The earliest of weddings

Some interesting facts that I found related to the earliest of weddings.

• The earliest of the wedding dresses were blue and not white. Historical evidence suggest that brides started wearing white as a symbol of purity when Queen Victoria insisted on wearing the colour as she tied the knot with Albert in 1840.
• Research into 25,000 weddings over 350 years has revealed that the wedding cake was stuffed with meat or minces, more commonly known as the bride’s pie (read more).
• The white colour of the wedding cakes was not due to the symbolism of the colour white but as a mark of affluence. Previous to the Victorian times, ingredients for icing were difficult to come by and white icing required the finest of sugar. Hence, the more white the cake the more affluent the family appeared.
• The concept of the wedding ring, as studies suggest, started with the early Egyptians where the earliest of wedding rings were made from the plants growing on the banks of river Nile. The ring symbolized eternity or something that had no beginning or end due to its circular shape and was worn on the ring finger of the left hand the vein from that finger traveled directly from the heart.

The story behind the width of railway tracks

The common story that explains the 56.5” wide railway tracks is as follows (read more):

The 56.5” width (gauge) for rail tracks is the same as that of tramways, made with the help of the same jigs and tools that were used for building wagons which used that wheel spacing. Throughout England the same spacing was used for older wagon ruts, which were actually brought in by the Romans whose chariots had the same width. And the width of the chariot was dictated by the width of two Roman horses. Hence, the width of rail tracks is actually the width of two standard Roman horses!

However, it seems that there is no historical evidence to prove this. Also, the width of the two horses would be more than the chariot and the wheels behind them.

In an article on www.railway.org by D. Gabe Gabriel, he says that it was an Englishman named George Stephenson who started experimenting with putting a steam engine on the carts so there would be propulsion to pull them along.  He had worked with several mines with differing gauges and simply chose to make the rails for his project 4-foot, eight inches wide.  He later decided that adding another six inches made things easier.  He was later consulted for constructing some rails along a roadway and by the time broader plans for railroads in Great Britain were proposed, there were already 1200 miles of his rails so the “Stephenson gauge” became the standard.

Why do we clinck glasses before drinking?

Why do we Clink glasses before drinking?

As usual, this being an old practice has many many theories as to why Clinking originated

• early Europeans believed that the sound of clashing tankards would scare away evil spirits.
• A more recent notion suggests an appreciation among revelers for all five senses: sight, taste, smell, and, with the clinking, sound and touch.

But the most provocative theory of all — and one that’s much-debated — is attached to an ancient fear that an enemy might try to poison a drink. To prove that a drink was safe, a host would pour some of his guest’s wine into his own drinking vessel and drink it first. This evolved into crashing tankards together so that a little of each drink spilled into the other. Eventually, guests and hosts demonstrated their friendship (and their trust) by touching glasses.

Next question: Why do we say Cheers?

Shortest and Longest Word

Shortest word should be “a” or “I” naa… Or prolly there are words that are half sounding…

Longest one according to Wiki is
Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis .

Thats 45 letters. There are longer words but are not recognized by most dictionaries.

Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis
a lung disease caused by breathing in particles of siliceous volcanic dust.
This is the longest word in any English dictionary. However, it was coined by Everett Smith, the President of The National Puzzlers’ League, in 1935 purely for the purpose of inventing a new “longest word”. The Oxford English Dictionary described the word as factitious. Nevertheless it also appears in the Webster’s, Random House, and Chambers dictionaries.

Why do we Slurp?

slurp

–verb (used with object)

1.	to ingest (food or drink) with loud sucking noises: He slurped his coffee.

–verb (used without object)

2.	to make loud sucking noises while eating or drinking: to slurp when eating soup.

I slurp while drinking tea and sometimes I feel it to be annoying and I need to be very conscious to not slurp. Was just trying to figure out why we slurp?

After going thru innumerable explanations, I understand its more to do with the culture too. The Britons and the Americans don’t appreciate slurping where-as the Indians and the Asians take it as a compliment.

Its more to do with the culture than anything else. Have not been able to find any scientific explanation to why we slurp… However, I leave you with this.

Some interesting facts

• The Chinese consider Slurp-ing as a sign of appreciation of food.
• And Japanese too. The louder you slurp, the bigger is the compliment.

