Hummingbird bathing

An award-winning entry in the 2021 Bird Photographer of the Year competition.

2000-year-old ladies shoe

... and a modern reproduction:

"This shoe is one of two quite similar finds (no.s 220 and 221) from one of the wells at the Saalburg Castle. The cut and decoration of the uppers is so similar, yet different, that it seems likely that they came from the same workshop if not from the same hand. 

I have always admired those shoes and finally got around to make a pair of one of them. The decoration is an elegant mix of circular holes, triangles, squares, darts and slits. It is very well possible that the decoration was further enhanced by stitching with coloured thread and bands woven through the slits as suggested by Marquita Volken."

Via for the top photo.  Some more info:

"On the Taunus ridge northwest of Bad Homburg, Hesse, Germany lies the Saalburg Roman fort. It dates to 90AD and served as a linear border fortification... Sometime during the 19th century it was rediscovered, excavated, then later fully reconstructed. It’s now a UNESCO World Heritage site... The Saalburg Museum contains many Roman relics, including shoes..."

Counterintuitive math puzzle

I think the most interesting puzzles are not the ones that are hardest, but the ones that are counterintuitive.  This is a good example:

Your friend choses at random a card from a standard deck of 52 cards, and keeps this card concealed. You have to guess which of the 52 cards it is.

Before you guess, you can ask your friend one of the following three questions:

- is the card red?

- is the card a face card? (Jack, Queen or King)

- is the card the ace of spades?

Your friend will answer truthfully. Which question would you ask that gives you the best chance of guessing the correct card?

Answer below the fold... 

Baked beans on toast

Why do Brits like dumping a can of beans on their toast? First it's important to note that unlike, say, Boston’s baked beans, British beans on toast are supposed to come from a can—preferably a blue Heinz can of “baked beans in tomato sauce” (which remain quite different from America’s sweeter, porkier canned baked beans), although other brands are out there. Never mind that these navy beans are actually stewed: The point is that it’s inexpensive, filling, nostalgic, and oh-so-British, literally just canned beans heated up and served over (hopefully) buttered toast.

So what are the origins of beans on toast? Heinz claims that an executive invented the dish as a marketing ploy in 1927, but it’s likely the dish is still around today because it was so common as a cheap protein during World War II, for breakfast, dinner, or both. Today it’s more popular as breakkie for broke university students, budget-strapped travelers, and, well, people feeling nostalgic for those days. Some people add mustard or HP sauce; some melt cheese on top; many won’t eat a traditional English fry-up without it on the side.

As for the taste: It’s just exactly what it sounds like—there’s no secret hidden ingredient, though butter definitely makes it better. So if you like British canned beans, you’ll be in good shape.

Cartoon from The New Yorker.  Text continues at Eat Your World.

Carl Sagan (1995)

"The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark is a 1995 book by the astrophysicist Carl Sagan and co-authored by Ann Druyan,[1] in which the author aims to explain the scientific method to laypeople and to encourage people to learn critical and skeptical thinking. He explains methods to help distinguish between ideas that are considered valid science and those that can be considered pseudoscience. Sagan states that when new ideas are offered for consideration, they should be tested by means of skeptical thinking and should stand up to rigorous questioning."

Via the Political Revolution subreddit.

Fire rainbow

The science behind this extraordinary phenomenon is explained at NASA's Astronomy Photo of the Day.

Spotted skunk doing a handstand

"Spotted skunks perform a spread-eagled handstand before they spray you."

You can't even trust a connecting cable

As reported by Vice:

But this cable was hiding a secret. A short while later, a hacker remotely opened a terminal on my Mac's screen, letting them run commands on my computer as they saw fit. This is because this wasn't a regular cable. Instead, it had been modified to include an implant; extra components placed inside the cable letting the hacker remotely connect to the computer.

"It looks like a legitimate cable and works just like one. Not even your computer will notice a difference. Until I, as an attacker, wirelessly take control of the cable," the security researcher known as MG who made these cables told Motherboard after he showed me how it works at the annual Def Con hacking conference.

One idea is to take this malicious tool, dubbed O.MG Cable, and swap it for a target's legitimate one. MG suggested you may even give the malicious version as a gift to the target—the cables even come with some of the correct little pieces of packaging holding them together.

MG typed in the IP address of the fake cable on his own phone's browser, and was presented with a list of options, such as opening a terminal on my Mac. From here, a hacker can run all sorts of tools on the victim's computer.

More at the link.

Reposted from 2019 to add photo and updated info from Gizmodo.

