Piers Morgan

     Back in 2018, Ashna Sarkar, an English journalist and libertarian communist political activist, called Piers Morgan, an English broadcaster, journalist, writer and television personality, an idiot. 

     Being the gentleman that I am, I would never call Mr. Morgan an idiot, but it's hard not to when he said it was a “joke” that Simone Biles withdrew from Tuesday’s women’s team final for mental health reasons. 

     He stated that Biles had “let down your team-mates, your fans and your country” by leaving the team to take care of her mental health. Read more

     Not long ago Morgan walked off the set of Good Morning Britain when his co-host criticized his attacks on Meghan Markle following her Oprah Winfrey TV interview. 

     I still won't call Mr. Morgan an idiot, but words like insensitive, buffoon, boorish, nitwit and jackass, just to name a few, come to mind.

How Long Is A Minute?

     We all think we know how long a minute is...it's sixty seconds...unless it's a leap second. 

     A leap second is a one-second adjustment that is occasionally applied to Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), to accommodate the difference between precise time (as measured by atomic clocks) and imprecise observed solar time (known as UT1 and which varies due to irregularities and long-term slowdown in the Earth's rotation). 

     The relevant international standards body has been debating whether or not to continue the practice. In any case, for the scientific minded here is a study titled How Long Is A minute. LINK  

     The most widely used numeral system is decimal (base 10), a system that probably originated because it made it easy for humans to count using their fingers.

     However, whatever civilization that first divided the day into smaller parts, probably the Egyptians, used the duodecimal (base 12) and sexagesimal (base 60) system. 

     The Egyptians used sundials which were simply stakes placed in the ground that indicated time by the length and direction of the shadow. As early as 1500 B.C., they had developed a more advanced sundial. It was a T-shaped bar placed in the ground that divided the interval between sunrise and sunset into 12 parts. In those days the length of an hour varied during the year, with the summer hours being much longer than the winter hours.

     This division reflected Egypt's use of the duodecimal system. The number 12 is attributed either to the fact that it equals the number of lunar cycles in a year or the number of finger joints on each hand (three in each of the four fingers, excluding the thumb). This makes it possible to count to twelve on one hand! 

     Egyptian astronomers observed a set of 36 stars that divided the circle of the heavens into equal parts, thus making the passage of night possible. The clepsydra, or water clock, was also used to record time during the night. A specimen was found that dated back to 1400 B.C. and it was inscribed to divide night into 12 parts. 

     Once both the light and dark hours were divided into 12 parts the concept of a 24-hour day was was established, but the concept of fixed-length hours did not come about until Greek astronomers began using such a system for their calculations. Common people did not begin using fixed length hours until mechanical clocks appeared in Europe during the 14th century. 

     Advances in the science of timekeeping have changed how hours, minutes and seconds are defined.The details are not important to us non-scientists. Suffice it to say that in 1967 the second was redefined as the duration of 9,192,631,770 energy transitions of the cesium atom. This ushered in atomic timekeeping and Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). Zulu time

     This zulu time reminds me of the time in the military when everybody used the term "klick" to describe distance.  Here's a little secret...nobody knew how long a klick was! At least not in those days. I heard it used for everything from a hundred yards to a mile!

     Nobody knows where the term came from, but it's generally believed to be derived from kilometer which the US and UK military began using since WWI when they combined operations with the French. Maybe the English know how long a kilometer is, but most Americans (even in the military) have no idea.

     Actually, one klick would equal a kilometer which is 1,000 meters, or 3,284.84 feet which in US terms in about 6/10ths of a mile.

     Most military personnel are also probably not aware that klick with a "k" is different than click with a "c." Click spelled with a "c" refers to one inch of distance at 100 yards and it's the sound you hear when you adjust the sights on your rifle.

     When I was in the military the term "zulu" was occasionally used, but I never knew what it meant until now.  It's just a military and aviation term for what used to be called Greenwich Mean Time which is now UTC.

