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Program Date: 23 Nov 2014

Weak. Off.

Happy Thanksgiving (although Canadians celebrated this holiday more than a month ago). This is the week that TechByter Worldwide is off (a little more off than usual). I'll be back next week with the latest on Adobe's mobile apps and in December I'll have some thoughts about Windows 10. For now, chow down on turkey, stuffing, and more.

This is one of the two weeks TechByter takes off every year, so Happy Thanksgiving. Unless you live in Canada, where Thanksgiving was celebrated last month; it's on the second Monday in October. Or in the Southern Hemisphere where it's currently late spring and no reasonable person would schedule a harvest festival near the beginning of summer.

Maybe I'm late if you're in Europe, too. Lammas Day would have been celebrated in some areas and has been since around 1100. In Vietnam, TĂȘt-Trung-Thu is held on the 15th day of the 8th lunar month and I have no idea how to translate that to the Gregorian calendar. It's called Chuseok in Korea. In Zambia, the harvest festival is called N'cwala and it's celebrated on the 24th of February. Australia has a bunch of harvest festivals: Apple Festival in March, Grape Festival in April, Hops Festival in March (90% of Australia's hops are used for making beer -- what else?), and Wheat Festival in January (wheat can also be used to make beer).

The ancient Chinese held a harvest festival called Chung Ch'ui. The ancient Greeks had a 3-day festival to honor Demeter, the goddess of corn and grains (more beer?) and the Romans had a similar celebration in which they honored Ceres, from which we get "cereal" (and beer). In Germany, there's Erntedankfest in early October. Probably more beer. There seems to be a trend here.

The Yam Festival is celebrated in Ghana and Nigeria, usually in August or September. Succoth, or Feast of the Tabernacles, is a seven-day Jewish harvest holiday which begins on the fifth day after Yom Kippur in early October.

So except for the United States, it seems that I'm either early or late. Wherever you are, if you have something to be thankful for, Happy Thanksgiving from TechByter Worldwide.