Average annual rainfall in the United States

I've been exploring Facebook for about a year now.  There is an abundance of utter crap, including overtly and intentionally misleading posts, but there are also tidbits of blogworthy information.  The embedded image is a screencap and is not clickable. 

Addendum:  A tip of the blogging cap to an anonymous reader who found the source for the mapped data at Raindrop:

"The data utilized in this map is derived from the PRISM available at prism.oregonstate.edu. The PRISM model is known for providing high spatial resolution climate data. This map covers the period from 1991 to 2020 in a 4x4km resolution. To adapt this detailed data for our map, we have processed it to calculate the average annual precipitation across each county. This involves aggregating the high-resolution data from PRISM to obtain an county-wide average."

"Clinker brick" illustrated

The image above was submitted to the blackmagicfuckery subreddit by someone wondering why one brick in a sidewalk was not covered with the dusting of snow.  After dozens of inane replies ("Australian brick" "installed upside down, snow is on bottom") one knowledgeable Redditor provided the proper information:

This could be a brick called a 'clinker'

Clinkers are bricks that have different properties than normal bricks. They are used as decoration, paving and for water proofing buildings.

In the old days they fired bricks in a big kiln. All stacked on top of each other. They found that the bricks at the bottom experienced higher temperatures for longer. Turning them into a denser brick, closer to ceramic, that had a metallic "clink" sound when tapped with a hammer or another brick.

For a time these clinkers were not wanted because they have a high thermal conductivity, meaning they transport heat and cold into/out of your house better, that's bad. Then someone figured out they make great road pavers. Being harder than normal bricks they take longer to wear out.

Some people used them as building decorations because they are usually a darker colour than normal bricks. And some people realised that they are waterproof and started using them as the outside layer in double brick buildings. With increased demand they started to purposefully make clinkers for decoration, waterproofing and road paving.

Looks like magic, but it's just science.  You learn something every day.

The Bernese bear will keep his red penis

I heard the story reported on the March 10 broadcast of As It Happens, and found confirmation and the image at SwissInfo:

The bear on the coat of arms of canton Bern will continue to display its red penis, the cantonal government has ruled... The cantonal government was responding to a written question from Liberal Green parliamentarian Thomas Brönnimann, who wondered whether it would not be more appropriate to depict the bear without its masculine attributes, so that the population as a whole would feel better represented... The bear has a tradition that goes back at least 600 years and has been represented in this way since the 15th century...

The bear has always been depicted on official documents with a red phallus. In view of this tradition, the cantonal government believed that it was reasonable to continue to depict the bear in this way. Nor did it wish to conduct an online survey on the bear’s future appearance. In its view, such a survey would not be representative and would have little informative value.

"The Count of Monte Cristo" now on PBS

Last night I finished the 8-part series available on the PBS app, and I'm happy to recommend it with some minor reservations.  The storyline created by Dumas is of course enormously complex and detailed (the Modern Library version of the novel in our library runs to over 1,400 pages), and that complexity has always presented difficulties for screenwriters of the almost countless adaptations on film and television.  Even with the luxury of almost 8 hours of broadcast time, there are huge sections of the novel that have to be skipped over or severely compressed.  Edmond Dantès' social education by Jeremy Irons in the Château d'If is compressed to a matter of minutes.  The discovery of the treasure is depicted in a couple minutes, and then moments later he's a wealthy man riding a horse.

On the other hand, the resources available for the current production are extensive and lavish.  The estates and castles must have been a godsend for the cinematographers.  The quality of acting is excellent through out.  I'm so happy to see cinema with cast members unfamiliar to me; the world is full of superb actors - it's not necessary to ride the coattails of celebrities as Hollywood does.

I believe the series will drop on public PBS channels near the end of March.  For now it can be viewed on the PBS app.  I welcome comments from readers who have seen this.

This is the "Rebel Loon" symbol

The Minnesota Star Tribune explains:

Take Minnesota’s state bird, the loon, combine it with the “Star Wars” Rebel Alliance symbol, and the Rebel Loon is born.

During Operation Metro Surge [the ICE invasion], Moorhead-based software engineer Bernardo Anderson felt inspired when he saw friends come together across the political spectrum.

“I kept thinking about how this is a big coalition or alliance or some kind of group, that we’re all banding together to fight this,” said the 42-year-old Anderson. “Then, I remember ‘Star Wars’' Rebel Alliance, where they’re from different worlds and yet they come together to fight for a common cause.”

