Module 8, our last module of the year, opens this week. Because of your STAR testing, no assignments are due until the end of the week – although we will still have the Question of the Day every weekday. Module 7 is still open for half-credit. Module 6 is closed.
I will probably have Office Hours on Friday morning again instead of Thursday. More details later.
Word of the Day: bootstrap
Pronunciation: (BOOT-strap)
verb: To help oneself with one’s own initiative and no outside help.
noun: Unaided efforts.
adjective: Reliant on one’s own efforts.
ETYMOLOGY: While pulling on bootstraps may help with putting on one’s boots, it’s impossible to lift oneself up like that. Nonetheless the fanciful idea is a great visual and it gave birth to the idiom “to pull oneself up by one’s (own) bootstraps”, meaning to better oneself with one’s own efforts, with little outside help. It probably originated from the tall tales of Baron Münchausen who claimed to have lifted himself (and his horse) up from the swamp by pulling on his own hair.
In computing, booting or bootstrapping is to load a fixed sequence of instructions in a computer to initiate the operating system. Earliest documented use: 1891.
Joke of the Day
A noted heart surgeon was having a formal party. Shortly before the guests were to begin arriving, he was told that all the bathrooms were backed up and not flushing.
Quickly, he called a 24-hour plumber listed in the phone book. The plumber arrived quickly and within 15 minutes told the surgeon that all was well.
The plumber gave his bill to the heart surgeon, and the surgeon exclaimed, “$900! You were only here 15 minutes! I’m a heart surgeon and even I can’t charge that much.”
The plumber quietly replied, “Neither could I when I was a heart surgeon.”
