HOLIDAY PARTY!

Happy National Pigs in a Blanket Day! Join us as we celebrate meat wrapped in pastries on this important holiday. Today we're celebrating with friend, comedian and pigs in a blanket enthusiast Cody Skinner (Twitter: @codyskinnerfan)! Let's party!

Find the show notes here: https://laughowenslaugh.com/holiday-party-april-24-2019-national-pigs-in-a-blanket-day-with-cody-skinner/

Happy National Laundry Day! In this episode we learn the ins and outs of our clothes, and laundry. We're celebrating this week with comedian and laundry aficionado Andrew Hall! (Instagram: andrewhallpass / Twitter: @andrewhallpass / Facebook: MidnightGardenersLeague / Twitter: 12amGardeners / Instagram: MidnightGardeners) / Find us at holidaypartypodcast.com / @holidaypartypod on Twitter / holidaypartypodcast on instagram / [email protected]

Happy National Laundry Day! In this episode we learn the ins and outs of our clothes, and laundry. We're celebrating this week with comedian and laundry aficionado Andrew Hall! (Instagram: andrewhallpass / Twitter: @andrewhallpass / Facebook: MidnightGardenersLeague / Twitter: 12amGardeners / Instagram: MidnightGardeners)

SHOW NOTES

History + fun facts about the holiday

• According to Wikipedia, ‘laundry’ comes from the Middle English lavendry and refers to the washing of clothing and other textiles
• • • 1799--French born man name M. Pochon invented a ventilated barrel that could be hand cranked over an open flame, thus was the first clothes dryer
    • The first washing machine was invented in 1782 by H. Sidgier of Great Britain--it consisted of a rod cage that could crank
    • 1908--Birth of the first electric-powered washing machine called The Thor was introduced by the Hurley Machine Company of Chicago, invented by Alva J. Fisher
    • Wikipedia: “Laundry has been part of history since humans began to wear clothes, so the methods by which different cultures have dealt with this universal human need are of interest to several branches of scholarship
      • Laundrywork has traditionally been highly gendered, with the responsibility in most cultures falling to women (laundresses or washerwomen)
      • Laundry, like cooking and child care, is done both at home and by commercial establishments outside the home
• General history:
  • Laundry was first done in watercourses, letting the water carry away the materials which could cause stains and smells. This is still done in rural regions of poor countries
  • Then done in washhouses, where water was channelled from a stream or spring into a building, which typically contained two basins--one for washing and one for rinsing. They were a women-only space where they could discuss issues or chat/gossip
  • Laundry technology was transformed during the Industrial Revolution, with the introduction of the mangle--which consisted of two long rollers in a frame and a crank to revolve them, which compresses the cloth and expelled excess water--, various hand-operated washing machines, an electrically powered agitator, clothes dryers, and eventually washing machines as we now know them.
• Fun facts!
  • From bosistos.com article “9 Mind Blowing Facts About Laundry”, dropps.com article “17 Mindblowing Historical Facts About Laundry”, Reader’s Digest article “9 Laundry Facts You Didn’t Know Until Now”, and thespruce.com article “Interesting Laundry Facts and Trivia”
    • 70% of dirt on your clothes is invisible
    • You perspire about 6 litres/1.6 gallons of sweat a day, half of that through our feet
      • Our bodies also produce salt, grease, sebum, dead skin--each load of laundry has about 53g/1.87oz of grime, “about the size and weight of a Snickers bar”
    • Fragrance sensitivities are on the rise--a study from U of Georgia found that over 30% of participants had headaches, breathing difficulties, or other issues when exposed to perfumes on others, 19% had issues with air fresheners, 10% were irritated by fragranced laundry products
    • Dryers have only been around 200 years and weren’t a household item until the 1960s due to being cost prohibitive--in 1950 they cost about $1600 in present-day money
    • The average American family does 8-10 loads of laundry each week. A single load of laundry, from wash to dry, takes an hour and twenty-seven minutes to complete on average
    • 21.2% of American households use a clothesline
    • Laundry accounts for 21% of indoor water usage. 41% for flushing the toilet
    • Ironing as a practice was introduced in Ancient China 1000 years. The first ironing board was invented in NY in 1858
    • In Ancient Rome, there was an entire job description for the collection of urine, heating it with water, then stomping on soaked clothes. This was mostly men’s work
    • Before the 1800s, people wore the same things for a week, then soaked their clothes in ashes and urine as part of a lye mixture
