Eric Clapton's version of "How Deep is the Ocean?"

YouTube link.

 
I listened today to the 2010 "Clapton" album; mixed in with all the blues pieces was his version of an old song with refreshingly upbeat lyrics:

How much do I love you? I'll tell you no lie -
How deep is the ocean?
How high is the sky?

How many times a day do I think of you?
How many roses are sprinkled with dew?

How far would I travel to be where you are?
How far is the journey from here to a star?

And if I ever lose you how much would I cry?
How deep is the ocean?
How high is the sky?

Irving Berlin wrote the song in 1932.  I found videos of covers by Peggy Lee/Benny Goodman, Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, Etta James, Nat King Cole, and Ray Charles, among others, but I like Clapton's the best.

Reposted from 2011 to replace the original video and delete other links which had undergone linkrot over the years.

Regarding habitable exoplanets

Dropping feathers and a bowling ball in a vacuum

YouTube link.

Educated people know what's going to happen, but it's still interesting to see in real life.  If you're in a hurry, you can start at about the 2:20 mark.

The upside of a hurricane

Reportedly found on the Atlantic shoreline of Virginia after Dorian, via [image cropped for size].

Blogcation begins now

Back in a week or two.  In the meantime, consider browsing the "Archive" in the right sidebar.

Divertimento #168

89 gifs to keep you busy while I go on vacation

Everyone knows how satisfying this is.  And this (poppy seeds).
Backyard rollercoaster
Downhill go cart track in New Zealand
Traditional soap production in Palestine
Mushrooms being harvested
A mashup of the phrase "go f--- youself" in movies and TV
Mother's reflexes save child from serious fall
Escalator eats a person (safe to watch)
Man headbutts someone, gets instant karma
Animated 20-year history of internet browser usage
Woman giving birth in a Denver jail cell (warning)
Woman driver (discussion thread)

Nature and Science
Tourist goes head over heels for Yellowstone bison
How the planets circle a moving sun
How to boil water at room temperature in a parking ramp
Mudslide coming!!
Adjusting mesh stockings
Friendship ring
Why you shouldn't kayak too close to cliffs 
Anemone escapes from a starfish
Microburst of rain 
Clean a seashell with hydrochloric acid.
Baby born with a caul
Cracking open some obsidian
Eye of hurricane Dorian
A reminder that bullets can bounce off water
Parasitoid emerges from a mantis

Animals
Pedicure of a horse.
Feeding a Nautilus.
Goose drowns a gull
Parrot evicts an intruder 
Shade-seeking lizard 
How maggots jump without legs 
Alligator climbs a chain-link fence
Shadow of a millipede
Snake climbs a rope
Hummingbirds
Baby goat headbutts dog
Mistreated rescue bird loves his new owner (discussion)
Polar bear channels his inner narwhal
Who knew that armadillos love toys?

Sports and athleticism
Bowler converts her spare
Two-person cartwheel
Interactive gym wall 
Caught in the act of blood-doping
Pole vault

Fails
Idiot decides to slap a horse's ass
Bringing pizza home 
She didn't need that last beer 
Chainsaw kickback 
Car driver tries to bash cyclist
Synchronized
Hotel room shower head
Idiot driver

Impressive or clever
Interesting door mechanism
Lots of interesting ways to fold a dinner napkin
How to julienne a potato 
Spray-painting two images onto bowls
Scythe with a basket 
Walleye captures a muskie 
Flip-flop winch (see this video for explanation)
Woman catches a catfish
Anjihan Grand Canyon
Carving styrofoam
Polymer clay art
Screws turned inside wood using magnetic drill
Speed chess 
Clever way to move a concrete slab
Art using staples
Party trick I'd like to learn
Street performer
Convertible bicycle
Making a culinary sugar dome.  Also a mirror glaze on a cake.
Art restoration (note this person has a channel of videos)
To repair a hole in jeans

Cheerful or funny
Dad gives his daughter a surprise gift
Man can't find his phone 
Filmed in a "typical British pub"
Infant's first glasses
Dog helps his human
Girl asserts dominance over her sibling(s)
A couple propose to each other at the same time
Making children happy 
Father gets a pretend vaccination
Dog returned to his owner
Girl with knife at carnival ride 
Shower trick
Dogs happy to return home
There are two types of dogs...

Today's embedded images come from a Flickr gallery entitled Roadside America. "Take a journey along U.S. main streets, byways, and highways through photographs taken by John Margolies between 1969 and 2008. We’ll be continuously adding images from the Margolies archive of more than 11,000 color slides."

This teacher thought menstrual periods last one day

Discussion thread at the badwomensanatomy subreddit.

Last Monarchs of the summer

This week our last Monarchs are eclosing and departing (we raised and released probably about 150 of them this summer).  With the cooler weather, some needed an energy boost before taking off.  And we released them from the south side of the house to make their trip to Mexico a little shorter.

Political discourse these days

Owning the liberals by sucking on a plastic straw embedded in a meat patty decorated with an incandescent bulb.

To be fair and balanced, we will admit that liberals pull similar stunts.

Via.

Early rock music

YouTube link.

"Archaeologist Dr. Jean-Loup Ringot specialized in prehistoric music demonstrates a Lithophone."

