Have you ever worn out a magnetic card? You can ask your bank for a new one but it usually takes a few days. In the meantime, you can put a piece of clear tape or use some receipt paper from the cashier to cover the magnetic stripe while the card is swiped.

Usually, the cashier will do this for you, but if not then you can ask them to try it. Some may even use a plastic bag, but any thin barrier may work. Be sure it’s very thin so it doesn’t get jammed in the card reader.

Many people know about this little trick; the real secret is why it works…

As a magnetic card gets used, the magnetically charged particles get smeared. This smearing repeated many times creates  magnetic noise which distorts the data when read. The magnetic strength of the noise is low enough that a small barrier can block or reduce it enough to get a proper reading from the card.

For a bit of anecdotal evidence, I worked retail back in college and I used this trick hundreds of times — it worked nearly every time.

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Sources: creditcards.com, wired magazine (Nov 2011)

Finding the shelf life or expiry date on something in your fridge can be challenging. It’s much easier to find the product life on personal items like shampoo, mouthwash, body wash, cosmetics, etc. You won’t find it on all products of this type in North America, but it is a requirement in Europe so you will see it on many products that share global packaging.

The “Period After Opening Symbol” is a standard icon that indicates how many months (M) or years (Y) the product is good after opening. The product must remain harmless to its user within this period.

Now, you just have to remember when you opened it.

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Sources: wikipedia (PAOS)

I’ve been saving hotel key cards for years because I want to see exactly what is on them.

Years ago, somebody told me that hotel room access cards contained personal info and credit card data. The rumor was that this info was necessary for you to charge items to your room during your stay.

I recently got my hands on a magnetic card reader and started swiping all my old cards. The results fit into three categories.

1. 77% of all the cards could not be read at all. This should not be a surprise to anyone who has ever stayed in a hotel with magnetic card keys; some are notoriously poor at holding their magnetic charge. Another reason they may appear blank is that some systems use non-standard data encoding which make it difficult for an ISO card reader to extract information. Whether the charge is weak, distorted or proprietary, specialized card readers may be able to extract data from these cards. Still, that data would likely fall into one of the two following categories.

2. The information on the card is encrypted or written in a proprietary format. 8% of the cards did yield data of this sort. This makes it extremely difficult to see the meaningful data. Even if you could decode the data, it would still likely fall into category three.

3. Most of the data on the card is unreadable to humans. The other 15% of cards were in this group. The only numbers that could be recognized on any given hotel card were the expiration date, which I was able to match up with my checkout dates from old travel confirmation emails. The expiration date is used by the door lock to ignore your card after you’re supposed to be checked out. If you’ve ever tried to get back into your room after checkout time, you have seen this in action.

Here’s what the data on a hotel card looks like. I highlighted the expiration date which is in yy/mm/dd format:

1122725628023063=1012051500001742

From my research, the remaining numbers on the card can include the room number itself, although I didn’t see any cards where this number was evident, along with a code the door lock uses to grant access to the room and sometimes a code used for billing charges to your room. Generally, the door locks are battery powered and don’t have a link to the reservation computer — the key cards are the only external source of data used to unlock the door.

In many cases, if you watch the hotel employee program your card at check-in they use a standalone device that is completely separate from their computer system. The room number, nights of stay and number of cards being issued are punched in before they program your card. If the card programer is integrated with the computer system then it’s likely just to improve speed and reduce human error since the agent wouldn’t have to manually enter your room data.

Card programmers that integrate with the computer system are also popular at resorts where the key card can be used to make room charges. Your actual credit card info is not on the card. That is against the policy of most credit card companies, not to mention it’s unnecessary. As long as the card identifies you, the charges can be added to your bill. I scanned a couple resort cards which could be used for room charges and found no personal data.

The door locks themselves often store a log of which keys accessed the room and when. So, you should still treat your card with care and let the staff know if it’s lost or stolen. You wouldn’t want somebody else to access your room with your key since the log just knows which key was used, not who used it. The hotel staff typically have a unique key so they can be differentiated from you in the log.

The idea that these cards do contain personal info seems to be a myth perpetuated by a misunderstanding of a credit card fraud presentation that suggested any type of magnetic card could be programmed with stolen credit card info. That said, there are some specific claims of personal info being found on hotel key cards. The Pasadena, California police department mentioned one case in it’s retraction about a previous email indicating hotel key cards could be an identity theft risk. The other case was reported by Robert L Mitchell at Computerworld. For legal and business reasons, his source could not provide proof or indicate the names of the hotels where he claimed to find personal info on the key cards.

There is truth to the idea that the cards could have personal data written to them. Technically, you could write any type of data to magnetic cards. In fact, I scanned every magnetic card I could find: credit, debit, loyalty club, membership, etc. All of my bank related cards and one of my airline loyalty cards did have my full name programmed into the magnetic strip.

I wasn’t too worried about that since my name is also on the front of these cards for anyone to read. I shred anything personally identifiable before I throw it out and these cards would be no different. I didn’t find any cards with any personal info magnetically programmed on them that wasn’t also on the front.

All of my results, including the exact percentage of readable cards, match up with Robert L Mitchell’s findings at Computerworld.com. Robert interviewed a number of industry experts and they stated that it is extremely unlikely that any travelers in the US would find personal private information on their hotel key cards. That’s not to say it’s impossible, but they weren’t convinced the probability was high enough for anybody to worry about it.

While most experts agree that current systems are likely very secure, there is suspicion in the industry that very old card key access systems from years past may not have been as secure and these systems may have included personal information on the cards. Although there are a couple unproven claims to the contrary, I cannot find any demonstrable proof that hotel key cards have any personal info on them.

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Sources: nytimes, consumer affairs, Computerworld (2005, 2006), snopes.com

In South Korea, it is a commonly held belief that an electric fan can cause death if it is blowing on you overnight in a closed room.