    • In 19th Century Britain, Mondays were typically reserved for the weekly wash
    • Astronauts incinerate their underwear! After first re-using them for up to a week, then burnt and send off to a space grave
    • Soapmaking dates back to 2800BC, rendered from ashes and fats
    • Early sea voyagers used to “wash their wearable wares” by throwing them in a tethered bag and tossing them overboard to drag behind their ships
    • Clothing lines were used as a sneaky signalling device during the Revolutionary War
      • Those loyal to George Washington, or the “spymaster,” formed the Culper Spy Ring and would tip off other members about overheard intel by arranging their clothesline in such ways as to communicate in code
    • Civil War washerwomen earned more money than soldiers. The salary of the laundress was paid by the Army by deducting the fees from soldiers’ pay. Each enlisted man had $.50 withheld monthly, unmarried officers $1-2 monthly, and married officers $4 monthly. Each laundress was responsible for 20-30 men. Union officers earned an average of $13-16/month
    • Detergent was invented due to a soap shortage during WWI. There was a chronic shortage of fats to make soap, which lead to the creation of synthetic detergents. First went on sale in 1933 as ‘Dreft’
    • WWII submariners had to be strategic about sleeping arrangements because laundry machines weren’t an option--uniforms were stowed under mattresses, which were also zipped in plastic, turned over, and inside outwards to make quadruple, pseudo-sanitary use of the items
    • During the Northern Ireland conflict, the British used a laundromat as a front for counter intelligence information collection, specifically to determine who was making bombs and where.
      • They built a laundromat and staffed it with locals and a few British soldiers. The laundry would send out “color coded” special discount tickets: “get two loads for the price of one.” The color coding was matched to specific streets and when someone brought in their laundry, their general location could be determined.
      • While the laundry was being washed/pressed/dry cleaned, an additional cycle was added. Every item was sent through an analyzer that checked for bomb-making residue. Within a few weeks, multiple positives of bomb residue had shown up.
      • To narrow the target list, they sent out more specific numbered coupons to all houses in the suspected area, then swooped down on the identified homes, arresting multiple personnel and confiscating bombs, weapons, and ingredients
      • No one was injured or killed during the operation
    • Disney World employees used to have to wear company-issued underwear that was shared within the laundry system--in 2001, a deal was signed to give workers their own undergarments to take home, which came after a major outbreak of lice and scabies
    • If you wash and dry one load of laundry every day for the next 44 years, you’ll clean as much as staff at Disney World do in a day. An average of 285K pounds of laundry are washed daily, while 30-32K garments are dry-cleaned daily
    • Laundry dream analysis
      • If you dream you’re doing you’re laundry, it suggests that you are cleaning up your act or changing your image because you are concerned about how you appear to others
      • If you dream that you’re having someone else do your laundry, you’ve been gossiping. Someone’s dirty laundry is out there
      • If you dream about sorting the laundry, it indicates that you are trying to understand our own feelings and sorting out your attitudes
• History of National Laundry Day
  • We discovered National Laundry Day via nationaltoday.com. Whatnationaldayisit.com first detected mention of the day on April 16th, 2015.
  • From marketingmag.ca: for National Laundry Day 2016, GE (General Electric) Appliances Canada executed an integrated marketing campaign in support of its GE Designer Line of laundry appliances that included broadcast partnerships, giveaways, and a Twitter party
    • Lyndon Madden, the director of marketing at GE Appliances Canada in Burlington, Ont., stated, “Believe it or not, there are people out there that are crazy interested in laundry--laundraholics I might call them.”
    • The day included TV appearances on several morning shows in Montreal and Vancouver, with each show holding Designer Line laundry pair giveaways, worth around $2K each
    • The NLD events drew 22.8 million impressions, and #nationallaundryday was trending in Canada
  • According to National Today, “Laundry” is derived from two Welsh words: “lloon” or crazy and “dyrte” or dirty
    • • The Welsh jokingly called the English “Lloon dyrtes” and it eventually morphed into “laundered”
