Random Posts

[andydp]

May 28, 2021 16:31:18 GMT pnwguy said:

May 28, 2021 13:37:13 GMT @probabilistic3 said:

Yay!

The best time of the week to visit Costco is 1 pm on Saturdays. And, the best time of the year is the weekend before Thanksgiving. A full spread is laid out. Bring your appetite. 

That was always part of the danger of making a Costco food market run on an empty stomach.  Too many things to try and suddenly add to the cart.

if you go food shopping when you're hungry, you will become the proud owner of Aisle 5.

[LFC]

Simone Biles managed to nail a maneuver that is so difficult that no woman and few men have ever attempted it in competition. While much of the world gasped at her feat the judges decided it was a pretty good performance rather than above and beyond anything that any other female gymnast has been even able to attempt. I'm not convinced this is racial, but I'm not convinced it isn't either. It has happened before and justifications provided just boggle the mind.

Last week, ahead of the long-delayed Tokyo Olympics this summer, Simone Biles performed a new move at the U.S. Classic: the Yurchenko double pike, captured in a tweet below. The Olympic gold medalist is widely recognized as the greatest gymnast in the world, and her historic delivery of yet another never-been-done-before move shows us this reputation is well-earned.

Per the New York Times, the Yurchenko double pike is "so perilous and challenging that no other woman has attempted it in competition, and it is unlikely that any woman in the world is even training to give it a try."

However, the undervaluation of Biles' performance by judges is bringing attention yet again to how the athlete has repeatedly been punished rather than rewarded for her greatness, and the double standards applied to reception to her performances. Specifically, Biles' execution of the Yurchenko double pike for her vault routine was given a provisional score of 6.6, similar to her scores for other vaults and without any additional points for or acknowledgement of the near-impossible difficulty of the move.

This has happened to Biles before in other routines through the years, as she executes moves that no other female gymnasts have attempted or completed.

Gymnastics routines are judged and scored based on their execution and difficulty. But rather than recognize or reward Biles' exceedingly difficult routines and moves with the added points they deserve for their difficulty, judges have often undervalued her performances that include historic completion of new moves. The rationale for this scoring has often been that there are safety risks for other gymnasts who aren't able to complete the moves that Biles is, if her moves are rewarded with high scores and other gymnasts are then motivated to try them.

The Esquire piece linked to is excellent as well.

[AnBr]

[LFC]

This is from about 3 years ago or so. It's about making wood super strong. I have no idea where it stands today but it sure is a cool concept. (I read the part about making transparent wood before someplace.)

Some varieties of wood, such as oak and maple, are renowned for their strength. But scientists say a simple and inexpensive new process can transform any type of wood into a material stronger than steel, and even some high-tech titanium alloys. Besides taking a star turn in buildings and vehicles, the substance could even be used to make bullet-resistant armor plates.

Wood is abundant and relatively low-cost—it literally grows on trees. And although it has been used for millennia to build everything from furniture to homes and larger structures, untreated wood is rarely as strong as metals used in construction. Researchers have long tried to enhance its strength, especially by compressing and “densifying” it, says Liangbing Hu, a materials scientist at the University of Maryland, College Park. But densified wood tends to weaken and spring back toward its original size and shape, especially in humid conditions.

Now, Hu and his colleagues say they have come up with a better way to densify wood, which they report in Nature. Their simple, two-step process starts with boiling wood in a solution of sodium hydroxide (NaOH) and sodium sulfite (Na2SO3), a chemical treatment similar to the first step in creating the wood pulp used to make paper. This partially removes lignin and hemicellulose (natural polymers that help stiffen a plant’s cell walls)—but it largely leaves the wood’s cellulose (another natural polymer) intact, Hu says.

The second step is almost as simple as the first: Compressing the treated wood until its cell walls collapse, then maintaining that compression as it is gently heated. The pressure and heat encourage the formation of chemical bonds between large numbers of hydrogen atoms and neighboring atoms in adjacent nanofibers of cellulose, greatly strengthening the material.

The results are impressive. The team’s compressed wood is three times as dense as the untreated substance, Hu says, adding that its resistance to being ripped apart is increased more than 10-fold. It also can become about 50 times more resistant to compression and almost 20 times as stiff. The densified wood is also substantially harder, more scratch-resistant and more impact-resistant. It can be molded into almost any shape. Perhaps most importantly, the densified wood is also moisture-resistant: In lab tests, compressed samples exposed to extreme humidity for more than five days swelled less than 10 percent—and in subsequent tests, Hu says, a simple coat of paint eliminated that swelling entirely.