     Now back to the subject of how long is a minute. How long do we perceive a minute to be? There is an interactive site where you can see how close you can estimate a minute. Counting in my head I estimated one minute to be 59 seconds. When trying the same experiment with out counting, my estimate was way off...only 36 seconds. Allowing myself a do-over did not yield results that were any better..89 seconds. You can give it a shot HERE.

40 Things You Can Do in One Minute or Less That Will Make Your Life That Much Better

Gruen effect

     Casinos are designed to disorient visitors, causing them to lose track of time and where exactly they are. There is also a similar strategy behind the design of shopping malls. 

     It's known as the "Gruen transfer" or "Gruen effect" and is named after Austrian architect Victor Gruen, who identified how an intentionally confusing layout could lead to consumers spending more time and money in a mall. To be fair, in a speech in London in 1978, Gruen disavowed shopping mall developments as having "bastardized" his ideas. 

     In shopping mall design, the Gruen transfer is the moment when consumers enter a shopping mall or store and, surrounded by an intentionally confusing layout, loses track of their original intentions, making them more susceptible to making impulse buys. 

     Between 1970 and 2015, the number of malls in the United States grew at more than twice the rate of the population. Their popularity does trace back to Gruen: It's not about the items you sell, it's about the spectacle in which you sell them. 

     It was Gruen's firm that built Minnesota's Southdale Center, which opened in 1956 as the country's first indoor mega-mall. Its designers had one goal: to build an environment so alluring that consumers forgot what they came to buy and made impulsive purchases. M. Jeffrey Hardwick, Gruen's biographer, summed it up: "Shoppers will be so dazzled by a store's surroundings, they will be drawn—unconsciously, continuously—to shop." Nowadays, it's not just malls, but all stores have a variation of the idea. 

     The stores are designed to seduce you into filling up that grocery cart. Even online shopping websites use the Gruen transfer online. To put it simply, the Gruen transfer is the point at which shoppers become slightly confused when they are overwhelmed and entranced by multiple stimuli and so become more susceptible to advertising, promotion and persuasion. 

     A person walks into a shopping mall and there are bright lights, stores on multiple levels, moving staircases go up and down, signs, smells of coffee and food and shops, lots of them. As people wander around they will, hopefully, buy more than they intended. The idea is to create a sensory overload and confusion that puts people into a kind of a hypnotic trance. This is aided in malls by the shutting out of external distractions. A similar principle is used in Disneyland and Disney World where a great deal of attention is paid to creating an experience where visitors are not distracted by the outside world. 

 

For further reading: 

Marketing Psychology: 10 Revealing Principles of Human Behavior-HERE

Using Marketing Psychology To Influence Consumer Behavior-HERE

The definition of marketing psychology and how to use it-HERE

You Could Grow A Cow's Head

     Each state is different, but in Ohio children must be vaccinated for diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, polio, measles, mumps, rubella, hepatitis B, chickenpox and meningococcal prior to starting the first grade. 

     In a recent post I mentioned that in 1957 when a new influenza emerged and triggered a pandemic called Asian Flu, Dr. Maurice Hilleman at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research quickly alerted the government and sent samples of the virus to the six biggest pharmaceutical companies directing them to produce a vaccine for this new flu which they did. As a result hundreds of thousands of lives were saved.

     The point was that there is a precedent for the rapid development of flu vaccines! Today anti-vaxxers are waging campaigns against COVID-19 shots and are citing all kinds of evil things that the vaccine spawns. 

     Anti-vaxxers are not new...opposition to vaccinations has existed as long as vaccination itself. There was opposition to the smallpox vaccine in England and the United States in the mid to late 1800s that lead to anti-vaccination leagues. Later there were controversies surrounding the safety and efficacy of the diphtheria, tetanus, and pertussis immunization, the measles, mumps, and the rubella vaccine.

     Widespread smallpox vaccination began in the early 1800s, following Edward Jenner’s cowpox experiments, in which he showed that he could protect a child from smallpox if they were infected with lymph from a cowpox blister. 

     The idea was met with immediate public criticism based on, depending on the individual's personal views, sanitary, religious, scientific, and political objections.