To prevent “fan death”, the Korean government’s Consumer Protection Board urges everyone to leave a door or window open and use the oscillate function or a timer that automatically shuts the fan off. They also list fan death as one of the top five fatal summer accidents.

The exact origin of this phenomenon is not known for sure, although it allegedly emerged in the 1970s. Some people believe the Korean government may have created this ideology in an effort to save energy during the energy crisis. Oh, and fan death is not limited to just fans, it also includes air conditioners.

South Korean media outlets credit fans and air conditioners for deaths too. In fact, between 2003 and 2005, some 20 deaths were reported to Korea’s Consumer Injury Surveillance System.

Many experts in South Korea firmly believe in fan death, including respected doctors and scientists. South Koreans don’t always agree on why fans can cause death but the following theories are often cited.

Hypothermia is a common one. It’s true that if your body temperature drops low enough, you can die. However, experts claim your body temperature needs to drop by about 16°F (10°C) for this to happen. Since fans don’t actually cool the air, it is not plausible that a fan could cause this temperature drop by convection cooling alone. Not to mention, people frequently asleep outside in much cooler temperatures and survive without question.

That leads to the asphyxiation theory — the belief that somehow these fans reduce the available oxygen in the room. There is no scientific proof to suggest this is true. In North America, the believe is almost the opposite since fans are often recommended to help babies sleep (as a source of white noise).

Another theory is that fan deaths are actually suicides, but reported as fan deaths in the media to spare the family from any cultural shame associated with suicide.

A fourth theory is that the fan combined with hot air creates a convection oven like effect, raising a person’s body temperature, causing them to sweat until they are dehydrated. This theory is interesting because it’s kind of the opposite of the first theory and it could theoretically work, but not likely in South Korea. You see, the highest average temperature in South Korea is about 84°F (29°C), which is still well below body temperature and well below the temperature where the body will start to shut down and die (around 107°F / 42°C). The highest officially recorded temperature in South Korea is 104°F (40°C), just slightly above core body temperature.

The same way a fan doesn’t cool air, it also doesn’t heat it, it just speeds up the transfer of heat between the air temperature and your body. That is why you can cook something in a convection oven at a lower temperature — the fan doesn’t make it hotter, it just improves the transfer of heat. In a traditional oven you need to use a higher temperature setting to make up for the fact that still air doesn’t transfer heat nearly as well.

During extremely hot weather, heat can cause fatalities. Because fans can increase the rate at which your body temperature increases, the EPA does caution against using a fan at temperatures above 90°F (32°C). Don’t mistake this as a suggestion that fans can kill you — you are at risk of dying in extreme heat whether you use a fan or not. In terms of Korean fan death, the 90°F warning is still 6° higher than the average high temperature in South Korea.

It is interesting that this theory is so prevalent in just one country. Most people outside of South Korea do not believe in fan death and there does not seem to be any scientific evidence that a fan will kill you while you sleep.

Do you believe it? Let us know in the comments.

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Sources: wikipedia (Fan Death), snopes, ask a korean, FanDeath.net, cpb.or.kr, ggweather.com, weather.com

Photo: db0yd13 (cc)

If you have ever gone swimming for several hours or taken a really long bath, then you are probably familiar with the phenomenon referred to as “pruney fingers” or “raisin fingers.” A common explanation for this wrinkling of the hands (and feet) is that the skin absorbs excess water when submerged, which causes it to expand. This expansion increases the surface area of the skin, thereby resulting in wrinkles. So while these pruney fingertips may have the appearance of being shrunken or shriveled, they are actually larger than they were when dry. It has been suggested that fingers and toes are more susceptible to this effect than other areas of the body due at least in part to a lack of hair follicles, which produce sebum – an oily secreted substance that may act as a temporary protective barrier against water absorption.

But water uptake is only part of the story. As early as the 1930s, scientists noted that patients with palsy-related nerve damage in their hands showed no signs of water-induced wrinkling in the areas specifically affected by the impaired nerves. This insight suggested that the nervous system is actively involved in the wrinkling process, and additional research has shown that vasoconstriction – narrowing of the blood vessels – plays a role as well. A modern view of raisin fingers goes something like this: prolonged immersion leads to excess water uptake by the skin; the resulting electrolyte imbalance causes neurons to fire more rapidly, which causes blood vessels to constrict, thereby reducing blood flow underneath the skin and leading to a decrease in skin tension, thus causing wrinkling. This process is clearly more complicated than simple water-induced swelling, which is probably why most people have never heard about it. The complete physiological mechanism of action is likely a combination of water-induced swelling and vasoconstriction.

But none of this explains why fingers that look like little dried fruits should be a part of our biology in the first place. A new theory (put forth in a recent article in the journal Brain, Behavior and Evolution) proposes that wrinkles on the fingers and toes may actually act as miniature drainage channels to displace water and increase grip in wet conditions, similar to the rain treads on the tires of a car. In other words, when your fingers and toes get really wet, they wrinkle up to counteract the slickness of the water. Additional work still needs to be done for the theory to become more widely accepted, but it appears that the raisiny morphology may be an evolutionary adaptation for life in slippery environments.

As a professional bioengineer I feel inclined to run my own experiments, but I’m still waiting for my hot tub/climbing wall grant to go through.

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Sources: Amazing Health Trivia, WonderQuest, Wikipedia, Nature, 1Mark Changizi, et al

Image: Brian Zambrano (cc)

Sailors have it easy these days — an inexpensive GPS will tell you how fast your ship is travelling. Heck, even your smartphone can do it if you have the right app. That’s how I clocked the car ferry on Lake Michigan at 35 mph (56 km/h) last summer.

However, a blackberry could not measure your speed 450 years ago. That required a “chip log” (aka “ship log” or “log”). This was a spool of rope attached to a small piece of wood. The sailors would place the wood in the water where it would drag in the water, unspooling the knotted rope. One sailer count the knots passing over the haul and another would use a 30 second sandglass to measure the time. They had a table to lookup the speed (“knots”) based on the number of knots that passed by.

