Thoughts for the Day

Today in History (January 8th):

1786: Birthdays: Financier Nicholas Biddle.

1790: U.S. President George Washington gave the first State of the Union address.

1792: Birthdays: Educator and hymn writer Lowell Mason (Nearer My God To Thee).

1815: The forces of U.S. Gen. Andrew Jackson decisively defeated the British in the Battle of New Orleans, the closing engagement of the War of 1812.

1821: Birthdays: James Longstreet, Confederate general in the Civil War.

1862: Birthdays: Publisher Frank Doubleday.

1867: The U.S. Congress approved legislation that allowed blacks to vote in the District of Columbia.

1909: Birthdays: Reading teacher Evelyn Wood.

1912: Birthdays: Actor Jose Ferrer.

1916: Allied forces staged a full retreat from the shores of the Gallipoli Peninsula in Turkey, ending a disastrous invasion of the Ottoman Empire that resulted in 250,000 Allied casualties.

1918: U.S. President Woodrow Wilson delivered his Fourteen Points speech to a joint session of the U.S. Congress.

1923: Birthdays: Comic actor Larry Storch.

1926: Birthdays: Comedian Soupy Sales.

1931: Birthdays: Music impresario Bill Graham.

1933: Birthdays: Newsman Charles Osgood.

1935: Birthdays: Rock ‘n’ roll legend Elvis Presley.

1937: Birthdays: Singer Shirley Bassey.

1938: Birthdays: Game show host Bob Eubanks.

1941: Birthdays: British comedian Graham Chapman.

1942: Birthdays: Actor Yvette Mimieux; British physicist and author Stephen Hawking.

1944: Birthdays: Author Terry Brooks.

1945: Birthdays: Radio talk show host Kojo Nnamdi.

1947: Birthdays: Rock ‘n’ roll Hall of Fame member David Bowie; Rock ‘n’ roll Hall of Fame member Terry Sylvester.

1958: Bobby Fischer won the United States Chess Championship at age 14.

1976: Chinese Premier Chou En-lai died in Beijing.

1983: Birthdays: North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

1987: Kay Orr was inaugurated in Lincoln, Neb., as the nation’s first woman Republican governor. The Dow Jones industrial average closed at more than 2,000 for the first time.

1991: Pan American World Airways filed for bankruptcy.

1993: Thousands gathered at Elvis Presley’s Graceland mansion in Memphis to purchase the first issue of a stamp honoring the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll on what would have been his 58th birthday.

1997: A report by University of Texas scientists concluded that exposure to a combination of chemicals was linked to Gulf War Syndrome, responsible for the various ailments reported by veterans of the 1991 conflict.

2002: U.S. President George W. Bush signed a major education bill that mandated annual testing for students in grades 3-8 and called for tutors for poor schools. The bill was known as the No Child Left Behind Act.

2005: The U.S. military said an airstrike in Mosul, Iraq, hit the wrong target, demolishing a civilian home and killing 14 people.

2006: A fire swept through a one-story wooden orphanage in Dushanbe, Tajikistan, and killed 13 disabled children. Seventy-one others escaped. 12 U.S. military personnel were killed when a UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter crashed in Iraq.

2007: Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez announced he would nationalize the nation’s telecommunications and electric power industries controlled by U.S. companies. More than 17,000 Iraqi civilians and police officers died violently since July, three times as many as in the first half of 2006, officials said.

2008: A series of tornadoes caused by record-breaking temperatures killed at least six people, destroyed houses and flooded roads in Arkansas, Illinois, Missouri and Wisconsin.

2009: Signs of a worsening of the British economy led the Bank of England to cut a key interest rate to 1.5 percent, lowest level in the bank’s 315-year history.

2010: The U.S. economy lost 85,000 jobs in December, dampening hopes that a favorable November report indicated improving conditions. The unemployment rate remained steady at 10 percent.