A five-layer, plywoodlike sandwich of densified wood stopped simulated bullets fired into the material—a result Hu and his colleagues suggest could lead to low-cost armor. The material does not protect quite as well as a Kevlar sheet of the same thickness—but it only costs about 5 percent as much, he notes.

The team’s results “appear to open the door to a new class of lightweight materials,” says Ping Liu, a materials chemist at the University of California, San Diego, unaffiliated with the Nature study. Vehicle manufacturers have often tried to save weight by switching from regular steel to high-strength steel, aluminum alloys or carbon-fiber composites—but those materials are costly, and consumers “rarely make that money back in fuel savings,” Liu says. And densified wood has another leg up on carbon-fiber composites: It does not require expensive adhesives that also can make components difficult, if not impossible, to recycle.

[andydp]

This popped up in my FB "memories" from ten years ago.  (Updated today)


More signs geezerhood and the apocalypse are coming sooner than I really want:

Jerry Mathers (The Beaver) is SEVENTY three years old today

[LFC]

Waterfront property in Mexico for sale cheap. This home literally won't last long.

[RichTBikkies]

Is that a sinkhole? If so, it's almost too good to be true. It looks so excavated!

[andydp]

If you've been experiencing provlems with your Verizon/Spectrum phone, Sirius XM and sluggish performance from FB, seems there's some problems out there. 

I have been looking at an app called "downdetector".  Not being the technical guru like others here, I can only see where the problems are.  No idea what the causes are. 

As an aside FB seems to be having major problems in Europe.

[LFC]

Jun 4, 2021 8:13:15 GMT RichTBikkies said:

Is that a sinkhole? If so, it's almost too good to be true. It looks so excavated!

It is. Per the link in my post:

A huge sinkhole some 60 meters in diameter has appeared in farmers' fields in central Mexico, threatening to swallow a nearby house.

The sinkhole is situated in Santa María Zacatepec, Puebla state, and is around 20 meters deep, said state governor Miguel Barbosa Huerta at a press conference Monday.

Barbosa said the family that lives close to the sinkhole has been evacuated. No one has been injured so far, but the governor warned local residents to stay away from the area.

The sinkhole measured five meters in diameter when it first appeared then grew quickly in just a few hours, according to Beatriz Manrique, environmental secretary for the Mexico region.

"We think that it might be a combination of two factors: the softening of the field, the whole area was being cultivated, as well as the extraction of groundwater, which softens the subsoil," said Manrique.

[andydp]

I'm sure you all know I love a good joke.  Certain times I get serious.  This is one of them>

77 years ago, in a few hour's time, the greatest armada in history set sail for a hostile shore.  300,000 of the greatest generation started off on a mission to eliminate the evil that was in Europe at the time.  To them we should give our undying gratitude.  As always, in times like this, I turn to Shakespeare for the right things to say.  From Henry V:



This day is called the feast of Crispian:

He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,

Will stand a tip-toe when the day is named,

And rouse him at the name of Crispian.

He that shall live this day, and see old age,

Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,

And say ‘To-morrow is Saint Crispian:’

Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars.

And say ‘These wounds I had on Crispin’s day.’

Old men forget: yet all shall be forgot,

But he’ll remember with advantages

What feats he did that day:

.....

We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;

For he to-day that sheds his blood with me

Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile,

This day shall gentle his condition:

And gentlemen in England now a-bed

Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,

And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks

That fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day.

[LFC]

Now he knows how the lobster feels! Well, at least a little minus the boiling water.

A lobster diver in Massachusetts has reportedly had a brief insight into the Biblical story of Jonah, spending time engulfed in the mouth of a humpback whale before being spat out with only minor injuries.

Lobster diver Michael Packard posted an image of himself holding up a lobster to the Provincetown Community Space Facebook page on Friday, June 11, but it was the words that caught the world’s attention.

“Hi everyone, I just want to clarify what happened to me today. I was lobster diving and a humpback whale tried to eat me. I was in his closed mouth for about 30 to 40 seconds before he rose to the surface and spit me out. I am very bruised up but have no broken bones.

I want to thank the Provincetown rescue squad for their caring and help.”

As many experts have pointed out, the whale did not actually try to eat Packard. Humpbacks live on a diet of krill and small fish. They lack teeth, having baleen instead, so chewing Packard would have been well beyond it, even were he not equipped with scuba gear. Moreover, according to the Center for Coastal Studies (CCS) their internal digestive system is completely unsuited to consuming a grown man, (unlike sperm whales) making reports of Packard being “swallowed” misleading.