    • NT and thedickinson.net are the only search results with this claim and the phrase, both referring to National Laundry Day
    • These words do not appear to have any connection to the Welsh language
    • Looking up the pronunciation for that phrase lead me to a huge discovery
  • According to National Today, Emmett Lee Dickinson:
    • Created the laundry basket on wheels
    • Self-proclaimed advocate for clean clothes
    • Founded National Laundry Day in the 1800s
    • Has a laundromat in Pennsylvania dedicated to his memory
    • All of these claims seem to originate from... thedickinson.net.
  • thedickinson.net is a site entirely dedicated to “Emmett Lee Dickinson,” the supposed third cousin, twice removed (at her request) to Emily Dickinson. The site proclaims that Emmett is perhaps America’s greatest poet, and that his works greatly influenced his third cousin, as well as every American poet ever since.
    • It apparently represents the Emmett Lee Dickinson Museum, which is allegedly located above the coin-op Laundromat on Dickinson Boulevard in Washerst, Pennsylvania, which is dedicated to preserving Dickinson’s work and promoting his life
      • The site claims that the museum is one of the top museums in Washerst, along with the National Traffic Light and Traffic Sign Museum, and the Washerst Newel Post Museum, and that it provides ongoing and special exhibits dedicated to “the man who should be recognized as more than the “Salieri” to his third cousin Emily’s “Mozart”
    • The site includes a floor plan of the museum (which has its own IMAX theater), admission prices, calendar of events, links to poet dating sites, a history of Washerst, and a list of snack bar items including swedish meatballs on a stick, refried corndogs, and cajun nachos
    • thedickinson.net also claims to have received “all three of the Internet’s top awards for truthfulness and accuracy” including the American Library Association’s Seal of Correctitude and Bona Fide Authenticity; the distinguished “VIP” Webby Award for Verity, Integrity, and Probity; and the Blue Ribbon of Excellence from the President’s Commission for Internet Veracity and Online Quality
    • Sadly, the Emmett Lee Dickinson Museum burned to the ground in January 2016, as evidenced by the article included on the home page of the website (included in the show notes)
    • The whole thing is the brainchild of one [Jim Asher], a principal at a middle school in Charlottesville, VA. He actually reworked poems by Emily Dickinson into two volumes called Great American Poems--Repoemed: A New Look at Classic Poems of Emily Dickinson, e.e. cummings, & Robert Frost, and Great American Poems--Repoemed Volume 2: A New Look at Classic Poems of Emily Dickinson, e.e. cummings, and Robert Frost...respectively
      • These books can both be found and purchased on goodreads.com. The first volume has a 3.5/5 star rating
      • “Dickinson came up with the idea for a national day dedicated to the task of doing laundry after he wrote his now-classic poem, “The vastest earthly day’s.” The poem then allegedly inspired his third cousin Emily Dickinson to pen her poem “The vastest earthly Day.”
        • Emily Dickinson:
          • The vastest earthy day/ is shrunken small/ by one defaulting face/ behind a pall
        • Emmett Lee Dickinson
          • The vastest earthly day’s/ not shrunken small/ by agitating wash/ which does enthrall
    • Site also includes blog archives  from nearly every month from May 2013-March 2019
    • He also created adverts with unique themes for each Laundry Day since 2014
      • In 2018, the theme referenced the $22trillion national debt with the catchphrase “Let’s let the kids do the laundry!”
      • For this year, Donald Trump, “the spokesperson for 2019’s National Laundry Day, came up with this year’s theme: ‘Be sure to keep your whites separate!’”
    • One of the first things that gave me the impression that the site might not be on the up-and-up were the list of contributors to the site, which included such names as “Angstrom Dickinson,” “Verla Burrell-Bordelon,” “Emerson Nettles,” and “Qwerty Lee Dickinson”
  • The process to submit a new holiday to National Today is to fill out an electronic application with: your own name; organization name; phone number; email address; website; suggested holiday name, date, and type; a paragraph on why the holiday should be included; 3 reasons you love the holiday; 3 ways to celebrate the holiday; the origin story of the holiday; any mass or social media coverage there’s been, including any links; and any additional comments.
    • I have no idea what their editorial process is, or how much they attempt to corroborate the content of the submissions, but National Today does have a team of 13, including a publisher, two editors, and a staff writer.

