In the quarter century since Martin Luther King Jr. Day became a national holiday a lot has changed, some would say more than at almost any time in our history. We live in a world altered by the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. A world that younger people can only imagine, if at all, without airport screenings, security checks, CCTV cameras and smartphones.

But here we are, this is it. So if you are off duty today, relax, make the most of a mid-winter three-day weekend. Or do nothing if that works for you. And for the hundreds of thousands of feds and postal employees still working today, thanks. As usual most of us don’t know what you are doing, or where. But we know the why is so the rest of us can have a safe, happy and healthy holiday.

Not bad, as they say, for government work!

Nearly Useless Factoid

By Amelia Brust

In 1975, Michigan State University physics professor Jack H. Hetherington named his cat as a co-author of his academic paper, “Two-, Three-, and Four-Atom Exchange Effects in bcc 3He,” published in the scientific journal Physical Review Letters. The cat’s name was Chester but Hetherington identified it as F.D.C. Willard (Willard was the father cat and F.D. stood for Felix Domesticus). Hetherington added the feline to his solo paper because his editor found he had used the pronoun “we” throughout and, in an era of typewriters and no Ctrl+F technology it would have been difficult to find every utterance and change it to “I.” Also, compensation rates, as well as peer perceptions of the material change when a paper has multiple authors versus a single writer. Hetherington expressed few if any regrets.

SOURCE: Bored Panda

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