The secret powers of the presidency

Excerpts from "The Enemies Briefcase," an essay by Andrew Cockburn in the November 2020 issue of The Atlantic:

“Presidential emergency action documents,” or PEADs, [are] orders that authorize a broad range of mortal assaults on our civil liberties. In the words of a rare declassified official description, the documents outline how to “implement extraordinary presidential authority in response to extraordinary situations”—by imposing martial law, suspending habeas corpus, seizing control of the internet, imposing censorship, and incarcerating so-called subversives, among other repressive measures. “We know about the nuclear briefcase that carries the launch codes,” Joel McCleary, a White House official in the Carter Administration, told me. “But over at the Office of Legal Counsel at the Justice Department there’s a list of all the so-called enemies of the state who would be rounded up in an emergency. I’ve heard it called the ‘enemies briefcase.’ ”

These chilling directives have been silently proliferating since the dawn of the Cold War as an integral part of the hugely elaborate and expensive Continuity of Government (COG) program, a mechanism to 

preserve state authority (complete with well-provisioned underground bunkers for leaders) in the event of a nuclear holocaust. Compiled without any authorization from Congress, the emergency provisions long escaped public discussion—that is, until Donald Trump started to brag about them. “I have the right to do a lot of things that people don’t even know about,” he boasted in March, ominously echoing his interpretation of Article II of the Constitution, which, he has claimed, gives him “the right to do whatever I want as president.” He has also declared his “absolute right” to build a border wall, whatever Congress thinks, and even floated the possibility of delaying the election “until people can properly, securely, and safely vote.”

“This really is one of the best-kept secrets in Washington,” Elizabeth Goitein, the co-director of the Liberty and National Security Program at NYU’s Brennan Center for Justice, told me...

Part of what makes the existence of PEADs so alarming is the fact that the president already has a different arsenal of emergency powers at his disposal. Unlike PEADs, which are not themselves laws, these powers have been obligingly granted (and often subsequently forgotten) by Congress. They come into force once a president declares a state of emergency related to whatever crisis is at hand, though the link is often tenuous indeed. For example, to fight the war in Vietnam, Lyndon Johnson used emergency powers originally granted to Harry Truman for the Korean War. As Goitein has written, the moment a president declares a “national emergency”—which he can do whenever he likes—more than one hundred special provisions become available, including freezing Americans’ bank accounts or deploying troops domestically. One provision even permits a president to suspend the ban on testing chemical and biological weapons on human subjects...

As he learned how the FBI had also attempted to destroy the civil-rights movement, Schwarz came to believe that, compared with the CIA, “the FBI was the greater danger to American democracy,” especially when deployed in the political service of a chief executive. Johnson, for example, had directed a “special squad” in the FBI to spy and report on opposition groups during the 1964 Democratic National Convention. “It’s a tendency among presidents to say, ‘Gosh, we have these resources, let’s use them,’ ” said Schwarz. “If you have power, you can get more.”..

The committee concluded that a president could “seize property and commodities, seize control of transport and communications, organize and control the means of production, assign military forces abroad, and restrict travel”—a state of affairs that the committee reasonably described as “dangerous.”..

Ronald Reagan presided over a wide-ranging covert operation in Nicaragua... George H. W. Bush attacked Panama without congressional approval ... only a few years later, while Clinton would do the same in Serbia. George W. Bush used congressional authorization for military force against Al Qaeda after 9/11 to occupy Iraq, illegally wiretapping Americans all the while. Barack Obama broke new extra-constitutional ground in ordering the execution by drone of a U.S. citizen. None suffered more than brief censure, and all are now remembered with respect, even reverence...

Much more at the link.

Security camera footage of Hurricane Ida

Granted that's a jump cut, it's still a startling reminder of the power of a hurricane.

Reminds me of the video of Antarctica Condition 1 weather.

If your doctor has this "award" on his/her wall...

... just understand that they paid for it, and it is otherwise meaningless.  I received this offer in the mail even though I no longer have an active license and have not had a CME course in 20 years.  I was allowed to fill in my name...

... but will not "recieve" the award because I wasn't born yesterday.

A reminder that whales have rudimentary hands

The digits are hidden underneath the flesh of the fins.  Image via.

A "fallstreak hole" with circumhorizon arc

Explained by beeppboppp at the Reddit thread:

"Such holes are formed when the water temperature in the clouds is below freezing, but the water, in a supercooled state, has not frozen yet due to the lack of ice nucleation. When ice crystals do form, a domino effect is set off due to the Bergeron process, causing the water droplets around the crystals to evaporate: this leaves a large, often circular, hole in the cloud. It is thought that the introduction of large numbers of tiny ice crystals into the cloud layer sets off this domino effect of fusion which creates the hole."