Indian Aviation Rules

There was this huge furore over former President Mr. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam being frisked by Continental Airlines. The Indian Government went to an extent that it sued a case against the airline officials. The allegation was that the airline officials breached the Indian Aviation Rules. This made me look up into what the rules exactly say.

From what I understand after reading several news articles, Mr. Kalam was flying from India to the USA and hence the safety rules/aviation rules/aircraft rules of both the countries must be followed and this is where there was a difference.

The Indian Rules suggest that India gives a list of Delegates (which would include VIPs, VVIPs in power and ones which were in power and their families) who would not be frisked. Since, Frisking is a gesture of doubting the person.

However, US does not seem to recognize this list. As what I understand it has more noise than signal. The US agency suggests that as per its rules, former Heads of State and other VIPs traveling from an international location to the US on a US commercial aircraft were “screened according to the same screening procedures as for any other passenger”.

Probably the Indian rules are more subjective and have more “formal obligations” to meet than the US rules. And hence the difference.

Prisoner’s Dilemma – Real life situations

People always shouting over the phone are a major irritant for me at my workplace. Just thinking about it made me realize that this is just a case of prisoner’s dilemma. Just a note on prisoner’s dilemma before I explain my views.

Loosely defined, it’s a game theory situation where each person tries to maximize his own payoff regardless of whatever the other people do, and ultimately everybody in the situation end up being worse off than what they had been had they been more considerate about the other people. Wiki provides elaborate details for interested readers.

Coming back to the situation, when one person starts shouting, the other person shouts because otherwise he can’t hear. Similarly others follow and soon, everybody start shouting. Thus it becomes inconvenient for everybody when just by talking softly everybody could have been better off.

Some more interesting real life examples are as below (read more here):

• A club has a fire, and all rush for the exits, preventing the exit of anyone; as a result, all perish.
• Athlete A uses steroids, which gives him a competitive advantage. Other athletes are forced to use steroids to retain parity. As a result, no athlete is given a competitive advantage, but all are subjected to the hazards of steroids.
• Big kids “pick on” little kids, and society allows it (“you have to learn how to defend yourself”). Thus, a kid must “act tough” to develop a “rep,” and avoid being singled out. Soon kids become teens become adults, and fists become knives become guns, and gangs become organized gangs become organized crime.
• The pollution which results from the collective actions of individual drivers who believe that their one act of driving “doesn’t matter,” resulting in air no one wants to breathe.
• A depositor hears that a bank is in trouble, and goes to pull out his savings. Others are forced to pull out their savings as a “run” begins on the bank’s savings, and the bank collapses.

Ivory Soap

Ivory soap ad

P&G’s Ivory soap was one of its oldest products which became famous for its pure contect and property of floating in water.

Because Ivory is one of P&G’s oldest products (first sold in 1879), P&G is sometimes called “Ivory Towers” and its factory and research center in Saint Bernard, Ohio is called “Ivorydale”.

The story behind Ivory soap is quite interesting. This is how it goes.
A soap maker at the Procter and Gamble company had no idea a new innovation was about to surface when he went to lunch one day in 1879. He forgot to turn off the soap mixer, and more than the usual amount of air was shipped into the batch of pure white soap that the company sold under the name The White Soap. Fearing he would get in trouble, the soap maker kept the mistake a secret and packaged and shipped the air-filled soap to customers around the country. Soon customers were asking for more “soap that floats.” When company officials found out what happened, they turned it into one of the company’s most successful products, Ivory Soap.

As of now Ivory is a small brand by P&G standards. The Ivory brand includes liquid hand soap, body wash, dish liquid, and a mild laundry product called Ivory Snow. Research in 2001 by Lehman Brothers revealed that the U.S. sales of all Ivory products, including the liquid soap and dish detergent, represented less than 1% of P&G’s total worldwide sales in the 52 weeks ended Sept. 9, 2001, just two days before 9/11.

Accidental Discoveries

These stories are always interesting. Those little things which changed the history of mankind. Here are a few of those (Read more).