     There was no Internet in those days, but in the closest thing they had, in 1802 there was a newspaper cartoon (like a Facebook meme of today!) in which the British satirist James Gillray implied that vaccination caused people to become part cow. It showed a crazed scene in which cows' heads erupted from the bodies of people being vaccinated. 

     For some parents the smallpox vaccination induced fear and they protested because the vaccination involved scoring the flesh on a child’s arm and inserting lymph from the blister of a person who had been vaccinated about a week earlier.

     What was the problem with that? Some people, with the support of clergy, thought is was un-Christian because it was derived from an animal. Others were of the opinion that it was immoral to stop a disease that God had created. 

     Others distrusted medicine in general and didn't believe Jenner’s ideas about the spread of disease. Some believed that smallpox resulted from decaying matter in the air. And, like today, some people objected to vaccination because they believed it violated their personal liberty, a problem that only got worse when the government developed mandatory vaccine policies. 

     In England there were vaccination acts in 1853 and 1867. The latter included penalties for refusal. The laws were met with resistance from citizens who demanded the right to control their bodies and those of their children. The Leicester Demonstration March of 1885 had 80,000-100,000 anti-vaxxers protesting in a march that included banners, a child’s coffin and an effigy of Jenner. 

     Toward the end of the 19th century, smallpox outbreaks in the United States led to vaccine campaigns and, of course, anti-vaccine activity. The anti-vaxxers waged court battles to repeal vaccination laws in several states. 

     In 1902, following a smallpox outbreak, the board of health of the city of Cambridge, Massachusetts, mandated all city residents to be vaccinated against smallpox. 

     A resident named Henning Jacobson refused on the grounds that the law violated his right to care for his own body how he knew best. The city filed criminal charges against him and after losing his case Jacobson appealed to the Supreme Court. In 1905 the Court found in the state’s favor, ruling that the state could enact compulsory laws to protect the public in the event of a communicable disease. This was the first Supreme Court case concerning the power of states in public health law. 

     As Solomon wrote in Ecclesiastes 1:9. "What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun."

Gasoline Prices

     Why does the price of gasoline go up every spring?

     During election years and like this year with a new president the conspiracy theories come out of the woodwork as the theorists claim gasoline prices are engineered for political ends and in the end it is the president's fault. But the pattern has always been pretty much the same. 

     If you check the history of gasoline prices you can see that about 90 percent of the time gasoline prices go up between January and May. An exception was 2020 because of the plunge in demand due to the Covid-19 pandemic, but prior to 2020 gasoline prices had risen in the first five months of the year for more than 20 years in a row. 

     A lot of factors influence gasoline prices, but two critical specifications that need to be met are the octane rating and the Reid vapor pressure. Octane rating is important for avoiding engine knock, but the octane rating is consistent throughout the year so that's not the reason for the seasonal price increase. Lead compounds were once widely used to increase octane rating, but with few exceptions are no longer used. Other chemicals are frequently added to gasoline to improve its stability and performance characteristics, control corrosion and provide fuel system cleaning. It may also contain oxygen enhancing chemicals to improve combustion.

     The Reid vapor pressure specification, however, does change with the seasons and this change can have a major effect on the price. The RVP is based on a test that measures vapor pressure of the gasoline at 100 degrees F. 

     Normal atmospheric pressure varies with location, but averages about 14.7 lbs per square inch at sea level. In the summer, when temperatures can exceed 100 degrees in many locations, it is important that the RVP of gasoline be well below 14.7 psi to prevent a pressure build up in fuel tanks and gas cans. Therefore, the Environmental Protection Agency has ruled that the RVP of summer gasoline blends may not exceed 7.8 psi in some locations, and 9.0 psi in others. 

     The key considerations are the altitude and motor vehicle density of a specific location. More congested and hotter areas will tend to have a limit of 7.0 psi, while cooler climates are generally allowed to be slightly higher at 7.8 psi. Some areas, however, maintain a 9.0 psi limit throughout the summer. 

