April 29 2020 - Asteroid Streaking By diverted by what not to buy from Costco

There's an asteroid streaking by this morning, but the headline below it diverted my interest - 14 products to never buy at Costco. The picture shows chocolate chip cookies in plastic clamshell containers. My reaction is that this might be an expose article on things like terrible contents in food and/or horrible factory practices in foreign countries.  We are invited to ask:  How terrible could the contents be? And this one then diverted me from Costco:  Study reveals after you die, your brain knows you're dead.  This reminds me of "Headless Body in Topless Bar".  It is contradictory making it humorously curious.  So we would expect the headline to be the fun and the content would dwindle into suppositions and anecdotes. It is interesting that I predict these things -  I seem to have read a lot of articles. So let me find out how accurate I am. Costco, and things to never buy.  Which article will we read? There are at least 10 articles with this headline - so is it 6,7, 8, 10, 14, 15, 17, 27, 33 things?  Some of the articles' subheading are what workers reveal to never buy.  But the exposes aren't there.  These are opinion articles on health, living habits, and other behaviours associated with greedy over-buying.   Our Headless Body equivalent headline has a number of permutations and they are funny.  This one from The Mirror: When you die you KNOW you're dead because your brain still works - and you could even hear your death announced.  Here's the original reference in 2017: The Sun's Andrea Downey article headline: After you die, your brain knows you’re dead, terrifying study reveals. The Guardian's version is:  The man who could bring you back from the dead. Didn't I just reference The Sun? There's the revelation right there.  The UK Sun is considered to be neither reputable nor trustworthy.  So we can expect Sam Parnia's study conducted out of New York University Langone School of Medicine to be something lesser/different.  The excerpts from his study on brain activity after heart cessation don't reveal anything out of the ordinary.  I found a notice for a New York Academy of Sciences moderated panel on the topic HERE with Sam Parnia as moderator.  He is all over the news on this study - it was in Time magazine in 2008 - so I assume he is enjoying it all. Perhaps we need a little bit of sunshine to clear away the laughter of satire and cynicism.  Here's a happy greeting today.

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Exam Question: Calculate Easter

Perhaps Spring is early this year because Easter is early - on March 27th in just over a week.  The garden centres in Niagara sell a lot of potted flowers for Easter.  Sunshine Nurseries on Carlton Street on the NOTL side of the canal is full of blooms.  Pot plants, perennials, and annuals are on show.  You see the 'sea' of flowers in the top picture and an interpretation of the pretty flower Ranunculus in the bottom picture. There was a question the other day on how do we calculate Easter.  I gather from a search that there are dozens of ways of calculating Easter. This link to  the U.K. Independent Newspaper article describes the Easter calculation.  Here are two of the key calculations. "For most of its history Christians have calculated Easter independently of the Jewish calendar. In principle, Easter falls on the Sunday following the full moon that follows the northern spring equinox (the paschal full moon). However, the vernal equinox and the full moon are not determined by astronomical observation." "In 325CE the Council of Nicaea established that Easter would be held on the first Sunday after the first full moon occurring on or after the vernal equinox. From that point forward, the Easter date depended on the ecclesiastical approximation of March 21 for the vernal equinox."

Poinsettia Madness

A visit to Sunshine Nurseries last week was a feast of poinsettias.  As far as you can see are stripes of red, white, pink - all the colours and varieties of poinsettias imaginable. There are three locations for poinsettia trials in North America - Florida, South Carolina and Niagara.  This year it is taking place at Linwell Gardens, one of the growers.  Last year it took place at Vineland Research Station and there was a great public showing and voting. There are over 160 varieties on trial this year, and I hope to see them on Monday afternoon when I interview Wayne Brown, the chair of the activity.