You learn something every day. 

A lesson in British English

Minnesota will beat Ohio State in football this year

Tonight the Big Ten football season features the Minnesota Gophers hosting Ohio State on national television, in what every analyst and pundit thinks will be an easy victory for Ohio State;  oddsmakers list Minnesota as two-touchdown underdogs.  History is on the side of Ohio State.  Since 1965, the Gophers have only 3 wins vs. 39 losses against Ohio State and have only beaten OSU once since 1981 (forty years ago).

Ohio State is a traditional powerhouse in football; this year analysts rate the Buckeyes offensive line No. 1 in the nation and their defensive line No. 2."  Conversely, Minnesota is dismissed out of hand, in part because of a dismal 3-4 record during last year's covid-ravaged season.  This past spring, ESPN ranked the Gophers 9th in the Big Ten (out of 14 teams).  More recently ESPN's Football Power Index predicts Minnesota to have only a 3-6 record in the Big Ten. Even the hometown StarTribune predicts the Gophers to finish only 3rd in the West Division of the Big Ten (behind Wisconsin and Iowa).

Ohio State is ranked 4th nationally in pre-season polls.  Minnesota is unranked in those polls.  The OSU coach has never lost to any Big Ten team (21-0) in the past two seasons, including conference championship games.  Every analyst will point out that Ohio State has more talented personnel on their teams.  

The reason I predict a Minnesota upset this year is because the game is the first one of the year - with no prior nonconference games.  Under these circumstances a decided edge goes to the team with the most experienced players.  In the 2018-19 season the Gophers were the youngest team in college football.  Fast-forward to 2021 and add the coronavirus pandemic, and things are different.  The offense will be returning 10 of 11 starters, as will the defense, because... 

"With athletic director Mark Coyle's blessing, the coaches invited every senior from last season to return using the NCAA-approved extra year of eligibility due to the pandemic. They also welcomed back linemen returning from injury and/or opt-out seasons. The result is the oldest offensive line in the history of college football."

The five starting offensive linemen include one senior and four redshirt seniors (fifth-year students).  Those five players have been in the starting lineup for a combined 140 games.  Their average age is 23 (about the same as the NFL Minnesota Vikings). They know how to work together to open holes for Mohamed Ibrahim - without question the best running back in the Big Ten (preseason All-America first team).  The best analysis of Minnesota's offensive line I've seen (with gifs) is at an Ohio State website (for football geeks only).  The Gopher offensive line is also huge in size (see the table) - again, not much different from the Vikings.

In addition to experience, the team has depth:

The NCAA's eligibility waiver makes it permissible for football teams to exceed the 85-scholarship limit. Athletic director Mark Coyle allowed Fleck to invite back his seniors, which puts the roster around 95 players in spring practice. Typically, that number is 60 to 65.

That depth gives the team the luxury of rotating players into positions, keeping them fresh throughout the game.

The Gophers' weakness is their defense, but they bolstered their lineup after last year with two graduates from other colleges (Clemson and North Carolina State), and the defense also has a seventh-year senior who played four years at Notre Dame before transferring to Minnesota [not an "Animal House" scenario - he graduated from Notre Dame and has a Masters degree from Minnesota].  The transfer from Clemson already has two bachelor's degrees but elected to use the pandemic extended-eligibility rule to play a sixth season of football (and get a third bachelor's degree).

Gophers are opening the season at home on nationally-broadcast television.  The stadium will be packed.  They even have new, special "blackout" uniforms.

Ohio State lost many players to the NFL, including notably quarterback Justin Fields.  Their starting quarterback has never played a college game; the two backups are also freshmen.  The OSU defense doesn't have any linebackers who have started even a single game (linebackers are a traditional strength at Ohio State).

Bottom line - if your state allows betting on college football games, this is a great opportunity to reinvest that money you've been saving up for your children's and grandchildren's education and bet on Minnesota to beat the spread (13.5 points).  Easy money.  You can thank me later.

Result: Ohio State won by two touchdowns (14 points) - exactly as predicted. *sigh*

A Minnesota-based analyst likened the game to a contest between a race car and a bulldozer.  The race car won.

Addendum:  During the game, Mohamed Ibrahim's Achilles tendon snapped (this gif shows the gastrocnemius retracting upward into the calf).  Season over for him.