Anderson anonymously released his Rebel Loon logo on Reddit on Jan. 19, Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Since then, it has spread across Minnesota in countless formats as a symbol of the resistance — and people in Hawaii, Michigan, Ohio and other states have adapted it, replacing the loon with their own state bird.

Even Green Day’s Billie Joe Armstrong sported a Rebel Loon sticker on his guitar during his Super Bowl LX performance. The symbol is meant to unite people under a common cause. Anderson released it with a Creative Commons Zero license, which allows anyone to use it and adapt it however they’d like.

For those unfamiliar with our magnificent state bird, the red eye is characteristic.  The newer versions of the Rebel Loon logo add a stylistic North Star between the wingtips.  For those who are not Star Wars enthusiasts, here is the Rebel Alliance logo.

And if you want to mock the loon as a fierce fighter, here's my report from 2020 of a loon killing a bald eagle while defending its nest: Loon-on-eagle haliacide. (For the TL;DR crowd, the killing was an underwater attack that punctured the eagle's chest/heart)

Economic news on a Sunday night

I just sent this email message to several friends and family members:

This is Sunday night, which is Monday morning in east Asia, so I tuned in to the Bloomberg channel to check how the markets are opening there.

The major asian equity indexes are down about 2-3%.  Same in India, where the market has just opened.  U.S. markets won't open for another 10 hours, but the futures on the DOW, NASDAQ etc are down about 2%.

WHY?  Apparently because the price of Brent crude oil on international markets just increased 25% from what it was Friday night.

On Friday, when the U.S. stock markets closed for the weekend, analysts and talking heads were gravely concerned about the fast rise of Brent crude to $90.  Now it's hovering around $115 - a 25% increase in one trading day.

That will trickle through to automotive gas slowly, but more importantly it will put a severe brake on the economies of the world.  The U.S. is a net exporter of crude, so it will affect us more slowly.  But the world economy is going to take a hit.  And how much higher the price of crude will go depends on how long the strait of Hormuz is blocked.  Some countries are probably already starting to draw down on their strategic reserves.

Iran's closure of the strait is going to put MAJOR major pressure on the U.S. to cease the war, because the longer it goes on, the more that oil price will rise.  And almost every country in the world suffers when the world economy slows down.

The alternative would be for the US to do some invasion to end the war with a "quick victory" - but by doing what???  boots on the ground in a huge country??  Impossible to anyone other than Trump and Hegseth.

My prediction:  the US backs off in less than a week, declares "victory" (cf Vietnam), and achieves..... nothing but hatred around the world.

I didn't advise my family or friends what to do with their money, nor will I make suggestios for readers (it's obvious what you/we should have done Friday).  I think it's reasonable to expect severe downward pressure on U.S. equities at the open tomorrow morning.  After that, equity and commodity prices will fluctuate with Trump and Netanyahu's war.

Opinions of jacked-up trucks

Some cycads attract pollinators using heat

"Plants usually attract pollinators using bright colors and scents, but some of the earliest plants use heat instead. A collaboration between professor of molecular and cellular biology Nicholas Bellono and Hessel professor of biology Naomi Pierce has shown that cycads, a division of cone-bearing plants that are ancient in evolutionary terms, warm their reproductive structures in daily cycles, releasing invisible infrared radiation that attracts beetle pollinators. 

Experiments showed that beetles are drawn to this heat even when color, scent, and touch are removed, proving that infrared radiation itself acts as a signal. The team also discovered that the cycad-feeding beetles have specialized sensory cells in their antennae that detect infrared heat, tuned precisely to the temperatures produced by their host plants. 

This heat-based signaling predates colorful flowers and likely played a key role in the earliest plant-pollinator relationships, long before bees and butterflies became dominant."

I find this fascinating.  The fact that plants can generate heat is not novel, as anyone familiar with skunk cabbage melting snow in the spring understands, and I suppose some modern plants can be warmer than their environment based on dark colored leaves absorbing solar energy, but all of this cycad science is new to me.  How do plants generate infrared radiation?  Maybe they just selectively reflect infrared radition from sunlight?  

Text and image (cropped for size) from Harvard Magazine.   I have not found the primary source publication, which is probably in Nature or Science, but I don't have time to search today.

Addendum:  Found the journal article in Science, but it's behind a paywall.

