The "This Might Be A Stupid Question, But...." Thread

[KenveeB]

Is today a public holiday in the US/Canada or Australia?

Easter is not a federal holiday, as it is primarily religious.  It's up to each state whether to have Friday or Easter Monday off, and often up to each school district and company.  The only "religious" federal holiday is Christmas Day, but that has become very secular and so skirts the issue.

I'm in Texas and work for county government, and we got Good Friday off. Not many places tend to have that off, though, that I've seen.

[Redsoil]

Technically, today (Monday) was a public holiday for Easter Monday, though a number of shops were open.  However, it's just become Tuesday (12.01am here), so Tuesday is back-to-work/school day for most.  Due to an extended break, I actually have Tuesday off this week.

[LadyJaneinMD]

So, I recently noticed that my eyes are getting greener looking and my limbal ring looks a bit darker.  My DH's is insistant that I 'm being silly, that my eyes are exactly the same as they've always been (I don't give him much credit because he says khaki and brown are the same color).  Besides that, my eye color and hair texture has changed several times over the years.

When I was a child they were a very, very dark blue until I was around 5 or so.  They changed to a honey/whiskey hazel with a bright gold starburst in the middle.  When I hit puberty, they got a kind of olive/moss color mixed in with the honey color.  When I hit my 20's they were slightly browner/yellow/honey looking.   Now the olive/moss color is coming through much, much more.  They also change color when I'm really extremely angry.

Anyone else experience this?  I'm not imagining it?

You're not imagining it.  My eyes have changed also.  Sometime in my 40s, I noticed that my eyes are no longer royal blue, but more like a mossy green.  When I wear green, they look *very* green, but they no longer look royal blue. 

[CakeBeret]

My husband's company doesn't recognize Easter as a holiday so he worked his usual shift.


A new questions for this thread:

I got new stainless steel cookware that has a copper and aluminum core. Reading the manual, it said that, in rare cases, if a pan is allowed to boil dry, the copper might melt. Why would that happen in a boiling-dry situation if it wouldn't happen in any other situation? In other words, what about boiling dry would cause the pan to become much hotter than it would in any other situation?

[Ms_Cellany]

I got new stainless steel cookware that has a copper and aluminum core. Reading the manual, it said that, in rare cases, if a pan is allowed to boil dry, the copper might melt. Why would that happen in a boiling-dry situation if it wouldn't happen in any other situation? In other words, what about boiling dry would cause the pan to become much hotter than it would in any other situation?

When water (or any liquid) boils, it stays at that temperature until it's done boiling. Once it's dry, it'll go to the temperature of the heat source.

So it you put a pan of water on a 400F burner, it'll stay at 212F until that water boils off. Then the pan will suddenly shoot up to 400F, and the core will melt.

[Twik]

Not quite true. As the concentration of a dilute solute increases, the boiling point will raise, just as the freezing point will decrease. Here's the wikipedia article, if you like talking about stuff like "colligative properties", http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiling-point_elevation.

So, the boiling point would slowly rise from 212 F as the sugar increased in concentration and the water boiled off. However, the gist of the answer is correct - the person cooking will believe that the boiling water is keeping the pan at below melting point, but when the water boils away the temperature will shoot up. Copper has a much lower melting point than, say, stainless steel, and might reach that temperature with the heat provided from a normal stove burner if not watched properly.

[Luci]

We did an experiment in physics of boiling water in a paper cup over a Bunsen burner.

[Virg]

As to the color of eyes changing, it's not unheard of for eye color to change, and sometimes it can happen more than once in a person's lifetime.  Also, exposure to some chemicals can change the color of your eyes.  For example, the prescription drug Latisse reports a permanent change in eye color as a possible side effect.

Virg

[ladyknight1]

My eye color has changed over the last 15 years as well.

[WillyNilly]

The thing with eyes is: they aren't a color. No one's eyes are actually blue or green. Everyone has a brown base (some lighter, some darker, but the pigmentation of all eyes is brown). The blue and green and gold and other colors are the result of light reflections due to the structure of your eye, like the way the sky looks blue even though there is no actual blue color pigmentation anywhere in the upper atmosphere. If your eyes change shape slightly as you age, the color will change as light reflects differently. Many babies for example are born with blue eyes that later change. Its less common but not rare for adults to have eye color changes as they age for the same reasons.

[Virg]

WillyNilly wrote:

"The blue and green and gold and other colors are the result of light reflections due to the structure of your eye, like the way the sky looks blue even though there is no actual blue color pigmentation anywhere in the upper atmosphere."

As a side note, this is called Rayleigh scattering in case anyone wants to blow some time on Wiki.

Virg

[jpcher]

Carotte, could you get one of those coathooks that hang over a door?  That way you can simply hook it over the top of the door, and remove later if needed - no marks.

http://www.bedbathandbeyond.com/1/3/over-the-door-coat-rack

That's a good idea. I have several in my clothes closets and one in the bathroom (for towels)


Or a coat tree:

http://www.target.com/p/coat-rack-mahogany/-/A-10390983?ref=tgt_adv_XSG10001&AFID=Google_PLA_df&LNM=|10390983&CPNG=Furniture&kpid=10390983&LID=PA&ci_src=17588969&ci_sku=10390983

[kherbert05]

Is today a public holiday in the US/Canada or Australia?

Many schools have Easter Monday off because school admin know people are traveling. Boy am I hearing griping about Texas not having today off. TEA scheduled STAAR tests for this week. 4th, 5th, 7th, and 8th have STAAR tomorrow. HS students may have had tests scheduled today.

[Slartibartfast]

Is today a public holiday in the US/Canada or Australia?

Many schools have Easter Monday off because school admin know people are traveling. Boy am I hearing griping about Texas not having today off. TEA scheduled STAAR tests for this week. 4th, 5th, 7th, and 8th have STAAR tomorrow. HS students may have had tests scheduled today.

I grew up getting Good Friday and Easter Monday off.  Where I live now, we get neither (despite it being the Bible Belt) but people would riot if we had to work on Martin Luther King day - where I grew up, MLK day was just a bank holiday.  So it really varies by region.

[Outdoor Girl]

Good Friday is a STAT here.  Very few places are open on Easter Sunday, either.  Grocery stores are always crazy on Easter Saturday!

Easter Monday isn't a STAT.  Some of us, like government, schools and bank workers do get it off but most retail locations are open.