The Fire Museum Network has a directory of the almost 300 museums devoted to fire fighting in the U.S. and Canada. It also lists museums in other countries. The web pages of the San Francisco Fire Department Museum reveal the variety of material the topic has to offer: helmets, uniforms, and awards, fire alarm and extinguisher technology, and of course the evolution of the various means of bringing water and firefighters to the scene with hoses, ladders, pumps, and engines.

“Best known to the public for his definitive investigations of the origins of Dixie, O.K., Podunk, and Rebel Yell,” Allen Walker Read, etymologist, died on October 16th, aged 96. Surprisingly, “OK” is used in nearly every language. Although Americans assumed it had native origins, Europeans brought forth their own theories of its origins. But Read was certain of OK’s American heritage and piled on evidence of its use in the 1830s and eventual dissemination around the world. Still, there are doubters. (via BrainLog)

What sandwich will “last a minimum of three years at 80 degrees, six months at 100 degrees” while traveling “to the swampiest swamp, the highest mountain, the most arid desert?” It’s the Army’s latest MRE (meals ready to eat) which resemble, sort of, those pocket sandwiches that have become common in grocery stores. They don’t need a spoon, don’t need preparation, and are easy to eat on the run. The two available flavors are pepperoni and barbecue chicken, but what the soldier far from home really wants is peanut butter and jelly. Unfortunately, peanut butter is not stable enough to survive, and in order to imbue it with long lasting properties, food scientists have to also ruin its appealing sticky qualities. Ah well, it’s enough that our Army cares enough to increase morale with “fresh” bread products.

Reader Lynn sent in a swift update to yesterday’s “purse charging” entry. Splashpower is working on a wireless charging system. Mobile devices with a SplashModule electromagnetic chip can be placed on the SplashPad charging platform to recharge. No custom plugs or docks are necessary, the SpashPad just plugs into the wall outlet. When combined with wireless syncing, this device will truly free up your wireless gadgets. The company hopes to ship a product next year.

Since I often forget to charge my cell phone and my Palm Vx, I have decided that what I really need is a dockable purse. I can come home, stick my purse in a dock, and everything inside will magically sync and recharge. If I can’t get a dock, how about a simple plug? Oh, and it can’t make my purse weigh any more than it already does.

SoBe, of the herb-spiked beverages, is launching a line of chocolates. Will this open up the market for “healthy” candy bars? These don’t exactly fit into the PowerBar market; perhaps they fit the “Snickers satisfies you” type of marketing. The web site is targeted for young active types, mentioning surfing (not the web kind), skateboarding, and pulling all-nighters to finish papers. (SoBe is a subsidiary of PepsiCo and headquartered next to my hometown in Norwalk, CT.)

There is a marriage proposal in this week’s The Ethicist from the NY Times Magazine (last item). I am wondering if someone who knows the couple saw it online before the Sunday morning revelation. I read it on Saturday morning, as the online magazine is published early. I’d burst having to keep that secret! This proposal can’t top the one hidden in the NY Times crossword puzzle though. That one was especially well-conceived as it meant something special to two specific people and was still a normal crossword to everyone else.

Would you pay $6 to be able to use instant messaging for the duration of a plane flight? Sounds like a good deal to me if you’ve got a few folks to yak at on the other end. The new service, JetConnect, is priced at a flat fee of $5.99, which seems cheap compared to the GTE Airfone charge of $4 a minute. Unfortunately, it doesn’t have “high-speed email” yet, and the service only offers news updated every 15 minutes to a central server. Of course, do you really need to check news more than every 15 minutes? Maybe I need to ask the people who trade stocks. I bet that there will also be “online” shopping. Connexion by Boeing, high-speed Internet access, is being planned for Lufthansa and British Airways. It’ll probably be a while before all airlines offer high-speed surfing, but that day can’t be far off.

I often peruse old cookbooks in used bookstores. It’s an entertaining glimpse into history. The following collections are almost over-the-top, though: 808 English-language Chinese cookbooks at University of California-Davis. And that is surpassed by a 2,600-book collection at Stony Brook University. I just can’t imagine that many people having a book’s worth of material about Chinese cooking, especially since many of these volumes are from decades ago. But it is quite impressive. Stony Brook’s collection was donated by nutrition professor Jacqueline M. Newman who received her first Chinese cookbook as a wedding gift more than 50 years ago. Perusing the titles in the UC Davis catalog reveals a number of specific topics: Chopsticks, Chinese-Kosher cooking, herbs, rice, gruel, and the ever-popular dim sum.

Extreme marketing-speak
It’s a well-known fact that statements made in advertisements usually boil down to not much of anything. If it came down to a lawsuit, there would be nothing to prove because, well, there is nothing there to prove. Nothing was actually said. I ran across a superb example while shopping for shampoo. Sauve says their shampoos “cost less than more expensive brands.” Once I parsed what this really meant I couldn’t stop laughing. By definition, the more expensive brands cost more. And thus their shampoo costs less. What is it really saying? Not much. It’s true that their shampoos are cheaper than other brands, but they declined to actually say that and instead made a typically fluffy statement of little worth. It’s an art, I tell ya.