     Because of this refiners will start to reduce their inventory of winter gasoline ahead of the EPA's May 1st deadline which declares that all gasoline has to meet the stricter requirements. 

     The summer blend is costlier to produce is because it contains less butane which can be blended into gasoline in higher proportions in the winter because the vapor pressure allowance is higher. A typical winter gasoline blend may contain 10 percent butane, but it drops to 2 percent or lower in the summer. The higher butane allowance in winter means that winter gasoline is cheaper to produce. Butane is added back in greater volumes in the fall and in mid-September the RVP allowance starts to increase. 

     Additionally, in the summer the demand for gasoline increases and in the fall it decreases and this demand affects the price. And, of course, changes in the price of oil can affect gasoline prices.

Dollar Store Do Not Purchase List

 

     I like being able to visit a store and buy anything I want without having to ask how much it costs. Thanks for the Dollar Store! Nevertheless, there are some things you should never buy there. 

 

Electronics 

It's mostly junk. 

Batteries 

Dollar Store products are often liquidated from other retailers. Unused batteries lose their charge over time and they may have been sitting on a shelf atm say, Target for three years and now they are outdated, so Dollar Store buys them. Plus, some Dollar Store batteries contain carbon-zinc, making them more prone to leaking . 

Tools 

Cheap tools are more likely to break and could cause injury. I once bought drill bits that were bendable as coat hanger wire. 

Power strips and extension cords 

They usually have thinner wires that won’t be able to handle power loads and can be poorly made and therefore unsafe. 

Skin care products, food, baby products and medicines 

You don’t know what’s inside the packing. It’s hard to tell how long these products have been sitting on the shelves. Check expiration dates! 

Soft drinks

A dollar for a bottle might seem like a good deal, but check the size. Often the bottles are smaller and you might end up paying more per ounce than if you bought a big bottle at the grocery store. The taste likely won't be all that great either. 

Pet Food 

Cheap pet food and treats may be made from sub-standard ingredients. Check expiration dates and ingredients! 

Makeup 

Makeup is another product area to avoid. Even brand name items may be past their best before date and off brands may contain harmful chemicals. 

Garbage Bags 

Many off-brand offerings are of poor quality. If you don't want garbage bags bursting, buy quality brand names.

The Mistake On The Lake

      Cleveland, Ohio's slogan is "The Best Location in the Nation", but that's malarkey. Back in 2010, according to a Reuters report a new poll had determined that Cleveland was deemed the most miserable city in USA. The rankings were based on jobless rates, inflation, taxes, commuting times, crime rates, performance by the city’s sports teams, weather, pollution and corruption by public officials.

     The reasons for Cleveland's poor ranking were plentiful: high unemployment, dismal weather, hefty taxes, corruption and even mediocre sports teams, all of which propelled the city to the No 1 position in the Forbes list. So bad was the report that Cleveland was the only city that fell in the bottom half of rankings in all nine categories. The old nickname, Mistake by the Lake, is more appropriate. 

     In 2019, a study conducted by Insurance Providers showed there had been an increase of almost 18 percent of Americans diagnosed with depression between 2016 and 2017, and guess which city had one of the highest rates of depression among large US cities with 21.9 percent of its residents so diagnosed? The correct answer is Cleveland. 

     The whole area is a gloomy place. The winter months are tough and it's hard to get pumped up to go outside and brave the elements. It's hard to deal with heavy snow, school closings, winter colds and frostbite. 

     Also in 2019, BestPlaces.net looked at the top 50 metro areas in the US and determined that Cleveland to Elyria (a city on the far west side) was fourth in the nation on their Gloom Score. They looked at: percentage of cloud cover, average hours of daylight and days with precipitation. The bad score means residents are at a high risk for Seasonal Affective Disorder the symptoms of which include feeling down, having low energy, and disruption of sleep patterns. 

     Even the Old Farmer's Almanac has been spot on predicting Cleveland's miserable July weather...rain and thunderstorms and above average rain. The Weather Channel's monthly forecast for July shows temperatures hovering around 90 degrees and their July calendar shows one (yes, one!) day with the little sun icon and six days with a partly cloudy icon. That leaves 27 days showing cloudy, rain and/or thunderstorms. 

