from Bruce
Anecdotes
Prejudice
• For decades, large areas of the Indianapolis 500 grounds were for men only. For example, women — even women owners of Indianapolis 500 racing cars — were not allowed in the Indianapolis 500 garages. In 1950, racing fans were outraged when the movie To Please a Lady appeared to show the character played by Barbara Stanwyck in an Indy garage. However, the controversy was defused when Indy officials insisted that Ms. Stanwyck had not entered the all-male area. The movie people had cut a hole in a fence, Ms. Stanwyck had leaned through the fence hole, and her feet had at all times been outside the garage. (In 1977, Janet Guthrie broke a major barrier to women when she became the first woman to race in the Indianapolis 500.)
• In 1896, the United States Open golf tournament was held at Shinnecock Hills Golf Club. A man named John Shippen, who was part Shinnecock Indian and part West Indian, entered the tournament. However, because of his heritage, the other golfers did not want to play with Mr. Shippen and they threatened to boycott the tournament. The president of the U.S. Golf Association, Theodore Havemeyer, refused to give in to prejudice. He informed the golfers that if they boycotted the tournament, Mr. Shippen would win by default. They decided to play with Mr. Shippen.
• In 1931, 17-year-old Jackie Mitchell became the first woman to sign with a men’s professional baseball team when she joined the minor-league Chattanooga Lookouts. In early April of 1931, she pitched in an exhibition game against the New York Yankees and struck out Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig, both of whom are now in the Baseball Hall of Fame. After the game, the baseball commissioner cancelled her contract because he didn’t think women ought to be allowed to play professional baseball.
Problem-Solving
• The spitball has been a part of baseball for a long time; even now, a professional pitcher is occasionally caught throwing a spitball. In 1912, the Pittsburgh Pirates had a spitball pitcher by the name of Marty O’Toole. The other teams knew that Mr. O’Toole was throwing spitballs, and they knew how he was doing it. His technique was to hold the ball and his glove in front of his face, then lick the ball while it was hidden by his glove. However, Philadelphia Phillies first baseman Fred Luderus figured out how to stop the pitcher from throwing spitballs. Mr. Luderus got hold of some hot liniment, and whenever he got to handle the baseball, he secretly applied some of the liniment to it. Soon, Mr. O’Toole’s tongue felt like it was on fire, and he had to leave the game.
• As coach of the Boston Celtics, Red Auerbach used to pull out a cigar and smoke it whenever the Celtics held a commanding lead in the final seconds of a game. This originated not so much as a way to insult other teams as a way to insult the “higher-ups” of the National Basketball Association. Mr. Auerbach once said that when the higher-ups of the NBA were picking on him, he tried to find something he could do to aggravate them. However, he didn’t have any luck solving this problem until he smoked a cigar one day while coaching a game. After the game, the higher-ups sent him a note saying that smoking cigars while sitting on the bench didn’t look good. Mr. Auerbach said that since reading the note, he has never been without a cigar.
• United States figure skater Tara Lipinski actually started out as a roller skater. She wanted to play on a roller hockey team, but when she tried out, she was the only girl among 150 boys — some of whom had a problem skating with a girl. Fortunately, the coach, Charlie Kirchner, was very intelligent. He told 25 boys and Tara to line up with their backs to him, then told them to skate backwards to the wall. Tara reached the wall first in record time, and the boys decided that they didn’t have a problem skating with a girl.
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© Copyright Bruce D. Bruce; All Rights Reserved
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Presenting
Michael Egan
U.S.A., experiencing a bit of synchronicity, said:
has returned to semi-retired status.
In memory.
BRUCE'S RECOMMENDATION
BANDCAMP MUSIC
BRUCE'S RECOMMENDATION OF BANDCAMP MUSIC
Music: "Savannah"
Album: EL SONIDO EX TICO DE PHANTOM FOUR
Artist: The Phantom Four
Artist Location: Amsterdam, Netherlands
Info:
The Phantom Four have become one of the world's leading instrumental groups, mixing the sounds of surf guitars with world music.
Frontman Phantom Frank (ex-Treble Spankers) creates original arrangements that are influenced by psychedelic cumbia, 70's afrobeat, and folk music from the Middle-East to name but a few.
Price: FREE (You must give Phantom Four your email address.)
Genre: Instrumental.
Links:
EL SONIDO EX TICO DE PHANTOM FOUR
The Phantom Four on Bandcamp
The Phantom Four on YouTube
Other Links:
David Bruce's Amazon Author Page
David Bruce's Smashwords Page
David Bruce's Blog #1
David Bruce's Blog #2
David Bruce's Blog #3
David Bruce's Apple iBookstore
David Bruce has over 140 Kindle books on Amazon.com.
Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
Stephen Suggests
Mass Transit
New Venture
Michael Egan
Bonus Links
Jeannie the Teed-Off Temp
Reader Comment
Current Events
Linda >^..^<
We are all only temporarily able bodied.
Thanks, Linda!
that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Too warm to cook in the house.
Shuts Out Research
Facebook
Facebook has shut down the personal accounts of a pair of New York University researchers and shuttered their investigation into misinformation spread through political ads on the social network.
Facebook says the researchers violated its terms of service and were involved in unauthorized data collection from its massive network. The academics, however, say the company is attempting to exert control on research that paints it in a negative light.
The NYU researchers with the Ad Observatory Project had for several years been looking into Facebook’s Ad Library, where searches can be done on advertisements running across Facebook’s products.
The access was used to “uncover systemic flaws in the Facebook Ad Library, to identify misinformation in political ads, including many sowing distrust in our election system, and to study Facebook’s apparent amplification of partisan misinformation,” said Laura Edelson, the lead researcher behind NYU Cybersecurity for Democracy, in a statement.
Facebook’s action against the NYU project also cut off other researchers and journalists who got access to Facebook data through the project, Edelson said.
Facebook
The Election
Yikes
Nearly two in three Republicans still believe the lies about President Joe Biden stealing the 2020 election being spread by former President Donald Trump (R-Lock Him Up) and some of his allies, including some members of Congress, according to a new poll.
A poll from Yahoo News/YouGov found that 66 per cent of Republican respondents believed that Mr Trump was the rightful winner of the 2020 election, while a significant number of independents (28 per cent) and three per cent of Democrats said the same.
The poll is a distressing look at how divided America’s electorate remains over the sanctity of US elections, and underscores just how widespread conspiracy theories about the 2020 election continue to travel even despite the complete failure of Mr Trump’s attorneys to provide any evidence to courts that proved fraud was widespread during the election.
Mr Trump’s own former attorney general, Bill Barr, has called his ex-boss’ claims “bulls***”, and while he was still in office said that the Justice Department had seen no evidence of widespread election or voter fraud in 2020. Other government agencies said the same.
The Yahoo/YouGov poll surveyed 1,552 adults in the US between 30 July and 2 August. The margin of error is 2.7 per cent.
Yikes
Debuts Dolls
Barbie
British coronavirus vaccine developer Sarah Gilbert has many science accolades to her credit but now shares an honor with Beyonce, Marilyn Monroe and Eleanor Roosevelt: a Barbie doll in her likeness.
Gilbert, a 59-year-old professor at Oxford University and co-developer of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine, is one of six women in the COVID-19 fight who have new Barbies modeled after them.
Among the honorees are emergency room nurse Amy O'Sullivan who treated the first COVID-19 patient at the Wycoff Hospital in Brooklyn, New York, and Audrey Cruz, frontline doctor in Las Vegas who fought discrimination, according to Mattel.
Other dolls include Chika Stacy Oriuwa, a Canadian psychiatry resident at the University of Toronto who battled systemic racism in healthcare, and Brazilian biomedical researcher Jaqueline Goes de Jesus, who led sequencing of the genome of a COVID-19 variant in Brazil, the company said.
Lastly a doll honors Kirby White, an Australian doctor who pioneered a surgical gown that can be washed and reused by frontline workers during the pandemic.
Barbie
Galactic Starcruiser Hotel
Di$ney $tar War$
It's going to cost a lot of money to visit a "galaxy far, far away," even if it's only in Florida.
Disney's new Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser hotel opens at Walt Disney World next spring. It'll let guests live out their Star Wars fantasies with fully immersive, all inclusive multi-day experiences like they're on a life-size starship. Guests can eat and sleep on board, go on customized missions and interact with characters from across the galaxy – if they can afford it.
Newly listed sample prices show 2-night packages start at $4,809 for two people or $5,999 for four people. That's for "most weeknights" Aug. 20 through Sept. 17 next year, traditionally off-peak dates for the parks.
For perspective, the median month mortgage payment in the U.S. is $1,200, according to the U.S. Census Bureau's latest American Housing Survey.
For fans who really want to splurge, there are two classes of suites: Galaxy and Grand Captain, with additional amenities and "a few extra Star Wars surprises," according to Disney World's website.
Di$ney $tar War$
US Ranks Last, Spends Most
Healthcare
The US is last on a ranking of healthcare systems among 11 of the wealthiest countries in the world, despite spending the highest percentage of its GDP on healthcare, according to a new report from the Commonwealth Fund.
The country struggles with deep problems in affordability of healthcare, which affects access and equity, and it is the country that has the most administrative hurdles when dealing with healthcare. This is despite the US spending 17% of its gross domestic product on healthcare, “far above” the other 10 countries, according to the report.
The other countries analyzed in the report were Australia, Canada, France, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and the UK. The ranking is based on 71 measures across five areas: access to care, care process, administrative efficiency, equity and healthcare outcomes.
