I'd heard the expression "pig in a poke" before but I didn't know what it meant. Apparently a poke comes from the French word poque (same root as pocket), and means a bag. Don't buy a pig in a poke means don't buy something without looking at it first. A trick in mediaeval times was to put a dog or cat in the bag instead. The trick would be revealed by letting the cat out of the bag.
2. Mayan Numbers
Mayan numbers were constructed using dots (representing 1), dashes (representing 5) and a shell-like symbol which was a placeholder, used like 0 in 103 to indicate that 1 represents 100 rather than 10. It is partially a base 20 system although not quite. For example,
.
- 1+5=6 which is multiplied by 18 x 20 x 20
. . 2 which is multiplied by 18 x 20
- 5 which is multiplied by 20
...
_
_
_ 5+5+5+3=18 (units)
is the number 6x18x20x20 + 2x18x20 + 5x20 + 18 which is 44038.
3. Baldwin Effect
The Baldwin effect is when a learnt behaviour evolves into an inherited instinct through natural selection.
The plus symbol + comes from the letter t in Latin word et meaning and.
2. Symbol
The word symbol comes from the Greek word for token or token of identity. This word is made up from two Greek words sum (together) and ballo (to throw). In ancient times, a stick or bone was broken into two and each party took a piece. The pieces were a symbol of the relationship, confirmed by the two pieces fitting perfectly together.
3. Gulp
I've just started the edX TypeScript course. So far I'm enjoying it although it's quite challenging. In the second lesson, there's a rather large jump with some missing information, but with the help of a link in the forums to a blog post I was able to set up a typeScript workflow using gulp.
What is significant about this for me is that two months ago I have no idea how build scripts worked. They were in the scary mystery bucket. To make a small change to some code, I needed to understand the build process, and so I'd worked my way through the project's grunt file. Grunt is, like gulp, a build task runner. Because of their similarity, I understood, at least on a surface level, what the gulp file was doing. I'd learnt more than I thought I had!
When I was looking at the etymology of dummvirate, I saw mention of werewolf. The root of were is also vir, but via the old English, wer meaning man, male person.
2. Egg within an egg
I watched this video of a large egg, which when cracked contained a smaller fully formed egg complete with shell.
I didn't know whether it was a spoof or not, and if not a spoof then how was it formed?
Yolk: The oocyte (yolk) is produced by the ovary, and enters the oviduct.
White: In the first part of the oviduct, the magnum, the yolk is covered with the white (albumen).
Membrane: In the next section of the oviduct, the isthmus, a membrane is deposited over the partially formed egg.
Shell: Next the egg reaches the uterus (shell gland) where a layer of calcium carbonate is deposited around it. This takes between nineteen and twenty-six hours. This forms the shell.
Protective bloom: The last layer, protective bloom, is deposited around the egg. This seals the pores in the shell and keeps the egg fresher for longer.
Finally the egg is laid.
The egg-in-egg phenomenon occurs when a second oocyte is released before the first egg is laid. A contraction occurs, called a counter-peristalsis contraction, which causes the egg to travel backwards through the oviduct, where it joins with the second oocyte to be coated with albumen, membrane and shell again. It ends up as a rather large egg for the poor hen to lay!
3. Upside Down Photos
A friend of mine was having some problems with images on his website. Some of the images displayed upside down and some the right way up. However, when the images were opened in a new tab, they were the right way up. What on earth was going on?
You can take a photo with an iPhone in different orientations. For speed, instead of saving the correctly orientated version of the photo, Apple adds an EXIF tag 'orientation' which tells apps which way up the image should be displayed. Using
Jeffrey's Exif Viewer, you can see the details saved along with the image. For example, for an image that was taken with the phone upside down, you get
but for the right way up you instead see
Mystery solved. Now we know what is going on, the next problem is what to do about it. It seems that the solution is to rotate the photos before uploading. There are tools which enable you to do this by rotating based on the orientation. Note that I have not tried and of these tools.
Back in the late '90s, I remember coming across the blink tag. It was horrible. Flash flash flash all over the place. Yuck. Well, today I found out how it came about in a Friday night discussion at a bar. The next morning, it had already been implemented in the UNIX version of Netscape! It spread to the Windows and Mac versions and was release with no fanfair. People found out and sadly the web became full of flashy nastiness!
2. Etymology of Asterisk
The word "asterisk" comes Late Latin asteriscus and Greek asteriskos which means little star. Compare with astro- for words related to the stars.
3. Caduceus
I learnt today that this symbol:
is called the caduceus, which comes from the Greek for herald's staff. It was carried by Hermes, the messenger of the gods.
