| Strawberry
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| 926189. Mon Jul 23, 2012 5:16 pm |
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| The lightning rod on top of the Empire State Building is struck an average of 23 times a year. |
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| tetsabb
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| 926724. Wed Jul 25, 2012 1:19 pm |
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23 is a very important aspect of the Illuminatus Trilogy by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson, first published in 1975.
Some would have it that 23 possesses mystical powers. Robert Anton Wilson himself dismissed the notion. |
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| Oceans Edge
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| 926728. Wed Jul 25, 2012 1:26 pm |
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| Robert Anton Wilson was the 'Pope Bob' of the Church of the SubGenius. |
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| Strawberry
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| 926731. Wed Jul 25, 2012 1:37 pm |
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| The Subgenius foundation was formed in 1979 by someone called Douglas St. Clair Smith and who now calls himself Ivan Stang. |
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| Spud McLaren
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| 926751. Wed Jul 25, 2012 4:16 pm |
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Arnold Stang (September 28, 1918 – December 20, 2009) was an American comic actor, whose comic persona was a small and bespectacled, yet brash and knowing big-city type. In one of the oddest movie pairings, he partnered with Arnold Schwarzenegger (billed as "Arnold Strong") in the latter's first film, the camp classic Hercules in New York (1970).
Stang was often a voice actor for animated cartoons. He is perhaps best known in this field as the voice of "T.C.," the sly alley cat in the Hanna-Barbera series Top Cat (modeled explicitely on Sgt. Bilko in The Phil Silvers Show). |
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| Strawberry
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| 926757. Wed Jul 25, 2012 4:52 pm |
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| Arnold Lobel was born in 1933 and died in 1987. He wrote and/ or illustrated over seventy books for children, including the Frog and Toad series. |
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| Oceans Edge
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| 926774. Wed Jul 25, 2012 5:58 pm |
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January 11, 1933 Sir Charles Kingsford Smith makes the first commercial flight between Australia and New Zealand.
'Smithy' was Australia's answer to Charles Limburgh, having made the first crossing of the Pacific in 1928. His aircraft a Fokker F.VII/3m monoplane named "Southern Cross" is on display in a glass box outside Brisbane's new International Airport. |
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| Strawberry
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| 926777. Wed Jul 25, 2012 6:07 pm |
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| On the 21st of January, 1933, the All Black American Bridge Association was founded. |
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| Spud McLaren
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| 926781. Wed Jul 25, 2012 6:22 pm |
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| Oceans Edge wrote: | | ...Charles Limburgh... |
A cheesy sort...
Do you mean him?
One of the great rarities of the British series is the 1933 penny. None were issued for general circulation, but seven were made: three proofs to place in foundation stones laid by the King and four currency issues. At least one of the proofs has been stolen (from the Church of St.Cross, Middleton, in 1970), but the other six are all accounted for. Just three (including one proof) are in private hands. |
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| Oceans Edge
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| 926796. Wed Jul 25, 2012 7:26 pm |
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| Malapropisms R Us |
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| Strawberry
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| 926825. Thu Jul 26, 2012 3:20 am |
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| For centuries, British coins had been made of sterling silver, i.e. .925 fine silver. In 1920, the silver coins were debased to .500 fine and they turned a greyish colour after being in circulation for a few years. |
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| Oceans Edge
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| 926942. Thu Jul 26, 2012 12:49 pm |
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There are a number of interesting possible etymologies for the term 'sterling silver'.
| Quote: | One of the earliest attestations of the term is in Old French form esterlin, in a charter of the abbey of Les Préaux, dating to either 1085 or 1104. The English chronicler Orderic Vitalis (1075 – c. 1142) uses the Latin forms libræ sterilensium and libræ sterilensis monetæ. The word in origin refers to the newly introduced Norman silver penny.
According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the most plausible etymology is derivation from a late Old English steorling (with (or like) a "little star"), as some early Norman pennies were imprinted with a small star. There are a number of obsolete hypotheses. One suggests a connection with starling, because four birds (in fact martlets) were depicted on a penny of Edward I, and another a supposed connection with easterling, a term for natives of the Baltic or the Hanse towns of eastern Germany. This etymology is itself medieval, suggested by Walter de Pinchebek (ca. 1300) with the explanation that the coin was originally made by moneyers from that region.
On the other hand, Philip Grierson, in his essay on Sterling, points out that the stars appeared on Norman pennies only for a single 3-year issue from 1077-80 (the Normans changed coin designs every 3 years), and that the star-theory thus fails on linguistic grounds: extensive research has been done on how coins acquire names, including nicknames. Grierson's proposed alternative involves an analogy with the Byzantine solidus, originally known the solidus aureaus meaning "solid gold" or "reliable gold". Even though English silver pennies had become famous for their consistent weight and purity in the days of Offa, King of Mercia, by the time of the Conquest English coinage had seriously degenerated. One of the first acts of the Normans was to restore the coinage to what it had been in the days of Offa and to maintain it consistently. Grierson thus proposes that "sterling" derives from "ster" meaning "strong" or "stout" |
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| Strawberry
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| 926945. Thu Jul 26, 2012 1:01 pm |
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| Hippocrates wrote that silver had beneficial healing and anti-disease properties. The expression 'born with a silver spoon in their mouth' stems from health rather than wealth status, as children fed with silver utensils were believed to be healthier. |
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| Oceans Edge
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| 935100. Sat Aug 25, 2012 3:35 pm |
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Whilst Hippocrates is a paramount figure in medicine; credited with being the first person to believe that diseases were caused naturally, not because of superstition and gods and the Hippocrates Corpus, accredited to him, (although now questionable) gives us the Hippocratic Oath which serves as the basis of the oaths and laws governing medical practice even today - his 'Koan' school of medicine which focused on treatment rather than diagnosis has much fallen out of favour in the modern age.
| Quote: | Ancient Greek schools of medicine were split (into the Knidian and Koan) on how to deal with disease. The Knidian school of medicine focused on diagnosis. Medicine at the time of Hippocrates knew almost nothing of human anatomy and physiology because of the Greek taboo forbidding the dissection of humans. The Knidian school consequently failed to distinguish when one disease caused many possible series of symptoms. The Hippocratic school or Koan school achieved greater success by applying general diagnoses and passive treatments. Its focus was on patient care and prognosis, not diagnosis. It could effectively treat diseases and allowed for a great development in clinical practice.
Hippocratic medicine and its philosophy are far removed from that of modern medicine. Now, the physician focuses on specific diagnosis and specialized treatment, both of which were espoused by the Knidian school. This shift in medical thought since Hippocrates' day has caused serious criticism over the past two millennia, with the passivity of Hippocratic treatment being the subject of particularly strong denunciations; for example, the French doctor M. S. Houdart called the Hippocratic treatment a "meditation upon death". |
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| Strawberry
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| 937039. Tue Sep 04, 2012 6:13 am |
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| Hippocrates was born on the island of Kos. Kos is the third largest island of the Dodekanese, located North of Rhodes at the southeast corner of the Aegean sea. |
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