STEM (is an umbrella term used to group together the distinct but related technical disciplines of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. The term is typically used in the context of education policy or curriculum choices in schools. It has implications for workforce development, national security concerns (as a shortage of STEM-educated citizens can reduce effectiveness in this area) and immigration policy, with regard to admitting foreign students and tech workers. There is no universal agreement on which disciplines are included in STEM; in particular whether or not the science in STEM includes social sciences, such as psychology, sociology, economics, and political science. In the United States, these are typically included by organizations such as the National Science Foundation (NSF), the Department of Labor's O*Net online database for job seekers, and the Department of Homeland Security. In the United Kingdom, the social sciences are categorized separately and are instead grouped together with humanities and arts to form another counterpart acronym HASS (Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences), rebranded in 2020 as SHAPE (Social Sciences, Humanities and the Arts for People and the Economy). Some sources also use HEAL (health, education, administration, and literacy) as the counterpart of STEM)

If you add an "A" you get STEAM which is designed to integrate STEM subjects with arts subjects into various relevant education disciplines. These programs aim to teach students innovation, to think critically, and use engineering or technology in imaginative designs or creative approaches to real-world problems while building on students' mathematics and science base. STEAM programs add arts to STEM curriculum by drawing on reasoning and design principles, and encouraging creative solutions. 

Under the "you can't make this s*** up"...........

Guess she wasn't a "STEM girl"......................

__________________________

Off to work...................

OMG ... 

Tic-Tac-Toe (American English), noughts and crosses (Commonwealth English), or Xs and Os (Canadian or Irish English) is a paper-and-pencil game for two players who take turns marking the spaces in a three-by-three grid with X or O. The player who succeeds in placing three of their marks in a horizontal, vertical, or diagonal row is the winner. It is a solved game, with a forced draw assuming best play from both players. The different names of the game are more recent. The first print reference to "noughts and crosses" (nought being an alternative word for 'zero'), the British name, appeared in 1858, in an issue of Notes and Queries. The first print reference to a game called "tick-tack-toe" occurred in 1884 but referred to "a children's game played on a slate, consisting of trying with the eyes shut to bring the pencil down on one of the numbers of a set, the number hit being scored". "Tic-tac-toe" may also derive from "tick-tack", the name of an old version of backgammon first described in 1558. The US renaming of "noughts and crosses" to "tic-tac-toe" occurred in the 20th century. 

Games played on three-in-a-row boards can be traced back to ancient Egypt, where such game boards have been found on roofing tiles dating from around 1300 BC. An early variation of tic-tac-toe was played in the Roman Empire, around the first century BC. It was called terni lapilli (three pebbles at a time) and instead of having any number of pieces, each player had only three; thus, they had to move them around to empty spaces to keep playing. The game's grid markings have been found chalked all over Rome. Another closely related ancient game is three men's morris which is also played on a simple grid and requires three pieces in a row to finish, and Picaria, a game of the Puebloans. 

In 1952, OXO (or Noughts and Crosses), developed by British computer scientist Sandy Douglas for the EDSAC computer at the University of Cambridge, became one of the first known video games. The computer player could play perfect games of tic-tac-toe against a human opponent. In 1975, tic-tac-toe was also used by MIT students to demonstrate the computational power of Tinkertoy elements. The Tinkertoy computer, made out of (almost) only Tinkertoys, is able to play tic-tac-toe perfectly. It is currently on display at the Museum of Science, Boston.

MIT Tinkertoy computer

Variants in entertainment -

The Price Is RIght

U.S. Mint (is a bureau of the Department of the Treasury responsible for producing coinage for the United States to conduct its trade and commerce, as well as controlling the movement of bullion. It does not produce paper money; that responsibility belongs to the Bureau of Engraving and Printing. The first United States Mint was created in Philadelphia in 1792, and soon joined by other centers, whose coins were identified by their own mint marks. There are currently four active coin-producing mints: Philadelphia, Denver, San Francisco, and West Point. The first authorization for the establishment of a mint in the United States was in a resolution of the Congress of the Confederation of February 21, 1782, and the first general-circulation coin of the United States, the Fugio cent, was produced in 1787 based on the Continental dollar. The current United States Mint was created by Congress with the Coinage Act of 1792, and originally placed within the Department of State. Per the terms of the Coinage Act, the first Mint building was in Philadelphia, the then capital of the United States; it was the first building of the Republic raised under the Constitution. Today, the Mint's headquarters (a non-coin-producing facility) are in Washington D.C. It operates mint facilities in Philadelphia, Denver, San Francisco, and West Point, New York and a bullion depository at Fort Knox, Kentucky. Official Mints (Branches) were once also located in Carson City, Nevada; Charlotte, North Carolina; Dahlonega, Georgia; New Orleans, Louisiana; and in Manila, in the Philippines. Originally part of the State Department, the Mint was made an independent agency in 1799. It converted precious metals into standard coin for anyone's account with no seigniorage charge beyond the refining costs. Under the Coinage Act of 1873, the Mint became part of the Department of the Treasury. It was placed under the auspices of the Treasurer of the United States in 1981. Legal tender coins of today are minted solely for the Treasury's account)