Activities to celebrate

• From National Today:
  • Do Laundry… Or Don’t!
  • If laundry is something you enjoy doing, throw in your load on April 15 to fit it with the spirit. If you’d rather recycle outfits that cycle your load, then use the day as the perfect excuse to put laundry on your procrastination list
  • The the Art of Laundry Doing
    • Tired of taking on everyone’s load? Got a kid leaving for college soon? Take this day to teach someone how to take care of their colors, whites, and delicates the right way.
    • Review Your Detergent Brand
      • We live in a world of choices and yet we gravitate toward our comfort brands. Take a leap of faith and try out a new brand of detergent or softener to see if your clothes can be cleaner and smell better.
• Reader’s Digest: “10 Genius Uses for Dryer Sheets that will Change Your Life”--dryer sheets are the MacGyver of your laundry room!
  • Shoe polisher
  • Mosquito repellent
  • Book deodorizer
  • Burnt food remover
  • Pet hair brush
  • Garbage liner
  • Gym bag freshener
  • Spilled flour cleaner-upper
  • Static killer
  • Sand wiper
  • Eyeglass polisher
  • Tree sap remover
• Create an elaborate hoax site in order to promote your satirical poetry books, with the unintended (or intended?) consequence of trolling a National Holiday site
• Eat a Tide pod. Or don’t.
•  

NATIONAL LAUNDRY DAY custom spotify playlist (88 minutes long) https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3CICHuV286WPMcXr16qSAm

• Martha’s Vineyard Biker Gang by LAUNDRY DAY
• Lavender by LAUNDRY DAY
• Laundry Day by Joey Pecoraro
• Laundry Day by No Vacation
• Dirty Laundry by Carrie Underwood
• Dirty Laundry by All Time Low
• Dirty Laundry, a Nickelback cover of the Don Henley song
• Laundry by QUIX
• Laundry Room Washing Machine by X Life (3 minutes of washing machine noise)
• Laundry by Danny and Alex
• Dirty Laundry by Kelly Rowland
• Dirty Laundry by Bitter:Sweet
• Dirty Clothes by Bedspin
• The Emperor’s Dirty Clothes by The Animals at Night
• Emperor’s New Clothes by Panic! At The Disco
• Clothes Off!! By Gym Class Heroes, Patrick Stump
• Clothes Dryer by Baby Sweet Dream (5 minutes of dryer noise)
• Foldin Clothes by J. Cole
• Summertime Clothes by Animal Collective
• Clean Sheets by Descendents
• If I Can Find a Clean Shirt by Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson
• Satin Sheets by Tammy Wynette
• Washing Machine Heart by Mitski
• Hang Me Up To Dry by Cold War Kids
• Clothes Line Saga by Bob Dylan
•  

Sources

• https://nationaltoday.com/national-laundry-day/
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laundry
• https://www.thespruce.com/interesting-laundry-facts-and-trivia-2146486
• https://www.bosistos.com.au/blog/laundry/9-mind-blowing-facts-about-laundry
• https://www.dropps.com/blogs/spincycle/17-mindblowing-historical-facts-about-laundry
• https://www.rd.com/home/cleaning-organizing/laundry-facts/
• https://www.rd.com/home/cleaning-organizing/dryer-sheet-uses/6/
• https://www.thedickinson.net/
• http://marketingmag.ca/brands/ge-appliances-puts-a-new-spin-on-national-laundry-day-172769/
• https://whatnationaldayisit.com/day/laundry/

Today we’re celebrating the the wonderful Find a Rainbow Day! An important, holy holiday in which we find some rainbows! YES! What a day to celebrate! Find us at holidaypartypodcast.com / @holidaypartypod on Twitter / holidaypartypodcast on instagram / [email protected]

Today we’re celebrating the the wonderful Find a Rainbow Day! An important, holy holiday in which we find some rainbows! YES!