"Don't Think Twice, It's All Right" - Bob Dylan

I recently realized I've never blogged my favorite Dylan song.

The problems with "eliminating the impossible"

Source:  xkcd

Northern flicker

Posted for the gorgeous photo, which was featured in a New York Times article about woodpeckers.  We have a small woods behind our home; I leave standing deadwood there for the woodpeckers, so we've seen six different species from our window over the years.

"The Spanish name for woodpeckers, pájaros carpinteros or carpenter birds, honors their contribution: These are ecosystem engineers who apply their excavating skills to carve roosts for themselves and their offspring, many of which are subsequently repurposed as nests by birds as diverse as wood ducks, owls, bluebirds, tree swallows and more — and by other animals, including squirrels, martens, bats and raccoons...

Male woodpeckers typically start work on several nests in anticipation of mating season, excavating each cavity pretty far along before showing the possibilities to the female, who takes her pick. Some of the extras represent those potential nests for other animals."

There are numerous tips for attracting and maintaining woodpeckers at the link.

When people used to turn into trees

Interesting how often that theme has arisen in world folklore.  Text excerpted from The Overstory.

Christian Nationalism in the armed forces command structure? Or not...?

The embed shows allegations I've seen in several posts on Facebook.  I don't trust Facebook material to be accurate.  Have any readers seen evidence to support/refute this claim in the mainstream fact-checked media?

Here is the link for the cited reference to the Military Religious Freedom Foundation.

Addendum:  Before you get too excited, read this link from Friendly Atheist, submitted by one of the readers here.  It expresses severe skepticism regarding the validity of the claims made in the embed.

The most amazing musical instrument is the human voice

I don't really have time to blog today, but I wanted to share this video I found last night at Nag on the Lake (which I invite you to explore if you like TYWKIWDBI).  

It took a bit of searching to find the lyrics (excerpted from Psalm 84) at Light on Dark Water:

"How beloved is your dwelling place,

O lord of hosts,

My soul yearns, faints,

My heart and my flesh cry out.

The sparrow found a house,

And the swallow her nest,

Where she may raise her young.

They pass through the Valley of Bakka,

They make it a place of springs;

The autumn also covers it with pools."

You don't need the lyrics to appreciate the beauty of the harmonies.  Had I heard this music without the video, I probably would have assumed it came from a synthesizer, similar to the many programs I've recorded from Music from the Hearts of Space.  But these are human voices.  Awesome.

Foreplay by intellectuals?

It's very seldom that I give up on a book after I've read a couple hundred pages.  I used to be a "completionist" slogging on to the end, but as I've grown older I find myself bailing out more quickly on books and visual media.

I didn't know what to expect from Foucault's Pendulum, but since the book was written by the author of The Name of the Rose, my expectations were high.  What I encountered was a 600+ page display of extensive erudition, harvesting centuries of history, culture, religion, and the fine arts in an effort by the novel's protagonist to come up with a sort of "theory of everything" - a syncretism where all items can be "connected" by various mental gymnastics.  

I'll transcribe one passage which seems to exemplify my disappointment.  At the end of chapter 30, the protagonist is in bed with a young lady.  They have spent the night discussing Galileo, Richelieu, John Dee the English court astrologer, Torricelli inventing the barometer, fireworks in the Hortus Palatinus in Heidelberg, the burning of Comenius' house and library in Prague, the Rosy Cross and Rosicrucians, the Order of the Golden Fleece, the Thirty Years' War, Ashtoreth, Descartes, the immortality of the Count of Saint Germain, and the canonical Gospels.  Then they turn toward each other as follows...

"Amparo, the sun's coming up."

"We must be crazy."

"Rosy-fingered dawn gently caresses the waves..."

"Yes, go on.  It's Yemanja.  Listen! She's coming."

"Show me your ludibria..."

"Oh, the Tintinnabulum!"

"You are my Atalanta Fugiens..."

"Oh, my Turris Babel..."

"I want the Arcana Arcanissima, the Golden Fleece, pâle et rose comme un coquillage marin..."

"Sssh... Silentium post clamores," she said.

That is literally the closing of the chapter.  The ellipses are in the text, not my modification.  I presume they represent the interrupted conversation of rising passion, and that the protagonists proceeded to have wild and crazy sex.

Maybe I'll try a re-read of The Name of the Rose instead.