Year: 2023
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The Linguistic and Cultural Interplay Between “Testify”, “Testimony”, and “Testicle”
I recently attended a presentation, given by a forensic anthropologist, on the various procedures and techniques used to investigate a crime scene. In the discussion on managing evidence, the presenter made an aside on the relationship among the words testify, testimony and testicle, rooted in the shared latin word testis. Those comments prompted me to…
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Time and Gravity
The connection between time and gravity is a fundamental concept in modern physics. Einstein’s theory of general relativity links the mass of an object with time, witnessed through time dilation. That is the stronger the gravitational field, the slower time appears to move. But, a grandfather clock offers a second connection between the two: a…
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My Grandfather Clock
My son once asked “how does it work?” He wanted to know where the batteries were. Similarly, my son-in-law was unfamiliar with how a mechanical clock worked. This points to things that are lost as technology progresses, as we abstract our lives away from a physical-mechanical world to a virtual-electronic world. It is easy to…
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The Home Bank of Canada
It wasn’t until I got home, and looked more closely at the image I posted previously, that I saw engraved on the cornice the words “The Home Bank of Canada.” The Home Bank of Canada was a Canadian bank that was incorporated July 10, 1903 in Toronto. It succeeded the earlier Toronto Savings Bank, which had been founded in 1854…
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Danforth and Main
Why did I take this picture? Certainly the large “Hakim Optical” signs stood out, but my interest developed, first with the sign “Free Frames”, then another below reading “One Hour Service” and finally “Law Office”. Together, these three signs seem to form a sentence, one I thought was funny.