Weather Machine is a lumino-kinetic bronze sculpture in the U.S. city of
Portland, Oregon, that serves as a weather beacon, displaying a daily
weather prediction at noon. The approximately 30-foot-tall (9 m)
sculpture was installed in 1988 in the northwest corner of Pioneer
Courthouse Square. Two thousand people attended its dedication,
broadcast live nationally from the square by Today weatherman Willard
Scott. During its daily two-minute sequence, which includes a trumpet
fanfare, mist, and flashing lights, the machine displays one of three
metal symbols as a prediction for the following 24-hour period: a sun
for clear weather, a blue heron for drizzle and transitional weather, or
a dragon and mist for rainy weather. The sculpture includes two bronze
wind scoops and displays the temperature via vertical colored lights
along its stem. The air quality index is also displayed by a light
system below the stainless steel globe.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weather_Machine>
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Today's selected anniversaries:
1540:
King Henry VIII of England married Anne of Cleves, but the
marriage was annulled six months later.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne_of_Cleves>
1907:
Italian educator Maria Montessori opened her first school and
day-care centre for working-class children in Rome, employing the
philosophy of education that now bears her name.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_Montessori>
1960:
National Airlines Flight 2511, traveling from New York City to
Miami, exploded in midair due to a bomb placed by an unknown party,
resulting in the deaths of all 34 people on board.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Airlines_Flight_2511>
1977:
The record label EMI ended its contract with the English punk
rock band Sex Pistols in response to its members' disruptive behaviour
at Heathrow Airport two days earlier.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_Pistols>
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Wiktionary's word of the day:
Slavi:
The Russian Orthodox Christmas, which is celebrated from January 6
through 13 in outstate Alaska, USA, wherever there is a sizable Russian
Orthodox population.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Slavi>
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Wikiquote quote of the day:
Through the myth it creates, propaganda imposes a complete range
of intuitive knowledge, susceptible of only one interpretation, unique
and one-sided, and precluding any divergence. This myth becomes so
powerful that it invades every arena of consciousness, leaving no
faculty or motivation intact. It stimulates in the individual a feeling
of exclusiveness, and produces a biased attitude.
--Jacques Ellul
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Jacques_Ellul>
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