That happened fast: Forget everything we said earlier this week about Long Island’s temperate climate – it’s hot as blazes out there, dear reader, as we wrap up what has suddenly become a steamy week of socioeconomic innovation.
Still, it’s Friday, and if the long-range forecasts are to be believed, the heatwave won’t last long. So here’s to cooler heads prevailing – let’s ice the week with style.
Punches above its weight: The small filet mignon is big on flavor.
Left-handed compliment: It’s Aug. 13 out there, when southpaws from Aristotle to Lady Gaga hold sway – yes, it’s International Left-Handers Day.
For the record, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama both lean left – and so did Ronald Reagan.
Love me tender: Here’s a rare event that’s well done every Aug. 13 – today is also National Filet Mignon Day. Yum.
Cap it off: Speaking of rarities (and cold, hard truths), astronomer Christiaan Huygens discovered Mars’ southern polar ice cap on this date in 1642.
The famed Dutch scientist made the frozen find using the most powerful telescope of the day, which he built with his brother, Constantijn.
Last call: This could take some explaining, for younger readers.
Slot machine: Rarer still – at least, these days – is the coin-operated payphone, patented on Aug. 13, 1889, by Connecticut inventor William Gray.
Roll with it: Continuing the pay-to-play theme, the first metered taxicabs hit New York City’s mean streets 114 years ago today.
Balancing act: An Aug. 13, 1910, game between the Brooklyn Superbas (a.k.a. the Dodgers) and the Pittsburgh Pirates proved to be the most oddly even baseball game of all time – it ended in an 8-8 tie, with each team logging an identical 13 hits, 38 at-bats, five strikeouts, three walks, 27 put-outs, 13 assists, two errors, one hit batter and one passed ball.
The teams also notched one double and five RBIs apiece, and used just two pitchers each.
Approaching the Edge: And before there was the Chromium-powered Edge, there was Internet Explorer 3.0, released by Microsoft on this date in 1996 with Netscape Navigator – then the preeminent web browser – dead in its sights.
Get your gun: Famed American sharpshooter Annie Oakley (born Phoebe Ann Mosey,1860-1926) – who learned to hunt as a child to provide for her impoverished family and wound up performing for presidents and foreign royalty in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show – would be 161 years old today.
Tall order: Janet Yellen, the height of economic genius.
Also born on Aug. 13 were Swedish physicist Anders Ångström (1814-1874), who pioneered spectroscopy and really measured up; prominent American suffragist Lucy Stone (1818-1893), the first woman in Massachusetts to earn a college degree; English astronomer and seismologist Herbert Hall Turner (1861-1930), who dissected eclipses and earthquakes and coined the word “parsec”; one-time cigar shop owner Julius Freed (1887-1952), who invented the Orange Julius (or did he?); and former U.S. Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders (born 1933), the first African American woman to serve as America’s doctor-in-chief.
National treasure: And take a bow, Janet Louise Yellen! The first woman to serve as secretary of the U.S. Treasury and to head the U.S. Federal Reserve – whom President Donald Trump did not reappoint as Fed chair in 2018 because she was too short – turns 75 today.
Wish the Brooklyn-born treasury secretary – also a professor emerita at the University of California’s Haas School of Business and retired Brookings Institution Distinguished Fellow in Residence – a happy birthday at editor@innovateli.com, where your news tips and calendar events are never judged on nonsensical whims.
About our sponsor: St. Joseph’s College has been dedicated to providing a diverse student population in the New York metropolitan area with an affordable education rooted in the liberal arts tradition since 1916. Independent and coeducational, the college provides a strong academic and value-oriented undergraduate and graduate education, aiming to prepare each student for a life characterized by integrity, intellectual and spiritual values, social responsibility and service. Through SJC Brooklyn, SJC Long Island and SJC Online, the college offers degrees in 50 majors, special course offerings and certificates and affiliated and pre-professional programs. Learn more here.
BUT FIRST, THIS
Bug bites: More than 100,000 hungry carnivores have been released into the Long Island ecosystem – very good news for the Island’s indigenous flowers and trees.
