Did u know dat

Counting the inches

The word “ton” is derived from the French “tonnerre,” or “thunder,” from the sound wine barrels made when rolled. But there are various standards of a ton. You get a long ton, a short ton and metric ton. A US ton, the short ton, is equivalent to 2000 pounds (907.185 kilograms). A British ton, the long ton or gross ton, is 2240 pounds (1016.047 kilograms) because there are 112 pounds in their hundredweight.
The United States, Great Britain and Canada each also had their own definition of the inch. It was only in 1958 that the inch was standardized to 25.4 millimetres exactly. A problem still exists for the foot, where the International Foot is based on the 25.4 mm inch, but the Survey Foot – aka the U.S. Survey Foot – is based on the 25.40005 mm inch. One International Foot equals 0.999998 U.S. Survey Feet. Over 100 miles (160 km) they differ by 1.05 ft (32 cm). Read more

Number of churches and mosques in New York City

New York City is the most linguistically and religiously diverse city in the world. The 8.4 million inhabitants communicate in some 800 different languages across the five boroughs – the Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens, and Staten Island. New York is also a religious city: 83% of New Yorkers are affiliated to some organized religion. This is a rate of adherents larger than that of the state, New York State (75%), and one of the highest in the entire United States.
Christians comprise about 70% of the population; 40% of whom are Catholic and 30% Protestant. They attend approximately 2000 churches and 4000 informal places of worship such as community halls and homes, thus a total of some 6000 churches. New York City also boasts the world’s largest cathedral, the Episcopal Church of St John the Divine.
12% of New Yorker claim Jewish decent. There are more Jews in New York City than there are in the Jerusalem city limits. They have more than 1000 synagogues – 70% permanent and 30% temporary places – at their service. Read more

Funny words in the computer world

There are some funny words in the computer world. A brouter is a network bridge and a router combined in a single product. A glyph is a graphic symbol that provides the appearance or form for an alphabetic or numeric font. (“Glyph” is from a Greek word for “carving.”) A moof monster is a vague and indefinable source of trouble for users of information technology. A jughead is a tool used by researchers for searching information on gopher sites. Not gopher the squirrel but the old information retrieval system called Gopher, predecessor to the World Wide Web.
A kludge (pronounced kloodzh) is an awkward or clumsy (but at least temporarily effective) solution to a programming or hardware design or implementation problem. A Flying Ice Cube is what lives inside computers of scientists trying to simulate molecules. At the office, a Boss Key is the key you hit to quickly hide something when you see your boss or uninvited coworker approaching.
Although two of the most famous names in the computer world – the Internet world, more precisely – are now plainly familiar they did sound funny in their early days. Read more

Did you know?

August is baby month We bid a hearty welcome to the millions of new earthlings who arrive in August, the month with the highest birth rate. You are the proud results of a joyous Christmas season… even if your parents did not put up Christmas trees. 19.5% of new August babies are born in India and 11.6% in China, [...]

Factoids

Counting the inches The word “ton” is derived from the French “tonnerre,” or “thunder,” from the sound wine barrels made when rolled. But there are various standards of a ton. You get a long ton, a short ton and metric ton. A US ton, the short ton, is equivalent to 2000 pounds (907.185 kilograms). A British ton, the [...]

Famous

Airline passenger facts and the Steven Slater effect Major airlines are required by law to employ flight attendants for the safety and security of their passengers. Passenger safety is the flight attendant’s first priority. Seeing to the comforts and whims of passengers is a secondary priority for the the flight attendant. A challenging task, in the least, considering the needs of the 2 [...]

Food

Cooking tips to fix those spoils If a soup or stew is too salty, add raw cut potatoes. Discard them after they have cooked – they will have absorbed the salt. If a soup or stew is too sweet, add salt. If a main dish or vegetable is too sweet, add a teaspoon of cider vinegar. Can’t remember if an egg [...]

Money

Odd-price tickets of items started by newspaper publisher When Melville Stone started the Chicago Daily News in 1875, the price was a penny. At first, circulation was high but then dropped off sharply. Stone discovered that the problem was a shortage of pennies in the area. He brought in barrels of pennies and then persuaded merchants to start an “odd-price sale,” selling goods [...]

Nature

You can take photographs of mirages In a desert a mirage is caused when air near the ground is hotter than air higher up. As light from the sun passes from cooler to warmer air it speeds up and is refracted upward, creating the image of water. Mirages are also found at the poles. A warmer layer of air over a [...]

Technology

Funny words in the computer world There are some funny words in the computer world. A brouter is a network bridge and a router combined in a single product. A glyph is a graphic symbol that provides the appearance or form for an alphabetic or numeric font. (“Glyph” is from a Greek word for “carving.”) A moof monster is a vague [...]

Vehicles

Were the Wright Brothers the first to fly? Wilbur and Orville Wright weren’t just lucky to make the first flight. They played with flying paper models in their youth, and by 1901 they had made hundreds of wind tunnel tests. In 1902, their glider was the biggest flying machine ever built. Orville Wright wrote, “We now hold all the records! The largest machine…the [...]