Philadelphia.................

Calling it a night……………

Viceroy 

A viceroy is an official who reigns over a polity in the name of and as the representative of the monarch of the territory. The term derives from the Latin prefix vice-, meaning "in the place of" and the French word roy, meaning "king". He has also been styled the king's lieutenant. The term has occasionally been applied to the governors-general of the Commonwealth realms, who are viceregal representatives of the monarch. Viceroy is a form of royal appointment rather than noble rank. An individual viceroy often also held a noble title, however, such as Bernardo de Gálvez, 1st Viscount of Galveston, who was also Viceroy of New Spain.

Joaquín de la Pezuela, penultimate viceroy of Peru (1825)

The viceroy (Limenitis archippus) is a North American butterfly. It was long thought to be a Batesian mimic of the monarch butterfly, but since the viceroy is also distasteful to predators, it is now considered a Müllerian mimic instead. The viceroy was named the state butterfly of Kentucky in 1990.

Viceroy is an American brand of cigarettes, currently owned and manufactured by R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company in the United States and British American Tobacco outside of the United States.

Comment: This is the brand my father smoked when I was a kid. He quit smoking when I was about 20 years old.

Wedding (is a ceremony where two people are united in marriage. Wedding traditions and customs vary greatly between cultures, ethnic groups, religions, countries, and social classes. Most wedding ceremonies involve an exchange of marriage vows by a couple, presentation of a gift (offering, rings, symbolic item, flowers, money, dress), and a public proclamation of marriage by an authority figure or celebrant. Special wedding garments are often worn, and the ceremony is sometimes followed by a wedding reception. Music, poetry, prayers, or readings from religious texts or literature are also commonly incorporated into the ceremony, as well as superstitious customs)

Just reported yesterday that the average cost of a wedding, nationally, this year is $29,000, up $1,000 from 2022, according to online wedding planning site Zola. And in some big U.S. cities, the cost is $35,000 and above, so a soon to be bride might need this.......................

FYI: From my Customs/Traditions topic folder

Love that last cartoon. Sad thing is ... it's probably true.

Xylobium - abbreviated Xyl in horticultural trade, is a genus of plants in family Orchidaceae. It contains about 35 species native to tropical America. It comes in many colors and formations.

Yarn Bombing ((or yarnbombing) is a type of graffiti or street art that employs colorful displays of knitted or crocheted yarn or fiber rather than paint or chalk. It is also called wool bombing, yarn storming, guerrilla knitting, kniffiti, urban knitting, or graffiti knitting. 

From 2020............

I can honestly say I've never heard of this...................

_______________

Calling it a night......................

24 hours....................

Zabriskie Point (is a part of the Amargosa Range located east of Death Valley in Death Valley National Park in California, United States, noted for its erosional landscape. It is composed of sediments from Furnace Creek Lake, which dried up 5 million years ago—long before Death Valley came into existence. The location was named after Christian Brevoort Zabriskie, vice-president and general manager of the Pacific Coast Borax Company in the early 20th century. The company's twenty-mule teams were used to transport borax from its mining operations in Death Valley)

www.facebook.com

Zabriskie Point | Explore Outdoors | How borax played a role in drawing people to Death Valley National Park. Learn more >> https://on.kcra.com/ZabriskiePoint | By KCRA 3 | Facebook

Explore Outdoors | How borax played a role in drawing people to Death Valley National Park. Learn more >> https://on.kcra.com/ZabriskiePoint

Off to work.......................

