The fate of golf balls in the ocean

About 1.2 billion golf balls are manufactured every year, according to a 2017 report in Chemical & Engineering News, and more than half may be lost in the environment. A New York Times story in 2010 reported that an estimated 300 million disappear each year in the United States alone. With many of the planet’s approximately 32,000 golf courses located beside the ocean, countless golf balls find their way into the water, where they sink and accumulate more rapidly than anyone is cleaning them up.

Weber, a grade 12 student, is doing her best, but is barely putting a dent in the collection of drowned balls. Just two weeks earlier, Weber and her father spent several hours snorkeling in the same cove and cleared the seafloor of about 2,000 balls.

Now, the ocean bottom is again awash with golf balls. “Big waves come through and uncover them,” says Weber, who started collecting golf balls here in 2016. “It can sometimes make what we’re doing feel futile.”..

They don’t just sit inertly on the seafloor, either. As Weber has documented, they corrode.

In fact, golf balls have been found in the stomachs of at least two gray whales found dead in Washington State—one in 2010, the other in 2012—though the balls were not identified as the cause of either death. Golf balls also appear in bird stomachs on occasion—something Steiner says he has seen scores of times while inspecting decayed albatross carcasses in the northwestern Hawai‘ian Islands. Golf balls may even find their way into birds’ reproductive tracts—in one documented case, a golf ball encased in shell was laid by a Canada goose.

More at Hakai Magazine.

Coming in November

YouTube link.

Potter wasp

Impressive not just for the "pot" but for the classical "wasp waist."  More info here.

Via the NatureIsFuckingLit subreddit.

TMI about wedges

This post will be of interest only to golfers.  I researched it after receiving this message in an email from a local public golf course advertising a preseason sale:

These $100 wedges are simply phenomenal and retailed in 2017 for $150. This is a great deal but stock is limited and includes:

50 degree F grind
52 degree F grind
54 degree S grind
56 degree S grind
56 degree F grind
56 degree M grind
58 degree M grind
60 degree K grind
60 degree S grind
60 degree M grind

I was gobsmacked by both the price and the degree of specialization.  I started playing golf 60 years ago using a set of clubs from Montgomery Ward comprised of a driver, 3-wood, putter, sand wedge, and 3- 5- 7- and 9-irons.  I later added and mastered an 8-iron for greenside play.   Wedges became a growth industry several decades later:

Since the mid-80s the number of wedges available to players has grown from 2 (pitching and sand) to 5 (adding gap, lob and ultra lob), most of which are now available in a wide array of lofts and bounces to allow a player to "fine-tune" their short game with the wedges that best meet their needs. In some cases, with the high degree of customization, companies have done away with the traditional names for each club, and instead simply label each club with its loft and bounce angles. A 52-8 wedge, for example, would have 52 degrees of loft and 8 degrees of bounce, generally placing it in the "gap wedge" class. Most players carry three or four wedges on the course, and sometimes more, usually sacrificing one or two of their long irons and/or higher-lofted fairway woods to meet the 14-club limit.

The degree of loft is relatively easy to understand, as per the graph embedded at the top showing relative trajectories for a Lob wedge (60-64 degrees), Sand wedge (54-58), Gap wedge (50-53), and Pitching wedge (40-48).

The "bounce" factor is more complex:

Bounce is the group name for the elements involved in sole design: the bounce angle, sole width, leading edge, rocker and camber of a wedge. Bounce, and specifically the bounce angle, is added to prevent a wedge from digging into sand or turf, stopping the momentum of the club through the ball. Wedges with minimal bounce will be better suited to players who sweep the ball, taking a shallower divot, firmer turf conditions (i.e. links courses)...

For "links courses" read "public golf courses where the turf bakes into concrete in the summer."

Only the most fanatic golfers will move onward to read about "grinds" in this article about Vokey wedges.  More at this interview with Bob Vokey at the Titleist website.

(The fonts got all mixed up in this post and I can't seem to fix the problem.  Moving on...)

Which U.S. household do you belong to ?

