CULTURE/SOCIETY and POLITICS: Reflective Hillary Clinton urges South Africa to live up to Mandela's legacy

CAPE TOWN, South Africa — In a rare and unusually personal reflection on forgiveness and redemption, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton urged South African students too young to remember apartheid not to lose sight of the example their country holds for the world and for themselves.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/reflective-hillary-clinton-urges-south-africa-to-live-up-to-mandelas-legacy/2012/08/08/1088edd4-e167-11e1-89f7-76e23a982d06_story.html

CULTURE/SOCIETY: Why Is 10:10 The Default Setting For Clocks And Watches?

I found this on Yahoo. I always wondered about this, and the answer was pretty much what I expected. But I still found it interesting and thought I'd share. - OlderMusicGeek

Why is 10:10 the Default Setting for Clocks and Watches?
by Matt Soniak - August 9, 2009 - 10:10 AM

Reader Humaira writes: “I have always wondered why clocks, watches, and timepieces always say (roughly) 10:10 before you set the correct time. If you go into a store selling any kind of time-telling device, that is the default factory setting. Why is that?!!”

First things first, let’s get the myths out of the way. There are plenty of people out there who think that clocks in advertisements and in-store displays are set this way memorialize Abraham Lincoln/John F. Kennedy/Martin Luther King Jr. because that was the time at which they were shot or died. In reality, Lincoln was shot at 10:15 p.m., and died the next morning at 7:22 a.m., JFK was shot at 12:30 p.m. CST and was pronounced dead 1 p.m. and MLK was shot 6:01 p.m. and pronounced dead at 7:05 p.m.

Another theory has it that 10:10 was the time that an atomic bomb was dropped on either Nagasaki or Hiroshima, and the setting is in memory of the casualties. The Fat Man bomb was actually dropped on the former at 11:02 a.m. local time and the Little Boy on the latter at 8:15 a.m. local time.

The real reason for the setting? Aesthetics. The 10:10 position gives the clock or watch a number of benefits:

• The hands not overlapping, so they’re fully and clearly visible and their styling can be admired.

• The arrangement of the hands is symmetrical, which people generally find more pleasant than asymmetry, making the product more appealing to customers.

• The manufacturer’s logo, usually in the center of the face under the 12, is not only visible, but nicely framed by the hands.

• Additional elements on the face (like date windows and secondary dials), usually placed near the 3, 6, or 9, won’t be obscured.

According to the folks at Timex (who set their products at 10:09:36 exactly), the standard setting used to be 8:20, but this made the face look like it was frowning. To make the products look “happier,” the setting was flipped into a smile (occasionally, you’ll still see the 8:20 setting on some clocks or watches where the manufacturer’s logo is at bottom of the face above the 6).

HUMOR and ENTERTAINMENT: What I Learned from Science Fiction

1. Radiation doesn't necessarily kill people. It just causes them to turn into hideous mutants that must be killed by the few people who magically escaped the radiation.

2. Radiation doesn't necessarily kill animals. Instead, it usually causes them to increase in size. To such a size, that they can eat people and knock over buildings.

3. There is no threat to world destruction, which a specially placed nuclear explosion can't stop.

4. All aliens are either smooth-skinned, big-headed creatures, reptiles or green.
- If they are the smooth-skinned, big-headed kind, they consider themselves our intellectual superiors who look at us in disgust, and want to enslave us.
- If they are the reptilian kind, they just want to EAT us.
- If they are the green kind, they just want to destroy us and take our planet.

5. In the year 2000, we will be driving around in flying cars.

6. In the year 2000, everyone will have a robot servant to do all the menial chores, but those robots will turn against us.

7. In the year 2000, we will have colonies on the moon, and a flight to the moon will be like a flight to California today.

8. In the distant future, the human race will evolve into smooth-skinned, big-headed creatures who will consider themselves our superiors and look at us in disgust, and probably think we'd make pretty good slaves.

9. Many planets that have never known the human race still have females that are really hot by human standards.

10. You can't be a star ship captain if you aren't buff.

11. Every starship must have a beautiful, hot babe and an aloof scientist type.

12. It is SO possible to travel faster than the speed of light.

13. If you travel back in time, you can't change major events, but you can change minor events. Or if you change major events, it will always make things change for the worse, so you have to go back and fix it.

14. In the future, all clothes will be made out of shiny metallic silvery material.

15. Hair styles will be exactly the same as in the past.

16. People CAN survive a nuclear war.

17. Even though the human race will live in peace and harmony, all the best jobs are taken by white males.

18. Even though the human race will live in peace and harmony with many other alien races, humans, mostly white males, will have all the important jobs.

19. Even though the galaxy is full of different and unique alien races, the race that occurs naturally on many different planets is the human race.

20. Although humans went from using the steam engine to traveling to the moon in about 100 years, it took the other races thousands of years. And because the humans' technology has advanced more quickly than their morals, they are a danger to the other races.


If you can think of any other things science fiction teaches us, please feel free to add onto the list in the comments section.