by Grania
Good morning! Jerry tells me that it is the 182nd day of the year so halfway through the year at noon. In 1879 the first edition of The Watchtower was published, in 1903 the first Tour de France bicycle race started and in 1908 SOS was adopted as the international distress signal, although in the maritime world it has been replaced with the Global Maritime Distress and Safety System. In 1980 “O Canada” became the national anthem of Canada. In 1963 the US got zip codes, and in 1972 England had its first Gay Pride March.
JAC: We missed this yesterday, but reader Simon tells me that June 30, 1937, was the day that Britain adopted its emergency telephone number of 999 (it’s 911 in the US). Simon adds this: “I had not realized that the widely used international equivalent is 112 or that 112 on a cell phone in the US transfers to 911 (and to 999 in the UK) – which of course is only useful if you know the number in the first place!”
So wherever you are, you can dial 112.
Dublin Pride Parade Photo: Tom HonanGoogle doodle is honoring Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz today, a German polymath of the late 17th century who developed differential and integral calculus at the same time as Isaac Newton. Read more about him here.
Hili is speculating today. This may be an important new theory worthy of study.
Hili: The girls are getting better and better at soccer.
A: This is the effect of climate change.
In Polish:
Hili: Dziewczyny coraz lepiej grają w piłkę.
Ja: To efekt zmian klimatycznych.
Today Leon is grousing in paradise.
Leon: This pheasant is getting on my nerves!
From Twitter today:
I don’t think this was a teacher with her class based on the varying ages of the people around her and the domestic setting. It was nevertheless a long-awaited moment.”
🤣 Imagine the scene…
For weeks you have taught your class how a caterpillar 🐛 becomes a butterfly 🦋 by nurturing one in your classroom…
You go outside to release the butterfly into the world and inspire the children with the wonders of nature… then this happens… pic.twitter.com/qGhVCFiUe4
— Samantha Quek (@SamanthaQuek) June 27, 2018
Glowworms at night
1 of 2 Was out on a mission tonight to find a glowing #Glowworm found 3 Female, 2 Male and a mating pair at a local wetland site. pic.twitter.com/ewTpXj6sNQ
— mel oxford (@GwentMoths) June 28, 2018
A thread from Adam Rutherford on the birth of evolution.
160 years ago today, the world changed. Happy birthday to evolution by natural selection!
‘Three papers on the tendency of species to form varieties; and on the perpetuation of varieties and species by natural means of selection. Zoologist 16: 6293-6308’https://t.co/8LwUCC1vXk
— Dr Adam Rutherford (@AdamRutherford) July 1, 2018
Something that won’t surprise anybody, unfortunately.
Three days apart. pic.twitter.com/RLRgOueifD
— Dave Itzkoff (@ditzkoff) June 30, 2018
Elephants!
Amboseli is one of the best canvases to work with in the world, I almost always return to Nairobi with something. But this image ‘The Circle of Life’ stood out and the reaction from those I quickly showed it to homed in on the image’s grace and serenity. pic.twitter.com/TWJXeB66Uz
— David Yarrow (@David_Yarrow) June 30, 2018
More brave women of Iran defying the authoritarian regime there. Many have been arrested and assaulted for participating in these activities.
It's illegal for Iranian women to dance on the street… but that's not stopping them pic.twitter.com/SNvTOYn13E
— Vocativ (@vocativ) June 29, 2018
True story
https://twitter.com/robotfur/status/1013080492890050560
Finally, the tale of a very smart duck.
https://twitter.com/BoringEnormous/status/1013091058698407936
Hat-tip: Charleen, Matthew.
Showing off my computer nerdiness – the 1s and 0s in the Google Doodle honoring Leibniz today are the binary representation of the ASCII text of “Google”. Reading down the first column, then the second, the Hexadecimal is 47 6F 6F 67 6C 65. The last character being written is a 1. If it was a 0, the text would be “Googld.”
That cool dance they’re doing is called the shuffle.
Something that I learned on a first aid course: in the UK, many mobile networks will transfer ‘911’ calls to 999, to account for those who think that 911 will get you the “Feds”.
Today’s winners?
Spain 3 / Russia 1
Croatia 3 / Denmark 0
And in Japan there are two numbers, neither of which is 112: 110 is the police emergency number, and 119 is the fire/ambulance emergency number.
A little more on 999: the number was chosen when rotary dial phones were used, and 0 was for operator; and it requires rotating the dial almost all the way three times – so it’s easy to remember but hard to inadvertently misdial or for a child playing with the phone to inadvertently dial (or at least that’s the story I remember). 111 would have been too easy to inadvertently dial. I wonder how 911 was chosen.
And ironically, with modern touch screen phones, 999 is very easy to dial by mistake.
As for 911, it is surprisingly recent
https://www.nena.org/page/911overviewfacts?
This is how Iranian women dressed at World Cup games:
http://www.sportingnews.com/soccer/news/world-cup-2018-iran-fans-women-stadium-russia/zdzdune36axo1rsv0nunieywm and
https:// http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4yNl8Lrs7p8
This is how Saudi women dressed at World Cup games:
http://photos.thenet.ng/female-fans-of-russia-and-saudi-arabia-had-only-one-thing-in-common/
Iran, I’d say, is improving; Saudi Arabia not so much.
Iran was very cosmopolitan until the Shah was removed. Most people there are still like that. The culture has been very different from Saudi Arabia’s the whole time, and the laws are more lax.
Wouldn’t the half way point be noon tomorrow, since we don’t have 182 full days until midnight tonight?
Anyone else think Uruguay’s Luis Suarez looks exactly like a young Ricardo Darín?
OMG! He does!
Glow Worm, with it’s updated Mercer lyrics, is one of my absolute favorite songs.
Glow little glow-worm, turn the key on,
You are equipped with tail-light neon
That “duck and cover” reminds me I just found out that our neighborhood has got a Northern goshawk [Accipiter gentilis again.
Or at least that is the demise the nommed dove corpse in the street crossing looked like it experienced. It was years since last a goshawk lived here though.
Nope.
At the end of the day on July 1st there have been 182 days, multiplied by two, that is 364. In fact, today, July 2nd is exactly half way through the year.