ALL THE REST –    February 26
  

Today's Quotations — ADVICE
 


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Men give away nothing so liberally as their advice.

— La Rochefoucauld


Bad advice is often most fatal to the adviser.

— Flaccus 

 
 

A fop sometimes gives important advice.

— Boileau 

Advice is like snow: the softer it falls, the longer it dwells upon, and the deeper it sinks into, the mind.

— Coleridge

 

Remember this: they that will not be counseled cannot be helped. If you do not hear Reason, she will rap your knuckles.

— Ben Franklin

 

word puzzleToday's Word – SHANGHAI

 



Shang·hai
A city of eastern China at the mouth of the Yangtze River (Chang Jiang) southeast of Nanjing. The largest city in the country, Shanghai was opened to foreign trade by the Treaty of Nanking (1842) and quickly prospered.


shang·hai transitive verb  1. To kidnap (a man) for compulsory service aboard a ship, especially after drugging him. 2. To induce or compel (someone) to do something, especially by fraud or force [After Shanghai1, from the former custom of kidnapping sailors to man ships going to China.]


Definitions from American Heritage Dictionary

 

Today's Fact

Over the next several days the facts here on the DM will be about Serendipitous Discoveries.
This is the first fact on this subject.

   

Serendipity
Discoveries

Rayon

 

 
   
 
Serendipity, or chance discovery. This has been the means of a number  of scientific discoveries both great and small. 

 

 
SERENDIPITY 10   

A young chemist, Hilaire de Chardonnet, was assisting Pasteur in trying to save the French silk industry. The silk worms were dying from an epidemic. He became convinced that the best answer to the silk problem was the development of a manmade substitute for silk.

      In 1878, while he was working in his darkroom with photographic plates he spilled a bottle of collodion. He didn't immediately clean up the spill.  Later,  cleaning up the spilled collodion provided him with   the idea for the first synthetic silk. Leaving the spill until later caused partial evaporation of the solvent and left a thick, viscous, tacky liquid. As he tried to wipe up the mess he was left with long thin strands of fiber.

The fibers resembled silk. This was enough to encourage him to experiment further with collodion. Working on the problem for nearly six years allowed Chardonnet to produce an artificial silk. He made collodion from a pulp of the natural food of the silkworm, mulberry leaves. The pulp was dissolved in ether and alcohol. He then drew out filaments of the fiber and coagulated them in heated air.


Cloth made from this new fiber was exhibited at the Paris Exposition in 1891. It was so successful that financial backing came easily. The new fiber was called "artificial silk" until nearly 1924 when it received the name rayon. The rayon produced by Chardonnet was very flammable. Later other processes were devised to convert cotton into silk-like fibers. The newer rayons of today are xanthate rayon and acetate rayon. The flammable nitrate rayons are no longer used.

Sources: Serendipity | Encyclopaedia Britannica | The New Shell Book of Firsts

 

 


 


 

The Daily Miscellany Times

February 26, 1723

Old News = History


Wren's Monument  is London's Skyline

Sir Christopher Wren, builder of St. Paul's Cathedral, died today. Sir Wren was 90 years old.

Sir Christopher Wren was a professor of astronomy at Oxford. He was a renowned polymath and a founding member of the Royal Society.

At age 3, Wren turned to architecture. He designed a college chapel at Cambridge and a theater and college buildings at Oxford.

The Great Fire of London destroyed 400 acres of the city in four days. Reconstruction of the area brought a building boom to London. Wren replanned the whole city. His street plan was rejected, but he was asked to

rebuild the skyline. This included the reconstruction of 51 churches, and a replacement for the medieval cathedral of St. Paul which were destroyed in the Great Fire.

It took Wren the rest of his life to complete the task. The rebuilding of St. Paul's took 40 years. St. Paul's is a work of splendor. Its vast dome is second only to  St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican. It was the Vatican structure on which Wren modeled St. Paul's.

Though Wren is gone his work remains a monument to him. St. Paul's, Kensington's Palace and the Royal Hospital for Seamen at Greenwhich are just a few of his commissions that have left an permanent stamp on London.

 

"Sources: | On This Day | Britannica |"

 

 

clown
Today's SMILE

 

 

"What sunshine is to flowers, smiles are to humanity. These are but trifles, to be sure; but, scattered along life's pathway, the good they do is inconceivable."

Joseph Addison

 

A cheerful heart is good medicine,
but a crushed spirit dries up the bones.
Proverbs 17:22 (NIV)

 
   

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Just Picking Up a Couple of Things...

A keen country lad applied for a salesman's job at a city department store. It was one of those massive stores that has every department imaginable. In fact it was the biggest store in the world - you could get anything there.

The boss asked him, "Have you ever been a salesman before?" "Yes, I was a salesman in the country," said the lad. The boss liked the cut of him and said, "You can start tomorrow, Friday morning, and I'll come and see you when we close up."

