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MUNDANE MYSTERIES: What Color Is A Tennis Ball Really?

How each of us sees the world is, of course, subjective. But, some colors are meant to be constant. Oranges are forever orange. Fire engines are always red. Tennis balls are always yellow. Or…are they green? Which is it?

According to the International Tennis Federation, a tennis ball should be yellow in color, a mandate that came down in 1972 after TV viewers had trouble following the previously white balls’ movements across the court. Tennis ball manufacturers also officially identify their products as yellow.

So, why is it that some people perceive tennis balls to be green? Well, a yellow hue by itself can be hard for some people to distinguish. While yellow’s easy to identify when you contrast it with other colors (think paint swatches), it’s harder for people to visually decipher when there’s nothing to compare it with. Also, people tend to color correct based on lighting conditions. Warmer colors, like gold, or cooler colors, like blue, may be discounted by some folks upon their initial viewing. Which one of those ends of the color spectrum a person falls will ultimately affect how they perceive & interpret the overall spectrum. So, if you discount cooler colors, then the ball might appear to be yellow. If you discount warmer colors, you probably see it as green.

It’s also possible that people who are active in the evening time, under artificial light, discount warmer colors, while people active in the daytime, under natural lighting, discount cooler colors; those elements further shift our perceptions.

Objectively, though, a tennis ball is yellow. But, whether or not YOU think so, however, all depends on how you see the world in your own unique way.

Got a Mundane Mystery you’d like solved? Send me a message via social media (@AndyWebbRadioVoice), or shoot me an email at [email protected]!

MUNDANE MYSTERIES: Santa Clause + Cookies & Milk = Weight Gain?

Each & every Christmas Eve, Santa Clause sets out across the world, delivering toys to good little girls & boys. And, along the way, his yuletide mission is fueled by everyone’s traditional offering of cookies & milk. With all those goodies at every single stop, just how much weight would St. Nick pack on?

There’s a little bit of guesstimating involved, but it’s actually a simple question to figure out if you utilize the Factor Label Method. Also known as Unit Analysis or Dimensional Analysis, it allows you to solve this problem fairly easy. Basically:

Write your given on the left side of your paper (“1 Santa Claus”)
Mark your intended answer on the right side of the paper (“Pounds”)
Set up a chain of units from left to right
Fill in the numbers for the units
Multiply by all the tops
Divide by all the bottoms
Then, clean it all up.

So, using those 7 steps, the Factor Label Method gives us our answer: 400-million pounds. We’re assuming a generic sugar cookie has around 200 calories, while a glass of milk contains about 100, and that there are also approximately 2 billion houses on Santa’s route.

Now, again, this is an approximate answer; it could be 300 or 500 million, since we’re basing our math on assumptions. But, while we might not know the precise answer, we do know that the number is very big. So, if Santa burned calories like a normal man his size & age, he’d probably gain around 400-million pounds.

But, as we all know, Santa burns no calories like a normal person during his trip, because it’s a well-known fact that Santa uses those calories to propel his sleigh around the world, in what experts call “calorie-to-magic conversion”. It’s how he’s able to travel the entire world, because he uses all those calories from his cookies & milk, thus gaining no weight in the process. It’s mind-boggling, but all the best magic is. And Christmas Magic is probably the trickiest to quantify.

Got a Mundane Mystery you’d like solved? Send me a message via social media (@AndyWebbRadioVoice), or shoot me an email at [email protected]!

MUNDANE MYSTERIES: What’s The “Scuttlebutt”?

As we get ready to celebrate the holidays, you might be around friends & family (please be safe). And, if/when you are, you might want to share the latest “scuttlebutt”. But, have you ever wondered what that exactly is, and why we want to hear it?

When we make conversation, we use a variety of different prompts. You might ask how someone is doing, what’s happening, or if they’ve been anywhere or done anything interesting lately. And, sometimes, you might ask them what the latest scuttlebutt is. “What’s the scuttlebutt?” you might say, and then they’d spill the tea on that requested scuttlebutt.

The word “scuttlebutt” is clearly a slang term for information or gossip. But, what exactly is a scuttlebutt & how did it become associated with idle chatter?

According to Merriam-Webster, 1800s sailing ships carried scuttlebutts, or casks of drinking water, for those on board. Scuttlebutt was later used as the name for drinking fountains on ships or within Naval installations. The barrel was known as a “butt”, while “scuttle” came from the French word escoutilles, which means “hatch” or “hole”. A scuttlebutt was therefore a hatch on the barrel.

Since sailors usually received orders from shouting supervisors, talking amongst themselves was discouraged. But, because sailors could congregate around the water fountain, it became a place to finally catch up & exchange the latest news & gossip, which made scuttlebutt synonymous with casual conversation. For sailors, at the scuttlebutt was really the only place to do it.