2011: Six people were killed and 13 others, including U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., were wounded when a gunman armed with a semiautomatic pistol opened fire at a political meeting in a Tucson mall. Giffords, 40, was shot in the head but showed impressive progress through prolonged rehabilitation. The alleged shooter, Jared Loughner, 22, was ruled mentally incompetent to stand trial.

2012: One year after being shot in the head, U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, at a candlelight ceremony in Tucson, drew cheers and gasps as she walked deliberately across a stage to lead a crowd in the Pledge of Allegiance. British experts predicted the country’s year-end unemployment figure would top 3 million people, compared to a third quarter count of 2.64 million in October.



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“Success seems to be largely a matter of hanging on after others have let go.” – William Feather

“Remorse is a violent dyspepsia of the mind.” – Ogden Nash, poet (1902-1971)

“Two years from now, spam will be solved.” – Bill Gates, 2004

“The problem of viruses is temporary and will be solved in two years.” – John McAfee, 1988

“Computer viruses are an urban legend.” – Peter Norton, 1988

“In 2031, lawyers will be commonly a part of most development teams.” – Grady Booch

“I don’t know what the language of the year 2000 will look like, but I know it will be called Fortran.” – CA Hoare, 1982

“In the future, computers may weigh no more than 1.5 tonnes.” – Popular mechanics, 1949

“I see little commercial potential for the Internet for at least ten years.” – Bill Gates, 1994

“Humor is emotional chaos remembered in tranquility.” – James Thurber, writer and cartoonist (1894-1961)



Stephen William Hawking (1942- ) British theoretical physicist:

“Even if there is only one possible unified theory, it is just a set of rules and equations. What is it that breathes fire into the equations and makes a universe for them to describe?”

“I think computer viruses should count as life. I think it says something about human nature that the only form of life we have created so far is purely destructive. We’ve created life in our own image.”

“My goal is simple. It is a complete understanding of the universe, why it is as it is and why it exists at all.”

“Not only does God play dice, but… he sometimes throws them where they cannot be seen.”

“Someone told me that each equation I included in the book would halve the sales.”

“The usual approach of science of constructing a mathematical model cannot answer the questions of why there should be a universe for the model to describe. Why does the universe go to all the bother of existing?”

“The whole history of science has been the gradual realization that events do not happen in an arbitrary manner, but that they reflect a certain underlying order, which may or may not be divinely inspired.”

“There are grounds for cautious optimism that we may now be near the end of the search for the ultimate laws of nature.”



conterminous

PRONUNCIATION: (kuhn-TUHR-muh-nuhs)
http://wordsmith.org/words/conterminous.mp3

MEANING: (adjective)
1. Having a common boundary.
2. Confined within one common boundary.
3. Having the same scope, in time, meaning, etc.

ETYMOLOGY: From Latin con- (with) + terminus (boundary, limit). Earliest documented use: 1631.

USAGE: “Bob Greene estimates he has performed in all 48 states in the conterminous United States.” – Steve Stout; Illinois Musician’s Father Drove Him to Circus Career; The Carmi Times (Illinois); Jun 5, 2011.

Explore “conterminous” in the Visual Thesaurus.
http://visualthesaurus.com/?w1=conterminous



duopsony

PRONUNCIATION:  (doo-OP-suh-nee, dyoo-)
http://wordsmith.org/words/duopsony.mp3

MEANING:  noun: A market condition in which there are only two buyers, thus exerting great influence on price.

ETYMOLOGY:  From Greek duo- (two) + -opsony, from opsonia (purchase).

NOTES:  Here’s a little chart that explains it all:
monopoly:  one seller, many buyers
duopoly:  two sellers, many buyers
oligopoly:  a few sellers, many buyers
monopsony:  one buyer, many sellers
duopsony:  two buyers, many sellers
oligopsony:  a few buyers, many sellers

USAGE:  “The BBC-ITV duopsony was gone for good, and the competition between the TV companies as purchasers of the rights intensified.” – Stephen Dobson and John Goddard; The Economics of Football; Cambridge University Press; 2011.

Explore “duopsony” in the Visual Thesaurus.
http://visualthesaurus.com/?w1=duopsony


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