Alydar and Alysheba 

Alydar (March 23, 1975 – November 15, 1990) was an American Thoroughbred racehorse and sire. A chestnut colt, he was most famous for finishing a close second to Affirmed in all three races of the 1978 Triple Crown. With each successive race, Alydar narrowed Affirmed's margin of victory; Affirmed won by 1.5 lengths in the Kentucky Derby, by a neck in the Preakness and by a head in the Belmont Stakes. Alydar has been described as the best horse in the history of Thoroughbred racing never to have won a championship. Alydar's fame continued when he got older. He died under suspicious circumstances.

YouTube

Affirmed & Alydar - Part 2 of 4

The story of the two great rivals..

There is a book about Alydar's death - Broken: The Suspicious Death of Alydar and the End of Horse Racing’s Golden Age - just published last month. I bought the Kindle version with my points because I really didn't want to wait for it to go on sale or for Libby to offer it.

Alysheba (March 3, 1984 – March 27, 2009) was an American Thoroughbred racehorse that won two legs of the Triple Crown in 1987. A successful sire, he produced 11 stakes winners. A bay colt, Alysheba was sired by Alydar out of the mare Bel Sheba, by Lt. Stevens. He was bred by Preston Madden at Hamburg Place Farm in Lexington, Kentucky, and was sold as a yearling to Dorothy and Pam Scharbauer for $500,000. Trained by Jack Van Berg, Alysheba had a modest two-year-old season in 1986 and won only a maiden race. He finished third in the Breeders' Cup Juvenile and lost the Hollywood Futurity in a photo finish. As a three-year-old, he underperformed in his preparatory races for the Kentucky Derby until it was discovered that he had an entrapped epiglottis. Surgery was successful, and he was entered in the Derby despite having only a maiden victory.

Alysheba closed out his career at Churchill Downs, winning the 1987 Breeders' Cup Classic over Seeking the Gold, Waquoit (one of the most noted off-track runners of the time), Forty Niner, and Cutlass Reality. With the victory, he secured Horse of the Year and Champion Older Horse honors. He also became the first horse to win three legs of a four-race sequence that was defined in 2015 as the Grand Slam of Thoroughbred racing: The Triple Crown races, plus the Breeders' Cup Classic, though not in the same year. Alysheba was ridden in 17 consecutive starts by Hall of Fame jockey Chris McCarron. He finished his career with a record of 11-8-2 in 26 starts. His earnings totaled $6,679,242, a record at the time.

YouTube

Kentucky Derby Flashback | Alysheba 1987

Alysheba stuns the crowd in the 1987 Kentucky Derby with Chris McCarron aboard for Jack Van Berg. Alysheba overcame multiple obstacles to win on the first Sa...

Round 10......................

Broadway (Broadway theatre, or Broadway, are the theatrical performances presented in the 41 professional theatres, each with 500 or more seats, located in the Theater District and the Lincoln Center along Broadway, in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. Broadway and London's West End together represent the highest commercial level of live theater in the English-speaking world. While the thoroughfare is eponymous with the district and its collection of 41 theaters, and it is closely identified with Times Square, only three of the theaters are located on Broadway itself, namely the Broadway Theatre, the Palace Theatre, and the Winter Garden Theatre. The rest are located on the numbered cross streets, extending from the Nederlander Theatre one block south of Times Square on West 41st Street, north along either side of Broadway to 53rd Street, as well as the Vivian Beaumont Theater, at Lincoln Center on West 65th Street. While exceptions exist, the term "Broadway theatre" is generally reserved for venues with a seating capacity of at least 500 people. Smaller theaters in New York are referred to as off-Broadway, regardless of location, while very small venues with fewer than 100 seats are called off-off-Broadway, a term that can also apply to non-commercial or avant-garde theater, or productions held outside of traditional theater venues. The Theater District is an internationally prominent tourist attraction in New York City. According to The Broadway League, for the 2018–19 season total attendance was 14,768,254. Broadway shows had $1,829,312,140 in grosses, with attendance up 9.5%, grosses up 10.3%, and playing weeks up 9.3%. The Museum of Broadway on West 45th Street, opened to the public in November 2022, became the first museum to document the history and experience of Broadway theatre and its profound influence upon shaping Midtown Manhattan and Times Square. Most Broadway shows are musicals. Historian Martin Shefter argues that "'Broadway musicals', culminating in the productions of Rodgers and Hammerstein, became enormously influential forms of American popular culture" and contributed to making New York City the cultural capital of the world.")

Broadway (1948)...........

1957..............

Today.................

Off to work..............................