A little boy comes home from school and tells his father,
”I got an F in math today.”
His father replies, ”What happened?”
The boy says, ”Well, my teacher asked me, ‘What’s 3 times 2’, and I said 6.’”
The father replies, ”Well, that’s correct.”
The boy says, ”I know. Then she asked me, ‘What’s 2 times 3.’”
The father then replies, ”What the fuck is the difference?”
The boys says, ”That’s what I said!”
While the role of first lady is traditionally filled by the president’s spouse, other family members have stepped in several times in U.S. history. Though there’s no constitutional requirement to have a first lady, it’s always been the tradition, and in cases where the president has been widowed or unmarried, someone else has always filled the role. The first instance was Martha Jefferson Randolph, the eldest daughter of Thomas Jefferson. When Jefferson took office in 1801, he had been a widower for about 20 years, so Martha took on the first lady duties, which at the time largely entailed hosting social events. Future First Lady Dolley Madison also lent an unofficial hand during the Jefferson administration while her husband, James, was serving as secretary of state.
Another unique case was the presidency of Andrew Jackson, whose wife, Rachel Donelson Jackson, died just months before his 1829 inauguration. Jackson asked his niece Emily Donelson to be first lady, though she was later replaced by his daughter-in-law Sarah Yorke Jackson. This began a tradition of daughters-in-law acting as first ladies to widowed presidents, including Angelica Van Buren (to Martin Van Buren), Jane Harrison (to William Henry Harrison), and Priscilla Cooper Tyler (to John Tyler).
Later, from 1857 to 1861, Harriet Lane acted as first lady to her uncle James Buchanan, who was a lifelong bachelor. Widower Chester Arthur and then-bachelor Grover Cleveland, meanwhile, enlisted the help of their sisters Mary Arthur McElroy and Rose Cleveland, respectively. In the two most recent examples, presidents’ daughters filled the role for their widowed fathers. Mary McKee was first lady to Benjamin Harrison from 1892 to 1893, and Margaret Wilson served as Woodrow Wilson’s first lady from 1914 to 1915. Since then, the role has been exclusively held by the president’s spouse.
Hot and cold water make different sounds when poured.
Human ears have two main jobs: alerting us to noises in the world around us, and keeping our bodies balanced as we move throughout the day. However, researchers have found another small trick our ears can perform: determining the temperature of water. While they may look identical, hot and cold water make different sounds when poured. With a little help from our brains — which learn to recognize the contrasting tones over a lifetime of repeated exposure — most people can tell the difference between cold water poured from a pitcher or hot water transferred from a kettle, without even seeing the cup being filled.
Without the cues of visible boiling or a collection of ice crystals, liquid water tends to look the same regardless of its temperature. What humans can’t see is that temperature actually affects water’s viscosity (aka thickness), which produces different sounds that we can hear. At lower temperatures, water molecules are sluggish and create temporary bonds that thicken the liquid, producing a lower-frequency sound when poured. Conversely, heated water molecules are more energetic, making it harder for molecules to join together. Fewer bonds result in thinner water, which produces a noticeably higher-pitched sound when transferred into a cup. Researchers say bubbling also plays a role in water acoustics — hot liquids have more bubbles than cool liquids, which contribute to the higher tones we hear while pouring out a cup of coffee or tea.
N either Dracula nor vampires are, strictly speaking, real — at least so far as we know — but that doesn’t mean they don’t have their basis in reality. While writing his endlessly influential novel Dracula, author Bram Stoker was inspired by Central European folklore in general and Vlad III in particular, whom history often remembers by a more colorful name: Vlad the Impaler. The son of Vlad Dracul, he’s believed to have been born in Transylvania, eventually became voivode (ruler) of Wallachia (a region of Romania south of Transylvania), and more than earned his nickname by impaling his enemies. Vlad Dracul took his name when he joined the Order of the Dragon, a secret cabal of Christian knights; “dracul” is Romanian for “dragon.” As fate would have it, “Dracula” means “son of Dracul.”
Stoker called Transylvania “one of the wildest and least known portions of Europe” in the book’s first chapter, an evocative description based on his research into the area and 19th-century travel literature (though the author never actually visited Romania’s spookiest region). Before falling in battle in 1476, Vlad III earned a reputation for brutality. Impalement was his favorite means of torturing and dispatching his enemies, but he was also known to decapitate, disembowel, and skin them; some claim he even dipped his bread in his victims’ blood while using their impaled bodies as morbid dinner guests. Whether such gory details are true may never be known, but it’s easy to see how he inspired one of the world’s most fearsome fictional characters.
Birds in Flight
If we’re talking imperial measurements, a “butt” is a cask of liquid. And while this form of “butt” is obsolete for most people, it’s still used in wine and brewing contexts. In the wine world, a butt is around 108 imperial gallons (just under 500 liters, or around 126 U.S. gallons), so it turns out that a buttload is… a buttload.
