Oak Brook IL is home to the HQs of several companies and organizations including Ace Hardware, Blistex, Federal Signal, CenterPoint Properties, Sanford L.P., TreeHouse Foods, and Lions Clubs International. McDonald’s HQ moved to Chicago in June 2018.
Ace Hardware was founded in 1924 as ‘Ace Stores’. The name was changed in 1931 to ‘Ace Hardware Corporation.’ After the 1973 retirement of founder Richard Hesse, Ace became a retailer-owned cooperative. Today it has over 5,200 locations in 60 countries.
Former NFL coach and television football analyst John Madden has appeared in advertising as a spokesman for a number of products, including Ace Hardware, Outback Steakhouse, Miller Lite, and Tinactin, as well as lending his name and voice to EA Sports’ long-runnng series of Madden video football games.
The first three Raiders Super Bowl victories were all within 7 years, from 1977 to 1984, but they were with two different sets of head coaches and starting QBs:
1977: Super Bowl XI, John Madden and Ken Stabler
1981: Super Bowl XV, Tom Flores and Jim Plunkett
1984: Super Bowl XVIII, Tom Flores and Jim Plunkett
The eruption of the Toba supervolcano in Sumatra, Indonesia 75,000 years ago emitted as much 13,000 cubic kilometers of lava and ash, equal to the volume of over 220 times that of Mount Everest. The resulting ash cloud caused a volcanic winter that lasted from 6 to 10 years, and a cooling climate for as much as 1000 years. Some anthropologists have calculated that as a result of this climatic catastrophe, human population may have decreased to as few as 3000 individuals, from whom we are all descended today.
Another Indonesian volcano, Mount Krakatoa, erupted on August 23, 1883. An estimated 36,000 people died as a result of the eruption. The global spread of Krakatoa’s ash gave atmospheric scientists their first clues that high-altitude, high-speed winds circle the globe. These winds are now known as jet streams.
Mount Krakatoa, Anak Krakatau, Lampung IDN last erupted in 2020. The volcano is only about 100 miles west of Jakarta IDN. IDN is the ISO 3166 three letter abbreviation for Indonesia.
The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) is an international standard-setting body composed of representatives from various national standards organizations. Founded on 23 February 1947, the organization develops and publishes worldwide technical, industrial, and commercial standards. It is headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, and works in 165 countries.
“International Love” is a song by American rapper Pitbull, on his sixth studio album, Planet Pit (2011). The song features vocals from American R&B singer Chris Brown. Although praised by some, Jesse Cataldo of Slant Magazine wrote, “The track might have felt convincing. As delivered by Pitbull and Chris Brown, it feels juvenile and boastful, a puerile fantasy with zero appeal.”
Given all the stars, galaxies and what we know about the laws governing reality, there are about 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 planets in our observable Universe.
That’s 10 septillion planets.
And that’s counting only the planets that are orbiting stars.
The planet Uranus was discovered in 1781 by English astronomer Sir William Herschel. Herschel wanted to name it after King George III, but that name was not widely popular outside of England. While ‘Neptune’ was considered as a name, ultimately the newly-discovered planet was named by fellow astronomer Johann Elert Bode, a German who proposed naming it after Uranus, an ancient Greek god of the sky.
Astronomer Andrei Leksel was the first to calculate Uranus’ orbit, which is nearly circular. In our solar system, Venus has the most circular orbit, followed by Earth, then Uranus, and then Jupiter.
Not in play …
Bullitt wrote:
That’s 10 septillion planets.
And that’s counting only the planets that are orbiting stars.
And what are the others orbiting?
In play …
The former ninth planet (now ‘dwarf planet’) Pluto has the most eccentric orbit, with a parahelion (closest distance to the sun) of 4434.987 x 10⁶ kms, and an aphelion (furthest distance from the sun) of 7304.326 x 10⁶ kms. This means that at times Pluto’s orbit actually put it closer to the sun than the orbit of the eighth planet, Neptune.
-“BB”-
They may not be orbiting anything…?
If the eccentricity if a conic section is 0, then the curve describes a circle.
If the eccentricity if a conic section is 1, then the curve describes a parabola.
If the eccentricity if a conic section is between 0 and 1, then the curve describes an ellipse.
The eccentricity of Pluto’s orbit is 0.224.
The eccentricity of Earth’s orbit is 0.01671.
The eccentricity of Venus’s orbit is 0.0067.
Nitpick, it’s perihelion: Apsis - Wikipedia
In play:
The astronomical symbol of Earth (also known, especially in science fiction, as Terra or Sol III), homeworld of humanity and, as far as we know, the only site of life in the Solar System, is a simple circle with a cross on it: Earth - Wikipedia
Terra is the name given to a multi-national satellite that was designed to measure Earth’s atmosphere, land, and water, in an effort to understand how Earth is changing. It is the flagship of the Earth Observing System (EOS). Launched in 1999, it is about the size of a small school bus, and orbits the earth 14 times each day.
According to geospatialworld.net which references the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), which keeps a record of the operational satellites, there are 6,542 satellites in orbit around Earth as recorded by 01 January 2021. Of these, 3,372 satellites are active and 3,170 satellites are inactive.
The first man-made satellite was Sputnik I, launched by the Soviet Union on October 4, 1957. Three months later, in January of 1958, the satellite’s orbit deteriorated and it burned up in the atmosphere.
Less than a month after the launch of Sputnik I, Sputnik II was launched on November 3, 1957. Sputnik II carried a dog named Laika. During the jettison maneuver, some of the thermal heat shield tore loose, and the interior cabin temperature rose above 100 degrees Fahrenheit. As a result, Laika survived for only two days instead of the planned ten days.
Laika is a stop-motion animation studio, formed in 2005 by owner Phil Knight (co-founder of Nike), as a successor to Will Vinton Studios, which Knight had bought in 2002.
Laika, which is named after the Soviet dog who went to space in Sputnik 2, has produced five full-length animated feature films, including Coraline and Kubo and the Two Strings.