     Lake Erie is one of two major factors responsible for Cleveland's crappy weather; the other, latitude. In the winter, northerly winds drag Arctic air down from Canada, dipping temperatures and triggering wind chills. When this air blows over the lake, it gains enormous amounts of moisture and dumps it as lake-effect snow on Northeast Ohio. If winds are from the northwest, this still brings in frigid air and could initiate snowfall across northern Ohio. 

     Lake Erie also has a strong effect on spring and summer weather. Water has a higher specific heat than air which means it takes much more energy to change its temperature. So, in the warm seasons, the lake tends to stay cooler than the air. Through convection, the cooler lake waters chill the air above and when the winds are right, they blow that cooler air onto the land. In terms of rainfall, passing showers strengthen greatly from the vast reservoir of moisture available in the lake, expanding the clouds higher and higher into the atmosphere to produce larger drops of rain and introducing enough instability to produce intensely strong storms.

Just another day in Cleveland

 

Dental Crowns

 

      For a long time, dental crowns were referred to as caps, and even now you may still hear the term cap used by older people and by those who do not work in dentistry. Most dentists today use the term 'crown' instead. 

    Dental crowns are caps placed on top of damaged teeth. Crowns are used to protect, cover and restore the shape of your teeth when fillings won’t solve the problem. Dental crowns can be made out of metals, porcelain, resin and ceramics. You may need a crown for several reasons, including: 

 

*Protecting a weak tooth (possibly from decay) from breaking or to keep the weak tooth together if parts of it are cracked. 

* Restoring a broken tooth or a severely worn down tooth. 

* Covering and supporting a tooth with a large filling and not much 

* Holding a dental bridge in place. 

* Covering misshapen or severely discolored teeth. 

* Covering a dental implant. 

* Covering a tooth that’s been treated with a root canal. 

 

     Crowns can be made out of many different materials. Metal: gold, palladium, nickel and chromium. Metal crowns rarely chip or break, last the longest in terms of wear down and only require a small amount of your tooth to be removed. They can also withstand biting and chewing forces. The metallic color is the main drawback of this type of crown. 

     Porcelain-fused-to-metal: This type of dental crown can be matched to the color of the teeth that’s next to the crown. They have a more natural tooth color. However, sometimes the metal under the crown’s porcelain cap shows through as a dark line. Other cons include the chance of the crown’s porcelain portion chipping or breaking off and the crown wearing down the teeth opposite it within the mouth.

     All-resin: Dental crowns made out of resin are generally less expensive than other crown types. However, they wear down over time and are more likely to break than porcelain-fused-to-metal crowns. 

     All-ceramic or all-porcelain: These types of dental crowns provide the best natural color match compared to any other crown type. They aren’t as strong as porcelain-fused-to-metal crowns and can also wear down the teeth opposite them in the mouth a little more than metal or resin crowns. 

     Pressed ceramic: These have a hard inner core and are capped with porcelain, which provides the best natural color match. They’re also more long-lasting than an all-porcelain crown. 

     A dentist with modern equipment (like mine) can make crowns in their office in about two hours. The process starts off by removing decay (if any) and shaping the tooth for a perfect fit inside the crown. After this a scanning device is used to take digital pictures of the tooth and computer software creates a 3D model of the tooth from these pictures. The digital design is then sent to another machine that carves the shape of the crown out of a block of ceramic. This method of making a dental crown is called computer-aided design/computer-aided manufacturing (CAD/CAM). When the crown is finished it is cemented into place and you're done. Watch on Youtube HERE

Sleeping Positions

     The position in which you sleep could be impacting your health in several ways. The best sleeping position depends on your situation. Sleeping in the wrong position can cause or aggravate neck or back pain, obstruct airways to your lungs, aggravate other ailments and some research even suggests that sleeping in the wrong sleeping may cause toxins to filter out of your brain more slowly. 

