The Turkey (bird) is native to North America.  When Europeans got here they thought it was a Turkey-Cock, a bird from Turkey (the country).  The name stuck but the cock dropped.

Turkey, the country, is actually spelled Türkiye in the native language of the people there, but Turkey in English, and it literally means “land of the Turks”, which is what they call themselves.

That is, if you can believe what you read on Wikipedia, which as of this moment, has listed under the “History and naming” section of the Turkey (bird) article: “a turkey is a turkey DUH” so I’m not so sure about how accurate it really is.

I’ve always been slightly aware that the streets west of Minneapolis go in alphabetical order – something you tend to notice casually when you’re driving around, but I had no idea the pattern repeated itself at least 7 times.

Here’s the exercise- start at Lyndale Ave, just west of the River, in Minneapolis.  Going west, stretching all the way out past Plymouth/Maple Grove, you’ll see the streets below.  It may actually continue further west, but things start to fall apart once you get out that far.  BTW, I compiled this list from Google Maps, so this is original research, kiddies.

I’ve included some major N/S roads for reference.  Also, the only deviation from the pattern that I could tell was that Winnetka is supposed to be a ‘T’, but isn’t for some reason. (See update below)

• *Lyndale
• Aldrich
• Bryant
• Colfax
• Dupont
• Emerson
• Fremont
• Girard
• Humboldt
• Irving
• James
• Knox
• Logan
• Morgan
• Newton
• Oliver
• Penn
• Queen
• Russell
• Sheridan
• Thomas
• Upton
• Vincent
• Washburn
• Xerxes
• York
• Zenith
• Abbot
• Beard
• Chowen
• Drew
• Ewing
• France
• Grimes
• Halifax
• Indiana
• June
• Kyle
• Lee
• Major
• Noble
• Orchard
• Perry
• Quail
• Regent
• Scott
• Toledo
• *100
• Unity
• Vera Cruz
• Welcome
• Xenia
• Yates
• Zane
• Adair
• Brunswick
• Colorado
• Douglas
• Edgewood
• Florida
• Georgia
• Hampshire
• Idaho
• Jersey
• Kentucky
• Louisiana
• Maryland
• Nevada
• Oregon
• Pennsylvania
• Quebec
• Rhode Island
• Sumter
• *Winnetka
• Utah
• Virginia
• Wisconsin
• Xylon
• Yukon
• Zealand
• Aquila
• Boone
• Cavell
• Decatur
• Ensign
• Flag
• Gettysburg
• Hillsboro
• Independence
• Jordan
• *169
• Kilmer
• Lancaster
• Monticello
• Nathan
• Orleans
• Pilgrim
• Quaker
• Revere
• Saratoga
• Trenton
• Union Terrace
• Valley Forge
• Wellington
• Ximines
• Yorktown
• Zachary
• Arrowood
• Balsam
• Cottonwood
• Deerwood
• Evergreen
• Forestview
• Goldenrod
• Hemlock
• Ives
• Jonquil
• Kirkwood
• Larch
• Magnolia
• Norwood
• Oakview
• Pineview
• Quinwood
• Rosewood
• Sycamore
• *Northwest Blvd/61
• Teakwood
• Underwood
• Vinewood
• Wedgewood
• *494
• Xenium
• Yucca
• Zinnia
• Annapolis
• Berkshire
• Cheshire
• Dallas
• Empire
• Fernbrook
• Glacier
• Harbor
• Ithica
• Juneau
• Kingsview
• Lanewood
• Minnesota
• Niagara
• Orchid
• Polaris
• Quantico
• Ranchview
• Shenandoah
• Terraceview
• Upland
• Vicksburg
• Weston
• Xene
• Yuma
• Zanzibar
• Archer
• Blackoaks
• Comstock
• Dunkirk
• Everest
• Fountain
• Garland
• Holly
• Inland
• Jewel
• Kimberly
• Lawndale
• Merrimac
• Narcissus
• Olive
• Peony
• Queensland
• Ranier
• Shadyview
• Troy
• Urbandale
• Vagabond
• Walnut Grove
• Xanthus
• Yellowstone
• Zircon
• And on and on?

Update: I love it when I find fellow geeks on the internet.  Here- a collection of images of all of the road signs, and here a history of the namesakes of the first set.  Here, a wikipedia entry to Minneapolis native Prince’s song Alphabet Street, which was written in iambic pentameter and cycles through the street names.  Actually it doesn’t, but wouldn’t that be awesome?