• History + fun facts about the holiday
  • First “Find a Rainbow Day” was detected by whatnationaldayisit.com on 4/3/2015
    • Website provides a word cloud of the terms most associated with April 3. Their algorithms picked up 93 total unique days being shared on 4/3. A photo of the word cloud will be in the shownotes
  • Per Wikipedia: Rainbows are a meteorological phenomenon that are caused by reflection, refraction, and dispersion of light in water droplets resulting in a spectrum of light appearing in the sky, taking the form of a multicoloured circular arch
  • “Rainbow” is derived from the Latin arcus pluvius, or “rainy arch.”
  • Humankind has long been fascinated by the rainbow, so the history of it’s study is just as colorful, sort of. According to National Today and treehugger.com
    • The Greek epic poet Homer believed that rainbows were made of a single color: purple
    • Greek philosopher Xenophanes bestowed the rainbow with two more colors, saying that it was comprised of purple, yellow-green, and red. Aristotle agreed, saying “The rainbow has three colors, and these three, and not others.”
      
    • 1304--A german monk named Theodoric proposed that each raindrop in the sky causes refraction of the light. Prior to his hypothesis, Aristotle believed that refraction of light occurred due to an entire cloud
    • 1656--Descartes confirms Theodoric’s Hypothesis, additionally that refraction from several drops in the sky leads to a rainbow
    • 1666--Good old Sir Isaac Newton (had shitty eyes apparently) showed that white light is split into different colors due to refraction, and divided the spectrum into 5 main colors: red, yellow, green, blue, violet. Later added orange and indigo.
      • Sevenfold red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet, commonly remembered by the mnemonic Richard Of York Gave Battle In Vain (ROYGBIV)
        • Chose to do 7 to be analogous to the number of notes in a music scale, inspired by beliefs of the ancient Greek sophists who thought there was a connection between the colours, musical notes, known objects in the Solar System, and the days of the week.
      • His “blue” would not be cyan, his “indigo” would now be considered blue
      • Dispersive prism--this is illustrated in that sickass Pink Floyd album cover
    • 1803--Thomas Young Explains: he showed that two different light waves can interfere constructively or destructively, which gives rise to bright or dark areas of the rainbow
      • Light behaves as a wave under certain conditions and can interfere with itself
  • Rainbows caused by sunlight always appear in the section of sky directly opposite the sun
  • A rainbow is not located at a specific distance from the observer, but comes from an optical illusion caused by any water droplets viewed from a certain angle relative to a light source
    • Optical illusion: cannot be touched :(
    • It is impossible for an observer to see a rainbow from water droplets at any angle other than the customary one of 42 degrees from the direction opposite the light source
  • Number of colours distinguishable to the human eye in a spectrum is in the order of 100
    • Recent research suggests that the number of distinct colours observed and what these are called depend on the language that one uses, with people whose language has fewer colour words seeing fewer discrete colour bands--thanks to “linguistic relativity”
    • Span a continuous spectrum of colours--distinct bands perceived are an artefact of human colour vision. No banding of any type is seen in a black/white photo, only a smooth gradation of intensity to a maximum, then fading towards the other side
    • https://www.flickr.com/photos/yahmdallah/6286509678/lightbox/
  • Variations
    • Double rainbow--most primary and secondary are visible. In theory, all rainbows are double rainbows, but the secondary is always fainter
    • Twinned rainbow--appears that 2 rainbow arcs split from a single base
    • Full-circle rainbow--every rainbow is a circle, but full circle can only be seen from a high viewpoint above the rainbow as water droplets must be present below the observer’s horizon
      • Possible to produce from the ground--spray water mist from a hose while facing away from the sun
    • Supernumerary rainbow aka stacker rainbow--one or several narrow, faintly coloured bands can be seen bordering the violet edge of a rainbow
    • Monochrome rainbow--occasionally a shower may happen at sunrise or sunset, where the shorter wavelengths like blue and green have been scattered and essentially removed from the spectrum. Further scattering may occur due to the rain, and the result can be the rare and dramatic monochrome or red rainbow
