patient with low back pain has an underlying herniated disc, often located at L5 (fifth lumbar spinal nerve).

 

[Daniel E.]

"Large parrots and corvids have the same or greater forebrain neuron counts as monkeys with much larger brains."

Birds have primate-like numbers of neurons in the forebrain

 

[Daniel E.]

Noteworthy Women with Hearing Loss

Juliette Gordon Low, founder of the Girl Scouts of America, dealt with severe hearing loss throughout her life. At age 29, a grain of rice thrown at her wedding punctured her eardrum and caused her to go deaf in one ear. However, Juliette never let her hearing loss slow her down, and founded the Girl Scouts in 1912.

 

[Daniel E.]

Why concert tickets have gotten so expensive

 

[Daniel E.]

Béarnaise sauce - Wikipedia

Béarnaise sauce is a sauce made of clarified butter emulsified in egg yolks and white wine vinegar and flavored with herbs. It is considered to be a "child" of the mother Hollandaise sauce, one of the five mother sauces in the French haute cuisine repertoire.

 

[Daniel E.]

The Origins of Wearing Your Heart on Your Sleeve

In the Middle Ages, Emperor Claudius II believed unattached men made better soldiers so he declared marriage illegal. As a concession, he encouraged temporary coupling. Once a year, during a Roman festival honoring Juno, men drew names to determine who would be their lady friend for the coming year. Once established, the man would wear her name on his sleeve for the rest of the festival.

 

[Daniel E.]

Investors Need to Rethink Retail Stocks Amid a Shakeout in Stores - Barrons

 

[Daniel E.]

The Absurdity of the Nobel Prizes in Science

In 2003, one Ray Damadian took out a series of full-page ads in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and the Los Angeles Times to protest that he had been wrongfully denied a Nobel Prize in Medicine for his role in inventing magnetic resonance imaging. The Nobel committee only recognized Paul Lauterbur and Peter Mansfield for that feat--an omission that Damadian billed as a "shameful wrong that must be righted." "To wake up on Monday morning and see that I had been written out of history is an agony I cannot live with," he told the Times.

 

[GaryQ]

Interesting follow up on the prizes awarded in psychology (thought personally censored)

 

[Daniel E.]

KFC canned healthier items in 5th-biggest market as nobody bought them - Business Insider
Sep 13, 2019

KFC says it took several healthier, non-fried products off menus in the UK because nobody was buying them...

KFC UK has found that the best way to lure customers toward healthier options is by the "health by stealth" technique where fast-food chains very slowly lower fat, calorie, and salt levels over time.

She also added that KFC UK once altered its chips to be thicker, so they absorbed less oil, which cut calories by 18% and fat by 12%, but that the move received "a lot of grief."

 

[Daniel E.]

We Are All Princes, Paupers, and Part of the Human Family

Geneticist Luke Jostins did a nice mathematical analysis and estimated that you have only about a 12 percent chance of being genetically related to an ancestor 10 generations ago; by the time you get to a 14-generation ancestor, the probability is nearly zero.

 

[David Baxter PhD]

@gooblax @Daniel

I was curious and a bit bored so I did some research.

Milo, Ovaltine or Horlicks? The Malted Milk Wars

What do Ovaltine, Horlicks, and Milo have in common? They were born in the West (Switzerland, US, and Australia respectively, if Wikipedia hasn’t failed me, although today Ovaltine and Horlicks are owned by British companies), are very popular in the East (in addition to their birth countries…and…elsewhere), and less so in the US. They’re all powder-based malted milk drinks, although Ovaltine and Milo are chocolate flavored and Horlicks isn’t. But Starbucks chose to go with Ovaltine and Horlicks isntead of Milo here in Singapore for their cakes. Why? My suspicion is the brand. Milo has a very strong brand cache among the three. So with it, probably came a little bit more money to co-promote and co-market. The other two brands were probably a little bit more willing, flexible and if licensing fees were involved, then a lot cheaper.

In fact, go to any coffee shop here in Singapore and you can order it by name. Iced Milo, Hot Milo etc. But for the other two it really depends if they have it.

I've had both Ovaltine and Horlicks many years ago in Canada and in England but I really prefer hot chocolate (aka cocoa). The other two just taste like watered down cocoa to me.

But apparently, Milo is available in Canada:

Milo | madewithnestle.ca

The world’s leading chocolate malt beverage that can be prepared with hot or cold milk or water.

MILO provides great taste, along with energy, vitamins and minerals for the maintenance of good health.

And apparently you can order it online.

 

[gooblax]

And apparently you can order it online.

This is one time when I'd advocate "just because you can, it does mean you should."

 

[David Baxter PhD]

I thought you liked Milo?

 

[gooblax]

I do. Perhaps you misread my attempt to alter the usual saying...?

Although I don't consider Milo to be a substitute for actual chocolate milk or hot chocolate, so that is an important distinction to make.

 

[David Baxter PhD]

Ah yes I did miss that.

And I agree with your distinction. Malted milk is not hot chocolate.

But I might give it a try just for variety...

 

[Daniel E.]

And Milo cans are perfect for unexpected trick or treaters (along with American quarters)

 

[David Baxter PhD]

That's nasty... like giving out apples to little kids when all they want is the dang candy!