Understandably, this was not what was on Packard’s mind when he found himself in the great beast’s mouth.

Equally, Packard was not well placed to assess the species of cetacean in whose mouth he was held. “I was completely inside; it was completely black,” Packard told the Cape Cod Times after being released from hospital later that day. "“At first, I thought maybe a shark. But due to the lack of teeth and the size of it I soon realized that what I was in was a whale... I thought to myself, ‘there’s no way I’m getting out of here. I’m done, I’m dead.’” To make matters worse, he had also lost the regulator for his scuba gear in the jostling and could have drowned if he hadn't found it again.

Josiah Mayo, a crewmember on Packard’s boat provided the identification, telling Packard’s sister he saw a humpback break the surface of the water and fling Packard out by shaking its head. Mayo collected him and radioed for an ambulance to meet them at the pier. Mayo’s father is whale expert Charles “Stormy” Mayo, so he presumably knows his whales.

[LFC]

Michelangelo apparently destroyed an enormous amount of his drawing work used to design for some of his most famous works. It sounds like their existence was something he guarded jealously and did not want people to know about.

But if you were to study the drawings, cartoons, and papers left behind by Michelangelo, the genius behind this work, you would be forgiven for thinking the master sculptor picked up his chisel one day and carved this ideal specimen out of thin air. No preparatory drawings for the David exist.

Michelangelo worked hard to hone his talent and skills, not to mention his public perception (he was an early genius at personal branding), and it paid off. During his lifetime, he was lionized and his work highly sought after by the top patrons of his day. But he didn’t always want to put on display the effort that it took to achieve this greatness.

While 600 of the master’s drawings have survived, that is but a fraction of the preparatory works he is believed to have produced throughout his lifetime. (His elder and rival Leonardo da Vinci, for instance, left a surviving 4,000 pages.)

A variety of factors contributed to the loss including the vagaries of time, but for many of the drawings, it was the artist himself who was the agent of destruction. In the days before Michelangelo’s death, while his health was deteriorating, the artist built two bonfires and burned everything he could get his hands on.

This was not the first time Michelangelo had consigned his work to the fire.

[AnBr]

Astronomers map a neutron star’s surface for the first time

[Deleted]

Nike couldn't wait to put its logo!

[LFC]

I'm no Britney Spears fan but when I heard she was trying to end a 13 year conservatorship in court every alarm bell went off. My first question was how much money have the people involved skimmed off of her fortune. One attorney is taking a half million annually. If they were charging $500/hr what are the odds they were performing an actual 1,000 hours of work for her each and every year. I don't know if she's mentally fit to take care of herself but if there are people who scammed and abused her I hope they all go to jail. I hate scumbag scammers like this who fill their pockets with other people's money rather than making their own.

Spears has lived under a conservatorship that controls her personal life and finances for 13 years, and until this week had not commented publicly on the matter. A transcript of her testimony is available in full, and audio has also leaked online—and the abuses she described are unfathomable.

The singer said she’d been denied privacy, even while changing clothes. She recalled being forced to take lithium instead of the drugs she’d taken for five years as “punishment” for cancelling her Las Vegas Domination residency; she said she’s endured years of “therapy” with practitioners she never chose. She wants to have a baby, she said, but can’t because her conservators won’t allow a doctor to remove her IUD. (Alexis McGill Johnson, president and chief executive of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, pointed out on Twitter that this constitutes reproductive coercion.)

For more than a decade, Spears earned millions of dollars for other people despite being legally classified as a person unfit to make her own life decisions. Throughout all of this, Spears said, Samuel Ingham III—the attorney for whom she’s been forced to pay $10,000 every week—never advised her that she could contest the conservatorship. Ingham seemed “stunned” by the singer’s testimony, the New York Times reports, and said he would step down if asked.

Sounds like Samuel needs to be disbarred for incompetence and forced to return a f***-ton of money.

[goldenvalley]

Jun 24, 2021 19:47:36 GMT LFC said:

I'm no Britney Spears fan but when I heard she was trying to end a 13 year conservatorship in court every alarm bell went off. My first question was how much money have the people involved skimmed off of her fortune. One attorney is taking a half million annually. If they were charging $500/hr what are the odds they were performing an actual 1,000 hours of work for her each and every year. I don't know if she's mentally fit to take care of herself but if there are people who scammed and abused her I hope they all go to jail. I hate scumbag scammers like this who fill their pockets with other people's money rather than making their own.