Update 2: I see that the street signs guy has some different names.  He gets Texas in place of Winnetka, which solves the missing T problem, and he also gets Alabama instead of Adair.  And his second set it almost totally different than mine.  Conspiracy?

I just sold my old cell phone on Gazelle.com.  They gave me $6 for it.  I was going to either toss it or recycle it.  Or leave it in the drawer to collect dust.  Now I have $6.  They pay for shipping.  It all went down as advertised.  Now I’m going to search for other things to sell.

Activated carbon is a special form of carbon that is used to filter impurities.  If you have a Brita filter or something similar, it most likely uses active carbon (or its close relative activated charcoal) to do the actual filtering.  Activated charcoal is the active ingredient in Odor Eaters.

The secret to the efficiency- the surface area created by the molecular structure.  One teaspoon of activated carbon has an acre of surface area.  A gram has the surface area of a football field.

So put that in your pipe and smoke it.  Actually, don’t.  That would not be a good idea.

The US has three power grids…..

East, West, and Texas.

History Channel

I’ve often wondered if game designers put something into their software to mess with software pirates.  I always thought that programming things that seem like “glitches” but were actually intentional would be a gratifying way to protect your software while extracting some type of revenge.

Well, it turns out that they do.

Click here for “6 Hilarious Ways Game Designers Are Screwing With Pirates”, but be warned- the link is to cracked.com, a site I’ve found to be obnoxiously addictive.

If you read that some Senator from Wisconsin invented Earth Day, you’re receiving rewritten history.

Ira Einhorn was on stage hosting the first Earth Day event at the Fairmount Park in Philadelphia on April 22, 1970. Seven years later, police raided his closet and found the “composted” body of his ex-girlfriend inside a trunk.

***

Although Einhorn was only the master of ceremonies at the first Earth Day event, he maintains that Earth Day was his idea and that he’s responsible for launching it. Understandably, Earth Day’s organizers have distanced themselves from his name, citing Gaylord Nelson, an environmental activist and former Wisconsin governor and U.S. senator who died in 2005, as Earth Day’s official founder and organizer.

Composting your girlfriend.  Now that’s dedication to the cause.

What’s the deal with Easter?  One year it is in March; the next it is in April.  What gives?  Well, here is the story…

The date Easter Sunday falls on seems to be a hybrid between our calendar and a Jewish calendar, which was based on phases of the moon.

By this calendar, Easter falls on the first Sunday after the first full moon, after the vernal (spring) equinox.

It sounds complicated, but it’s not.  The vernal equinox is on March 21.  You find the first full moon after that date.  And Easter is on the following Sunday!  What about a year when the full moon IS on a Sunday (like it was this year)?  Then it is on the following Sunday.

That means Easter can land anywhere between March 22nd to April 25 (making this year one of the latest possible).

I guess an interesting question would be why the celebrate Easter this way but Christmas is always on Dec. 25, but that’s a different post!

I’ll summarize:  In 1986 the Feds passed a law saying that email that was left on a third-party server for more than 180 days is considered “abandoned” so they don’t need a warrant to seize it or snoop on it.  (They do need a warrant for email stored on your hard drive.)

If you use gmail or hotmail or yahoo or any other web based email for your email provider, your email is stored on a third party server.  Therefore, any emails of yours that are older than 6 months are fair game for snooping, without any probable cause.

An industry group wants to change this, but the government says no:

A coalition of internet service providers and other groups, known as Digital Due Process, has lobbied for an update to the law to treat both cloud- and home-stored e-mail the same, and thus require a probable-cause warrant for access. The Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing on that topic Tuesday.

The companies — including Google, AOL and AT&T — maintain that the law should be changed to reflect that consumers increasingly access their e-mail on servers, instead of downloading it to their hard drives, as a matter of course.

But the Obama administration testified that imposing constitutional safeguards on e-mail stored in the cloud would be an unnecessary burden on the government. Probable-cause warrants would only get in the government’s way.

To blatantly and un-apologetically rip off a comment I saw elsewhere: They told me that if I voted for John McCain the government would read my emails without a warrant, and they were right!

They look like McDonald’s McNuggets (one had the classic McBoot shape) and they taste just like the old Burger King Chicken Tenders.  Overall I’d probably rank them third, after McDonald’s and Wendy’s.

What I’m most excited about is McDonald’s having to price match their ridiculously overpriced McNuggets to compete.  $1 for 4 makes sense.  $3 for 6, not so much.

Speaking of overpriced Chicken products… BK’s Chicken Fries are actually really good, but the price is not right.