Golf Carts and Gourmets
Colleges and Cafés
Modest Metro Means
Status-Seeking Singles
Footloose and Family-Free
Settled and Sensible
Diapers and Debit Cards
Babies and Bliss
Kids and Cabernet
Digital Dependents
Full Pockets, Empty Nests
Town Elders
Generational Soup
Booming and Consuming
Birkenstocks and Beemers
Progressive Potpourri
Cul-de-Sac Diversity
True-Grit Americans
Countrified Pragmatics
Red, White, and Bluegrass
American Royalty
Tough Times
Tight Money

I guess our household is "Settled and Sensible."

Selections from a larger list of 71 categories developed by Experian, a credit data corporation, and published in Harper's under the much better title "Glass Menagerie."

Dwarf Kingfisher

Via the Pics subreddit.

Neonatal surgery without anaesthesia

In 1986, the world was shocked when reports of infants undergoing major surgery with out anesthesia arose in both the USA and UK. In the USA, mothers of two premature infants wrote letters to the medical journal, BIRTH, protesting the “barbarism of surgery without anesthesia.”..

Why did infants not receive anesthesia that was comparable to that received by an adult? In the following years, numerous books and articles were written on the subject . A survey of such literature reveals that the two repeatedly cited reasons were: 1. Infants do not have the capacity to perceive pain. 2. It is too risky to use potent anesthetics on infants, given the risk for cardiorespiratory compromise and death...

The 19th century surgeon was rough, having inherited an attitude of indifference to pain from the days predating anesthesia. It was said that the role of a surgeon was to preserve life and not to prevent the temporary pain of the experience. As such, the use of anesthesia was originally restricted to those considered sensitive, primarily the rich, white and educated women and children...

...one of the two consistently cited reasons for the withholding of anesthesia from neonates was the belief that infants are insensitive to pain. When the American Academy of Pediatrics released its statement on neonatal anesthesia in 1987, it cited the commonly taught rationale that “nerve pathways [in neonates] are not sufficiently myelinated to transmit painful stimuli or that neonates do not have sufficiently integrated cortical function to recall painful experiences... 

Continue reading at this submission to the Osler Student Essay Contest.

Cable cars as mass transit

YouTube link.

Known as the Mexicable, the 3-mile, $90 million gondola system opened to great fanfare in late 2016, an ambitious effort to improve public transportation in this suburb of more than 1.6 million. Initially met with some doubts, it has since provided more than 5.5 million rides, with about 20,000 passenger trips on a typical weekday. It has also drawn praise for giving low-income workers better access to public transportation.

“They didn’t have enough roads to relieve the traffic,” said Victor Jasso, who directs the Mexicable. “There was no space for expanding the roadway. Making [bus-only lanes] was impossible. And building a subway? Also not a chance.”

That’s a marked departure from how gondolas have historically been used: climbing steep hills, as in Portland, Ore.; crossing bodies of water, like the Roosevelt Island Tram in New York City; or giving tourists a new perspective on a city, as they do in London.

More information at the Boston Globe, because Boston is considering a similar system.

Ruby and Rosie

Ruby Loftus Screwing a Breech Ring is a 1943 painting by the British painter Laura Knight depicting a young woman, Ruby Loftus (1921–2004), working at an industrial lathe as part of the British war effort in World War II. The painting was commissioned by the War Artists' Advisory Committee (WAAC), and is now part of the Imperial War Museum's art collection. The painting brought instant fame to Loftus, and has been likened to the American figure of "Rosie the Riveter".

More about Rosie the Riveter.

U.S. Electricity demand has been flat for ten years

The chart above shows no increase in electricity sales (the blue line) in the U.S. since 2007 despite a growing economy (GDP upper line).  Discussed at Vox:

The US electricity sector is in a period of unprecedented change and turmoil. Renewable energy prices are falling like crazy. Natural gas production continues its extraordinary surge. Coal, the golden child of the current administration, is headed down the tubes. In all that bedlam, it’s easy to lose sight of an equally important (if less sexy) trend: Demand for electricity is stagnant. Thanks to a combination of greater energy efficiency, outsourcing of heavy industry, and customers generating their own power on site, demand for utility power has been flat for 10 years, and most forecasts expect it to stay that way...

