Tynkynk @ MindSay

Feels like it has been a while since we've had an installment of Things You Never Knew You Never Knew. Luckily for you, I am a dork and something came up today.

The weather here today is gorgeous; 80 degrees, bright and sunny, with a good breeze making it perfectly comfortable. After the humidity of the last couple days, it feels especially sweet. My mother, after finishing work, decided to turn off the air conditioning and open up the house. I was in the kitchen when she walked in and said, "guess I could open all these windies". She was referring to the windows in the kitchen and was just being silly (a pretty natural state for her) but it made me think: if she opens all the windows it will let in all this wind. So I said, "do you think windows are called that because they let in wind?"

Mom laughed and said, "I feel another blog coming on..."

So here's to mom. The etymology of window does in fact directly come from the word wind. The OED (remember my favorite dictionary...) gives the following etymology.

[ME. windo e, a. ON. vindauga, f. vindr WIND n.¹ + auga EYE n.¹ (See also WIND-DOOR, WINDORE, WINDOWN, WINNOCK.)

So in Old Norse, vindauga meant wind-eye and through the advent of the Viking Age, this term for a hole in a building that permitted you to look in or out was adopted into the English language and over time, was softened to the term we use today. That is what I took from the complete entry (some 7 pages long....not reprinting that here--you're welcome).

Therefore, a window is a hole in a building useful to the eye (allows you to see in or out) and also allows the wind to move in or out of the building. See how much you learn here at Livlife's Emporium of Useless Knowledge?

Here's your learnin' for the day, courtesy of Lisa, my co-worker.

She was sorting through some new children's books and came across this one: 

The Mysterious Universe: supernovae, dark energy and black holes, by Ellen Jackson.

One of the facts was talking about a supernova and that its aftermath can create a tiny star; called a neutron star. "Normal stars are made of ordinary atoms composed of a nucleus with electrons zipping around at a distance. In a neutron star, those atoms have been squashed together by gravity so tightly that the whole star is like one big, heavy, and very dense atomic nucleus. A teaspoon of material from a neutron star would weigh more than a pile of a billion cars."(p. 22)

Read that last sentence again. A TEASPOON of material from a neutron star weighs MORE than a pile of a BILLION cars. That is hard to wrap your mind around.

Now, let me show you its size.

The White Dwarf (the arc shown above an approximation of its relative size) is roughly the size of the earth and is incredibly dense on its own. One White Dwarf star weighs (in total) approximately the same as 300,000 earths. The neutron star (blue dot above) weighs the same as 500,000 earths. (p.23).

Come on..tell me you aren't fascinated.

Happy 4th of July!

Normally, this is the place where I would give you a bit of history or something about the holiday, but I kind of think that this is one that everybody knows. If you don't, well shame on you (unless you're not American, in which case....).

So instead I stopped by just to give out good wishes to all and to mention a couple things.

A) You may have noticed the look of the blog. Yep, I changed it right after the 100th post. I thought it was time for a facelift. Mostly, the hot pink was starting to wear on me, so I switched it up. Hope you like it.

B) I recieved an email from my friend Katie, featuring her daughter Sophia. I thought the picture was completely appropriate for the day and so Sophia makes her visual debut here tonight:

Isn't she just about the cutest little mascot ever?

And finally, because I couldn't resist, check out this fun fact sheet compiled by the Census Bureau.

That's it! Hope you all had a safe and fun holiday!

In our next installment of Things You Never Knew You Never Knew, I would like to teach you all a bit about Memorial Day. In honor of tomorrow being, well, Memorial Day.

I have to dedicate this one to my good friend Tom, who asked me to investigate this very thing.

So I learned that Memorial Day is a very old tradition, stretching back to May 5, 1868, after the end of the US Civil War. It was suggested and granted that a day be set aside to honor all of the fallen soldiers of that war. It wasn't until the end of World War I that the meaning was changed to honor soldiers from all American wars.

Orignially, the rememberance was called Decoration Day, as it was tradition to decorate the graves of the fallen soldiers. It was also originally observed on May 30, supposedly because on that day it was likely that flowers would be in bloom all over the country. It was not until 1971 that an act of Congress established it as an official national holiday, moved it to the last Monday in May, and renamed it Memorial Day; though many still refer to it as Decoration Day.

There are several traditions used to observe, including placing flowers on graves and flying flags at half-mast. It is in conjunction with this holiday that the song "Taps" has become known. The poppy flower has become "the flower of rememberance" as a result of the poem, "In Flanders Fields" and both are now well associated with Memorial Day.

After all of the reading I have done, it seems to me the most important thing to remember is that remembering is the most important thing we can do.  There are thousands of men and women who have died in service to our country and that is what we honor on this holiday.

I win.

Did you hear that?  I win. Yes, Zack, I am talking to you. I can't believe you would go up against me when you know I am always right.

Wondering what I'm talking about? Well, yesterday, my brother Zack was over visiting for Mother's Day. We got on the subject of mountains, I think because of a charades clue or something. Anyway, my dad brought up K2, and I said, "that's in Pakistan." Zack piped up and said, "no, that's in Nepal." I wasn't sure enough to argue, so I let it go, until Zack followed it up with, "it's the tallest mountain in the world." NO--it isn't.

I told him Everest was the tallest mountain in the world, but being Zack, he argued with me. Eventually, (to save the game) we let it go and moved on with our lives. But, it kept floating around in the back of my brain, so I looked it up.

Here it is: Everest is the tallest mountain in the world. (That's the "I win" part). It stands 29,029 feet tall. K2 is the second tallest mountain in the world at 28, 251 feet. Ha-Ha!

But then, there's this. K2 is located in...wait for it....Pakistan! Okay, it is actually on the border of Pakistan and China, but that's close enough for me. I win again. And Everest, well, turns out Everest is in Nepal. Which is fine, maybe Zack mixed the two up or something, but still, I feel that this was an all-around win for Team Olivia.