I am overwhelmed with "things to do," and the blog has to go near the bottom of the list. So probably no new posts for several weeks or more. Bye for now.
30 July 2022
27 July 2022
Divertimento #192
GIFs again. I have literally thousands of regular text/article links, but these gifs are easier to post. Note you may have to unmute some of the videos.
Oppenheimer's famous quote "... now I have become death, destroyer of worlds..."
A device to facilitate transferring a patient to a toilet (commode lift)
How to remove scratches from wood
How screw anchors work
Applying a new floor in a warehouse
The letters on a Rolls-Royce hubcap always remain upright
House on Cape Hatteras succumbs to coastal erosion
Some cars make fake engine sounds
Waterslide attendant at work
A family having dinner
Extracting copper from cables
Animals
Frog escapes from snake
Magpie uses rocks to displace water
Dog vs. snake (dog wins in style)
This is a solifuge
Orangutans are powerful animals
Mountain goat approaching terminal velocity during descent
Hedgehogs taking a dust bath
Nature and Science
Sky event when rocket leaves atmosphere
Global shockwave of the Tonga volcano explosion
Grapes preserved fresh x6 months inside clay
Similarly, pomegranates stored in mud
Walking on a natural bridge
Pollen released from a tree
A blowhole on the coast of India
Impressive or Clever
Color-matching skill
Kaleidoscope on a planter in a botanical garden
Woman shows how to alert chickens re a nearby hawk
Woman calls chickens
Drone footage of a tornado
How the "vanishing liquid" trick works
Extracting lithium from a battery and placing it in water
Adding pinstriping to a car
Quiet but effective student protest
If you like powerwashing videos, you will love this
Sports and Athleticism
Absolutely awesome volleyball rally
How to carry firewood back to your campsite
Fails and wtf
Skimmer found on a public ATM in Vienna
EU weapons exported to Russia despite an embargo
Magpies trapped in a fence
Humorous or cheerful
Supercut of scenes from Lord of the Rings involving two females interacting
Coyote and cat playing
Credit for all of the photos to Marcie O'Connor, who posted these as part of a larger gallery of natural events happening at Prairie Haven. Identities and details about the plants and critters in the images are available at the source link. And after you are done browsing the gallery there, take a few moments to explore the rest of the website...
"This blog tells the story of the old farm we bought in 2000, and the adventures we’ve had living here.Our land is in the Driftless Area – the part of the midwest that was never covered by glaciers. Because of its rugged terrain, the land still has many remnants of the pre-settlement landscape – dry bluff prairies, overgrown savannas, sedge meadows and wet prairies. We’re working to protect and expand those remnants, and to preserve their habitats for the native plants and animals that depend on them."
Gluckschmerz
Had to look up the term for this. Related to schadenfreude, but not the same:
Displeasure at another's good fortune is Gluckschmerz, a pseudo-German word coined in 1985 as a joke by the pseudonymous Wanda Tinasky; the correct German form would be Glücksschmerz. It has since been used in academic contexts.
Geode
The Pulpí Geode is eight metres wide, two metres high and two metres deep. "When it comes to a geode, by definition, this is the biggest ever discovery," she noted, adding that Pulpí is not to be confused with another crystal marvel, the Naica Mine in Mexico, which has larger spars (15m long compared to Pulpí's two metres), but which is a cave lined with crystals rather than a geode.The geode here in Spain was originally spotted by miners in the Mina Rica, a silver mine which operated from 1873 to 1969. But it wasn't until years later, in 1999, that geologists found it again and brought it to the world's attention."When [the original miners] blasted this rock and found a geode, they probably got upset because they didn't like finding these crystals," said Carretero. "It meant extra work to get rid of them. They weigh a lot and were not profitable."
The story continues at the BBC.
Why Russia has not yet conquered Ukraine
Nearly five months into its senseless war against Ukraine, Russia has concocted a wild new explanation for why the Kremlin’s plans for a quick takeover fell apart so spectacularly—because Ukrainian troops were turned into superhuman killing machines during “secret experiments” in American-run biolabs, of course.Never mind the myriad reports of Russian troops refusing to fight by the thousands, sabotaging their own shoddy equipment and even deliberately wounding themselves to abandon the war, Russian lawmakers claim the real setback for Moscow was “drugged up” Ukrainian soldiers.That claim was made Monday by two Russian lawmakers heading up a commission to investigate “biolaboratories” in Ukraine, Kommersant reported...“And we see: the cruelty and barbarity with which the military personnel of Ukraine behave, the crimes that they commit against the civilian population, those monstrous crimes that they commit against prisoners of war, confirm that this system for the control and creation of a cruel murder machine was implemented under the management of the United States,” Yarovaya was quoted telling reporters.../The claims appeared to be a new take on the biolabs conspiracy theory that Russia’s Defense Ministry has routinely rolled out to try and justify the war.While the conspiracy theory dates all the way back to the Soviet Union, it has been amplified more frequently by Kremlin figures after the Feb. 24 invasion, as Moscow’s initial claim that it invaded Ukraine in order to “de-Nazify” a country led by a Jewish president failed to gain much traction beyond its own domestic propaganda.