Although the method has changed significantly, the units are still called “knots.” To put that in a way that might have more meaning, one nautical mile translates to 1.151 miles or 1.852 km.

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Sources: wikipedia (knots, chip log)

Photo: Rémi Kaupp (gnu license)

Although we typically use QR codes with our mobile phones, they were actually invented by a Japanese company (Denso) for tracking products during manufacturing. Even though they’ve been around since 1994, QR codes have only started to become popular in North America in the past few years. They’re also known as “matrix”, “2d” or “square” barcodes.

Traditional 1 dimensional barcodes are very limited in the amount of information they can store in a small space, generally an 8-24 digit number. The number in a traditional bar code is really only useful if you have a database or table where you can lookup that number to get more meaningful information, such as the price of the item at a grocery store. QR codes can contain a lot more data.

They’re called Quick Response codes because the data is in the code and it doesn’t have to be looked up in a table to be meaningful. For example, the QR code in this article contains a URL to another post on the blog related to bar codes. When you scan it with your phone’s QR app, your phone can decode the image into the URL, no remote lookup is required. QR codes can also be used to get text or send sms text messages and dial phone numbers.

These codes appear on everything from magazine and TV advertisements to product packaging and restaurant menus. But, one of my favorite places to see QR codes are alongside street addresses. Instead of typing the long address in your phone and risking a wild-goose chase inducing typo, scan the code and go.

So, how do you get your phone to interpret these codes? Here are the names of a couple QR reading apps on each of the major platforms.

Android: QR Droid, mobiScan QR

iOS: RedLaser, pic2shop

BlackBerry: QR Code Scanner Pro, mobiletag 2D barcodes scanner

Windows: QR Reader, Quickmark

Microsoft also has their own variant called “tag.” Tags look a bit different than QR codes and they require Microsoft’s own mobile app to read them. Tags do provide a bit of a branding enhancement since the user will see a picture of your choice in the MS app, making it easier to identify your link when they’re browsing through their tags later. The tag app is available for Android, iPhone, BlackBerry, Symbian, J2ME and of course Windows Mobile and Windows Phone 7. Unfortunately, this app does not read regular QR codes. If it did, maybe they’d see better traction on this app, especially since they’re one of the few QR readers that lives on every major platform.

There are hundreds of millions of smartphones and tablets that can use QR codes; it’s surprising they’re not even more popular than they already are. Maybe some people like thumb typing.

Code generators: QRStuff, Kaywa, MS Tag

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Sources: intomobile.com, wikipedia (qr code)

Like many kids, I didn’t like vegetables — especially carrots and broccoli. Adults frequently told me that carrots would improve my eyesight, so that seemed like a good reason to try liking them.

There was one person who didn’t tell me this, he actually told me the opposite. My grand father overheard somebody tell me that carrots would improve my eyesight and he let me in on a little secret — it was all a big lie. Carrots do not improve your eyesight.

Sure, carrots and many other foods do contain beta-carotene, which metabolizes into Vitamin A and everyone agrees that is essential for maintaining eye health, but it does not improve it. If you are not consuming enough vitamin A, any number of sources could help restore your vitamin A supply. Carrots themselves are not unique or magical in this way. In fact, carrots have less beta-carotene per 200 calorie serving than red peppers, kale and lettuce.

If lettuce, kale and red pepper have more beta-carotene than carrots, why do carrots get all the eyesight credit?

During World War II, the British were particularly good at shooting down Nazi bombers at night, when it’s almost impossible to see other planes. It was as if they had super-human sight, and they did. They had radar.

Once news stories started to circulate about these pilots with seemingly super-human eyes, the government needed a good explanation to prevent the Germans from learning about this technology. Carrots.

Flight Lieutenant John Cunningham, nicknamed ”Cats Eyes” for his incredible ability to shoot down enemy planes, had a natural love for carrots. The story wrote itself and they explained that they were feeding other pilots a lot of carrots to improve their eyesight too.

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Sources: duke health, snopes, self.com

When I was about 7 years old, my grade school classroom had an Apple II computer stashed in the corner of the room. I remember the excitement when our teacher said we could use the computer after we finished all of our work, even though I had no idea how to use it. Nobody knew how to use it, except for Woody.

Woody was the only kid who had a computer at home and it too was an Apple II. Since that was the first affordable mass-market computer, if any home or small business had a computer, it was usually an Apple.

Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak started the personal computer revolution. There’s no doubt it would have happened without them, but who knows when. Steve Wozniak had the drive to build prototypes of computers just for fun while his partner Steve Jobs had the vision and drive to sell them to people who didn’t know how to use them, like some other products Apple has recently been successful with.

When Steve Jobs passed away, his assets were estimated to be around $6 billion. With that kind of wealth, you could buy almost anything. So, when he received a liver transplant in 2009, a lot of people suggested that he bought his way to the top of the waiting list. How else could he have skipped ahead of 16,000 other people?

His wealth did help him, but not in the way that some have implied.

He was on the transplant waiting list. Well, he was actually on more than one waiting list. Some have even speculated that he was on all of the waiting lists.

So, why doesn’t everyone do this? The rule at the time was that you needed to be within 4 hours of the transplant hospital. For most people, that significantly reduces the number of transplant lists you could be on. But, if you’re a billionaire with a private jet on standby, you’re within 4 hours of a lot of places.

Even still, with so many people waiting, how did he get to the top of the list so quickly?

The United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS) audits the transplant centers to ensure fair treatment. So, he didn’t likely get to the top of the list because of his wealth or social status.

Since his jet gave him access to almost any transplant center in the country, he did what any smart analytical person would do: he figured out which transplant center had the shortest wait and made sure he was on that list. That’s how a guy who lives in Northern California ends up with a liver transplant in Tennessee. It turns out, the median wait time in Tennessee was 85% shorter than the national average.