Over three sessions on Aug. 7 and 8, Farmingdale’s Pinelawn Memorial Park and Arboretum hosted its fourth-annual Ladybug Release, with hundreds of Long Islanders, including numerous Suffolk County Girl Scouts troops and dozens of residents of Sunrise Senior Living communities, taking part. While the release primarily benefits Pinelawn Memorial’s 500-plus acres of flowering gardens and arboreta, the flying beetles, of course, are free to go anywhere – bad news for aphids, a common, sap-sucking botanical pest and favorite snack of the ravenous ladybugs.
Fabled bearers of good fortune, the beautiful red-and-black meat-eaters are also “one of nature’s greatest defenders of plant life,” according to Pinelawn Memorial Grounds Supervisor Fred Hoffmann. “Pinelawn’s 500-acre property, which includes countless flowering gardens, botanicals, plants and arboreta, notably benefit from our annual Ladybug Release,” Hoffmann added. “[It] provides a much safer option to our environment than using pesticides.”
Leaders of the pack: Northwell Health and nonprofit Supplies for Success teamed up for a successful virtual back-to-school drive.
In the bag: With the new school year right around the corner, Northwell Health staffers are packing it in.
No, Long Island’s largest private employer isn’t experiencing its own “great resignation.” Instead, systemwide staffers of the New Hyde Park-based healthcare giant have donated enough school supplies to fill 11 pallets worth of backpacks – a literal ton of notebooks, pencils and other supplies, according to Northwell – and this week engaged in a marathon bag-packing session to get them ready for school-aged users across New York State.
Long Island-based nonprofit Supplies for Success also contributed materials to the cause, purchasing such back-to-school necessities as crayons, loose-leaf paper, magic markers and – in a nod to the continuing COVID-19 situation – hand sanitizer and hand wipes. “In an effort to get school-age children off to the right start, Northwell Health held a virtual back-to-school drive to ensure that children in the communities we serve can have a chance to succeed,” noted Northwell Vice President of Regional Ambulatory Operations Terri Manno.
TOP OF THE SITE
Picture perfect: A Stony Brook University 3D-imaging spinoff has taken the top prize in the SUNY Research Foundation’s competitive Startup Summer School.
Agents of shield: As the federal antitrust war rages, the Long Island Association is standing up for small technology business that could get caught in the crossfire.
Get an earful: And fill your mind, too, with Spark: The Innovate Long Island Podcast, featuring exclusive one-on-ones with regional innovation leaders. Season 1 now streaming.
ICYMI
Suffolk County Community College tests the waters, Acupath tests the world.
BEST OF THE WEST (AND SOMETIMES NORTH/SOUTH)
Innovate LI’s inbox overrunneth with inspirational innovations from all North American corners. This week’s brightest out-of-towners:
From New York City: New York-Presbyterian, nonprofit LiveOnNY and California-based medical-software ace Transplant Connect unite to streamline NYC organ donations.
From Wisconsin: Madison-based office-technology titan Gordon Flesch Co. huddles up as the new quarterback of the Green Bay Packers’ biz-tech operations.
From Canada, eh: Vancouver-based management-software specialist Function Point elevates client collaboration with an advanced digital tool for proofing creative content.
ON THE MOVE
Florence Barbour
+ Florence Barbour has been named executive director of New Hyde Park-based Harbor Child Care. She was previously director of curriculum, instruction and professional development.
+ Rob Doodian has been named vice president of human resources at St. Charles Hospital in Port Jefferson. He previously served as global head of human resources for AMC Networks in Manhattan.
+ Kate O’Callaghan has been appointed assistant superintendent of student support services for the Town of Islip School District. She was previously executive director for student support services in the Islip Union Free School District.
+ Capt. Thomas Spina has been named vice president of franchise operations for Southold-based Sea Tow Services International.
+ Sunil Samuel has been appointed vice president for enrollment management and student engagement at Farmingdale State College. He is a 20-year veteran of Hofstra University, serving most recently as associate vice president of enrollment management.
BELOW THE FOLD
Size survey: Apple wants to know what you think.
Short version: Why global employers are embracing four-day workweeks.
Long story: The lengthiest word in the English language (45 letters!) is a mouthful for your doctor and everyone else.
Size matters: Apple is measuring customer preferences on iPad screen sizes.
Character matters: Please continue supporting the impressive institutions that support Innovate Long Island, including St. Joseph’s College, where individual integrity counts as much as academic achievement. Check them out.
