American inventor La Marcus Adna Thompson was born in 1848 in a small town in Ohio. In spite of designing and building a butter churn at 12 and being a master carpenter at 17, he made his fortune manufacturing women’s hosiery. After a mental breakdown in the 1880’s, La Marcus sold his hosiery business and […]
In 1906 a 21-year-old inventor from Nova Scotia went to work in the basement of his sister’s home in New England. That’s where Alfred Fuller intended to make “the best products of their kind in the world” and that’s how he started the Fuller Brush Company. Since then the company has grown from the contents […]
For years we have seen the lollipop lady as a figure head in traffic calming but is she really such a strong force, what will happen if you ignore her, perhaps a fate worst than death is in hand, are we perhaps all scared that she will jump in the air and throw each side […]
Pets have therapeutic value. Although studies have shown that patting a dog or cat can lower blood pressure and reduce stress, dogs and cats aren’t allowed in most hospitals and nursing homes. Baby seals, however, are - if they’re robotic baby seals. A Japanese company has created Paro, a robotic seal to be used to […]
In my search for longevity I read The Blue Zones - Lessons for Living Longer From the People Who’ve Lived the Longest. According to this best seller, there are four areas of the world where lifestyles have enabled people to live to be over one hundred - Costa Rica, Okinawa, Sardinia and Loma Linda, California. […]
Two years ago there were fourteen Americans on the list of the world’s twenty richest people. Now there are four. Thanks to Warren Buffett and his $62 billion, an American remains on op of the list and Buffett can thank his company, Berkshire Hathaway. Being able to float loans enables Buffett to buy a wide […]
In 1955 when researchers counted the punctuation in period texts they found a change in our way of communicating. They discovered there had been a surprising drop in semicolon usage between the 18th and 19th centuries. The drop from 68.1 semicolons per one thousand words to 17.7 was attributed to technology. What was the new […]
I admit it. I’ve taken my feet for granted. I’ve forced them into shoes because the shoes looked good - not because they felt good. After years of this abuse I’m feeling “defeeted”.
After a bit of sole searching - of my shoes - I discovered that the majority of shoe designers are men. I […]
It’s been said that a person has a better chance of getting into Harvard than the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Clown College. This fact highlights the extensive admission process and the seriousness of learning to be a clown. The clown college only accepts about 50 applicants per year from a field of thousands […]
Until a recent trip to Vermont I thought Vermont was one of the original thirteen states. Wrong. Vermont had wanted to be its own country. It changed its mind in time to become the fourteenth state in the union. I also learned that Vermont is the most rural of the fifty states. One-third of its […]