The technology that Steve brought us will fade, but his approach to everything, including saving his own life, is the real gift he gave us. When Steve rejoined and began to rejuvenate Apple in 1997, the slogan was, “think different” and that sentiment is Steve’s real legacy.

Rest in peace.

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Sources: digital journal, cnn, slate, the daily beast

Originally and occasionally still, Aglets are made from metal, often copper or brass.

The word Aglet (or Aiglet) comes from an old french word, aguillette and it’s root word is aguille, which means needle. This makes sense since aglets make it easy to thread laces through eyelets in garments and shoes.

Metal aglets can still be found on garments, although usually as decorative accents rather than functional fasteners. Some of these decorative aglets are made from stone or glass and even shaped like small figurines. These go back to at least the fifteenth century, even Shakespeare references an “aglet baby” in The Taming of the Shrew.

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Sources: wikipedia (aglet), dictionary.com

It has been ten years since the terrorist attacks on September 11th, 2001. Although the attacks happened in the United States, they were an attack on freedom everywhere. It is not an anniversary we want to remember, it’s an anniversary we never want to forget. That is the spirit on which the redevelopment of the World Trade Center is built.

When complete, the World Trade Center (WTC) will include a train station, performing arts center, retail space, five new office towers, a memorial site and museum. The tallest and most tributary building is Tower 1, nicknamed “The Freedom Tower.” That’s not a superficial name, the new tower embodies freedom and pays homage to the structures that came before it, a common device in architectural design.

The top floor of the new Tower 1 will reach 1,362 feet (415 meters), the same height as the former WTC South Tower. A glass enclosed observation deck will float just above that at 1,368 feet (417 meters), the same height as the original WTC North Tower. An illuminated antenna will reach further, bringing the total height to 1,776 feet (541 meters). The height is a significant symbol of freedom; 1776 being the year the US declared independence from Great Britain.

The antenna’s design draws inspiration from the torch on the nearby Statue of Liberty, a symbol of freedom itself. The blinking aircraft warning light at the top will blink in a slightly irregular pattern, repeating one long flash followed by one short flash. This is Morse code for the letter “N” for “New York.”

Aesthetics frequently differ among structures, but Tower 1 is unique on the inside too. Slated to open in late 2013, this 105 story building will feature a fortified structural base. Basically, the lowest 19 floors don’t contain any inhabitable space. Instead, they form a reinforced concrete pedestal intended to protect the building from ground based terrorist attacks similar to the truck bomb attack in 1993.

The rest of the building employs a redundant steel moment frame with an additional 3 feet (91 cm) thick reinforced concrete shear wall around the inner spine of the building. The core contains elevators, stairwells, electrical risers and sprinkler systems. These structural features and redundancies make it the strongest skyscraper ever built.

There are some additional safety considerations too. The building is situated 65 feet (20 m) away from the street, nearly triple the distance the twin towers were from the street. Additionally, the windows nearest the road will be made of a special blast-resistant plastic. The ventilation system contains biological and chemical filters and there are extra-wide emergency stairs exclusively for firefighter use.

There are seventy elevators, including some super high-speed elevators that travel at 33 feet per second (10 m/s). Some elevators are exclusively for emergency and non-ambulatory use. For safety, elevators will have their own backup power supplies and stairways will be pressurized to keep smoke from entering them.

Looking at the site plan, you may notice that WTC 6 is missing. WTC 1 is on the former site of WTC 6, so there will not be a new WTC 6. Although this plan calls for a WTC 5, the future of that tower is in question. The plans for WTC 5 were scrapped in 2008 when the major tenant pulled out in favor of another location in midtown manhattan. Tower 5 may get built, but there are no concrete plans at this time.

At the center of the site, a beautiful memorial has been created in the space that was once occupied by the twin towers. The memorial will be dedicated on September 11th, 2011 and be open to families who lost someone in the terrorist attacks. It will open to the public the following day.

Architects also designed the site so that every September 11th, between 8:46 am  and 10:28 am (the time the first plane hit to the time the second tower collapsed), the alignment of the Earth and Sun will create a bright wedge shaped highlight that focuses light toward the memorial plaza.

The two footprints of the original towers will be represented by square shaped waterfalls, some of the largest man-made falls in the world. The names of nearly 3,000 victims of the 1993 and 2001 terrorist attacks will be memorialized in a bronze bezel that will surround the two square waterfalls. Over 400 trees have been brought in from around New York, Pennsylvania and Washington, DC, to honor those who died in the WTC, on Flight 93 and in the attack on the Pentagon. Among these trees, there is one that was actually on-site when the towers collapsed.

Known as the “Survivor tree,” this callery pear tree was burned by the fires and covered by the rubble when the towers collapsed. The tree was uncovered weeks later and taken to a nearby nursery. It was not expected to survive, but after tender care and pruning, it has grown 30 feet tall and returned to the World Trade Center site. While the waterfalls, and the names around them, represent what we lost, the survivor tree represents the courage, growth and perseverance that remains.

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Images: Silverstein Properties (fair use), wikimedia commons (gnu)

Sources: Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, LowerManhattan.info, WTC.com, NYPost, 911 memorial, dna info, wikipedia (1 world trade, World Trade Center Site), popsci

When a recording artist sells 500,000 units of an album or a single, their “record” is eligible for “gold certification” by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). There are also platinum, diamond and other levels of these awards that indicate even greater sales.

If you couldn’t tell from the name, the RIAA is a US organization and it only tracks sales in the US. Similar awards are administered in 70 other countries by The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, although the number of sales to achieve each award varies by country.

In 1958, the cast album from the production of Oklahoma! was the first album to receive the official gold record award. Back then, records were records. There were no CDs, MP3s, etc… albums were really only available on vinyl records. Magnetic tapes were not popular for consumer use and 8 Track cartridges were about six years away from creation.

