respublica

How about something lighter to think about

I found this site which explains everyday items and their uses we may not have considered. I Like this one and never gave a thought to it. Most kitchen pans have a hole in the handle near the top. I wasn't sure that was true until I went into my pots and pans cabinet and looked. Sure enough, they all have a hole at the top of the handle.

The helpful hint to their use is placing the end of a spoon into the hole

This lets you stir now and then without having to lay the messy spoon on the countertop or stove top.

The one hint I didn't care much for, although I've heard of it, is using coca cola to clean your toilet bowl, and rust and tiles. I mean, I drink this all the time, I hate to think of it in these terms. I stick totally with the Mexican Coke, not the typical corn syrup fake Coke.

It's obvious I'm reaching far afield to find things to occupy myself.

20 and over, get pulled over

Now this new speed enforcement effort is one for the books. Police have begun an effort to cut down on speeders on 270 mainly because of a coming road work project. They want drivers to get used to the idea of slowing down in the work zones.

Here's the weird part of all this though. They will put most of their efforts into stopping people doing 20 miles over the speed limit. If you're going over 80mph you'll be stopped. If you ever drive on 270 or even 170 on the Missouri side you know cars are flying. So they want to slow people down and will still allow you do go 80?!

Get clocked at 81 and you'll be stopped. Isn't 80 much too fast in a 60mph zone? This seems out of whack to me.

A click bait story

This rather ridiculous story comes from CNN.

"If you drive an expensive car you're probably a jerk, scientists say."

The science is looking pretty unanimous on this one: Drivers of expensive cars are the worst.

A new study has found that drivers of flashy vehicles are less likely to stop and allow pedestrians to cross the road -- with the likelihood they'll slow down decreasing by 3% for every extra $1,000 that their vehicle is worth.

 

Science. How did they come to this conclusion? They came to this conclusion after asking volunteers to cross a sidewalk hundreds of times, filming and analyzing the responses by car drivers.

 

I don't know if this is true or not, but plenty of drivers in all sorts of vehicles no matter the price don't slow down for pedestrians..in my non-scientific experience.  I might be better if scientists spent more time looking into this Carona Virus thing. On an other note, is it spelled Caronavirus, or Coronavirus? I see both throughout the day.

 

I also saw this last night. The virus is not funny, but this is kind of clever.

My question for today

A story from the Southwest side Chicago has this headline: "ATM Stolen From West Elsdon Gas Station".

I wonder just how does anyone steal an ATM? They're big and heavy and it has to take some time while most likely being under a security camera.  The brief summary to this story read like this:

"At about 1:35 a.m. three males wearing ski masks broke out the glass of a gas station in the 5100 block of South Pulaski Road, dragged the ATM outside and put it inside of a brown van, Chicago police said.

No one is in custody and no injuries were reported, police said.

Area Central detectives are investigating."

How does someone open an ATM after stealing it? Has it ever been reported anywhere just how much money is actually put into an ATM?

There is always that one person who thinks outside the box and has the rest of us wondering, "who thinks of this?" Here is an example I saw this morning. A way to reheat pizza by turning the toaster on its side.

I've tried to picture just how this makes it any different than leaving the toaster right side up and its a muddle. But if this works, go for it. But be aware that when the toaster pops up the pizza the slices may fly out.

Static Electricity Day

Yes, January 9th is the day to celebrate static electricity. But the explanation for the day is why I never liked or understood much about science.

"Static electricity is different from the electrical current carried by wires through a building or transmitted by the electric companies. Static electricity is produced when the positive and negative charges of an atom are out of balance.

The atoms of some materials hold their electrons tightly. These materials, such as plastic, cloth, or glass, are insulators. While electrons of these substances do not move very freely, the electrons of other materials, such as metal, move more freely and are called conductors.

By rubbing two insulators together, we transfer electrons, causing positive and negative charges. Opposites do attract. Atoms with a positive charge become attracted to atoms with a negative charge. We can see the evidence if we rub a balloon head.  When we pull the balloon away, the hair clings to the balloon.

Remove the balloon, and the hair may stand on end. In this circumstance, the hair has the same charge (either positive or negative). Items with the same charge repel each other.

At some point, these charges need to be put back in balance, and the static electricity is discharged. The release or the resulting shock occurs when an insulator comes in contact with a conductor, such as a piece of metal."

And now what to do to observe this day:

Learn how static electricity affects us. Explore the ways you come into contact with static electricity and how you create it, too. Run an experiment and share your results.

Use #StaticElectricityDay to post on social media. Check, I got something right.

Ear buds

I am not normally a person who wears ear buds to listen to music or stories on my phone, ipad or computer. But occasionally I put them in when I want to listen to something or play a noisy game and not disturb The Dale. One thing that annoys me about them is how long the strings are. Why do ear bud cords have such long cords? They get tangled up and hang over everything.

First world problem, I know, but it makes no sense to me. I've thought about getting a set of wirelss, cordless ear buds, but the cost is too high for the little time I'd use them.

Number memories

Can you remember your childhood phone number? I bet you can no matter how old you are. Mine was Pullman 5-3675, dialed as PU 5-3675. That was during the years we lived on the south side of Chicago. When we moved to the suburbs, the number was Terrace 2-9296, dialed as TE-2-9296.

What weird things we remember when we can't even remember what we had for dinner last night.

Mattresses in the news

It seems buying mattresses online is a big thing these days and many people are taking advantage of the accompanying free trials offered by the sellers. It seems you can buy a mattress online and have a 100 days free trial and when that time ends, the buyer has it sent back and does it all over again with another brand. Somehow they get out of really paying for their mattresses and can pull this stunt for years. For every offer there will be those who know how to game the system.

Frankly I wouldn't buy a mattress online much less have the nerve to keep sending one or more back. But, mattresses are interesting things. They are hard to give up because you become so used to them and the areas where you can best nestle in to sleep. Who really wants to break in a new one? Plus going to the mattress store and testing their firmness of softness is just weird. But when your mattress has begun to give up you know it's that terrible time to begin the search for a new one.

And the worst part is not getting a new one into the house around corners or up stairs, it's what to do with the old one. That disposal part is probably why we hang onto our too long. Maybe so many mattresses fall off cars or trucks onto highways is the way some people have found to dispose of theirs.

We Women sure have changed

Maybe a better word than changed would be, evolved. This old bit of advice to women from the Singer Sewing Machine manual in 1949 is quite something. I can believe this is advice given sincerely and taken as such, but wow that is a blast from the past. click it to enlarge if your can't read it well.

Woman worries, 1949