One almost has to admire the brazenness and audacity of these outright lies. It sort of reminds me of....
Magnet fishing
As reported by the StarTribune:
Long before next week's fishing opener, a few Minnesota anglers were avidly casting lines into the water and hauling in hefty catches. But they weren't hooking walleye, bass or northern pike. They were hoping to reel in an antique metal sign, a safe full of money, maybe even a gun.It's part of a new, and admittedly niche, sport of magnet fishing, where you "fish" with a super-powerful magnet tied to a strong line. Most of the time, magnet fishers pull in mundane scrap metal: old nails and bolts, a length of rebar, fish hooks, beer bottle caps...Even if it's just scrap metal, local magnet fishers don't catch and release, but rather dispose or recycle their finds and consider themselves to be helping the environment by hauling hundreds of pounds of metal out of local rivers and lakes...The hobby is also growing in parts of Europe, where there's a lot of metal in canals and other bodies of water thanks to centuries of warfare."England is very, very big for magnet fishing," Shoemaker said.
More information at the link. I've wanted to do something like this ever since I was a kid in a boat spotting lost lures at the bottom of a lake.
Reposted from last year to add this display of magnet fishing catches:
In the discussion thread, the OP reports that he submits all the retrieved firearms for local police to evaluate, and that he has helped solve four cold cases. Lives in Georgia.
26 July 2022
Seeking assistance with the translation
In the photo above is a member of my extended family visiting the Museo Nacional de Antropología de México last week.
She is apparently trying to convey some message or emotion (?awe) with her hand gestures, but I have no clue. Can some younger reader help out an old Boomer?
25 July 2022
Isabella and the pot of basil
Every month I have the joy of participating in a Zoom session with a group of Boston-area gardeners. This past Sunday one person in the group mentioned that she had just returned from a visit to Greece where the basil had an unusually strong and pleasant flavor. We have pots-full of basil on our deck, but it's all of one type, so I started looking up different strains of basil. At the Wikipedia entry I encountered the image above of Isabella and the Pot of Basil - an 1868 painting by William Holman Hunt depicting a scene from John Keats' poem of the same name.
The painting portrays Isabella, unable to sleep, dressed in a semi-transparent nightgown, having just left her bed, which is visible with the cover turned over in the background. She drapes herself over an altar she has created to Lorenzo from an elaborately inlaid prie-dieu over which a richly embroidered cloth has been placed. On the cloth is the majolica pot, decorated with skulls... [with the basil]. Her abundant hair flows over the pot and around the flourishing plant, reflecting Keats's words that Isabella "hung over her sweet Basil evermore,/And moistened it with tears unto the core." Behind her, next to the doorway, are a pair of pattens, next to the edge of a cassone.
As an old English major, I was intrigued by the reference to a Keats poem with which I was unfamiliar, so I looked for more examples. Here is a rendition by George Grenville Henry Manton (1855-1932), from the Wycombe museum:
And one by John William Waterhouse (1908):
And a fourth one, by Edward Reginald Frampton, in which the basil pot is actually placed on a religious altar:
The final step was to locate the Keats poem, which I found in an old Modern Library edition down in a basement bookcase.
Keats' Isabella: or the Pot of Basil (1818) is a 43-stanza narrative poem based on a story from Boccaccio's Decameron, about a young woman who falls in love with Lorenzo, who is of lower social class. Isabella's brothers "resolved in some forest dim/To kill Lorenzo, and there bury him."
The spirit of Lorenzo appears at Isabella's bedside:
It was a vision. - In the drowsy gloom,The dull of midnight, at her couch's footLorenzo stood, and wept: the forest tombHad marr'd his glossy hair which once could shoot/ Lustre into the sun....
