Tuesday 2/28/23
Celebrate:
Car keys and Small Change Day
Floral Design Day
International Repetitive Strain Injury Awareness Day
National Chocolate Souffle Day
National Public Sleeping Day
National Science Day
National Tooth Fairy Day
Rare Disease Day
World Spay Day
Global Scouse Day - A stew from Liverpool England. usually a meat stew, more often than not made with chunks of beef, but sometimes with lamb, and usually also with potatoes, onions, and carrots, although its ingredients tend to vary. It's one of those leftover stews..what you have left goes in.
Also..Happy February 29th Birthdays!!! Do you celebrate today or tomorrow?
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A survey from Credit Summit found that while Americans love gift cards, they're leaving $21 billion in unused funds on them.
The report noted several reasons for the gift cards being left in their wrapping, including losing them, simply forgetting about them or they just don't use up all of the money that was gifted. Despite that fact, 72% of Americans said they would still give them out this year.
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A team at the University of Cincinnati is working on an app that uses A.I. to tell you if a date is going well or not.
Basically, it pairs with wearable technology like your Apple Watch. And it monitors things like heart rate, breathing, and how much you're sweating. (The technical term for all that is "physiological synchrony.")
It can tell in real time whether you're actually engaged in a conversation, or just faking it. And it can give you feedback on your own quirks too. For example, it can tell you if the other person finds you BORING.
The app isn't ready for wide release yet, because it's not accurate enough. They tested it on a bunch of people, and it was around 75% accurate in analyzing how well people connected. So, pretty good, but not good enough to fully trust it yet.
Once it gets better, it could be useful for dating, and other stuff too. For example, it could provide real-time feedback for teachers, therapists, and even people on the spectrum who have a hard time socializing.
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2,000 Americans were asked to name their favorite type of dessert, and CAKE ranked first. But somehow, ice cream is nowhere to be found.
People were allowed to pick more than one type of dessert they consider a "favorite." Here are the top ten . . .
1. Cake. 42% said it's one of their favorite desserts.
2. Cookies, 36%.
3. Pie, 34%.
4. Donuts, 34%.
5. Muffins, 33%.
6. Cupcakes, 32%.
7. Pastries, 24%.
8. Candy, 21%.
9. Brownies, 17%.
10. Macaroons, 5%.
The poll also asked about our favorite dessert flavors, and STRAWBERRY ranked first. The top five are strawberry, chocolate, vanilla, red velvet, and chocolate chip.
Here's one final stat: Over a third of adults said they have a bigger sweet tooth now than when they were kids.
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A 20-year-old man named James Taylor was arrested early last Saturday in Chicago for armed robbery.
James allegedly pulled a gun on a 35-year-old man who was arriving home, and demanded that he hand everything over. The victim gave him his keys . . . $2.00 in cash . . . a debit card . . . and a takeout bag of fried chicken.
Rather than run, James opened the victim's car . . . sat inside . . . and began devouring the fried chicken.
The victim called 911, and they came within minutes and arrested James, who was still there eating the chicken. He was charged with multiple felonies, and is looking at 21 years in prison for just the armed robbery charge.
There's no word on where the fried chicken was from.
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There's an inmate in Bolivia named José Diaz, who's serving a 15-year sentence for murder. He also goes by "El Arana," which translates to "the spider."
Earlier this month, José was busted trying to ESCAPE . . . disguised not as a spider, but as a sheep.
He'd wrapped himself in sheepskin, got down on all fours, and crawled past security . . . past a wall . . . and out into the grassland that surrounds the jail in the middle of the night. (???)
Prison authorities didn't catch on until they noticed he was missing from his cell, and started searching for him. That's when they saw a strange "sheep" in the grassland, and nabbed him. He's back behind bars now. For what it's worth, the guards are blaming his ability to get past the prison wall on "bad weather."
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Today's Useless Fact of the Day - Peaches are named after Persia, because that's where Europeans had them for the first time. They were called "malum persicum" in Latin, which translates to "Persian apple." It was eventually translated to "peche" in French, which became "peach."
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