To make vinyl records, an original “master” record is created and depending on the exact process used, the vinyl records are stamped from a master, mother or stamper record.  In those days, these masters/mothers/stampers were generally made from metal. Stampers are used to literally stamp the groves into the records that are distributed. Stampers are generally good for about a thousand uses, so many stampers are produced for popular records. Originally, the used stampers were treated with gold to create the gold record awards.

Today, vinyl records are far from the most popular media for music, but some albums are available on vinyl. Although many albums are not available on vinyl, gold records may still be awarded if they reach their sales goals. The gold records are no longer made from actual records, masters or stampers. They’re now made by specific trophy and plaque makers who are certified by the RIAA.

Today, the award symbolically represents a high number of sales. But originally, it literally represented that many records were sold because the actual production stamper was worn out, gold plated and awarded to the artist.

In the last couple decades, the term “gold master” has transcended the recording industry. The phrase is also used in the computer industry to identify a software product version that is ready for distribution.

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Image: Jim Cassady (cc)

Sources: RIAA, EIL, RecordPressing.com, Wikipedia (Gold Master), emusician

The magnificent waterfalls known as Niagara falls are split on the US/Canada border. People come to see massive amounts of water flowing over the falls and that’s exactly what they get, during the day.

While the falls are a popular tourist attraction, many people don’t know the water is an important source of power. There is one power company on each side of the border that draws water from above the falls to turn their generators.

Unfortunately, drawing water from the river above the falls can impact what the falls look like.

During the tourist season (April to October), the power companies must maintain the water flow over the falls at 100,000 cubic feet per second. That’s not very difficult since the river has a natural flow of about 212,000 cubic feet per second on a typical summer day. That means they normally draw about 100,000 cubic feet per second for power generation and allow that same amount over the falls.

But at night, they can draw even more water and lower the flow at the falls to about 50,000 cubic feet per second. This extra flow allows them to turn their turbines and fill up their reservoirs so they have more water after the tourism flow is restored in the morning. Since the falls erode about two feet per year, drawing extra water at night also slows erosion so the falls will be around for many generations to come.

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Image: Alberto Mari (cc)

Source: NiagaraFrontier.com

Whether it’s your windshield mounted Garmin or your pocket slung smartphone, your GPS device is programmed to disable itself under certain conditions.

If it’s travelling faster than 1200 MPH or above 65,000 feet in altitude, the GPS function will shutdown.

These restrictions were put in place to help ensure the technology could not be used for malicious intentions by foreign governments or terrorists.

Modern commercial airplanes do not typically approach this speed or altitude, so you can’t test this unless you build your own missile or weather balloon.

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Photo: avlxyz (cc)

Sources: wikipedia, gizmodo

Many people know that paper money has markings that illuminate under a black light. These markings make it more difficult to counterfeit and thus easier to spot counterfeit money. Also, regular paper glows wildly under a black light, while currency paper does not, another dead giveaway. The same also applies to credit cards.

For this demonstration, I rounded up one card from each of the major issuers and tore my basement apart looking for my standard issue college black light. I eventually found it, but only after creating a small pile of retro items for this year’s halloween costume.

The black light’s strong purple glow catalyzed the American Express card to reveal “AMEX” spelled across the card, with a picture of a globe between “AM” and “EX.”

MasterCard was hiding “MC” on theirs:

The Visa card revealed the V logo.

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In 1971, an English teacher, a history teacher and writer started a coffee roasting business in Seattle.

It’s not surprising that such an intellectual group would have an affinity for classics like Moby Dick. In fact, Starbucks was nearly called Pequod, the name of the whaling ship in Moby Dick. Thankfully, one of the partners rejected the name. Instead, they went with Starbucks, the name of Pequod’s first mate.

Although Starbuck was a fictional young quaker from Nantucket, there were a number of real sailors from that era named “Starbuck.” Naming a coffee company was not the first time the Starbuck name was borrowed either. There is an island in the South Pacific, a popular region for whaling, called Starbuck Island.

Starbuck Island was heavily mined for phosphate in the late 1800s and many ships were wrecked there. The high frequency of shipwrecks was probably caused by the reefs that surrounded the island, but there is a mythical explanation too.

In Greek Mythology there are seductresses who lure sailors to shipwreck on the coast of their islands. These mythical creatures are called Sirens and the Starbucks logo contains one.

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Images: Wikimedia (Starbucks)

Sources: Wikipedia (Starbucks, Moby Dick, Starbuck Island, Siren)

Forget champagne this Sunday, one of the most popular car races in the world will award the winner an unusual prize: milk.

This Indiapolis 500 tradition was inspired by Louis Meyer. After winning his second Indy in 1933, he requested a glass of buttermilk. He requested another glass after his third win in 1936, but was given a bottle instead.

A photographer captured Meyer holding up three fingers, signifying his third win, and holding his glass of milk in the other hand. A dairy executive saw the photo and realized the marketing potential by promising the winner of future races a bottle of milk.

The tradition has persisted to this day, apart from 1947 to 1955 and two other exceptions when drivers declined to drink the milk. Most notably, in 1993, Emerson Fittipaldi drank orange juice instead of milk. He owned orange groves in his native Brazil and wanted to promote the citrus industry. The self promotion and break from tradition earned criticism from fans.

Although Meyer started the tradition with buttermilk, that’s not an official option — the winner can choose between skim, 2% or whole milk. However, the winner can buy a lot of buttermilk with the cash prize, estimated around $1.5 million.

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Photo: Tim Hohm (cc)

Sources: Wikipedia (Indy 500, Emerson Fittipaldi), Yahoo, about.com

Among high schoolers (and even among many adults) William Shakespeare’s writing has a reputation for being horrendously confusing. Consider this quote from The Tempest (IV, i, 51-54):

Look thou be true; do not give dalliance

Too much the rein: the strongest oaths are straw

To th” fire i’th” blood: be more abstemious,

Or else, good night your vow!

