Facts about Kimono

The word "kimono" consists of two parts, ki (wear) and mono (thing), thus meaning a "thing to wear".

Kimonos convey a lot of information about its wearer, such as age, personality, marital and financial status. Fabric, colour patterns, form and accessories convey this information and also show the level of formality. For instance, kimonos worn by young unmarried women have longer sleeves and usually are more elaborate.

There are many patterns of kimono for different seasons: for example, cherry blossoms for spring, bamboo or pine trees for winter.

The typical woman's kimono consists of twelve or more pieces to be worn and secured in certain ways, and usually an assistant (kimono dresser) is needed to put it on. Kimonos are always wrapped with the left side over the right, except when used as a burial garment.

Are we manipulated into buying stuff we don't need?

The concept of shopping mall was invented by Victor Gruen, Austrian-born architect, who designed in 1956 the Southdale Mall in Edina, Minnesota. Today, the majority of shopping centers around the world are fully enclosed, introverted, multitiered complexes with an anchor-tenant, a garden court, a fountain and a food court.

With the shopping malls came the new rules and practices to draw the customers in and to make them buy, buy more. Here are just a few of those.

Say, the escalators should be placed on the opposite sides on the each layer to make customers walk by all the shops and thus increase the chances of them popping in one-two of them. And this walking distance ideally should not exceed 1000 feet or 300 meters (which is the equivalent of about three city blocks) for a customer not to get tired and not to lose shopping interest.

The time a person needs to slow down and stop is also taken into account: so it is better not to have a store next door to a bank because shoppers speed up when they walk past a bank (there's nothing to look at), and thus are likely to walk past a shop without even noticing it.

The Metric System

The metric system is a widely adopted decimalized system of measurement that derives from decimal numeral system being the consequence of us having 10 digits (fingers and thumbs).

Before the metric system became a standard in Europe, the local laws on measures were set by trade guilds on a city-by-city basis. In Switzerland, the survey of 1838 discovered that the foot had 37 different regional variations.

At the end of 18th century Louis XVI of France commissioned the group of scientists to develop a unified, practical and simple system of measurement to replace the disparate systems used back then. The scientists come up with the metric system that was derived from the properties of natural objects, i.e. the size of the Earth, the density of water, and relations between these. For instance, 1 meter was originally defined as 1/40,000,000th of the polar circumference of the Earth.

A Few Facts about Interpol

Interpol (International Criminal Police Organization, O.I.P.C., ICPO) was founded in Austria in 1923 to facilitate cross-border police cooperation. The word 'Interpol', contraction of 'international police', was chosen in 1946 as the telegraphic address.

Interpol is the world's third largest international organization, after the United Nations and FIFA, with 186 member countries financed by annual contributions of about €41.7 million from its member countries.

It was located in Germany from 1942 to 1946, and its staff and facilities were used as an information gathering unit for the Gestapo. After World War II, the agency was reconstituted and headquartered in Paris. Today the organization is headquartered in Lyon, France.

The United Nations recognized Interpol as an intergovernmental organization in 1971.

Its principal services are to provide its member countries with information on the whereabouts of international criminals, to held seminars on crime detection science, and to facilitate the apprehension of criminals.

Guide Dogs

The modern history of guide dogs started in Germany in 1916-17 when the dogs were trained to lead soldiers blinded in the WWI. The story says that a doctor was called away from his blind patient and left his German shepherd with the man. He was so impressed by the dog’s behaviour that he decided to start experimenting in training the dogs to be guides for the blind patients.

By 1923 a guide dog training centre had been established in Potsdam. Then the school named the Seeing Eye was established in 1929 in the United States. Great Britain followed suit in 1931with The Guide Dogs for the Blind Association. The first guide dogs in Britain were German Shepherds.

Three breeds are used for guide dog programs around the world - Labrador Retrievers, Golden Retrievers, and German Shepherds. The Labrador Retriever is the most successful breed used for guide dogs. Any guide dog should meet three basic requirements: willingness, health and temperament.