    • Higher-order rainbows--order of a rainbow is determined by the number of light reflections inside the water droplets that create it. More internal reflections cause bows of higher orders, theoretically unto infinity
      • In lab settings, it’s possible to create bows of much higher orders. Felix Billet (1808-1882) depicted angular positions up to the 19th order bow, a pattern he called “a rose of rainbows” (clever)
      • Ng et al. in 1998 produced up to the 200th order bow using an argon laser beam to produce extremely bright and well collimated (has parallel rays, spreading minimally as it propagates) light
    • Rainbows under moonlight--moonbow. Much dimmer and rarer than solar, requiring the moon to be near-full in order for them to be seen. Often perceived as white (human eyesight is shit, esp in low light) and may be thought of as monochrome. Long exposure photos will sometimes show the colour in this type of rainbow.
    • Fogbow--formed by much smaller cloud and fog droplets that diffract light extensively. Almost white with faint reds on the outside and blues inside; often one or more supernumerary bands can be discerned inside the inner edge. Sometimes appear with a glory (“saint’s halo) at the bow’s center
    • Circumhorizontal and circumzenithal arcs--two related optical phenomena similar in appearance to a rainbow, but their origin lies in light refraction through hexagonal ice crystals rather than liquid water droplets. They’re actually halos
    • Rainbows on Titan--It has been suggested that rainbows might exist on Saturn’s moon Titan, as it has a wet surface and humid clouds. Although visible rainbows may be rare due to Titan’s hazy skies, infrared rainbows may be more common, but an observer would need infrared night vision goggles to see them
    • Rainbows with different materials--droplets composed of materials with different refractive indices than plain water produce rainbows with different radius angles
  • World’s longest-lasting (/longest-observed) rainbow was seen over Sheffield, England on March 14, 1994 from 9a-3p
  • Mythology and symbolism
    • Peace and serenity; beautiful things often follow the darkest storms, transitional (life to death; storm to calm)
    • In general, seen as transcending the earthly realm, closes the gap between the physical and spiritual realms and allows for the possibility of communication (according to sunsigns.org)
      • Highway to Heaven--According to Christianity, a rainbow is a ray of light falling on the ground to guide a kind soul to the gates of heaven
      • In Greek and Roman times, it was believed that rainbows were a path created by the goddess Iris, linking us to the immortals. Greeks used the word “iris” to refer to any colored circle, thus the iris of the eye or the spot on the tail of a peacock. See also iris flower, chemical iridium, “iridescent”
      • In Norse mythology, the rainbow bridge Bifrost connects the world of men (Midgard) to the realm of the gods (Asgard)
    • Irish leprechauns’ secret hiding place for his pot of gold is said to be at the end of the rainbow (lucky charms)
    • Book of Genesis states that the rainbow is a sign of God’s covenant to never destroy all life on earth with a global flood again
    • A Bridge to Earth--According to Japanese myth, Isanagi and Isanami, first man and woman, created the first island, Onogoro, complete with birds and animals, while standing on a rainbow
    • Gender Bending--Until the 16th century, Europeans believed that anyone who passed under a rainbow would emerge as their opposite gender on the other end
  • In culture
    • Mario Kart--Rainbow Road is the final course of the Special Cup. Tracks are made of rainbow-colored glass or metallic surfaces that are either one color or change their color as racers pass by them. Most of them are transparent throughout the series
    • Rainbow bridge for lost pets--believed to have originated in several works of poetry from the 1980s and 90s meant to help relieve deceased pet owners of the pain of their loss
      • Perhaps the most well known: “Just this side of heaven is a place called Rainbow Bridge: https://www.rainbowsbridge.com/Poem.htm
        • Author is not “unknown,” actually Paul C. Dahm, a grief counselor in Oregon
      • May be based on Bifrost bridge
    • LGBT rainbow flag
      • Originally devised by SF artist Gilbert Baker
      • First flag had 8 color bands: hot pink for sex; red for life; orange for healing; yellow for sunlight; green for nature; turquoise for magic/art; indigo for serenity; violet for spirit
      • Most current proposed iteration by Daniel Quasar as of 2018
        