The spirit tells Isabella what really happened, and in the morning Isabella wakes up energized and ready to do battle:
"But there is crime - a brother's bloody knife!Sweet Spirit, thou hast school'd my infancy:I'll visit thee for this, and kiss thine eyes,And greet thee morn and evening in the skies"
The next morning with the assistance of a nurse, she sneaks out to the forest...
Then with her knife, all sudden, she beganTo dig more fervently than misers can...At last they felt the kernel of the grave,And Isabella did not stamp and rave...With duller steel than the Persian swordThey cut away no formless monster's head,But one, whose gentleness did well accordWith death, as life...In anxious secrecy they took it home,,And then the prize was all for Isabel.She calm'd its wild hair with a golden comb...She wrapp'd it up; and for its tomb did chooseA garden-pot, wherein she laid it by,And covered it with moss, and o'er it setSweet Basil, which her tears kept ever wet.
The basil thrives...
And, furthermore, her brethren wonder'd muchWhy she sat drooping by the Basil green,And why it flourish'd, as by magic touch;Greatly they wonder'd what the thing might mean.
So the brothers steal the pot, break it, see Lorenzo's face, and flee the country to avoid murder charges. Unfortunately the pot and Lorenzo's head do not make their way back to Isabel, who then spends the rest of her life grieving.
Piteous she look'd on dead and senseless things,Asking for her lost Basil amorously...And so she pined, and so she died forlorn,Imploring for her Basil to the last...Still is the burthen sung - "O cruelty,To steal my Basil-pot away from me!"
That's the story in a nutshell, and it explains why an image of a young woman hugging a pot with a plant in it was such a popular subject for Pre-Raphaelite painters. To quote the immortal lines of Paul Harvey: "And now you know... the rest of the story."
Addendum: Here's the salient passage from Boccaccio's Decameron, courtesy of reader Bob the Scientist:
Not long after, the Nurse having brought her a large earthen potte, such as wee use to set Basile, Marjerom, Flowers, or other sweet hearbes in, and shrouding the head in a silken Scarfe, put it into the pot, covering it with earth, and planting divers rootes of excellent Basile therein, which she never watered, but either with her teares, Rose water, or water distilled from the Flowers of Oranges. This pot she used continually to sitte by, either in her chamber, or any where elsee: for she caried it alwaies with her, sighing and breathing foorth sad complaints thereto, even as if they had beene uttered to her Lorenzo, and day by day this was her continuall exercise, to the no meane admiration of her bretheren, and many other friends that beheld her.
Fulltext of the tale at Science Matters.
Worm grunting - updated
This technique was written up in The Atlantic about ten years ago. It's an extensive and interesting narrative that covers not just the science but the sociology of the process.
The science behind worm grunting is described at this Vanderbilt University website -
In his preliminary research, Catania found some other interesting clues. One was the observation by the famous Dutch ethologist Nikolaas Tinbergen that one species of gull performs a “foot paddling behavior” that appears to bring up earthworms to the surface, a response he attributed to an innate reaction that enables the worms “to escape their arch enemy the mole.” More recently the American naturalist John Kaufmann who studied wood turtles reported that they engage in a stomping behavior that brings earthworms to the surface so they can eat them...Reposted from 2009 to add this video of competitive worm charming in England:
The next step was to determine how the native earthworms respond to the presence of moles. He built a small test box (20x25x19 cm) and filled it with 50 earthworms. The box had a tube in the side that allowed him to introduce a mole to the mix. As soon as a mole began tunneling into the test box, dozens of earthworms popped to the surface, wriggling at top speed with many even crawling over the top of the box.
“Eastern moles don’t come to the surface when they are foraging, so fleeing to the surface provides the worms both immediate safety and the most efficient means for getting away from them,” Catania says...
Finally, Catania compared the vibrations produced by worm grunting and those of a mole burrowing. “The moles are quite noisy. Often you can hear the sounds of a mole digging in the wild from a few feet away,” he said. Analyzing the geophone recordings of the two types of sound, he found that the worm grunting vibrations were more uniform and concentrated near 80 Hz whereas the moles produce a wider range of vibrations that peak at around 200 Hz. Nevertheless, there is a considerable overlap between the two.
The video prompted me to look up The Eighteen Rules of Worm Charming:
- Each competitor to operate in a 3 x 3 metre plot.
- Lots to be drawn to allocate plots.
- Duration of competition to be 30 minutes, starting at about 2pm.
- Worms may not be dug from the ground. Vibrations only to be used.
- No drugs to be used! Water is considered to be a drug/stimulant.
