The Yellow Milkmaid Syndrome

Who was milking on that fateful eighth day?  Was it a domestic servant or a young unmarried woman? Possibly a virgin. Possibly all of the above.  By the Victorian era, a maid was a domestic servant, and there were all types by then.  A milkmaid was a girl who milked cows - our maids may or may not have been milkmaids.  They were a-milking, though. Eight maids is a significant number with historical references:  a queen regnant (e.g. Queen Elizabeth) had the tradition of eight maids of honour.  A maid of honour was a maiden - unmarried, and usually young - commonly in their sixteenth year or older. However, when we move on to an expression about milkmaids, the implication is that they grew older than 16 by quite a bit - "as smooth as milkmaid's skin" means exceptionally smooth. Wikipedia says that "this phrase came about as a result of exposure to cowpox, which causes no serious symptoms, but does convey a partial immunity to the disfiguring (and often fatal) disease smallpox. Thus, milkmaids lacked the "pockmarked" complexion common to smallpox survivors. This observation led to the development of the first vaccine". What is the yellow milkmaid syndrome?  This is a reference to Johannes Vermeer's most famous painting - of a woman in a yellow dress pouring milk.  There are over 10,000 copies on the internet - mostly poor, yellowish reproductions. The colours do not represent the work accurately. "At the national level, for example in the UK, the higher education community has issued the Open Metadata Principles calling on metadata to be openly available for innovative re-use".  This is about open metadata in the cultural heritage sector -  a current issue and the organization dealing with it is known as Europeana. .So we look at our pictures today as two options to enter into the New Year - the portal to the golden landscape and the portal to the sea. Which will it be this year?

Farewell to the Sunrise

Every day is a different day Our month of sunrises is concluding today.  These are yesterday's spectacle.  The intensity of the coral pinks and reds on the water was an experience. I had thought that sunsets would be more intense than sunrises, and find science is right.  They are equally wonderful.  The beautiful skies concluded with great cloud cover that brought in winds and rain.   View this email in your browser

Pretty Florida Architecture

As I finished taking pictures of the sunrise, I heard a yell from the beach and the two very hardy and hearty young surfers had just jumped into the water.  The waves today are great long, rolling waves. They must be perfect for surfing even though the temperatures are cold this early in the morning.  A walk along the beach yesterday revealed where the dead tree had been moved to. l wonder where it is today.   View this email in your browser

Garden Ornaments Florida-Style

What do Florida gardens have for ornaments?     Across the the coastal highway is an older neighbourhood.  It looks like houses might have been built starting in the late forties and early fifties.  The new builds are going up, and they tend to be large.  Stylistically they fit into the seaside resort architecture theme.   These first two pictures show the old style.  I haven't seen a boat planter before or a permanent lemonade stand in a neighbourhood.  Maybe on the Toronto Islands, where there are no cars.  It is possible to imagine yourself in a 1920's or 1930's community with a slower life style. And with us being on the coast overlooking the ocean, there are endless pictures of the ocean to be taken.  These last pictures are the storm 2 days ago and yesterday's sunrise.  I didn't go out on the porch with the camera as it was so cold and windy yesterday morning.    And there's big surf and wind today too. I am up before the sunrise, so perhaps I will get to see the 5 planet lineup this week.  The clouds will want to blow away and bring some calmer days - the sound of the surf remains thunderous. View this email in your browser

Florida's Sunrise

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

Is the Ocean shore different from the Lake shore?

We're looking at the things that wash up on the ocean shore.  These don't wash up on the Lake Ontario shores.    However, there are places where you can stand on the Lake Ontario shore and it seems endless like the ocean.  So what is the difference? Here's one eloquent answer: "It feels different.  It smells different. There is a general loudness and foaminess of the ocean that the Great Lakes (inland seas, actually) don't match.  You can sense the deep, powerful rumble of the ocean, but the lakes don't carry that vibe.  The smell of the ocean is, of course, salty.  There's a scent to the lakes as well, and it is watery/freshness, somewhat reminiscent of what is called petrichor (negative ions caused by the rain, but in this case, clearly the friction around the water surface).  No salt.  The waves in the smaller lakes are typically choppy without the rolling crests that flow in as one would expect in the ocean..." I conclude with some Sarasota beach art.

Sunset Sunrise

As the sun sets on summer our question of the day is:  Do Sunrises look different from sunsets?  Today we'll see fireworks as the sun sets on summer.  What about tomorrow? Natalie Wolchover writes: "You've woken up out of a coma. You yank the IV from your arm and stumble out of the hospital. The sun is perched on the horizon. Can you tell whether it's rising or setting? Contemplating this scenario while gazing sunward at dusk or dawn, we might feel as if we could sense the difference between the two times of day. But in real life, it's impossible to completely divorce our perceptions of the scene from our awareness of the hour. So, is there any objective way to distinguish an upward-trending sun from a downward one? According to atmospheric physicists David Lynch and William Livingston, the answer is "yes, and no." The first is in our heads. "At sunset, our eyes are daylight adapted and may even be a bit weary from the day's toil," Lynch and Livingston write. "As the light fades, we cannot adapt as fast as the sky darkens. Some hues may be lost or perceived in a manner peculiar to sunset. At sunrise, however, the night's darkness has left us with very acute night vision and every faint, minor change in the sky's color is evident." In short, you may perceive more colors at dawn than at dusk. [Red-Green & Blue-Yellow: The Stunning Colors You Can't See]" To read on see: http://www.livescience.com/34065-sunrise-sunset.html