When the boss looked up the young man the next day at closing time, he saw him shaking hands with a beaming customer. After they parted, he walked over and asked, "Well, that looked good! How many sales did you make today?"

"That was the only one," said the young salesman.

"Only one!?!" blurted the boss. "Most of my staff make 20 or 30 sales a day. You'll have to do better than that! Well, how much was the sale worth?"

"Two hundred twenty seven thousand, three hundred thirty four dollars and change," said the young man.

The boss paused for a moment, blinking a few times. "H... H... How did you manage that?!?"

"Well, when he came in this morning and I sold him a small fish hook. Then, I sold him a medium hook, and then a really large hook. Then I sold him a small fishing line, a medium one, and then a big one. I then sold him a speargun, a wetsuit, scuba gear, nets, chum, coolers, and a keg of beer. I asked him where he was going fishing and he said down the coast. We decided he would probably need a new boat, so I took him down to the boat department and sold him that twenty-foot schooner with the twin engines. Then, he said that his Volkswagon probably wouldn't be able to pull it, so I took him to the car department and sold him the new Deluxe Cruiser, with a winch, storage rack, rustproofing, and a built-in refrigerator. Oh, and floor mats."

The boss took two steps back and asked in astonishment, "You sold all that to a guy who came in for a fish hook?!"

"No," answered the salesman. "He came in to buy a blanket."

"A blanket?" "Yeah, an extra blanket for the couch. He just had a fight with his wife. I said to him, 'Well, your weekend's ruined, so you may as well go fishing...'" 

KashaL@concentric.net    | Kasha Linka



Procrastinator's Creed

1. I believe that if anything is worth doing, it would have been done already.

2. I shall never move quickly, except to avoid more work or to find excuses.

3. I will never rush into a job without a lifetime of consideration.

4. I shall meet all of my deadlines directly in proportion to the amount of bodily injury I could expect to receive from missing them.

5. I firmly believe that tomorrow holds the possibility for new technologies, astounding discoveries, and a reprieve from my obligations.

6. I truly believe that all deadlines are unreasonable regardless of the amount of time given.

7. I shall never forget that the probability of a miracle, though infinitesimally small, is never
exactly zero.

8. If at first I don't succeed, there is always next year.

9. I shall always decide not to decide, unless of course I decide to change my mind.

10. I shall always begin, start, initiate, take the first step, and/or write the first word, when I get around to it.

11. I obey the law of inverse excuses which demands that the greater the task to be done, the more insignificant the work that must be done prior to beginning the greater task.

12. I know that the work cycle is not plan/start/finish, but is wait/plan/plan.

13. I will never put off until tomorrow, what I can forget about forever.

14. I will become a member of the ancient Order of Two-Headed Turtles (the Procrastinator's Society) if they ever get it organized. "


Playing Hooky

The Reverend Francis Norton woke up Sunday morning and realizing it was an exceptionally beautiful and sunny early spring day, decided he just had to play golf. So... he told the Associate Pastor that he was feeling sick and convinced him to say Mass for him that day. As soon as the Associate Pastor left the room, Father Norton headed out of town to a golf course about forty miles away. This way he knew he wouldn't accidentally meet anyone he knew from his parish.

Setting up on the first tee, he was alone. After all, it was Sunday morning and everyone else was in church! At about this time, Saint Peter leaned over to the Lord while looking down from the heavens and exclaimed, "You're not going to let him get away with this, are you?"

The Lord sighed, and said, "No, I guess not." Just then Father Norton hit the ball and it shot straight towards the pin, dropping just short of it, rolled up and fell into the hole. It WAS A 420 YARD HOLE IN ONE! St. Peter was astonished. He looked at the Lord and asked, "Why did you let him do that?" The Lord smiled and replied, "Who's he going to tell?"



How do you keep an idiot busy for hours?

 



TRUE FACT ...

Humans begin laughing at two to three months of age. Six year olds laugh about 300 times per day, while adults laugh from 15 to 100 times per day.

SOURCE: NYT, Dr. William F. Fry, Stanford University

 

smile

 


Those who live by the sword get shot by those who don't.

 


Daily Miscellany Comics

 

Have A Great Day

Phillip Bower

 

Soul Food - devotions, Bible verse and inspiration.

Soul Food February 26

Today in History - events and birthdays for this date in history

Today in History February 26

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Copyright Information: Phillip Bower is not the author of the humor, and does not claim to own any copyright privileges to the jokes. Sources of jokes are listed when known. Birthday's and Happenings for the date, and quotations are public knowledge and collected from numerous sources. Quotations are public knowledge and sources are listed when known. Weekendspirations are written by Tim Knappenberger who has copyright privileges. Cathy Vinson authors Whispers from the Wilderness and owns copyright privileges. Weekendspirations and Whispers from the Wilderness are used with permission by the respective authors. Other devotions are written by Phillip Bower unless otherwise stated. In all cases credit is given when known. The Daily Miscellany is nonprofit. Submissions by readers is welcome.