I am well out of high school, but passages like that remind me why I majored in Engineering and not English Lit.

Yet, the Bard’s reputation for using baffling and “archaic” language isn’t necessarily well-deserved. Estimates vary as to the exact number of unique words found in Shakespeare’s complete works, but there is a general consensus that his plays and poetry contain approximately 1,700 words never previously seen in print, and not all of them are obscure relics like crant (garland/crown) or rigol (circle). Here is just a small sampling of “everyday” words originally given to us by William Shakespeare:

• Bloody
• Bump
• Critic
• Eyeball
• Gloomy
• Gossip
• Housekeeping
• Hurry
• Laughable
• Lonely
• Obscene
• Road
• Skim milk

If that wasn’t enough of a contribution, the Bard also created phrases such as:

• Wear one’s heart upon one’s sleeve
• Love is blind
• Good riddance
• Heart’s content
• Discretion is the better part of valour
• A foregone conclusion

Shakespeare didn’t necessarily invent all these bits of language; he wrote at a time when English was rapidly evolving and mass publishing was in its early stages, so in some cases he may have only been the first to print them. But even if he didn’t coin all these terms from scratch, most scholars seem to agree that he was probably responsible for a fair share. Confounding verses and outdated words aside, Shakespeare should be remembered for what he was: one heck of an incredible writer and a pioneer of new language. To see more of Shakespeare’s commonly used words and phrases, click on the sources below.

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Source: No Sweat Shakespeare, Shakespeare-Online, WordSpin, The Phrase Finder, Wikipedia

Image: Wikipedia

When it’s time to wash a new item of clothing, most people check the tag to see what the manufacturer recommends for washing and drying.

Sometimes instructions are easily spelled out, other times the consumer is given a set of symbols to interpret. With no explanation or key to reference, there is no way to know what these symbols mean. Before you take a gamble with your clothing purchases, use the chart below as a reference guide for the most common symbols. For an extensive list of care symbols visit Textileaffairs.com.

	Machine Wash Normal
	Machine Wash Cold
	Machine Wash Warm
	Hand Wash
	Do Not Wash
	Do Not Bleach
	Tumble Dry Normal
	Do Not Dry
	Iron Normal
	Do Not Iron
	Dry Clean
	Do Not Dry Clean

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Sources: Textile Affairs

Sesame seeds come from sesame plants where the seeds grow in pods.

The seeds range in color from very dark to nearly white and are used in foods from Europe, Asia, The Middle East, North America, South America and virtually everywhere else. They are found in everything from sushi to breadsticks and soup to hamburger buns.

A tasty Middle Eastern dip known as Tahini, is made from ground sesame seeds and salt (and sometimes other spices too). Sesame seeds are also very popular in a variety of baked goods including breads, bagels and crackers. In Togo, a small country in West Africa, uses sesame seeds as a main ingredient in soup. They’re also used in Greek cakes.

Sesame seeds are popular because they add a subtle savory nut-like flavor. They taste good because they’re high in polyunsaturated fats (the “good” fat). It should be mentioned that heat from cooking or baking damages the polyunsaturated fats.

The largest producers are India and China, and one of the largest consumers is McDonald’s, which buys one third of the Mexican sesame seeds imported by the US annually.

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Sources: Wikipedia (Sesame, Polyunsaturated Fats), Purdue.edu

Photo: Oceandesetoiles (cc)

It’s a magazine. It’s a watch brand. It’s a title or a suffix that may follow a person’s name.

Throughout time, the precise meaning of the title has fluctuated.

In medieval times, an Esquire (or “Squire”) was the rank below Knight, generally a Knight in training. Later, it symbolized a noble man, usually born with wealth and power.

Today, Esquire has a different meaning. Although it’s not particularly common, when it is seen, it is usually follows a person’s name (ex Johnnie Cochran, Esq).

In that case, it identifies him as a laywer — more specifically a barrister (although this distinction is not generally made in some countries such as the US). It may also designate judges or other town officials.

In England, it may be used to describe any man, but it also has more formal uses. For example, when British men are invited to Buckingham palace, their mailing address will include the Esquire suffix, while foreign men will be addressed as “Mr.”

It is bad form for one to identify themselves with the Esquire title, it should only be used in reference to someone else. Also, it supercedes all other titles. In other words, if “Esq” follows a name, “Mr” should not precede it.

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Sources: Random House, Princeton.edu, Wikipedia (Esquire), Esquire.com

Photo: Andrew Becraft (cc)

Characterized by its large size, rugged capabilities and literally bulletproof exterior, the military tank is the reference standard for anything that embodies similar qualities.

That’s why it’s so interesting that the military tank is actually named after the water tank.

There’s no technical relationship between the two, the name actually stems from the top secret project that spawned the tank.

Whenever something needs to be kept secret, whether in the military or even consumer culture, code names are often assigned so subjects can be referenced without spilling any important information.

According to Churchill’s authoritative biography, the project was code named “water tank for Russia.”

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Sources: Wikipedia

Photo: Jason Trommetter (cc)

For the most part NCAA tournaments are money making events – for the NCAA. But the Division 1 Men’s Basketball Tournament is actually the only NCAA tournament that gives all of its revenue back to the schools that participate. Although millions of dollars in revenue from the BCS Football Championship are given back to the schools and conferences involved, it is important to note that the BCS Football championship is not an NCAA event. In fact, it is the only NCAA sport that does not have an annual NCAA sanctioned championship event.

Back to basketball. The T.V. contract for March Madness brings in billions of dollars and that money is divided up among the participating schools as follows:

1/6 of the money is given to the schools based on how many different sports they play.

