IT Insights Blog — TestOut Continuing Education

Legend has it that, in 1626, Peter Minuit and a party of Dutch colonists acquired Manhattan Island, the site of present-day New York City's Manhattan borough, from the indigenous Canarsie, a constituent tribe of the Lenape, for trade goods worth 60 Dutch guilders. That's the equivalent, as most familiar with the legend have no doubt heard, of $24 in ... well, not "today's" currency. In 2014, historians estimated that Minuit's trade goods would be worth between $2,600 and $15,600.

All the way back in the late 1960s and early 1970s, two crazy kids in love — actually two married corporate lawyers, but that's just not as vibey — moved from New York to Paris and a dream was born. While in Paris, Tim and Nina Zagat began to compile a list of their favorite local restaurants, keeping track of whether each was or was not worthy of future visits. The idea stuck and when the Zagats moved back to New York a few years later, they began compiling a list of New York restaurants.

When a political candidate wants to spread whatever message he or she is spreading, as well as meet people, shake hands, and build relationships, the candidate quite often travels from place to place and person to person. Pounding the pavement and pressing the flesh is a time honored approach to disseminating ideas and information and forging important connections with voters.

There's a marker in Riverside, Iowa, declaring the tiny rural town to be the "future birthplace" of Captain James T. Kirk. Yes, that Captain James T. Kirk. The official town motto is "Where the Trek Begins." There's even a Star Trek Museum, the Voyage Home Riverside History Center. All of this apparently goes back to a book written by Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry, The Making of Star Trek, in which Roddenberry asserts that Kirk was — or, you know, will be — born in Iowa.

It was poet, biographer, and three-time Pulitzer Prize winner Carl Sandberg who wrote, "Sometime they'll give a war and nobody will come," a charming witticism that has echoed down through the ages. Here at TestOut Continuing Education, we enjoy a piquant commentary as much as the next bystander