Friday, December 3, 2010

divagate \DAHY-vuh-geyt\, verb:

1. To wander; stray.

2. To digress in speech.

The Latin roots of divagate are di-, "two," and vagare, "to wander."

Memory Hole

• The alteration or outright disappearance of inconvenient or embarrassing documents, photographs, transcripts, or other records, such as from a web site or other archive. Its origin comes from George Orwell's "1984", in which the memory hole was a small incinerator chute used for censoring, (through destroying), things Big Brother deemed necessary to censor.

Person One: "Did you hear about that scandal involving the President?"

Person Two: "Yeah! Looks like someone didn't have time to visit the memory hole."

Dude One: "Yo bro, I like that picture on Facebook of you wearing the "I Love Barry Manilow" shirt!"

Dude Two: "Yeah, that's definitely going in the memory hole."

Trivia

What is the highest known mountain in our solar system?

• Mount Olympus, the Martian volcano that’s also known by the Latin name Olympus Mons. It is more than 16 miles high and has a diameter of 374 miles.

History

• coed: Oberlin College became the first institution of higher learning in the US to serve both male and female students (1833)
• A Streetcar Named Desire: Tennessee William's Pulitzer Prize-winning play opened on Broadway (1947)
• heart transplant: the procedure was first performed by Christiaan Barnard on Louis Washkansky in Cape Town; the patient lived 18 days before succumbing to pneumonia, but his new heart didn't fail (1967)
• 20th Century Limited: luxury NYC–Chicago train, on which passengers were routinely given flowers and perfume, finished its final run (1967)
• Bhopal disaster: poison gas emission from Union Carbide pesticide plant in Bhopal, India, killed thousands of people in arguably the worst industrial disaster ever (1984)

Birthdays

• Joseph Conrad (1857-1924): author of "Heart of Darkness," which was adapted into Apocalypse Now
• Jean-Luc Godard (80): filmmaker who ushered in the New Wave movement
• Ozzy Osbourne (62): heavy metal musician and reality TV star; other singers born on this date include Ferlin Husky (85), Andy Williams (83), Jaye P. Morgan (79) and Montell Jordan (42)
• Katarina Witt (45): award-winning figure skater
• Brendan Fraser (42): actor, The Mummy; also, actors Steven Culp (55), Julianne Moore and Daryl Hannah (both 50), Holly Marie Combs and Bruno Campos (both 37), Anna Chlumsky (30), Amanda Seyfried (25) and Michael Angarano (23)