Adjustable light bulbs

I was today years old when I discovered that there are adjustable light bulbs.   Had to replace some of the bulbs in several ceiling cans.  Got to Target without checking what type of bulbs (warm vs. cool) were in the other cans, and discovered that now you can buy multipurpose bulbs and then adjust them at home.

The older I get the more I find myself echoing my 97-year old late mother's phrase of awe and admiration:  "This modern world..."

Removing a facade from an old building

There is informed discussion scattered through the comments at the oddlysatisfying subreddit post.  Huge windows used to be assets re light and maybe heat during an earlier era of industry, but became maintenance liabilities in more modern times.

I agree with the top-rated comment at the source: it's like removing a carpet and finding a hardwood floor.

Kinetic art

TYWKWDBI doesn't do any product promotions or have sponsored posts, but I'm going to post this video because the technology behind this Kickstarter project is so cool.  I grew up with Etch-A-Sketch, and now it seems toys have evolved to the point where you don't do any of the art yourself - you just watch the gadget do it for you.  The video shows people using the table for playing cards, which looks ridiculous.  Our cats would love to have one of these.

The problems with "eliminating the impossible"

Source:  xkcd

Urban tree risks in a snowstorm

The media will be flooded with pix and videos from the current "snowpocalypse" hammering New England now.  The article in the New York Times that incorporated this image did not discuss the mechanics behind the windfall, but I think the cause is obvious.  Urban trees, like those on the perimeter of forests or woods, overgrow toward available light.  The uneven distribution of weight following snowfall is enough to bring them down.  I have no doubt there will be lawsuits for incidents like this, but I believe most city ordinances apply fault to owners of dead trees left standing, not living trees.

Excellent advice not to "future-trip"

There is a very interesting article in the September issue of The Atlantic.  "My Father, Guitar Guru to the Rock Gods" is written by the daughter of Fred Walecki, who crafted instruments and provided advice to the greatest musicians of 1960s California.  Here are the introductory paragraphs:

In August 2000, when I was 2 years old, my mother put me in a maroon velvet dress and stuck foam earplugs in my ears. She carried me through the backstage corridors of the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium... My mother remembers the night in flashes. David Crosby—walrus mustache, smiling eyes—telling jokes. Bonnie Raitt’s aura of red hair. In the distance, the sound of Linda Ronstadt warming up. Sitting in a dressing room with Michael McKean and Christopher Guest, already in costume as Spinal Tap’s front men.

That night, the auditorium was hosting the Friends of Fred Walecki benefit concert. These friends included Crosby, Raitt, and Ronstadt. Also Jackson Browne, Graham Nash, Emmylou Harris, and Warren Zevon. Three of the four original Eagles, who in this room in 1973 had performed their new album, Desperado, were there too.

One of the Eagles, Bernie Leadon, had helped put the event together. He had known Fred Walecki, my father, since they were teenagers, when Leadon started coming into Westwood Music, Dad’s musical-instrument shop in Los Angeles....

I'm not posting this for the music of the 1960s, which I love (please go to the link to continue reading, if you share that interest).  I'm posting this to share one bit of advice that Fred Walecki offered his grown-up daughter:

"When I was 18, I got a bad concussion that took me out of college for my first semester. My doctor didn’t want me to fly home for a while, so I called Dad one night from the other side of the country, panicked that my brain would never return to normal. 

“What are you looking at right now?” he asked. Pine trees, I said. Some shrubs. I’m sitting on a bench outside. “What’s the temperature like where you are?” It’s nice. Cool but not cold. It was early fall in the Northeast, a new sensation for a Californian. “What does the air smell like?” Wood chips. 

“I know it’s hard, but your only job right now is to stay in this moment and not future-trip. In this moment right now, the one God is giving you, the air smells nice, the temperature is good, you’re somewhere beautiful.”"

Excellent advice, in my opinion, and worth sharing via the blog.

"Best restroom in the United States"

The winner of the annual award goes to a state park bathroom in Minnesota.

Bear Head Lake State Park (Ely, Minnesota): Nestled within one of Minnesota’s most beloved parks, the restroom and shower building at Bear Head Lake State Park provides more than just function—it offers thoughtful design in a stunning setting. With a fully accessible layout that meets all ADA guidelines, this facility ensures comfort for all visitors. The exterior dishwashing sinks are a camper-friendly touch, providing a convenient space to clean up without trekking back to a waterless site. Surrounded by the serene beauty that earned Bear Head Lake the title of America’s Favorite State Park in 2010, this restroom is proof that practicality and natural beauty can go hand in hand.

"Minnesota bathrooms have won twice before: Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport’s in 2016 and Varsity Theater’s in Minneapolis in 2013."

The key elements considered for the award are cleanliness, visual appeal, innovation, functionality and unique design elements.  The other 8 finalists (from Texas, California, New Hampshire, New York, Florida, Kansas, Utah, and Colorado) are listed at the Cintas website.

The Moulin Rouge, 1923

A photograph from the archives of National Geographic.  Credit: Jules Gervais Courtellemont.

For more on the moulins of glaciers and why this building is red, see this 2009 post.

Reposted from 2013 to add this bit of advice from someone on a golf trip to Scotland:

“I say two things to Europe. Stop the windmills. You’re ruining your countries. I really mean it, it’s so sad. You fly over and you see these windmills all over the place, ruining your beautiful fields and valleys and killing your birds,” he said.  

Recognize the movie?

A golden retriever lay in state at the Minnesota capital

I trust every reader here is politically aware enough to know that a political assassination occurred last month in Minnesota when State Representative Melissa Hortman and her husband were shot to death at their home.  Many of you may have missed the detail that when the gunman entered the Hortman's home he also shot their golden retriever, Gilbert.

This was not a hunting dog.  Melissa Hortman was training this dog for Helping Paws, a nonprofit that provides service dogs to people with disabilities, including veterans and first responders with PTSD.  Gilbert did not graduate from the program, so the Hortmans decided to keep him as a house dog.  There are no living witnesses to the assassination, so it is not known whether the dog came to the front door out of curiosity or to protect his humans, but it doesn't matter.  Governor Walz decided to include Gilbert in the memorial at the state capital.

There is no record of any other nonhuman ever lying in state, and Melissa Hortman, a former state House speaker still leading the chamber’s Democrats, is the first woman. The state previously granted the honor to 19 men, including a vice president, a U.S. secretary of state, U.S. senators, governors and a Civil War veteran, according to the Minnesota Legislative Reference Library.

If any readers consider a dog lying in state to be trivial, please read my post five years ago entitled Remembering Sugar Rae.  And if you still don't understand, please find a different blog to follow.

The improbable fact of our existence

"It seems so odd to me now, how one can be so unsettled by the improbable. When we know that our entire existence is founded on freak occurrences and improbable coincidences. That we wouldn’t be here at all if it weren’t for these curious twists of fate.  That there are human beings on what we call our planet, that we can move around on a rotating sphere in a vast universe full of inconceivably large bodies comprised of elements so small that the mind simply cannot comprehend how small and how many there are. That in this unfathomable vastness, these infinitesimal elements are still able to hold themselves together. That we manage to stay afloat. That we exist at all. That each of us has come into being as only one of untold possibilities. The unthinkable is something we carry with us always. It has already happened: we are improbable, we have emerged from a cloud of unbelievable coincidences. Anyone would think that this knowledge would equip us in some small way to face the improbable. But the opposite appears to be the case. We have grown accustomed to living with that knowledge without feeling dizzy every morning, and instead of moving around warily and tentatively, in constant amazement, we behave as if nothing has happened, take the strangeness of it all for granted and get dizzy if life shows itself as it truly is: improbable, unpredictable, remarkable."

— Solvej Balle, On the Calculation of Volume (I), translated from the Danish by Barbara Haveland

Signatures change

"I’ve been doing paperwork in Mexico City, signing thing after thing.

However, some doubt arose concerning my identity. The nine-year-old signature on my passport did not match the one I had been putting everywhere, on everything. I had mistakenly assumed we accepted the way a signature degrades over time, how it grows hastier, less sure of itself. The authorities didn’t accept this degradation, no, and requested an in-person appearance to re-sign all the things.

Here you must choose a signature and commit. A señor hovered over me as I tried to perform my name the way I once had—upright, tense, and contained. (Lately it had gone soupy.) He examined my new effort, compared with my nearly expired passport.

He pointed to the t. The horizontal line needed to be longer, so I lengthened it, and was thus recognized, by Mexico, to be myself."

 -- from an essay in Untitled Thought Project, via Harper's magazine.

Kartoffelrækkerne

A (real) (and expensiver) neighborhood in Copenhagen; scattered discussion in the IAF subreddit thread.  More photos at Google.

How much money is enough?

The screencap is from this scene in Breaking Bad, in which Skyler asks Walt how much longer they are going to have to accumulate money.

There are several discussion threads online asking how much money is in that pile.  The answers vary depending on various estimates of the dimensions of the pile and the denomination of the bills.  The best answer I've seen is the opinion that, given the U.S. health care system, the pile is still not enough to pay for Walt's medical bills.

Poor analogy

J-turn ("Michigan left") explained

The intersections limit points where vehicles could collide by forcing drivers on side roads to turn right, go a short distance down the road, make a U-turn through the median, then loop back to the intersection to continue their trip...

Minnesota's first J-Turn intersection was built in 2009, and now more than 60 exist statewide (2022) with more planned. They have been credited with significantly reducing right-angle crashes resulting in serious injuries and deaths...

Despite J-Turns' safety benefits — data showed they cut fatal and serious injury crashes at intersections by 69% — it's been tough to convince the public, said MnDOT traffic engineer Derek Leuer.

"They have never seen one," he said.

And when they do encounter the intersections, drivers are not fond of them.

The Wikipedia entry provides some discussion.

Addendum:  A reader offered this screencap from Google Maps of a J-turn setup with no option for straight-across crossing of the divided highway.  Basically, this creates a elongated roundabout -

- but maintains higher speeds on Highway 1, where a true suburban roundabout would potentially bring main highway traffic to a stop at busy hours.  Interesting.

Interesting speculation re aliens

One doesn't expect to find any deep insight at the StrangeEarth subreddit, but the mechanism for this happening is worth pondering.

The 2023 King William's College quiz

Posted today at The Guardian.  I'm going to take a break from blogging to join a group of friends across the pond to tackle the quiz.  Readers here are welcome to post thoughts and possible answers in the Comments section of this post.

Caption contest

Uff da

Not the worst in the area.  The heat index in the town of Sullivan, between here and Milwaukee, rose to 126 today.  Almost incredible at this latitude.

If Winnie the Pooh were in a school shooting...

From the August 2023 issue of Harper's Magazine.