Watch the Clock and what do you see
Move your eyes away slightly and it has a mind of its own!!
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Sunday, 24 July 2016
Friday, 22 July 2016
Smile and Laughing Therapy
A smile and Laugh a day keeps the stress away
If you are having a hard time getting motivated to do something and you need a pick me up, try smiling or laughing out loud.
When you smile or laugh, your brain gets fooled into thinking that it is happy, and releases the corresponding neurochemicals.
It may sound silly, but it can actually improve your mood and get you thinking more creatively.
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The UKs Speaking Clock
Time to find out about the speaking clock
The service has a long and storied history and even today in the age of near ubiquitous smartphones and the internet it’s still called an astounding thirty million times per year.
Prior to the introduction of the UK speaking clock service in 1936, it’s noted that people wanting to know the time who didn’t have a clock or watch handy would simply call the exchange operator and ask, resulting in operators spending much of their time doing this, instead of routing calls.
With exchange operators being inundated with calls from people just wanting to know the time, it was evident from almost the moment telephones were first introduced and made available to the British public in the last years of the 19th century that an automated speaking clock system was needed. Unfortunately, the technology to record human voices wasn’t widely commercially available until around the mid-1920s. Even then, it would take until the mid-1930s for the Post Office, who controlled the telephone system in the UK at the time, to begin designing a machine that would accurately tell you the time audibly.
The speaking clock machine eventually constructed by the Post Office was relatively large and contained “state of the art” technology including using several electric motors, glass discs, various valves, and photocells. This system was evidently good enough that the service wasn’t upgraded until 1963, nearly three decades after it was originally introduced.
Ethel Cain and the Speaking Clock Machine
With the system designed, a voice was needed. As such the Post Office held a competition to “the girl with the golden voice”. No men were considered for the role as the telephone orientated jobs were still seen as a strictly female gendered profession back then. The winner of the contest would not only become the voice of the speaking clock, but also be given a prize of 10 guineas or about £700 today, a somewhat paltry sum given the billions (after adjusting for inflation) the service has earned in the ensuing decades since its genesis.
The woman chosen for the gig was one Ethel Jane Cain, a telephonist.
Of course lots has changed since then and things has become a little more modern, but I will leave yourselfs to do some of your own research if you want to know more.
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Wednesday, 20 July 2016
Today in History for 20th July 2016
Historical Events
1913 – Turkish troops take Adrianopel and Erdine from Bulgaria
1928 – The government of Hungary issues a decree ordering Gypsies to end their nomadic ways, settle permanently in one place, and subject themselves to the same laws and taxes as other Hungarians.
1950 – “Arthur Murray Party” premieres on ABC TV (later DuMont, CBS, NBC)
1958 – King Hussein of Jordan breaks off diplomatic relations with UAR
1976 – Vietnam War: The US military completes its troop withdrawal from Thailand.
1995 – The Regents of the University of California vote to end all affirmative action in the UC system by 1997.
Famous Birthdays
1909 – Eric Rowan, South African cricketer (prolific batsman pre- and post-WWII)
1938 – Diana Rigg, Doncaster England, actress (Emma Peel-Avengers, Hospital)
1962 – Giovanna Amati, Italian racing driver
1975 – Judy Greer, American actress
1978 – Pavel Datsyuk, Russian ice hockey player
1981 – Damien Delaney, Irish footballer
Famous Deaths
1937 – Guglielmo Marconi, Italian engineer/marquis (radio, Nobel 1909), dies of a heart attack at 63
1942 – Patric Cobb, British sea officer, dies in battle
1951 – Mustafa Shuqri Ashu, tailor/murderer of king Abdullah, shot to death
1982 – Okot p’Bitek, Ugandan poet (b. 1931)
1983 – Frank Reynolds, news anchor (ABC Evening News), dies at 59
1987 – Richard Egan, actor (Big Cube, Amsterdam Kill), dies at 63
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How the two halfs of our brain work – when not connected
The left and Right Side of our brains carry out different functions
In split-brain patients, the corpus callosum, which connects the left and right hemispheres of the cerebral cortex, has been surgical severed. This surgery is performed very rarely to help control severe epilepsy, it is done to stop the unwanted electrical activity travelling across the hemispheres which can cause the person to go unconscious.
By studying these patients, Dr. Roger Sperry made some remarkable discoveries about the human brain, for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1981. What he found was that consciousness exists independently in the two different hemispheres and that the two sides can operate independently. The left side of the brain contains the speech center and can express itself verbally and logically, while the right side of the brain is more visually oriented.
In one of the experiments, an object was shown to the left visual field (which connects to the right side of the brain). Because the right hemisphere cannot process language, the patient was unable to say what the object was. However, they were able to pick up the matching object with their left hand. This is because the right hemisphere of the brain knew what the object was and could tell the left hand to pick it up, it just couldn’t express it with language.
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Goat in Sheeps Clothing Optical Illusion
Find the Goat hidden within the rows of sheep
This optical illusion is similar to the popular wheres wally diagrams and books. Within this picture is a goats head and you have to find it.
It is hard to find within the rows of sheep, but once found you will see how your eyes have tricked you when scanning the picture before you had spotted it.
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Tuesday, 19 July 2016
Today in History for 19th July 2016
Historical Events
1525 – Catholic German monarchy form Union of Dessau
1860 – 1st railroad reaches Kansas
1879 – Doc Holliday kills for the first time after a man shoots up his New Mexico saloon.
1936 – Indians’ Bob Feller makes his major league debut in relief
1944 – Allied troops occupy Faubourg de Vaucelles, at Caen
1992 – NYC Ballet star Peter Martins, arrested for beating his wife
Famous Birthdays
1822 – Augusta of Cambridge, Grand Duchess of Mecklenburg-Strelitz (d. 1916)
1854 – Daniel Josephus Jitta, Dutch High Court lawyer
1919 – Patricia Medina, actress (High-Low), born in Liverpool, England (d. 2012)
1922 – George McGovern, (Sen-D-SD)/pres candidate (D-1972), (d. 2012)
1940 – Vikki Carr [Florencia Vicenta de Casillas Martinez Cardona)], singer (Let it Be Him), born in El Paso, Texas
1972 – Ebbe Sand, Danish footballer
Famous Deaths
1847 – Johann Wilhelm Wilms, composer, dies at 75
1939 – Tom Hayward, cricketer (35 Tests for England, 1999 runs), dies
1970 – Barry Wood, singer (Your Hit Parade), dies at 61
1981 – Louis Cheslock, composer, dies at 81
1993 – Elmar Klos, Czech director (Shop on Main Street), dies at 83
2009 – Henry Surtees, British racing driver. (b. 1991)
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