Next Up - An Olympic 2 weeks

Here we are with the famous sports event.  What is Olympic? "of or relating to the ancient city of Olympia or the Olympic Games." "an Olympic champion" I was just reading about "Olympic Sponsors" and the Rule 40: "For the money these brands pay, they are allowed to use trademarked Olympic terms, phrases, and images in their advertising. But for companies that are not official Olympic partners, certain phrases are banned, like “Olympic,” “Rio,” “Gold,” or “Games,” for example. During a blackout period between July 27 and August 24, these non-Olympic sponsors, some of which may support athletes at the Games, also may not wish these individuals luck or congratulations on social media or in other marketing collateral." So let's see what happens with Rule 40 and social media this time around. Are there any plants in the salt water tanks below?  No - these are all animals. This hammerhead coral would have thousands of tiny animals (polyps).

Florida's East Coast - Sunrise and Sail's Up

This was yesterday's sunrise as it bounced off the sky looking north along the beach and then looking towards the sun as it rose in the sky.  The pinky coral colour was very pronounced. The progression of the day in pictures went:  Before Sun, Sun's Up, Surf's Up, Sails Up... I was told by a boater yesterday that this is unusual to have such windy weather and such waves.  He wasn't able to launch his boat because of the winds.  There were a few hardy athletes out on the water. I wondered about those trademark names like Kleenex and Windex as I was walking through the grocery store.  Here's my answer: An eponym is someone or something whose name is or is thought to be the source of something's name (such as a city, country, era, or product); alternately it can be used to refer to the name of something that is based on or derived from someone or something else's name. Albert Einstein is the eponym of the element einsteinium; conversely, einsteinium is an eponym of Albert Einstein. Active Trademarks Often Used Generically Alka Seltzer AstroTurf Band Aid Beer Nuts Benzedrine Boogie Board Breathalyzer Brillo Pad BVDs Chapstick (Chap Stick) Cheerios Claymation Coke (Coca Cola) Cola (Coca Cola) Cool-Aid (Kool-Aid) Cuisinart Demerol Ditto Machine Dixie Cups Dumpster Erector Set Fiberglass (Fiberglas) Fig Newtons Freon Frisbee Green Stamp Hacky Sack Hi-lighter (Hi-Liter) Hoover Hula-Hoop Jacuzzi Jeep Jello (Jell-O) Jockey Shorts Kitty Litter Kleenex Laundromat Levi's Life Savers Mace Magic Marker Microchip Novocain Oreo Palm Pilot Parcheesi (replacing the generic word "Pachisi") Ping Pong (replacing the generic term "Table Tennis") Play-Doh Plexiglas Polaroid Pop Tart Popsicle Post-It Note Q-Tip Rollerblade Roller Derby Scotch Tape Scrabble Sellotape Sheetrock Skivvies Styrofoam Super Glue Teflon Teleprompter (TelePrompTer) Teletype Teva Thermos TV Dinner Tylenol UNIX Valium Vaseline Velcro Walkman Welcome Wagon White Out (Wite-Out) Wiffle Ball Windbreaker X-Acto Knife Xerox View this email in your browser

Seeking Winter Distractions...One Found

Winter has arrived, and now is the time for distractions, diversions, denial, and fantasy as we wait for our 66 days until spring. My new word last week was seiche.  It describes the natural settling waves in water, and today's headline on the weather network shows a car caked in ice next to Lake Erie.  The hash tags include:  'seiche off Lake Erie froze this car in place.'   The picture is here.  Just below the frozen car is a video of a freezing soap bubble, along with other interesting frozen ice images - these are on theweathernetwork.com. And now onto distraction...Our pictures today take us  below the water's surface to tropical aquarium gardens of Florida.  Why are reef fish so colourful? I learn the question would be 'colourful to us humans' in an article on the subject. "Losey suggests finding out what color they really are — to fishlike eyes — before you even ask why they’re brightly colored. The answer may surprise you. “We’ve only scratched the surface in terms of taking a species and determining what color it is — not with our eye, but with tools.” It is a long article that explores how fish see, which is different than how we see.  And then gives the various explanations on the workings.  "One was first considered by Alfred Russel Wallace, a less-known but equally significant contemporary of Charles Darwin in the 19th century. Wallace suggested that the bright colors worn by reef fish may actually help them hide in an equally colorful environment. While fish are pink and green and purple and blue, so are the corals, sponges and other parts of the visually complex background behind them. “He said, well, these colors might actually have a protective function — they might actually function like camouflage in a sense against these heterogeneous backgrounds,” Rosenthal says. The other idea is one developed by biologist Konrad Lorenz in the mid-20th century. He suggested that fish are conspicuously colored to help them identify their own species in the crowded reef environment, where there is direct competition between not only other species, but also members of their own."