Spears has lived under a conservatorship that controls her personal life and finances for 13 years, and until this week had not commented publicly on the matter. A transcript of her testimony is available in full, and audio has also leaked online—and the abuses she described are unfathomable.

The singer said she’d been denied privacy, even while changing clothes. She recalled being forced to take lithium instead of the drugs she’d taken for five years as “punishment” for cancelling her Las Vegas Domination residency; she said she’s endured years of “therapy” with practitioners she never chose. She wants to have a baby, she said, but can’t because her conservators won’t allow a doctor to remove her IUD. (Alexis McGill Johnson, president and chief executive of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, pointed out on Twitter that this constitutes reproductive coercion.)

For more than a decade, Spears earned millions of dollars for other people despite being legally classified as a person unfit to make her own life decisions. Throughout all of this, Spears said, Samuel Ingham III—the attorney for whom she’s been forced to pay $10,000 every week—never advised her that she could contest the conservatorship. Ingham seemed “stunned” by the singer’s testimony, the New York Times reports, and said he would step down if asked.

Sounds like Samuel needs to be disbarred for incompetence and forced to return a f***-ton of money.

Does misogyny play a role in this?  Kanye West seems unstable yet never has been in a conservatorship. 

[Bact PhD]

Jun 24, 2021 20:27:54 GMT goldenvalley said:

Jun 24, 2021 19:47:36 GMT LFC said:

I'm no Britney Spears fan but when I heard she was trying to end a 13 year conservatorship in court every alarm bell went off. My first question was how much money have the people involved skimmed off of her fortune. One attorney is taking a half million annually. If they were charging $500/hr what are the odds they were performing an actual 1,000 hours of work for her each and every year. I don't know if she's mentally fit to take care of herself but if there are people who scammed and abused her I hope they all go to jail. I hate scumbag scammers like this who fill their pockets with other people's money rather than making their own.
Sounds like Samuel needs to be disbarred for incompetence and forced to return a f***-ton of money.

Does misogyny play a role in this?  Kanye West seems unstable yet never has been in a conservatorship. 

I’m no Britney fan, either, but my blood got boiling as I read various accounts. Somehow, she’s “competent” enough to perform in Las Vegas, but not “competent” enough to have her kitchen cabinets re-finished. It’s really suspicious how Daddy Dear came out of the woodwork when she went off the rails back in ‘08 and now oversees the enterprise, with no apparent means to end the arrangement.

And, yes, I get the heavy odor of misogyny, even going back to the treatment of her by the tabloids back then, and really strong now. You know, those dumb blonde wimmins can’t think for themselves…

[andydp]

We're havin' a heat wave...

I'm aware of the heat wave in the Northwest.  Are temps like that very unusual ?

Here in the Northeast we're having our own version.  The heat index is what's driving the misery level:  humidity makes it feel warmer than it really is. Right now, its 93 but the Heat Index says 102.  Not the first time, and certainly not that unusual for the area.

Best we can do is stay inside, avoid the heat, and drink "healing medicinal waters" such as Quinine containing drinks like Vodka and Tonic.

To everyone, please be safe and watch out.

[LFC]

Jun 28, 2021 17:12:02 GMT andydp said:

I'm aware of the heat wave in the Northwest.  Are temps like that very unusual ?

Yes. Very.

[goldenvalley]

My son lived in Portland until 2 weeks ago. His Portland job was in a very old building that had no air conditioning. He is very happy to be in cool Sacramento at 93 today and 100 tomorrow.

Sending cooling thoughts to the whole PNW and NE. I hope the night temps drop tonight. Those high night time temps make everything more unbearable.

[pnwguy]

After running a portable AC unit since Friday non stop, my house temperature was 92 this morning. The original 115 forecast today was downgraded to a much cooler 113. It will stay hovering near 90 for the next 10 days, after 99 tomorrow.

[goldenvalley]

Serena Williams, age 39, has to concede match and leave Wimbledon in the first round because of injury to her leg. 

[pg]

Jun 24, 2021 20:45:30 GMT Bact PhD said:

Jun 24, 2021 20:27:54 GMT goldenvalley said:

Does misogyny play a role in this?  Kanye West seems unstable yet never has been in a conservatorship. 

