Does a dropped piece of buttered toast usually land buttered-side down?

You know the problem -- drop a piece of buttered toast and it hits the floor butter side down. But does it really happen more often than not? Or is it just that we remember those times because they are more annoying than the equal number of times it lands dry side down?

Toast typically lands on the floor butter-side-down due to the manner in which it is typically dropped from a table. As the toast falls from the table, it rotates. Given the typical speed of rotation for a slice of toast as it falls from the table and the typical height of a table, a slice of toast that began butter-side-up on the table will land butter-side-down on the floor in 81% of cases.

Source: [The not all-that-reliable] Daily Mail Online

I recall a Peanuts comic strip from back in the day in which Lucy and Linus are looking out the window at the rain.

"Why," Lucy asks, "does it always rain when I want to do something?"
Linus patiently explains that it doesn't, but she remembers those times because they are disappointing and forgets the other times when she gets to do what she wants without interference.
Lucy glares at him and says more emphatically, "Why does it ALWAYS rain when I want to do something?"
Linus backs down: "You're just very unlucky."
 
On a side note, the buttered cat paradox is a common joke based on the tongue-in-cheek combination of two adages:

• Cats always land on their feet.
• Buttered toast always lands buttered side down.

The paradox arises when one considers what would happen if one attached a piece of buttered toast (butter side up) to the back of a cat, then dropped the cat from a large height.

Some have suggested that the result would be anti-gravity because neither the cat nor the toast would be able to touch down.

On yet another side note, the Daily Mail Online story sounds real in part  because it includes a statistic: 81%. On the other hand, there is also an adage that says 42% of statistics are made up on the spot.

St. Monica the Imbiber?

St Monica Patron Saint of Alcoholics
 

Saint Monica was the mother of Saint Augustine of Hippo, whose writings about her are the primary source of our information. A Christian from birth, she was given in marriage to a bad-tempered, pagan named Patricius. She prayed constantly for the conversion of her husband (who converted on his death bed), and of her son (who converted after a wild life). She was the spiritual student of Saint Ambrose of Milan and was, herself, a reformed alcoholic – hence her patronage of alcoholics.

Source: Listverse

For what it's worth, the claim that Monica was an alcoholic is dubious. There is a story that she drank a great deal of wine as a child and through force of will, weaned herself from it. The account, if true, seems to be based on the testimony of a slave who witnessed the girl drinking wine. One suspects that the slave may have been concealing something by shifting the blame for disappearing wine.

 It is true that Monica's son Augustine criticized her for taking wine and food to the shrines of the martyrs, an African custom with likely pagan roots. (Confessions 6.2.2) St. Ambrose is said to have convinced her to stop taking the wine there because it might encourage drunkenness. The problem may have been that she was imbibing at the shrines, but I suspect the criticism had more to do with the connection with paganism. At any rate, she is better known for her determined prayers for the conversion of her son. Who in his youth would have driven many a mother to drink.

Ginger

Last April three men were jailed  in England for attacking a boy for having red hair.

The boy, 14, was playing football on a Lincoln estate when his arm was broken by men "wanting revenge after another red-haired youth abused their sister".

Nathan Booth, 22, stamped on the boy's head before his brother Callum, 27, and their friend James Hatton, 25, also "piled in," Lincoln Crown Court heard.

Booth, from Addison Drive, was jailed for five years and nine months after admitting causing grievous bodily harm. Callum Booth, 27, of Lancaster Court, and Hatton, 25, of Lamb Gardens, St Giles, admitted the same charge and were each jailed for 26 months.

The court was told the men had gone out seeking some form of revenge after another youth with red hair verbally abused the sister of the Booth brothers.

The victim, who cannot be named, told the court how he was playing football with friends on the Birchwood estate when Nathan Booth approached him, asked for the time and then attacked him. The boy suffered a broken right arm as he tried to protect his head and later needed surgery to insert a metal plate to repair the injury.

Judge Sean Morris said: "There was no reason for the attack. Worse than that, it was just because he had red hair."

Nathan Booth was previously jailed in 2009, also for causing grievous bodily harm.

Source: BBC.
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In Britain, there is enough irrational ill-will toward people with red hair that the media sometimes refers to gingerphobia or gingerism. Since Scotland and Ireland supposedly have more redheads in their population by percentage (13% and 10% respectively)  than any other nation, there may be be nationalist and regional prejudices at work. Judas was often represented in European art with red hair. Prince Harry once remarked that he thought some people didn't like him "because I'm a ginger."

On the other hand,  I seem to notice more and more models, male and female, sporting red hair, at least in the American media.

How's that stock market working out for you?

 

Walmart Sales Hurt by Nationwide Food Stamp Cuts; Retailer Says It Was Directly Hit by Expiration of Government Program

Nationwide food stamp cuts will hurt Walmart stores' bottom line, according to officials from the retail giant.

Since the federal government's program-wide cuts took hold on Nov. 1, Walmart's sales have reportedly been hit, and officials are predicting further slumps for the coming year.
According to USA Today, Walmart estimated its fourth quarter and full-year adjusted earnings would be lower than first anticipated, with deep lows that the Arkansas-based company didn't think would come. The corporation made a direct link between the food stamp cuts and its dip in sales.
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So, maybe not eventually, huh?

 

Happy Marmot Day!

In 2009, then-Governor of Alaska Sarah Palin signed a bill making Febraruy 2 Marmot Day in Alaska.

The bill was introduced by Sen. Linda Menard, a Wasilla Republican.

Because groundhogs are not common in Alaska, Menard said it made sense for the marmot to become Alaska's version of Punxsutawney Phil, the Pennsylvania groundhog famed for his winter weather forecasts.

Menard's bill didn't give marmots any weather forecasting duties, but she hoped the state will create educational activities around the animal.

We note that there is another and unrelated Marmot Day celebrated in Owosso, Michigan in July.
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Makes as much sense as a lot of things coming from Wasilla Republicans.

Look familiar?

Disco's not dead -- it's just a myth!

Blow a kiss. Then pinch your lips into a thin line. Now alternate kiss and pinch several times a second for a pathetic, low-wattage human attempt at mimicking a disco clam.

Scuba divers call Ctenoides ales the disco or electric clam because the restless, curling lips of its mantle flash bright streaks. “It’s very vivid and very dramatic,” says Lindsey Dougherty of the University of California, Berkeley. She has made progress discovering how the poorly understood clams create a streak show. But that only deepens the puzzle of why.

Dougherty helped bust the myth that the clams bioluminesce, an idea so reasonable and persistent that she makes sure to say it’s wrong at least twice in each scientific presentation. The clams don’t make light themselves, but unfurl a supremely reflective strip along the lips of the mantle. Reflected light winks off the strip, then the lip rolls up like a window shade, going dark for an instant before unfurling again.

Since it’s reflected light, Dougherty wonders why the clams end up in dimly lit spots. They range as deep as 50 meters and favor crevices within caves. “Holes within holes,” she says. And just as puzzling, the clams keep moving their lips at night when there’s virtually no light to reflect.

About half the clam crannies that Dougherty visited last summer housed more than one clam, so she wonders whether it’s possible that free-floating youngsters are drawn to the flashing beacons of adults. Adult clams have eyes (she has counted up to 40) but scientists haven’t seen the youngsters, much less figured out if they can see.

Tiny water creatures that clams eat might also be attracted to the flashing display, Dougherty speculates. “It reminds me of one of those ‘Eat Here’ signs,” she says. If this is molluscan deception, then the disco clam may also be the all-night-diner clam.