- Any form of music may be used to charm the worms out of the earth.
23 July 2022
"This is the coldest summer of the rest of our lives"
That thought-provoking title is not literally true for each individual person, but is true in aggregate for the whole of humanity. Something to think about. Credit to Harper's Magazine.
Above: Brittany on fire, July 2022. Credit Rachel Le Guillou / SDIS 29 / Reuters.
Below: Yosemite area fire, July 2022. Credit AP Photo/Noah Berger.
20 July 2022
Isidore of Seville is the patron saint of...
Isidore of Seville (Latin: Isidorus Hispalensis; c. 560 – 4 April 636) was a Spanish scholar and cleric. He is widely regarded, in the words of 19th-century historian Montalembert, as "the last scholar of the ancient world".Isidore was the first Christian writer to try to compile a summa of universal knowledge, in his most important work, the Etymologiae... This encyclopedia—the first such Christian epitome—formed a huge compilation of 448 chapters in 20 volumes. He also invented the period (full stop), comma, and colon.In it, Isidore entered his own terse digest of Roman handbooks, miscellanies and compendia, he continued the trend towards abridgements and summaries that had characterised Roman learning in Late Antiquity. In the process, many fragments of classical learning are preserved that otherwise would have been hopelessly lost; "in fact, in the majority of his works, including the Origines, he contributes little more than the mortar which connects excerpts from other authors, as if he was aware of his deficiencies and had more confidence in the stilus maiorum than his own," his translator Katherine Nell MacFarlane remarks.Some of these fragments were lost in the first place because Isidore's work was so highly regarded—Braulio called it quaecunque fere sciri debentur, "practically everything that it is necessary to know"—that it superseded the use of many individual works of the classics themselves, which were not recopied and have therefore been lost: "all secular knowledge that was of use to the Christian scholar had been winnowed out and contained in one handy volume; the scholar need search no further".The fame of this work imparted a new impetus to encyclopedic writing, which bore abundant fruit in the subsequent centuries of the Middle Ages. It was the most popular compendium in medieval libraries. It was printed in at least ten editions between 1470 and 1530, showing Isidore's continued popularity in the Renaissance. Until the 12th century brought translations from Arabic sources, Isidore transmitted what western Europeans remembered of the works of Aristotle and other Greeks, although he understood only a limited amount of Greek. The Etymologiae was much copied, particularly into medieval bestiaries..
With that information in hand, we can now to finish the title. Because he tried to compile all the world's knowledge, he is the patron saint of the internet, computer users, computer technicians, programmers, students.
Modern reality TV
Screencap from a video carried in prime time on most of the major news networks.
Snarky caption credit to a Harper's Magazine email.
"My god, it's full of stars"
"The phrase is not from the movie itself, but from the novelization that screenwriter Arthur C. Clarke wrote at the same time as the screenplay. The book describes the scene in which Bowman is entering the star gate, and he says the following phrase just before losing contact with Mission Control: "The thing's hollow -- it goes on forever -- and -- oh my God! -- it's full of stars!""
With that phrase in mind, think back for a moment to Hubble's "Ultra-Deep-Field" photo and then view this video zoom of the Andromeda galaxy (a digital zoom of a billion-pixel image) (view full-screen please). That's the galaxy that's nearest to earth.
Now let the James Webb Space Telescope show you what's in the Southern Ring Nebula:
"This video zooms through space to reveal Webb’s Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) image of the Southern Ring Nebula.The bright star at the centre of NGC 3132, while prominent when viewed by the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Telescope in near-infrared light, plays a supporting role in sculpting the surrounding nebula. A second star, barely visible at lower left along one of the bright star’s diffraction spikes, is the nebula’s source. It has ejected at least eight layers of gas and dust over thousands of years.Data from Webb’s Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) were used to make this extremely detailed image. It is teeming with scientific information — and research will begin following its release."
I don't think the human mind can properly comprehend this scale of vastness.
19 July 2022
This is the hero America needs
A Colorado Springs man has successfully pushed a peanut all the way to the summit of Pikes Peak with his nose.Bob Salem, 53, reached the top of Pikes Peak Friday morning. He broke the previous verified record for the feat - completing the arduous task in seven days. The record was eight days.
Details about this impressive feat at KRCC (an affiliate of Colorado Public Radio).
Addendum with an answer to the question you were going to ask: "It’s a long, hard, 13.5-mile climb uphill with a gain of about 7,400+ feet in elevation. Basically, it’s a half-marathon in hiking form."
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