    • Archbishop Desmond Tutu and President Nelson Mandela described post-apartheid South Africa as the rainbow nation
    • Apple computers rainbow logo
    • “Double Rainbow” made infamous in meme culture by YouTuber Yosemitebear62 (originally Hungrybear9562, AKA Paul “Bear” Vasquez) from his viral video “Yosemite Mountain Double Rainbow 1-8-10” which now has over 45.8M views: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQSNhk5ICTI
      • Jimmy Kimmel linked the video in a post on Twitter on 7/3/10--”Bear” appeared on JK on 7/26 and was awarded Video of the Year
      • The auto-tuned verson (Gregory Brothers, 7/5/10) has since gotten almost 39.5M views
        • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MX0D4oZwCsA
      • “Bear” has since appeared in a commercial for Vodafone New Zealand, Jennifer Aniston’s ad for Smartwater, and the Slooh live broadcast of the Transit of Mercury--he felt the Transit had significant life meaning for him, like the day of the DR
        • “Slooh is a robotic telescope service that can be viewed live through a web browser with Flash plug-in”
        • Wikipedia: “Bear was able to provide a sense of wonder and joy that shows the deep connection people feel for the cosmos
• Activities to celebrate
  • National Today
    • Find a Rainbow
      This one is obvious. Head out and try finding a rainbow. Don't limit yourself to the sky. Try finding rainbow colors anywhere you can.
    • Organize an LGBTQ Awareness Event
      Just like the colors of a rainbow, gender and sexuality can also be fluid and distributed across a spectrum. Use this holiday to organize an LGBTQ event in your school, neighborhood, or even your office.
    • Organize a Treasure Hunt
      The goal of the hunt is to find things with rainbow colors. The person who finds the most number of things wins.
  • DIY
    • https://www.wikihow.com/Make-a-Rainbow
    • http://onetimethrough.com/how-to-make-rainbows-at-home/
  • Go to Hawaii--informal polling has determined that Hawaii is home to the most rainbows of any area on earth, due to frequent short mountain rain showers combine with sunshine year-round
    • “Rainbow capital of the world,” rainbow featured prominently on the license plate
• FIND A RAINBOW custom Spotify playlist https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2yql9OBPQaM8yGrsZmJRdA
  • Rainbow by Kesha
  • She’s a Rainbow by The Rolling Stones
  • Catch the Rainbow by Rainbow
  • Somewhere Over the Rainbow by Michael Bolton
  • Rainbow in the Dark by Dio
  • Over the Rainbow by Israel Kamakawiwo’ole
  • Rainbow Connection by Kermit
  • Rainbow Connection by Weezer, Hayley Williams
  • Black Rainbows by Cut Copy
  • “Over the Rainbow” on a “cat organ”
  • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GxEHi6Mlzmk
  • From Wikipedia: In 2010, Prince Charles was greatly amused by a performance of the tune "Over the Rainbow" on an instrument recreated using squeaky toy cats by Henry Dagg for a garden party held at Clarence House supporting Charles's Start initiative for sustainable living
• Sources:
  • https://nationaltoday.com/national-find-a-rainbow-day/
  • https://whatnationaldayisit.com/day/Find-A-Rainbow/
  • http://www.wfmz.com/weather/where-do-you-look-for-a-rainbow/16516319
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainbow
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainbows_in_mythology
  • https://www.sunsigns.org/rainbow-symbolic-meanings/
  • https://science.howstuffworks.com/nature/climate-weather/atmospheric/10-rainbow-myths.htm
  • https://www.treehugger.com/natural-sciences/17-curious-things-know-about-rainbows.html

Find us at holidaypartypodcast.com / @holidaypartypod on Twitter / holidaypartypodcast on instagram / [email protected]

Today we're celebrating the glorious World Backup Day! An important, holy holiday in which we ensure that we backup all of our digital data. What a day to celebrate!

Find us at holidaypartypodcast.com / @holidaypartypod on Twitter / holidaypartypodcast on instagram / [email protected]

Today we're celebrating the glorious World Backup Day! An important, holy holiday in which we ensure that we backup all of our digital data. What a day to celebrate!