 

Stomach Sleepers - About 7 percent of people sleep on their stomach (the prone position). It may help ease snoring, but iy may aggravate other medical conditions. The neck and spine are not in a neutral position and this may cause neck and back pain. It can also put pressure on nerves and cause numbness, tingling, and nerve pain. 

Freefall Position - Again, about 7 percent of people sleep in this position which is a variation of the stomach position except that their heads are turned to the side and usually their arms wrapped around or tucked under a pillow. 

Back Sleepers - aka the supine position, this position has its advantages and disadvantages, too. It may cause some people may experience low back pain and it can also make existing back pain worse. Snoring or sleep apnea can also be aggravated. Health benefits to sleeping on your back are the your head, neck, and spine are in a neutral position so you're less likely to experience neck pain. Having your head slightly elevated is best for heartburn. 

Soldier Position - These sleepers lie on their backs and their arms are down and close to the body. Approximately 8 percent of people sleep like this. It's a bad position if a person snores. 

Starfish Position - These are people who sleep on their backs with their arms up over their heads. Only about 5 percent of people sleep like this. It has the same disadvantages as the back and soldier position. 

Side Sleepers - This position is the most popular and is also known as lateral sleeping. I's good for snorers although it, too, can result in snoring, and it can be good for those who have some forms of arthritis. However, curling up on your side may also prevent you from breathing deeply because it restricts the diaphragm. On the other hand sleeping on your side could be good for your brain. 

     Our brains clear out waste more quickly while we sleep and it is unclear whether or not the sleep position influences this waste removal. But one study performed on rats suggests side-sleeping might clear brain waste more efficiently than other postures. So, if you're a rat this is a good position for sure. 

     There is a downside of sleeping on your side if you're old...you press down on your face and it may both cause wrinkles and cause the skin on your face to expand. If you are a woman it's even worse...it hasn't been scientifically prove, but rumor has it that over time breast ligaments stretch causing breast sag. 

Fetal Position - Approximately 41 percent of people sleep on their side curled up with their knees bent. Some studies suggest that more women than men sleep in this position, but that's open to debate. It's good for pregnant women because it improves circulation for both the mother and fetus. It can cause hip pain though.

Log Position - This is sleeping on the side with arms down next to the body. About 15 percent sleep this way. If you have arthritis, you may wake up in pain. 

Yearner Position - These people who make up 13 percent of sleepers, sleep on their sides with their arms outstretched in front of the body. It may be good if you have breathing problems, but bad if you suffer from arthritis. 

 

     In the 1970s and 1980s, some researchers claimed sleeping postures could predict if someone were impulsive, feminine, anxious, self-confident and even whether they could be hypnotized, but more recent studies have reduced those theories to bunk. 

     However, sleeping positions can be associated with well-rested sleepers and so these people wake up less crabby and irritable and are more alert during the day. Over a ten year period 22,000 American and Japanese adults were followed and those who slept poorly tended to become less conscientious while those who slept best were the most extroverted and the least neurotic.

Another Stupid and Irresponsible Facebook Post

The fact that some people believe that if it's on Facebook it must be true is nothing short of amazing. I saw this meme on Facebook today. There are many relaible sources that refute the meme (which has atrocious punctuation), but few will bother to check them out. Just two sources...there are MANY more: HERE and HERE

Copperhead Snakes

     This video reminded me of my days at the Marine Corps base at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina! Copperheads are familiar, at least by name, to most North Carolinians.

     Deriving its name from its coppery brown head, the copperhead also is known by such local names as “pilot,” “chunkhead,” “poplar leaf” and “highland moccasin.” Whatever you call them, these snakes need to be treated with respect! 

     They are widely (and some say unjustly) feared and persecuted and huge numbers of copperheads are deliberately killed simply because they are venomous, but many nonvenomous snakes are mistaken for copperheads and killed. 

     The copperhead is the most common and widespread venomous snake in North Carolina. In many areas, including most of the larger urban regions, it is the only venomous snake. Many populations have been reduced, and some eliminated, by habitat destruction and individual persecution, but the adaptable copperhead remains common in many areas. It is not listed under any category of special protection