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What I've Learned
Aug 25, 2011 12:00 amLet’s talk about pizza and the end of the world. The two, after all, are closely related.
First we’ll tackle pizza.
Pizza wasn’t invented in Italy, it was invented in the United States by Italian immigrants. Later when well-to-do immigrants went back to the old country to visit, they shared with their relatives this American treat. Italians began serving pizza to tourists.
Customer Appreciation Day at Fox School Farmers Market
Aug 25, 2011 12:00 amBUSTLING MARKET — The Fox School Farmers Market has been busy in the weeks leading up to the Fourth Annual Customer Appreciation Day.
Notes from the Garden: Indian Pipes
Aug 25, 2011 12:00 amTh so-called "Indian Pipes," Monotropa uniflora
What I've Learned
Aug 18, 2011 12:00 amIn the Old West, how many horses did a cowboy own?
I’m not talking outlaws or marshals or town folk or farmers, but real cowboys, men who spent their days working with cattle.
Let’s first consider a cowboy’s three main work periods: tending cattle, the roundup, and the cattle drive.
Much of the year, cattle were allowed to free-range. But that didn’t mean they were ignored. Cowboys kept an eye on them, protecting them, herding them out of trouble, and keeping them from roaming too far.
03-32-OPCOL-Learned
Aug 11, 2011 12:00 amA rocket stove, burning nothing but a handful of sticks, can boil a pot of water.
That's not all. A rocket stove can get so hot--an astonishing 1,100 degrees F – that smoke, itself, burns. All that comes out the flue is CO2 and water vapor.
Wow. A rocket stove must be complex and expensive.
Not so. You could make one from two cement blocks. Using a hammer, break out the connecting piece in the middle of one block.
Break off half of the second block so that instead of a rectangular block you have a smaller, square one.
What I've Learned
Aug 04, 2011 12:00 amA few years ago, a fellow named Jim Meaney turned a bunch of empty soda cans into a solar heater.
Picture, if you will, a shallow box three feet wide, seven feet long, and six inches deep. The box is insulated. Meany took soda cans, painstakingly cut a hole in the top and bottom of each, then laid them on their sides in the box in such a way as to make 15 vertical columns.
What I've Learned
Jul 28, 2011 12:00 amAnyone with grandchildren has heard the interrupting cow joke.
"Knock knock."
"Who's there?"
"Interrupting cow."
"Interrupting co . . ."
"Moooooooooo!" (Squeals of laughter.)
There is a grown up version of this joke, for as surely as a cow says moo, the coefficient of friction is mu.
Which gives us:
"Knock knock."
"Who's there?"
"Interrupting coefficient of friction."
"Interrupting coefficient of fric . . ."
"Muuuuuuuuuuuuuuu!" (Geeky peals of laughter.)
What I've Learned
Jul 21, 2011 12:00 amIn 1963 at the Magamba Secondary School in Tanzania, boys would often make their own ice cream by boiling milk, adding sugar, letting it cool to room temperature, and putting it in the freezer compartment of the school's refrigerator.
Space in the freezer was at a premium and was on a first come basis.
One day, 13-year-old Erasto Mpemba [em-PEM-bah] bought some milk and began to boil it. There were only two spaces left in the freezer and another boy, when he saw Mpemba boiling milk, was afraid of loosing a spot so he put his milk and sugar mixture in without boiling it.
How grand it was
Jul 21, 2011 12:00 amIn the summertime, we all get to see lovingly restored muscle cars, looking better than when they were new. These collectibles, which are now priced way up into the financial stratosphere, have an appeal which makes them evergreen in their desirability. However, their era was crushed in the early seventies by a combination of emissions control regulations and huge insurance surcharges in such vehicles. In 1973, the Arab oil embargo drove the last nails into their coffin.
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