In 1777, Congress passed a resolution dictating that the official flag of the newly founded United States would consist of 13 white stars against a blue background, and 13 alternating red and white stripes. According to popular myth, the first American flag was subsequently created by Philadelphia resident Elizabeth “Betsy” Ross. There’s just one problem with this common narrative: There’s no evidencethat it’s actually true.
The claim that Betsy Ross made the first American flag didn’t surface until 1870 — nearly a century after the nation’s founding — in a speech Ross’ grandson William Canby delivered to the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. Canby said that his grandmother would often recount a story of the time she received a visit from George Washington, who presented her with a proposed design of 13 stripes and 13 six-pointed stars, and asked if she could create a flag based on the sketch. According to Canby, Ross agreed, and even came up with the idea to give the stars five points instead of six, and to arrange them in a circle.
Canby’s story was compelling, and the speech was widely circulated in popular newspapers. Before long, it became accepted as fact that Ross created the first American flag. However, although Canby produced affidavits from Ross’ daughter and granddaughter corroborating the tale, he never offered any concrete evidence — including, crucially, the flag itself. (In fact, there’s no evidence of any American flag that can be traced back to Ross.) Over the years, historians have called Canby’s account into question, and while it’s been established that Ross did sew flags for the Pennsylvania Navy, some historians suggest the original Stars and Stripes was actually created by Francis Hopkinson, a New Jersey delegate to the Continental Congress. They cite a bill that Hopkinson sent to the Congress in 1780, asking for payment for designing “the flag of the United States of America.” But this theory also remains unconfirmed, as the Congress refused to pay Hopkinson for his services, claiming he “was not the only one consulted.” To date, the true origin of the American flag remains a mystery.
If someone asks you “What is the tallest mountain in the world?” you’d probably answer, “Why, Mount Everest, of course — everyone knows that.” Sadly, you would be wrong. Technically, Mount Everest is the tallest mountain above sea level, but it isn’t the tallest in the world. That honor goes to Mauna Kea in Hawaii. Mauna Kea rises up 13,796 feet above sea level (compared to Everest’s 29,035 feet), but it also extends down an additional 19,700 feet below sea level into the Pacific Ocean. That makes it the world’s tallest mountain as measured from base to peak.
The sky is never totally black, even at night.
Stargazers who live in major cities know all about light pollution, but this lack of complete darkness goes beyond geography. It turns out the sky is never totally black no matter where you live, even at night. We can mostly chalk this up to the luminous effects of moonlight and starlight, as well as to our atmosphere, which, in addition to making the planet’s air breathable, scatters all the light that passes through it. (This is what makes the sky appear blue during the day, as the atmosphere scatters blue light more than other colors.)
In highly populated areas, the effect of light pollution is known as skyglow, and it’s what gives the night sky its milky, sometimes yellowish complexion. But even if you find yourself in an extremely remote location, the sky would be closer to a navy blue than black. As previously mentioned, this is partially because of the moon, but it’s also because the atmosphere itself emits a faint light of its own (in addition to the light it scatters), known as both airglow and nightglow. Depending on where you are, that glow could be any combination of red, green, purple, and/or yellow. If you’d like to see a completely black sky, you’d have to go to the moon, which has no atmosphere and thus nothing to scatter or emit light.
(Posted this to remind everyone and myself that there is always light, may have to look harder for it, but there is always light ) Dwain Northey (Gen X)
One of the original ships of the U.S. Navy is still afloat.
Following congressional passage of an “Act to provide a Naval Armament” in March 1794, shipbuilder Joshua Humphreys set about designing six frigates that would form the backbone of the United States Navy fleet. Of those six, the USS Constitution has defied the odds to remain in service, making “America’s Ship of State” the world’s oldest commissioned warship still afloat.
Launched from Boston Harbor on October 21, 1797, the Constitution was soon deployed to the Caribbean to engage privateers during the Quasi War with France. A few years later, the 44-gun frigate was instrumental in a military campaign against the state-supported Barbary Pirates of North Africa, resulting in an 1805 treaty with Tripoli. But the Constitution truly proved its worth with an impressive showing against the mighty British navy in the War of 1812. One overwhelming victory over the HMS Guerriere, which seemed unable to dent the American frigate with its cannon fire, gave the ship its nickname: “Old Ironsides.” A few months later, the Constitution took down the HMS Java despite having its wheel blown off in battle, requiring crew members to manually move the tiller for steering. These heroic stands were still in the minds of the American public as the Constitution was reported to be nearing the end of its service life in 1830, resulting in a national campaign to keep the beloved warship in active duty.
After patrolling the African coast for slave vessels during the 1850s, Old Ironsides was primarily used as a training ship before being decommissioned in 1881. A grand centennial celebration in 1897 underscored its status as a national icon, and in 1931, the historic ship was recommissioned for Navy service. Now docked at the Charlestown Navy Yard in its city of birth, the USS Constitution is temporarily grounded as it undergoes repairs to its masts, yet remains a venerable component of the powerful naval force it helped usher into existence more than 200 years ago.
Esoteric Meandering Shouting Into the Void 
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