Other relevant videos here and here (stalactites).

Victorian radiator incorporating a plate warmer

Via.

Uncommonly persistent spam from deltrino.duckdns.org

 
My personal email (not the one associated with this blog) has been swamped in recent weeks by a torrent of spammy emails.  Nothing dangerous or ominous as far as I can see.

All of them come from a single source: deltrino.duckdns.org, and for reasons I don't understand my Earthlink system does not allow emails from this source to be flagged as spam.

Obviously my email address got into this company's database.  IIRC, the same thing happened to me many years ago and I was able to escape, but I don't remember how.

Have any readers experienced the same problem?  Can anyone offer a suggested remedy?

*sigh*

Offered without comment.

The Republican party will cancel primaries in several states

Republican parties in South Carolina, Nevada, Arizona and Kansas are expected to finalize the cancellations in meetings this weekend, according to three GOP officials who are familiar with the plans.

The moves are the latest illustration of Trump’s takeover of the entire Republican Party apparatus. They underscore the extent to which his allies are determined to snuff out any potential nuisance en route to his renomination — or even to deny Republican critics a platform to embarrass him...

The cancellations stem in part from months of behind-the-scenes maneuvering by the Trump campaign. Aides have worked to ensure total control of the party machinery, installing staunch loyalists at state parties while eliminating potential detractors. The aim, Trump officials have long said, is to smooth the path to the president’s renomination and ensure he doesn’t face the kind of internal opposition that hampered former President George H.W. Bush in his failed 1992 reelection campaign.

Trump aides said they supported the cancellations but stressed that each case was initiated by state party officials.

The shutdowns aren’t without precedent. Some of the states forgoing Republican nomination contests have done so during the reelection bids of previous presidents. Arizona, GOP officials there recalled, did not hold a Democratic presidential primary in 2012, when Barack Obama was seeking a second term, or in 1996, when Bill Clinton was running for reelection. Kansas did not have a Democratic primary in 1996, and Republican officials in the state pointed out that they have long chosen to forgo primaries during a sitting incumbent’s reelection year. 

More at Politico.

The treasures of Padmanabhaswamy Temple

Padmanabhaswamy Temple is located in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, India. The temple is built in an intricate fusion of the indigenous Kerala style and the Tamil style (kovil) of architecture associated with the temples located in the neighbouring state of Tamil Nadu, featuring high walls, and a 16th-century Gopuram... The principal deity Vishnu is enshrined in the "Anantha Shayanam" posture, the eternal yogic sleep on the serpent Adisheshan.

The Temple has been referred to in the (only recorded) Sangam Period of literature between 500 BCE and 300 CE several times. Many conventional historians and scholars are of the opinion that one of the names that the Temple had - "The Golden Temple" - literally was in cognizance of the fact that the Temple was already unimaginably wealthy by that point. Many extant pieces of Sangam Tamil literature and poetry, and even the later works of Ninth Century Tamil poet-saints like Nammalwar, refer to the Temple and even the city as having walls of pure gold. At some places, both the Temple and the entire city are often eulogized even as being made of gold, and the Temple as Heaven

While vault B remains unopened, vaults A, C, D, E and F were opened along with some of their antechambers. Among the reported findings, are a three-and-a-half feet tall solid pure golden idol of Mahavishnu, studded with hundreds of diamonds and rubies and other precious stones. Also found were an 18-foot-long pure gold chain, a gold sheaf weighing 500 kg (1,100 lb), a 36 kg (79 lb) golden veil, 1200 'Sarappalli' gold coin-chains that are encrusted with precious stones, and several sacks filled with golden artifacts, necklaces, diadems, diamonds, rubies, sapphires, emeralds, gemstones, and objects made of other precious metals. Ceremonial attire for adorning the deity in the form of 16-part gold anki weighing almost 30 kilograms (66 lb), gold coconut shells studded with rubies and emeralds, and several 18th century Napoleonic era coins were found amongst many other objects. In early 2012, an expert committee had been appointed to investigate these objects, which include lakhs of golden coins of the Roman Empire, that were found in Kottayam, in Kannur District. According to Vinod Rai, the former Comptroller-and-Auditor-General(CAG) of India, who had audited some of the Temple records from 1990, in August 2014, in the already opened vault A, there is an 800 kg (1,800 lb) hoard of gold coins dating to around 200 BCE, each coin priced at over 2.7 crore (US$390,000). Also found was a pure Golden Throne, studded with hundreds of diamonds and other fully precious stones, meant for the 18-foot-long Deity. As per one of the men, who was among those that went inside this Vault A, several of the largest diamonds were as large as a full-grown man's thumb. According to varying reports, at least three, if not more, of solid gold crowns have been found, studded with diamonds and other precious stones. Some other media reports also mention hundreds of pure gold chairs, thousands of gold pots and jars, among the articles recovered from Vault A and its antechambers.

This revelation has solidified the status of the Padmanabhaswamy Temple as the wealthiest place of worship in the world. It is conservatively estimated that the value of the monumental items is close to 1.2 lakh crore or 1.2 trillion (US$17 billion). If the antique and cultural value were taken into account these assets could be worth ten times the current market price. 

More at the link. Photo cropped for size and adjusted for exposure and contrast from the original.