“TVA now expects to sell 13 percent less power in 2027 than it did two decades earlier — the first sustained reversal in the growth of electricity usage in the 85-year history of TVA.”

... the US utility sector was built around the presumption of perpetual growth. Utilities were envisioned as entities that would build the electricity infrastructure to safely and affordably meet ever-rising demand, which was seen as a fixed, external factor, outside utility control. But demand is no longer rising... 

Worthwhile reading for anyone with funds invested in electric utilities.

The story of the "Broccoli Tree"

YouTube link.

Via Neatorama.

Nine familial exterminations

Last evening I finished watching the absolutely superb PBS series The Story of China.  In the final episode, Michael Wood makes reference to an ancient form of extreme punishment:

The nine familial exterminations or nine kinship exterminations... was the most serious punishment for a capital offense in Ancient China. A collective punishment typically associated with offenses such as treason, the punishment involved the execution of all relatives of an individual, which were categorized into nine groups. The occurrence of this punishment was somewhat rare, with relatively few sentences recorded throughout history.

The punishment involved the execution of close and extended family members. These included:

• The criminal's living parents

• The criminal's living grandparents

• Any children the criminal may have, over a certain age (which is usually variable depending on the time period) and if married their spouses

• Any grandchildren the criminal may have, over a certain age (which is usually variable depending on the time period) and if married their spouses

• Siblings and siblings-in-law (the siblings of the criminal and that of his or her spouse, in the case where he or she is married)

• Uncles and aunts of the criminal, as well as their spouses

• The criminal's cousins (in case of Korea, this includes up to second and third cousins)

• The criminal's spouse

• The criminal's spouse's parents

• The criminal himself

Seasonally-variable fuel efficiency

Data collected over a 2.5 year period and posted at the Data Is Beautiful subreddit, where some of the variables are discussed.

Floor tiles at... (guess where)

The Smithsonian's National Postal Museum (via)

Divertimento #148

All of the entries in this "linkfest" are gifs.

Ooooh , Aaaah, and Ohhhh category

Giving new meaning to the term "hat hair."

More fabulous hair.  I wonder what my grandmother would have thought.

When you put bubble bath in a Jacuzzi.

The buildings of Barcelona, color-coded by time, 1850s to present.

The "miracle" last-second touchdown pass that allowed Minnesota to beat New Orleans.

North Carolina windsurfer is a cool dude.

This cruise-ship surfer, not so cool.

U.S. soldiers get the word they're going home from Vietnam.

Girl shows cool way to open a beer.

High dive starts out majestic...

Clever way to thread a needle.

Don't be impatient at a traffic-control pylon.

Powerwashing a sidewalk.

Cyclist meets kangaroo.

Railroad barriers don't apply to me.

Special needs student drills her first basketball shot.

Finns enjoy a winter cruise.

Steam cleaning a rug.

The path of a projectile at different (and complementary) launch angles.  (relevant to time on target in warfare)

Not every fountain is designed as a child's water park.

Telling the drunk to go home.

Showoff on the golf tee.

Jugglers at Gustavus.

The punch from nowhere.

Snowplow modified to not dump on your driveway.

Got a dead tree in your front yard?

Lazy dad, or clever dad?

Swimming pool in Switzerland.



Animals category

Happy disabled pupper gets new wheels for Christmas.

Fawn bathes a kitten.

Dog almost completely hidden by a leaf pile.

Jump rope assistant.

Hen and her babies.

Shetland pony descends from a great height.

I found a stick for you to throw for me.

Humpback whale spouts a rainbow.

This dog loves to go to doggy school.

Smart ass clears the way.

Cat doesn't give a fuck.

Make sure the baby stays warm.

Baby octopus.

Dog gets ball out of pool without getting wet.

Lazy weekend at home.

I know how to crack an egg.

Alligator vs. truck.  Alligator wins.

It's good to see the bull sometimes wins.


For a quick laugh before you go

Rare footage of a baby starfish.

Twins separated at birth.

Hold my beer while I get dressed.

Alcohol probably involved.