I’m no Britney fan, either, but my blood got boiling as I read various accounts. Somehow, she’s “competent” enough to perform in Las Vegas, but not “competent” enough to have her kitchen cabinets re-finished. It’s really suspicious how Daddy Dear came out of the woodwork when she went off the rails back in ‘08 and now oversees the enterprise, with no apparent means to end the arrangement.

And, yes, I get the heavy odor of misogyny, even going back to the treatment of her by the tabloids back then, and really strong now. You know, those dumb blonde wimmins can’t think for themselves…

[pg]

Jun 30, 2021 22:49:07 GMT pg said:

Jun 24, 2021 20:45:30 GMT Bact PhD said:

I’m no Britney fan, either, but my blood got boiling as I read various accounts. Somehow, she’s “competent” enough to perform in Las Vegas, but not “competent” enough to have her kitchen cabinets re-finished. It’s really suspicious how Daddy Dear came out of the woodwork when she went off the rails back in ‘08 and now oversees the enterprise, with no apparent means to end the arrangement.

And, yes, I get the heavy odor of misogyny, even going back to the treatment of her by the tabloids back then, and really strong now. You know, those dumb blonde wimmins can’t think for themselves…

Misogyny- I think yes. I can't say I've ever heard a song by Kanye but I do note that, rather than explode onto the scene, he started out as a producer. Gave him a chance to get a bit "seasoned" before he became uber-famous. Plenty of douche-baggery from him, but he was already fairly savvy about the industry.

Perhaps a good comparison can be drawn between Britney Spears and Justin Bieber- not a fan of either. Both exploded on the musical scene, but a way to compare/contrast .

1) Young boy Bieber was just that- a boy- groomed at first to be a young teen idol. He lost his ever-lovin' mind, more than once, in some very serious, public cases. Eh, he sold a lot of tabloid crap-even Page 6 followed his "shenanigans". Drug abuse, mental health issues, DUIs, assaults etc. Guess that's what happens when you give a 16 year old kid keys to a $20 million dollar mansion and sports cars.I don't know if he had good mentors, but I do seem to recall that his parents weren't really around then. In some ways, his was always a story of "boys will be boys".

2) Young Spears? Groomed to be very highly sexualized at a very early age- with Daddy Dearest egging it all on, and profiting from her like she was his to sell. GAG.  Sold a lot of magazines, herself- for very different reasons. She of course had her own mental health/drug issues/lost her sh!t for all to see. Nobody every seemed to take into account her young age, barely acknowledged the fact that she had been put out to the public in such a way that even grown men could barely resist her.

I'm sure there's more than meets the eye here, but while the male got off relatively scot free, continued a career and all his business venture, the woman has been treated like an insane pariah, barely worthy of consideration. And she's at least 8-9 years older than he. 

Food for thought.

[LFC]

It might be the end of the road for the Hubbel Space Telescope.

On April 24, 1990, the Space Shuttle Discovery was launched. Discovery's engines and boosters thundered away as the spacecraft was pushed upward with over a million pounds of thrust. It achieved orbit in a mere eight and a half minutes.

While the launch of any space-going vehicle is a glorious spectacle, this particular mission was special. Safely nestled in its cargo bay was the powerful Hubble Space Telescope, which would become the most successful of its kind. Quite literally, Hubble has caused the astronomical community to rewrite the textbooks.

However, it is possible that its reign has ended. On June 13, a crucial component that operated the telescope stopped working. The instrument automatically placed itself in safe mode and it notified NASA operators of the situation. The operators have tried valiantly to fix the wayward computer, but they failed. As of this Wednesday, the Hubble Space Telescope is not operational.

Of course the engineers and scientists are desperately trying to come up with a fix.

The failing piece of hardware is called the payload computer and it is used to control and coordinate the scientific instruments and make sure that they are working nominally. Initial diagnostic tests suggested that the problem was with a deteriorating memory module, but the computer failed to operate with a backup module, suggesting that the issue is more serious. There is another computer onboard the telescope's platform and NASA operational personnel have tried to use it. However, they got the same error when they tried.

Nevertheless, one should never discount the ingenuity of the people who design and operate spacecraft. For example, in March 2020 a glitch in the Voyager 2 deep space probe caused it to shut down, but after a little over a week, NASA engineers fixed the glitch. Voyager 2 is currently so distant (11.5 billion miles, or 18.5 billion kilometers) that it takes 34 hours for a command to reach the craft and a response to return to Earth. By way of contrast, the Hubble Space Telescope orbits only about 300 miles above the Earth. That greatly simplifies the engineers' efforts.