From 538 Significant Digits:
70 new emojis
Yesterday, God help us, was World Emoji Day. In honor of this “occasion,” Apple unveiled 70 new emojis, including a kangaroo, parrot, peacock, mango, lettuce and cupcake. Hip techie-foodie zookeepers are presumably thrilled. [BBC]
More emojis, just what we need. I’m already having problems interpreting and even seeing teeny little emojis friends have been using, some of them instead of actually replying to my emails. (You know who you are, so I’m not going to name names. Yet.)
On the encouraging side, the Girl Scouts are announcing their imminent take-over of our crucial government agencies currently being destroyed or eliminated by Trump.
30 new badges
Yesterday, the Girl Scouts introduced 30 new badges, meant to help girls tackle “some of society’s most pressing needs,” according to the organization. The new badges include Cybersecurity, Space Science, Mechanical Engineering and Environmental Stewardship. [Gizmodo]
And…
79 moons
Scientists have just discovered 12 new moons orbiting Jupiter, bringing the planet’s total number of known moons to 79. Vigorous writing is concise, Strunk & White told us, so here goes: Too many moons. [NPR]
“On the seventh day of January in this present years 1610, at the first hour of night, when I was viewing the heavenly bodies with a telescope, Jupiter presented itself to me…and…I perceived….that beside the planet there were three starlets, small indeed, but very bright.”
Wrote Galileo Galilei, in his pamphlet, The Starry Messenger, when he first saw three of Jupiter’s moons — he called them “stars.” He saw the fourth a few nights later, and observed that although he initially thought they were fixed objects, he saw that they orbited the planet.
I believe Galileo would be getting a kick out of Jupiter’s “too many moons.” He was that kind of guy and had a great sense of humor.
He’d most particularly enjoy that in this news, at least, there are more moons of Jupiter than there are new Apple emojis.