monkaaay

Wednesday, August 21, 2013

Stationery Card

Modern Script Boy Birth Announcement

Create beautiful birth announcements with Shutterfly.

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Stationery Card

Modern Script Boy Birth Announcement

Find hundreds of cute baby birth announcements at Shutterfly.com.

View the entire collection of cards.

Stationery Card

Modern Script Boy Birth Announcement

Personalize your announcements with Shutterfly.

View the entire collection of cards.

Tuesday, December 14, 2010

212 is New York, while the relatively close Boston got 617. 213? Across the country, to Los Angeles. How's this happen?

The answer is pictured at the right. It's all because of the rotary phone.

Before 1951, long distance phone calls required an operator's assistance. On November 10, 1951, that ended, as the mayor of Englewood, New Jersey dialed, directly, the major of Alameda, California. (The call took 18 seconds to connect.) In order to get to that point, however, the phone system infrastructure required overhaul; specifically, the addition of a routing system. Enter area codes.

Until recently, all area codes had either a "1" or a "0" as the middle number. This allowed for local calls to be dialed without the area code, as the switching software would recognize a long distance call by the second digit -- local exchanges never had a 0 or 1 in that spot -- and avoid confusion. But the etymology of specific area codes is more complicated. While ZIP codes are roughly geographic (there's a map for that) though, area codes clearly aren't, as New York (originally only 212) isn't near Los Angeles (213) and Detroit (313) abuts neither Chicago (312) nor St. Louis (314).

Rather, area codes were given out with speed in mind. The bigger the city, the less time it takes to dial that city's number on a rotary phone. New York's 212 is a mere five clicks away; Los Angeles and Chicago are next at six; Philadelphia (area code 215) is eight. Rural American places and some Canadian provinces received larger click amounts -- Montana's 406 is twenty clicks while South Dakota's 605 and Nova Scotia's 902 is twenty-one.

This, of course, also means that the typical emergency telephone number, 9-1-1, is rather long (at eleven clicks), almost twice as long as directory information (4-1-1, six clicks). Why pick such a "long" number? The history behind the selection of 9-1-1 has been lost to antiquity, but best guesses include its near-universal availability, ease in remembering it, and the unlikelihood of an unintentional dialing.

Bonus fact: Originally, the middle number -- either 0 or 1 -- in the area code meant something in and of itself. If a state had only one area code, it's area code had a 0. If it had more than one, all area codes therein had a 1. Much like other numbering conventions, this has since been deprecated.

liNk

Be honest. Be honest all the time. This will enable you to be lazy and not have to remember as much.

To prevent impulsive purchases, wait a week before purchasing. If you still want it, buy it; if not, don’t waste your money.

The 60 Second Rule. If there’s something that needs to be done and it takes less than 60 seconds to do, then don’t put it off–do it immediately. If you’re a terrible procrastinator like I am, you’ll be surprised just how much petty shit you can eliminate from your life.

Three things not to be cheap on . . . Bed, Shoes, Toilet Paper

When lighting a fire, use dry pine cones to get things started.

Look for thrift stores that are hard to get to via public transit, they usually have the best stuff.

If you get a brain freeze, press your tongue to the roof of your mouth

Put that you were time’s 2006 person of the year on your resume. In 2006, Time made ‘Everyone” the person of the year

If you forget someones name simply say ” Sorry, what was your name again?” They may look annoyed, but once they tell you say “No, I meant your last name” boom. First and last name.

And the best one: