Thought Leadership

Daily learning continues

My practice of recording things I learned each day continues, but I notice that I am not quite so observant of or receptive to new information as I was. I wonder if this is a lock-down thing? …

Here is a selection of new, useful (?) facts:

  • The hippo is the world’s deadliest land animal.
  • When a Muslim baby is born the first thing it hears is it’s father’s voice saying a prayer.
  • “Arriviste” is a great word – noun or adjective.
  • Pirates used an eye patch to preserve night vision in one eye to let them see below deck, when they’d swap eyes.
  • Saying: No one ever made a greater mistake than the man who did nothing because he could only do a little.
  • A teardrop tattoo means someone has killed a person.
  • Elizabeth I did not execute many Catholics, but fined/taxed them £20 a month, which raised £45K at the time of the Spanish Armada.
  • Michelle Obama’s maiden name was Robinson.
  • 5^5 x 4^4 x 3^3 x 2^2 x 1^1 = number of milliseconds in a year.
  • The “beep” during NASA radio communications is called a “Quindar-Tone”.

There will be more …

Colin Walls

I have over thirty years experience in the electronics industry, largely dedicated to embedded software. A frequent presenter at conferences and seminars and author of numerous technical articles and two books on embedded software, I am a member of the marketing team of the Mentor Graphics Embedded Systems Division, and am based in the UK. Away from work, I have a wide range of interests including photography and trying to point my two daughters in the right direction in life. Learn more about Colin, including his go-to karaoke song and the best parts of being British: http://go.mentor.com/3_acv

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This article first appeared on the Siemens Digital Industries Software blog at https://blogs.stage.sw.siemens.com/embedded-software/2020/08/13/daily-learning-continues/