• A division 1 school must play 14 sports in order to qualify for Div.1 status.
• They are given one share of money for each sport starting with 14.

1/3 of the money is given based on how many scholarships each school awards.

• 1 share for each of the first 50 scholarships.
• 2 shares for each of the next 50.
• 10 for each of the next 50.
• 20 for all scholarships after the first 150.

½ of the total money is divided among each of the participating conferences based on how well they each did in the previous six tournaments.

• 1 share for each team getting into the tournament.
• 1 share for each win outside of the Final Four.

In the past five tournaments, $409 million dollars were awarded to participating teams and conferences. The U.S. Secretary of Education and the Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics is proposing a change in profit division to better reward academic accomplishment. Of the $409 million, 44 percent of that money was awarded to schools that are on track to graduate less than 50 percent of their players.

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Sources: Wikipedia, Knight Commission of Intercollegiate Athletics

Photo: Kevin H.

The most common eye color is brown and the least common is green. Eye color is determined by a number of genes, the actual number of which is unknown. Using six known genes, scientists can predict eye color from brown to blue with 90% accuracy.

The darkness of brown eyes is determined by the amount of melanin (pigment) in them. Blue eyes have little or no melanin, making them translucent; they only appear blue because of an optical illusion known as the Tyndall effect.

The color we perceive something to be is usually due to their pigment, but somethings appear colored for other reasons. Structural colors are one classification of colors that occur not because of their pigment but because of the way light interacts with the matter.

Without getting too technical, different colors of light have different wavelengths. When those waves pass through matter, they can be filtered or scattered in different ways. The Tyndall effect occurs when a light scattering particulate is suspended in a light transmitting medium and the size of the individual particulate is slightly below or near that of the visible spectrum of light.

Some things that appear to be colored due to optical effects are: blue jay and peacock feathers, mother of pearl, butterfly wings, beetle shells, bubbles, oil slicks and one we see every day: the sky.

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Photo: Jennifer Durfey (cc)

Sources: Wikipedia (Eye Color, Tyndall Effect, Color)

When I was a kid, the local 7-11 had 20 Slurpee flavors. Every Saturday, my brother Brett and I would bike there with a palm full of allowance and return with a belly full of food coloring. We didn’t know how lucky we were — I’ve never seen another convenience store with that many flavors. But, there was one thing we did know: BRAIN FREEZE.

While it’s frequently called brain freeze or ice-cream headache, this mind numbing pain is known as sphenopalatine ganglioneuralgia in the medical community. Don’t even try to sound-it-out, even the British Medical Journal calls it ice-cream headache.

It happens to some people more easily than others and although your childhood imagination may disagree, your brain is not actually being frozen. The pain stems from a defense mechanism that is employed all over your body.

When it’s cold outside, your arms and legs usually cool down faster than your core because they generally have less insulation (fat) than your core. Because blood flows into your extremities and then back to your heart, the blood coming back will cool down your core. Your body protects itself from rapid cooling by constricting the veins in your extremeties, which reduces flow and slows the return of colder blood into your core.

This is a temporary reaction. After some time, the blood-vessels will expand to allow greater flow so these parts get proper blood flow again. This affect can be quite noticeable in the right conditions. If you’re outside for a while, you may find that your fingers are cold at first, but feel warm later. This is part of the reason they warm up. Also, redness in your cheeks is caused when the blood-vessels expand like this.

As you consume extremely cold food and beverages, the capillaries in your sinuses can rapidly constrict when cooled and expand when warmed. Pain receptors react to this by sending signals to your brain via the trigeminal nerve, the same nerve responsible for sensations in the face. This is why it can feel like the pain is coming from your forehead.

To get rid of a slushie stinger, some doctors suggest holding your tongue on the roof of your mouth to warm it up. Another tip, which you probably learned at a young age, eat slowly!

There is also a belief that you can only get brain freeze in warm environments, but that’s not true.

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Photo: Tom Magliery (cc)

Sources: Wikipedia, British Medical Journal, io9, about.com

It appears as though no one is really who we think they are…

• Lady Gaga – Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta
• Pink – Alecia Beth Moore
• Tiger Woods – Eldrick Woods
• Alicia Keys – Alicia Augello Cook
• Jamie Foxx – Eric Bishop
• Portia Di Rossi - Amanda Rogers
• Hulk Hogan – Terry Gene Bollea
• Fergie – Stacey Ann Ferguson
• Jay-Z – Shawn Carter
• Elton John – Reginald Kenneth Dwight
• Meat Loaf – Marvin Lee Aday
• Larry King – Lawrence Ziegler
• Chuck Norris – Carlos Ray Norris
• Mr. T – Lawrence Tero
• LL Cool J (“Ladies Love Cool James”) – James Todd Smith III
• Stevie Wonder – Steveland Hardaway Judkins
• Jon Stewart – Jonathan Stuart Leibowitz
• Muhammad Ali – Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr.
• Kareem Abdul-Jabbar – Ferdinand Lewis “Lew” Alcindor, Jr
• Woody Allen - Allen Stewart Konigsberg
• Jennifer Aniston – Jennifer Linn Anastassakis
• Tony Bennett – Anthony Dominick Benedetto
• Judy Blume – Judy Sussman
• Lil Bow Wow – Shad Gregory Moss
• Garth Brooks – Troyal Garth Brooks
• Julia Child – Julia Carolyn McWilliams
• Eminem – Marshall Bruce Mathers III
• Whoopi Goldberg – Caryn Elaine Johnson
• Pee Wee Herman – Paul Reubenfeld
• Liberace – Wladziu Lee Valentino
• Ralph Lauren – Ralph Lipschitz
• Katy Perry – Katheryn Elizabeth Hudson
• Charlie Sheen – Carlos Irwin Estevez

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Sources: NBC Los Angeles , IMDb.com, MSN, Babynames.com

The most famous red carpet was rolled out last night for the 83rd Annual Academy Awards. I find the red carpet fascinating, but it has nothing to do with what people are wearing.