The report notes that unlike the other countries in the study, the US does not provide universal healthcare coverage. Americans are more likely to have problems paying medical bills and have their insurance denied. A larger percentage of Americans say they spend a lot of time on paperwork for medical bills, and doctors report having more trouble prescribing medication for patients because of restrictive health insurance coverage.
Health statistics reflect the reality of having the worst healthcare system on the list: the US has the highest infant, maternal and avoidable mortality rates. The country also has less support for early childhood education and support systems, like unemployment protection, for workers, leading to poorer health outcomes.
Healthcare
Ultrawealthy Ditching
US Citizenship
More of America's wealthiest citizens don't want to be American anymore, according to new data compiled by Axios.
In 2020, according to IRS data, 6,707 Americans gave up their citizenship - a 237% increase from the prior year. The rise is pronounced among some of the wealthiest people, who have been leaving at elevated rates since 2016 (with a notable dip in 2019).
Insider previously reported the US passport lost a big chunk of its value in 2020. Some of the reasons the richest Americans wanted to flee were the handling of the pandemic, general social unrest, and, perhaps most importantly, the presidential election.
At the time, America's wealthiest people were having a hard time finding a way out of the country, even for vacation, since so many countries weren't allowing Americans in.
Nuri Katz, the founder of Apex Capital, a firm that specializes in citizenship by investment programs, previously told Insider the wealthy had to adjust to not being able to travel for work or pleasure - which led to a desire to "diversify" passports.
US Citizenship
Apple To Scan
iPhones
Apple unveiled plans to scan U.S. iPhones for images of child sexual abuse, drawing applause from child protection groups but raising concern among some security researchers that the system could be misused, including by governments looking to surveil their citizens.
The tool designed to detected known images of child sexual abuse, called “neuralMatch,” will scan images before they are uploaded to iCloud. If it finds a match, the image will be reviewed by a human. If child pornography is confirmed, the user’s account will be disabled and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children notified.
The system will not flag images not already in the center’s child pornography database. Parents snapping innocent photos of a child in the bath presumably need not worry. But researchers say the matching tool — which doesn’t “see” such images, just mathematical “fingerprints” that represent them — could be put to more nefarious purposes.
Matthew Green, a top cryptography researcher at Johns Hopkins University, warned that the system could be used to frame innocent people by sending them seemingly innocuous images designed to trigger matches for child pornography. That could fool Apple’s algorithm and alert law enforcement. “Researchers have been able to do this pretty easily,” he said of the ability to trick such systems.
Other abuses could include government surveillance of dissidents or protesters. “What happens when the Chinese government says, ‘Here is a list of files that we want you to scan for,’” Green asked. “Does Apple say no? I hope they say no, but their technology won’t say no.”
iPhones
Hottest Temperature
Human Body
With climate change causing temperatures to rise across the globe, extreme heat is becoming more and more of a health threat. The human body is resilient, but it can only handle so much. So what is the highest temperature people can endure?
The answer is straightforward: a wet-bulb temperature of 95 degrees Fahrenheit (35 degrees Celsius), according to a 2020 study in the journal Science Advances. Wet-bulb temperature is not the same as the air temperature you might see reported by your local forecaster or favorite weather app. Rather, a wet-bulb temperature is measured by a thermometer covered in a water-soaked cloth, and it takes into account both heat and humidity. The latter is important because with more water in the air, it's harder for sweat to evaporate off the body and cool a person down.
If the humidity is low but the temperature is high, or vice versa, the wet-bulb temperature probably won't near the human body's tipping point, said Colin Raymond, a postdoctoral researcher at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory who studies extreme heat. But when both the humidity and the temperature are very high, the wet-bulb temperature can creep toward dangerous levels. For example, when the air temperature is 115 F (46.1 C) and the relative humidity is 30%, the wet-bulb temperature is only about 87 F (30.5 C). But when the air temperature is 102 F (38.9 C) and the relative humidity is 77%, the wet-bulb temperature is about 95 F (35 C).
The reason people can't survive at high heat and humidity is that they can no longer regulate their internal temperature. "If the wet-bulb temperature rises above the human body temperature, you can still sweat, but you're not going to be able to cool your body to the temperature that it needs to operate at physiologically," Raymond told Live Science.
A wet-bulb temperature of 95 F won't cause immediate death, however; it probably takes about 3 hours for that heat to be unsurvivable, Raymond said. There's no way to know for sure the exact amount of time, he said, but studies have tried to estimate it by immersing human participants in hot water tanks and removing them when their body temperatures began to rise uncontrollably. There also isn't a way to confirm that 95 F is the exact wet-bulb temperature that's unsurvivable; Raymond estimated that the true number is in the range of 93.2 F to 97.7 F (34 C to 36.5 C).
Human Body
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