• Penicillin – In 1928, Scottish Scientist Sir Alexander Fleming was studying Staphylococcus – the bacteria that causes food poisoning. He turned up at work one day and discovered a blue-green mould that seemed to be inhibiting growth of the bacteria. He grew a pure culture of the mould and discovered that it was a Penicillium mould. After further experiments, Fleming was convinced that penicillin could not last long enough in the human body to kill pathogenic bacteria, and stopped studying it after 1931, but restarted some clinical trials in 1934 and continued to try to get someone to purify it until 1940. The development of penicillin for use as a medicine is attributed to the Australian Nobel Laureate Howard Walter Florey – he shared the Nobel Prize with Fleming and Ernst Boris Chain.
• Potato Chips – The first potato chip was invented by George Crum (half American Indian half African American) at Moon’s Lake House near Saratoga Springs, New York, on August 24, 1853. He was fed up with the constant complaints of a customer who kept sending his potatoes back to the kitchen because they were too thick and soggy. Crum decided to slice the potatoes so thin that they couldn’t be eaten with a fork. Against Crum’s expectation, the customer was ecstatic about the new chips. They became a regular item on the lodge’s menu under the name “Saratoga Chips” and a large contributing factor of the Western world’s obesity problems.
• Microwave – Percy LeBaron Spencer of the Raytheon Company was walking past a radar tube and he noticed that the chocolate bar in his pocket melted. Realizing that he might be on to a hot new product he placed a small bowl of popcorn in front of the tube and it quickly popped all over the room. Tens of millions of lazy cooks now have him to thank for their dull food!
• Brandy – Initially wine was distilled as a preservation method and as a way to make the wine easier for merchants to transport. It was also thought that wine was originally distilled to lessen the tax which was assessed by volume. The intent was to add the water removed by distillation back to the brandy shortly before consumption. It was discovered that after having been stored in wooden casks, the resulting product had improved over the original distilled spirit. No one is sure who it was that discovered the delightful taste of this distilled liquor, but he was clearly guided by God in its discovery for the betterment of man.
• Viagra – Millions of men around the world owe a salute to the hard working stiffs in the Welsh village of Merthyr Tydfil where, in 1992, their hard work testing this new angina drug produced firm evidence of its unexpected sex enhancing power.

Hotel/Motel/Inn

What is the essential difference between the three? The answer provided by Wiki and an article I found is as follows.

A hotel is an establishment that provides paid lodging on a short-term basis.

Some interesting hotel facts:

• In 2006, Guinness World Records listed the First World Hotel in Genting Highlands, Malaysia as the world’s largest hotel with a total of 6,118 rooms
• According to the Guinness Book of World Records, the oldest hotel still in operation is the Hoshi Ryokan, in the Awazu Onsen area of Komatsu, Japan which opened in 717
• Burj Al Arab in United Arab Emirates is the tallest building used exclusively as a hotel. However, the Rose Tower, also in Dubai, which has already topped Burj Al Arab’s height at 333 m (1,090 ft), will take away this title upon its opening

A motel is a hotel designed for motorists, usually having direct access to an open parking area.Entering dictionaries after World War II, the word motel, a portmanteau of motor and hotel or motorists’ hotel, referred initially to a type of hotel consisting of a single building of connected rooms whose doors faced a parking lot and, in some circumstances, a common area; or a series of small cabins with common parking. As the United States highway system began to develop in the 1920s, long distance road journeys became more common and the need for inexpensive, easily accessible overnight accommodation sited close to the main routes, led to the growth of the motel concept.

While the average motel may not have the accoutrements found at hotels, it offers easy access, reasonable rates, and a less complicated experience. Motel 6 is one of the largest motel chains in the United States, offering an experience somewhat similar to that of a budget hotel.

An inn is an establishment providing food and lodging also, but it is typically located in the country or along a highway.Found in Europe, they possibly first sprang up when the Romans built their system of Roman roads two millennia ago. Some inns in Europe are several centuries old. In addition to providing for the needs of travellers, inns traditionally acted as community gathering places.

There is however no longer a formal distinction between an inn and other kinds of establishment, and many pubs will use the name “inn”, either simply because they are long established and maybe were once a Coaching inn, or to summon up a particular kind of image; however, originally an Inn had to provide not only food and lodging, but also stabling and fodder for the traveller’s horse(s) and for fresh horses for the Mail coach.