While it looks like a random flow of people entering an award ceremony, it’s actually a well choreographed vehicle for publicity — publicity for the event itself and for the people and projects they are involved in.

I walked the red carpet at last year’s Webby Awards, where all of you helped me win a Webby for Broken Secrets. One thing that surprised me was the timing of the red carpet. While it looks like a casual flow of people entering the gala, it’s actually a regulated flow of people selected to pass by the cameras.

Not everyone who attends the event walks the red carpet. Usually, just the guest representing a project will walk the red carpet. Each guest walks at a scheduled time. These times are staggered to maintain an even flow of attendees moving along the press line.

In some cases, the event’s press liaison may provide the press with a list of red carpet attendees so they can decide who they want to interview and produce stories about. If you see someone with an attendee on the red carpet, it is likely their spouse or publicist. A publicist usually walks ahead of their client and decides which media outlets will do the next interviews with the person they represent.

Guests who do not walk the red carpet, escape the press circus by entering through another entrance.

The earliest known reference to “walking a red carpet” is from a play called Agamemnon (458 BC) by Aeschylus. When the hero returns from Troy, his chariot stops at a crimson path for him to walk on. So, like a god, his feet will never touch the earth again.

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Photo: Ian Muttoo (cc)

Sources: Wikipedia, eHow

According to aboutflowers.com, Valentine’s Day is tied for second place with Mother’s Day in most dollars spent on flowers. Surprisingly, Christmas and Hanukkah are tied for first.

It actually makes sense when you look at the breakdown of who is buying them and why.

For Christmas and Hanukkah, the majority of flowers are purchased for people’s own use (ie. decorating). For Valentine’s Day, only 9% are purchased for themselves and it’s not surprising that people spend more on themselves than other people.

If we just consider the people who buy Valentine’s Day flowers, these are some interesting stats:

• 23% of women purchase them for themselves
• 57% of men, purchase them for their spouse
• 25% of men, purchase them for their significant other

While I sometimes question the accuracy of these surveys, I was pretty confident in this data when I read this statistic: 0% of men purchase flowers for themselves for Valentine’s Day.

If you’re interested in the (brief) origin of Valentine’s Day, click here.

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Photo: Joel Bennett

Sources: About Flowers

We’ve learned about the importance of fruits and veggies on the food pyramid since grade school.  We’ve learned that carrots, peas and broccoli are vegetables and apples, pears and strawberries are fruits.

But most of us probably haven’t learned that the banana plant is an herb or that tomatoes, avocadoes, string beans, squash, eggplant, green pepper, okra, green beans, cucumbers and corn kernels are fruits.

Merriam-Webster defines an herb as “a seed-producing annual, biennial, or perennial that does not develop persistent woody tissue but dies down at the end of a growing season.”

Banana plants do not have the typical wood trunk that supports a tree. Its leaves twist and turn around each other to form a stem that can be 12 inches thick and can grow up to 40 feet tall. At the end of each harvest the plants die completely and grow again the next season. The bananas produced by the plant are the fruit of the herb.

A fruit is defined in the botanical world as the part of the plant that bears the seed – therefore putting tomatoes, cucumbers, avocados, green peppers and more in the fruit category.

In the legal world, however, vegetables as we know them remain as is – all fruit classifications thrown aside. In the 19th century the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that fruits and vegetables were to be classified according to how they are commonly consumed.

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Photo: Spacemonster

Sources: Merriam-Webster, OChef, Live Science, MyPyramid.gov

I was reading a recent story on cnbc.com and one “fact” seemed particularly unbelievable. It stated that each year, Parker Brothers prints more MONOPOLY money than the US government prints real currency. They even went so far as to say, “You can bet your little, old shoe that money fact is true!”

CNBC, I will take your bet.

In my attempt to track down the truth, I found that this myth is very wide spread. It’s not just CNBC, dozens of other sites make the same claim. I’m not sure where all of these sites got their info, but I like to go to the source.

The US bureau of Engraving and Printing is responsible for printing paper currency in the US. Their website has a page that details exactly how much currency has been printed each year since 1980. It’s very detailed and includes 4 years when $2 bills were printed, totaling about 500 million $2 bills printed since 1980.

Another interesting fact appears at the bottom of that page: 26 million currency notes are printed each day, with a face value of approximately $974 million. In fact, CNBC has this fact on their page too. Although, they quote it as per year rather than per day. I will give them a bit of credit here, the sentence is confusing and could be interpreted as “per year”, but a quick scan of the page can easily correct that interpretation. For example, more than 974 million $1 bills were printed in 2010. Even more $100 bills were printed. So, it can’t be a per year number.

In 2009, the US government printed a total of $2.1 trillion and in 2010 it was just over $2.0 trillion. That’s a lot of money and 95% of it replaces old money that is worn out.

Next, I tracked down how much money Parker Brothers, a subsidiary of Hasbro, has printed. They started making MONOPOLY in 1935. Until 1998, $15,140 worth of MONOPOLY money was included in each game; current editions include $20,580.

Hasbro states that 250 million copies of MONOPOLY have been sold since 1935 (in 103 Countries and 37 languages). They’ve sold an average of 3.3 million copies per year. If we use the current edition, that would mean they print $67.7 billion during an average year.

At $2 trillion per year, the US government prints much more money than Parker Brothers. In fact, a few years of US currency printing exceeds all 76 years of Parker Brothers printing.

On the other hand, the US mint produces 14-20 billion coins per year. They don’t give a breakdown of the denominations, so it’s impossible to calculate the exact dollar value. Perhaps this myth started as a comparison to the number of coins the US Mint makes each year.

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Sources: Hasbro.com (faq, corporate info), US Bureau of Engraving and Printing, US Mint, CNBC, Wikipedia (Monopoly)