Oddball Stuff You Should Know

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The environment for growing Black Diamond apples is harsh, and it’s tough on the farmers who tend to them. Because of the mountainous climate, the seven to eight years it takes for Black Diamond apple trees to mature and the fact that they grow within a very limited time window, black apples are available for only about two months every year. You can expect them to be much pricier than what you’ll find from your local grocer.

Often, Black Diamond apples are only sold in high-end supermarkets in Asia, with individual fruits selling for between $7 and $20.

https://www.tasteofhome.com/article/bla ... ond-apple/

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Franklin is a fictional character in the comic strip Peanuts, created by Charles M. Schulz. Introduced on July 31, 1968, Franklin was the first African American character in the strip. He goes to school with Peppermint Patty and Marcie.

In his first story arc, he met Charlie Brown when they were both at the beach. Franklin's father was a soldier fighting in Vietnam, to which Charlie Brown replied "My dad's a barber... he was in a war too, but I don't know which one." Franklin later paid Charlie Brown a visit and found some of Charlie Brown's other friends to be quite odd. His last appearance was in 1999, the year before Schulz's death.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franklin_(Peanuts)

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The Tianjin Binhai Library is a new 33,700-square-metre cultural centre designed by Dutch architecture firm MVRDV in collaboration with local architects TUPDI. The amazing spherical auditorium – which resembles an eye – is surrounded by bookcases that reach from floor to ceiling. The undulating shelves not only look amazing, but serve important functions by creating stairs, seating and a layered ceiling. They also create the space to hold 1.2 million books.

More pictures in article.
https://www.lonelyplanet.com/articles/t ... rary-china

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Meet Rebel Hays, the only 4th grader to ever run in the Arkansas High School State XC meet.

Yes, I said 4th grader.

But, as a matter of fact, you won't find him in any of the results, and you won't find him in any of the results of the eight high school races he ran in this season.

How is this young man managing to run against high school boys all year? Rebel Hays is a guide-runner for Paul Scott, a visually impaired 9th-grader that runs for West Fork High School in West Fork, Arkansas.

https://ar.milesplit.com/articles/28946 ... th-a-cause

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Sitting northeast of the urban area of Kaifeng City with an area of 512,400 square meters, the Iron Pagoda Park named after the Iron Pagoda is one of the 100 famous Chinese parks. Constructed in 1049 during Song Dynasty, the pagoda today stands in the east of the park under national protection.

Iron Pagoda is 55.88 meters in height with thirteen storeys. Not as its name implies, Iron Pagoda was not built with iron but bricks and wood; it was once named "Pagoda of Kaibao Temple" because the temple once located there. Afterwards, it got the current name during Yuan Dynasty (1271 - 1368) because of its special outside paved with brown coloured glazes, which looks like iron from the outside. For nearly one thousand years, Iron Pagoda has experienced many destroys such as wars, floods, earthquakes but still stands majestically there today.

https://www.visitourchina.com/kaifeng/a ... agoda.html

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The USS New York
A City on the Sea

Video and more pictures
https://www.defense.gov/Experience/USS- ... n-the-Sea/

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In effect, the owner of a building with windows that have received natural daylight for 20 years or more is entitled to forbid any construction or other obstruction on adjacent land that would block the light so as to deprive him or her of adequate illumination through those windows. The owner may build more or larger windows but cannot enlarge their new windows before the new period of 20 years has expired.

Once a right to light exists, the owner of the right is entitled to "sufficient light according to the ordinary notions of mankind": Colls v. Home & Colonial Stores Ltd (1904). Courts rely on expert witnesses to define this term. Since the 1920s, experts have used a method proposed by Percy Waldram to assist them with this. Waldram suggested that ordinary people require one foot-candle of illuminance (approximately ten lux) for reading and other work involving visual discrimination. This equates to a sky factor (similar to the daylight factor) of 0.2%. Today, Waldram's methods are increasingly subject to criticism and the future of expert evidence in rights to light cases is currently the subject of much debate within the surveying profession.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_light

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The fund is now one of the world’s largest funds, owning almost 1.5 percent of all shares in the world’s listed companies. This means that we have holdings in around 9,000 companies worldwide, entitling us to a small share of their profits each year. In addition, the fund owns hundreds of buildings in some of the world’s leading cities, which generate rental income for us. The fund also receives a steady flow of income from lending to countries and companies. By spreading our investments widely, we reduce the risk of the fund losing money.

https://www.nbim.no/en/the-fund/about-the-fund/

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In May of 1861, 9-year-old John Lincoln “Johnny” Clem ran away from his home in Newark, Ohio, to join the Union Army, but found the Army was not interested in signing on a 9-year-old boy when the commander of the 3rd Ohio Regiment told him he “wasn’t enlisting infants,” and turned him down. Clem tried the 22nd Michigan Regiment next, and its commander told him the same. Determined, Clem tagged after the regiment, acted out the role of a drummer boy, and was allowed to remain. Though still not regularly enrolled, he performed camp duties and received a soldier’s pay of $13 a month, a sum collected and donated by the regiment’s officers.

Through his military career Clem held the following ranks:

Musician and Lance Sergeant, Co. C, 22nd Michigan Infantry – 1 May 1863 to 19 September 1864
2nd Lieutenant – 18 December 1871
1st Lieutenant – 5 October 1874
Captain – 4 May 1882
Major – 16 May 1895
Lieutenant Colonel – 2 February 1901
Colonel – 15 August 1903
Brigadier General (Retired) – 13 August 1915
Major General (Retired) – 29 August 1916

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Clem

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The Great Banyan is a banyan tree (Ficus benghalensis) located in Acharya Jagadish Chandra Bose Indian Botanic Garden, Shibpur, Howrah, near Kolkata, India. The great banyan tree draws more visitors to the garden than its collection of exotic plants from five continents. Its main trunk became diseased after it was struck by two cyclones, so in 1925 the main trunk of the tree was amputated to keep the remainder healthy; this has left it as a clonal colony, rather than a single tree. A 330-metre-long (1,080 ft) road was built around its circumference, but the tree continues to spread beyond it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Banyan

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Roopkund (locally known as Mystery Lake or Skeletons Lake) is a high altitude glacial lake in the Uttarakhand state of India. It lies in the lap of Trishul massif. Located in the Himalayas, the area around the lake is uninhabited and is roughly at an altitude of 16,470 feet (5,020 m), surrounded by rock-strewn glaciers and snow-clad mountains. Roopkund is a popular trekking destination. The size of the lake varies substantially, but it is seldom more than 40 meters in diameter (1000 to 1500 square meters in area), and is frozen in the winter.

With a depth of about 3 metres, Roopkund is widely known for the hundreds of ancient human skeletons found at the edge of the lake. The human skeletal remains are visible at its bottom when the snow melts. Research generally points to a semi-legendary event where a group of people were killed in a sudden, violent hailstorm in the 9th century.[6] Because of the human remains, the lake has been called Skeleton Lake in recent times.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roopkund

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The Japanese have been producing wood for 700 years without cutting down trees. In the 14th century, the extraordinary daisugi technique was born in Japan. Indeed, the daisugi provide that these trees will be planted for future generations and not be cut down but pruned as if they were giant bonsai trees; by applying this technique to cedars, the wood that can be obtained is uniform, straight and without knots, practically perfect for construction. A pruning as a rule of art that allows the tree to grow and germinate while using its wood, without ever cutting it down.

Daisugi, The Ancient Bonsai Technique That Can Prevent Deforestation

https://earthbuddies.net/daisugi/