• History + Fun Facts
  • August 2005—Maxtor, (was) a hard disk drive company, introduced “World Backup Month”
  • 2011—Ismail Jadun created World Backup day on March 31 each year
  • Started with a Reddit post on the r/reddit subreddit by u/adamjeff
    • This spawned the decision to make the date 3/31, the launch of the website and Twitter account
  • Tagline is “Don’t be an April fool”—back up your files before it’s too late
  • Social media accounts (FB, Twitter) have all been quiet since April 1, 2017, though it appears that you can still take the World Backup Day pledge on either of these sites via worldbackupday.com
    • Shares “I solemnly swear to backup my important documents and precious memories on March 31st” to the respective timeline
  • From Forbes: “’Backing Up’ refers to keeping at least one copy of your computer files backed up in a device other than your internal storage” via USB, thunderbolt HDD, cloud service
  • A number of companies have taken to offering discounts for backup equipment and services. Amazon offered 11 deals in 2018 alone
  • Why you should back up--We have LOTS of stats
    • According to worldbackupday.com and billpetro.com
      • 30% of people have never backed up
      • 25% do regular backups
      • 89% own a mobile phone (6.7b/7.5b)
      • 113 phones are lost or stolen every minute (162,720/day of 6.7 billion= .0024%)
      • 83% own a computer (6.25b)
      • 1 in 10 computers are infected with viruses each month (62.5m)
      • 60M computers will fail this year
      • 29% of disasters are caused by accident
      • 32% of data loss is due to human error… or cockpit error, or that space between the seat back and the keyboard
    • According to Acronis, a global technology company, conducted an internet population survey in the US, UK, Australia, Germany, Spain, France, and Japan in mid-March 2018. The survey looked at two general areas: general backup topics, and specific questions about ransomware awareness
      • On backing up overall:
        • 31.4 percent acknowledged they do not back up their personal data
        • 35.7 percent of respondents said that they or a family member had lost data
        • 47.2 percent reported when they do back up, they use the cloud as a backup destination
      • On Ransomware
        • 41.8 percent of respondents said they have never heard of ransomware – and while that is a huge number, that is a more than 20 percent improvement from 2017
        • 56 percent understand that ransomware can hijack your system and destroy files
        • 6.9 percent are willing to pay more than $140 to recover their lost data
      • They didn’t note how many participants they actually surveyed
    • Examples from Lifewire
      • Your phone gets stolen, and you lose all your pictures and videos
      • An external hard drive crashes, deleting your home videos
      • Your forget your laptop in a café and you’ve lost all your homework
      • A virus holds your data hostage until you pay to remove the restraints
      • You accidentally delete something important

• Activities to celebrate
  • From National Today:
    • Copy your files to an external hard drive: set aside 15 minutes to an hour to back up all of the existing files on your desktop, laptop or pc. Simply purchase a hard drive of your liking - we recommend 1TB drives or more - and copy your files to the drive
    • Play in the cloud: Can't buy a hard drive in time? No worries! There are plenty of companies that specialize in storing your documents online. Do your research and figure out which service works best for you. We recommend the Google Cloud, WMware Storage or Barracuda Cloud Storage, but they are all great!
    • Back that thing up party: Invite all the employees on your team to back up their files with one of the methods above. This will create a safer culture among your staff and prevent any projects from slipping through the crack. The last thing you need is a client asking for a file that was wrongfully discarded.
  • Lifewire provides a ranked, updated list of online backup services reviews, along with prices, as well as links to free online backup services and cloud storage services

• WORLD BACKUP DAY custom playlist -https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3Af80dRlDnfBFJvgSAFPZf
  • Backin’ it Up by Pardison Fontaine, Cardi B
  • Back That Azz Up by Juvenile, Lil Wayne, Mannie Fresh
  • Back It Up by Caro Emerald
  • Back It Up by Bone Crew
  • Back Up by DeJ Loaf, Big Sean
  • Bring It Back by Rich The Kid
  • Get It Back by Struggle Jennings, Bubba Sparxxx
  • Do It Again by Royksopp, Robin
• Sources:
  • https://www.forbes.com/sites/tomcoughlin/2018/04/01/world-backup-day-2018/#4fadc024a97c
  • https://www.reddit.com/r/reddit.com/comments/g9tkq/i_propose_we_have_a_backup_day_a_day_when/
  • https://www.reddit.com/r/techsupport/comments/ga5yg/help_make_world_backup_day_a_reality_tell_us_your/
  • https://www.facebook.com/WorldBackupDay/
  • http:// https://twitter.com/worldbackupday?lang=en
  • https://www.lifewire.com/world-backup-day-2617949
  • http:// https://billpetro.com/history-of-world-backup-day
  • https://www.acronis.com/en-us/blog/posts/world-backup-day-2018-survey-results

Find us at holidaypartypodcast.com / @holidaypartypod on Twitter / holidaypartypodcast on instagram / [email protected]