Technological advances ultimately rendered the scuttlebutt obsolete, but the term, itself, endured, and eventually became a catch-all word for baseless rumors.

So, the next time someone asks you what the scuttlebutt is, now you can tell them. Just remember…the scuttlebutt could be about you, if you’re not careful.

Got a Mundane Mystery you’d like solved? Send me a message via social media (@AndyWebbRadioVoice), or shoot me an email at [email protected]!

Tips for Your Virtual Holiday Party!

If you’re hosting a virtual Christmas party here are a few tips to make it go smoothly: Coordinate ahead of time which platform you’ll use, and make sure older family members are set up in advance . . . have a loose plan, like what time to log on, and an activity to fill any awkward silences . . . and keep it short . . . and take some pictures or screenshots as memories of 2020.

Christmas is basically here!

1. Send out invites. On Zoom, Skype, or FaceTime . . . and make sure older and less tech-savvy family members will be able to participate by helping them get set up in advance.

2. Have an agenda. It can be loose, but at minimum it should include a time to log on, as well as a designated game or activity to fill any awkward silences. 5x Fast….fill in the blank….change a movie title etc..

3. Keep it short and sweet. Like maybe do dinner while on the call together or open presents at the same time, but not both. Virtual fatigue is a real thing.

4. Make sure everyone knows about the mute button. Background noise is bound to happen, especially when there are kids involved. So make sure everyone knows how to mute themselves, or be ready to do it yourself as the host.

5. Lastly, Take pictures or screenshots. They will make for some great “2020 memories” in a few years.

{Katie’s Baby Blog} My Messy Kid!

My child is so messy!! Is that normal?!…..I know it is! Haha, but she is seriously a mess when it comes to eating. I can’t tell you how many bottles of stain remover I go through trying to get stains out of her cute clothes.

The worst part is…she loves being messy. She squishes food between her fingers, rubs it all over her face and hair and makes crumbs out of anything and everything she can.

I have tried to tell her “no” probably a thousand times. She doesn’t care. I take away her tray and food…doesn’t bother her at all.

She’s just a messy girl. I thought she would grow out of it when we transitioned from “baby” to “toddler”…that was a funny joke.

I guess we will just keep working on it in hopes that one magical day, Lily won’t tear apart her PB&J sandwich and then rub it all over her face.

Please send recommendations my way. Maybe a way to trick her into eating nicely?? If I offer a treat…that gets squished, too.

Peep the video below for a perfect example…

MUNDANE MYSTERIES: Why Christmas Lights End Up Tangled

Unless you’re very lucky, or very well-organized, your Christmas lights are likely all tangled up when you get them out of storage. One way or another, you’ll eventually end up on your hands & knees, fighting to untangle that seasonal snarl. And you’re not alone: a few years ago, even the British grocery chain Tesco hired temporary “Christmas light un-tanglers” for the holidays. But, why are Christmas lights so prone to tangling in the first place? And what can be done about it?

There are several issues at play here. First, cords in general are inherently prone to tangling (think headphone cords, telephone cords, etc.). And, according to science, the longer the cord, the higher the probability of knots forming. Plus, the more flexible the cord is, the more likely to tangle it will be, more so than a less flexible cord. While long cords get tangled more easily than short ones, a cord with a larger diameter will be less flexible & thus reduce the risk of knotting. So, in other words, the ratio of length to diameter is what really matters. That’s why a garden hose can end up tangled; even though it’s fairly stiff, it’s also very long compared to its diameter.

But there’s more. If a cord has a metal wire inside of it, as Christmas lights do, then it acquires a kind of natural curve, as the wire, which was previously wrapped around a cylindrical spool, tends to retain that shape. Christmas lights can be even harder to straighten than other wound materials because they often contain a pair of intertwined wires, which give them a stubborn, intrinsic twirl.

Then, there’s the additional problem of the lights. All those little projections of lights get in the way of each other, and make it super difficult to pull one strand through another. That means once you’re tangled, it makes it that much harder to de-tangle.

So, what can we do about this? Well, aside from manufacturers using different, better materials for both the cords & the lights, the only real “solution” is to coil the lights very carefully when putting them away, and to use some twist-ties to help keep them in place. Otherwise, you’ll just have to use the old-school method when faced with a hopelessly tangled mess of cord: find one of the free ends…and just work your way out from there. Eventually, you’ll work it out. You can do it!

Got a Mundane Mystery you’d like solved? Send me a message via social media (@AndyWebbRadioVoice), or shoot me an email at [email protected]!

