LEGOs, credit reports and good reads

If you’re look­ing for an inter­est­ing and fun pro­gram to help brighten these cold win­ter days, look no fur­ther than the Delaware County Dis­trict Library. Of course, the library has a strong lineup of pro­grams for chil­dren and teens that you can check out at delawarelibrary.org (click on the event cal­en­dar link), but we know that offer­ing diverse pro­grams for adults is equally important.

Have you every wished you could play with your kid’s LEGOs all by your­self? Now you have the chance to “play” with other adults at 6:30 p.m. Mon­day at the library’s Orange Branch, 7171 Good­ing Blvd. The library will sup­ply thou­sands of LEGOs, dozens of cre­ative ideas, and the space for you to explore your inner-LEGO person.

In these eco­nomic times, know­ing your credit score can be crit­i­cal. To learn more about what infor­ma­tion credit bureaus col­lect, how they get that infor­ma­tion and how they cal­cu­late your credit score, join us at 7 p.m. Tues­day at the Delaware (Main) Library for “Mys­ter­ies and Secrets of Credit Reports and Scores Revealed.” Taught by a Cer­ti­fied Con­sumer Credit Coun­selor with more than 15 years of expe­ri­ence in the credit and mort­gage indus­try, this class will cover what you need to know about your credit his­tory and why it should mat­ter to you.

There are two book dis­cus­sions sched­uled for next week. At 7 p.m. Wednes­day at the Orange Branch, the book up for dis­cus­sion will be The Book Thief by Mark­cus Zusak, an unfor­get­table story about the abil­ity of books to feed the soul. Join us at 7 p.m. Wednes­day at the Delaware Library to dis­cuss Cry to Heaven by Anne Rice, where 18th-century Naples is the set­ting for the pain, fears, resent­ments, and tri­umphs of two cas­trati striv­ing to live full lives.

For more infor­ma­tion on any of these pro­grams, check the library’s web­site or pick up the lat­est edi­tion of the newslet­ter, “Check It Out!,” avail­able at all locations.

What is the dif­fer­ence between a boat and a ship?

One cri­te­rion that sets a ship apart from a boat is size. Accord­ing the U.S. Naval Insti­tute, a boat is small enough to be car­ried aboard a larger ves­sel, and a ves­sel large enough to carry a smaller one is a ship. The Naval con­ven­tion is a good rule of thumb, but there are a few excep­tions, among both naval and civil­ian ves­sels. Some yachts, fer­ries, and tug boats can carry small lifeboats or dinghies, but they are not clas­si­fied as ships. Another fac­tor the Naval Insti­tute con­sid­ers is the vessel’s crew, com­mand, and use. If it has a per­ma­nent crew with a com­mand­ing offi­cer, it is usu­ally a ship. If it is only crewed when actu­ally in use and has no offi­cial CO, then it is prob­a­bly a boat. Ships are also usu­ally intended and designed for deep-water use and are able to oper­ate inde­pen­dently for long peri­ods of time. Boats, mean­while, lack the fuel and cargo capac­ity for extended, unas­sisted operation.

Why are there no “B” batteries?

Dur­ing World War I, Amer­i­can bat­tery man­u­fac­tur­ers, the War Indus­tries Board, and gov­ern­ment agen­cies got together to develop some nation­ally uni­form spec­i­fi­ca­tions for the size of bat­tery cells, their arrange­ment in bat­ter­ies, their min­i­mum per­for­mance cri­te­ria, and other stan­dards. As explained in Inven­tors and Inven­tions, in 1924, they devised a nam­ing sys­tem for the stan­dard­ized cells and bat­ter­ies, bas­ing it on the alpha­bet, with the small­est cells and single-cell bat­ter­ies “A” and going from there to B, C and D. As bat­tery tech­nol­ogy changed and improved and new sizes of bat­ter­ies were made, they were added to the nam­ing sys­tem, with smaller bat­ter­ies des­ig­nated AA and AAA. The mid-size A and B bat­ter­ies sim­ply didn’t have a mar­ket and more or less dis­ap­peared in the U.S.; how­ever, B bat­ter­ies are still some­times used in Europe for lanterns and bicy­cle lamps. Accord­ing to Ener­gizer, though, their pop­u­lar­ity is dwin­dling and they might be com­pletely discontinued.

What do you call a group of owls?

The World Almanac notes that the most accepted name for a group of owls is called a par­lia­ment, although it has also been referred to as a bazaar, brood, con­gress, diss, eyrie, glar­ing, hoot­ing, loom­ing, nest, saga­cious­ness, stare, stoop­ing and wisdom.

If you have a ques­tion that you would like to see answered in this col­umn, mail it to Mary Jane San­tos, Delaware County Dis­trict Library, 84 E. Win­ter St., Delaware, OH 43015, or call 740–362-3861. You can also email your ques­tions by vis­it­ing delawarelibrary.org or directly to Mary Jane at mjsantos@delawarelibrary.org. No mat­ter how you con­tact us, we’re always glad you asked!

Posted by Mary Santos on Jan 25 2013. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.