MUNDANE MYSTERIES: Why Is Christmas On December 25th?

Each December, we throw a big shindig in celebration of the anniversary of Jesus’s birth. But, without a birth certificate or other official record of His actual birthdate, December 25th seems like it’s an arbitrary date for our Christmas traditions. So, how was it chosen as THE date?

The Bible doesn’t name a month, day, or even season, for Jesus’s birth, so historians rely on other clues to estimate when it occurred. In the Nativity story, shepherds tended their sheep, which some say is evidence Jesus was born in the Spring. Others say Israel’s mild winter temperatures allow sheep to graze even in December. According to Slate.com, it’s also possible for sheep set aside for religious sacrifices to have been given free rein, cold night or not.

The primary rationale comes from the story of Mary’s cousin Elizabeth, who was old & without any children. One day, her husband, Zacharias, a priest who was burning incense in the temple, was visited by the angel Gabriel who told him Elizabeth would have a son. The thought was that Zacharias was probably in the temple for Yom Kippur, which is believed to have always taken place on September 24th. Nine months after September 24th is June 24th, so they chose that as the birthdate of Elizabeth & Zacharias’s son, John the Baptist. Gabriel later visited Mary to say that she, too, would bear a son, and mentioned Elizabeth was in her 6th month of pregnancy. So, that means Jesus would’ve been conceived in late March, and born in late December, the night of December 24th, to be exact.

The first known record of December 25th celebrated as Jesus’s birthday was in the year 336. Because it was mentioned in a book containing other important religious dates related to Emperor Constantine, some assumed a celebration probably occurred on that day. So, 336 is said to be the 1st known “Christmas.”

Whether Christmas was celebrated on December 25th before 336 may forever be unknown, but we do know the custom quickly caught on (spending the holiday watching A Christmas Story marathon wouldn’t come until much later). By the end of the 4th century, bishops were holding Christmas Mass across Rome, with pagan festivals falling out of fashion.

Since the origins of Christmas are just as subject to interpretation as Jesus’s actual birthdate, we should all feel free to play Christmas music whenever we want!

Got a Mundane Mystery you’d like solved? Send me a message via social media (@AndyWebbRadioVoice), or shoot me an email at [email protected]!

MUNDANE MYSTERIES: What’s The Difference Between Ice Cream & Gelato?

With all the snow & ice on the ground around us, an odd-yet-interesting question popped into my weird brain: what exactly is the difference between the 2 frozen treats of ice cream & gelato?

One of the main differences: butterfat. Ice cream’s main ingredients involve milk, cream, sugar, and egg yolks, but the secret to making gelato is using much less cream & sometimes little or no egg yolk, which leads to a smaller percentage of butterfat in gelato. The FDA has mandated that ice cream cannot contain less than 10% milkfat (though it can go as high as 25%), while gelato sits in the 4-to-9% range.

The churning method for each is also different, which modifies each treat’s density. Ice cream is churned much faster, causing more air to get whipped into it. Ice cream’s higher butterfat content comes into play there, too: because of all th milkfat involved, ice cream’s mix absorbs the air more readily. Gelato, on the other hand, is churned much slower, so it absorbs less air, creating a denser dessert.

The serving style for the 2 treats aren’t the same, either. In order to get perfectly stacked scoops of ice cream on a cone, buckets of ice cream must be stored at around 0°F to maintain consistency, while the softer gelato is stored at around 10°F to 22°F. Ice cream can then be scooped into fairly uniform balls with a round ice cream scooper, while a spade or paddle is best for molding gelato into a mound in a cup.

You can’t really go wrong with either, both are delicious, but there is 1 more difference to keep in mind: taste. If you want a bolder flavor, you want gelato. The density of the cream & the lesser amount of butterfat means it doesn’t coat your taste buds, so gelato can seem to have more intensity to its flavors.

Got a Mundane Mystery you’d like solved? Send me a message via social media (@AndyWebbRadioVoice), or shoot me an email at [email protected]!

{Katie’s Baby Blog} Snow Day!…or not.

I was a little disappointed yesterday when I got home and tried to get Lily excited for the snow. I wanted Tim and I to take her outside to play, but she was totally against it!

She liked looking out the window at the snow, but when I asked her to go outside and play in it, I got, “No, I don’t want to go outside!!” I tried to get her snow pants on, and her favorite boots…nope. I even tried to coax her with M&M’s and stickers. She took them both and still shook her head “no” at me about going outside.

So once, I finally gave in and said “okay, fine we will stay in,” we decided to make Christmas cookies!

Now that…she loved doing 🙂 My cute little helper.

I can’t really blame her….I don’t loveeeee the snow either.

<3 Katie Ryan

 

 

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