September 20, 2016
White Supremacy, Climate Science Denial, Trump, Alt-Right
Peter Sinclair suddenly realized it is all one big interconnected complex hole! (Well, whole, but more like a hole because of what we are throwing into it).
Look at this classic video he made a while back:
Then, check out his post, here…
September 20, 2016
Crows are smart. Anyone who watches them for a while can figure this out.
But that is true of a lot of things. Your baby is smart (not really). Your dog is smart (not really). Ants are smart (sort of).
It takes a certain degree of objective research, as well as some serious philosophy of…
September 20, 2016
Wouldn't that be great?
Many high end newspapers charge something like $10 a month to subscribe, just to the digital edition. But most people who use digital editions of newspapers scan several, pick and chose what to read, and end up reading them all for free because they don't reach the limit of…
September 19, 2016
I just watched, at a the Twin Cities Science Film Festival, a film called Nzara '76, which is about the first known Ebola outbreak, the one that gave it its name, in southern Sudan. That's about 150 miles, as the Mvo-Mvo flies, north of my long term project area in the Ituri Forest, an impassable…
September 19, 2016
"?There are two types of nation" a recent Nature editorial begins; "...those that use the metric system and those that have put a man on the Moon."
Such a pro-American jingoistic statement must be deep British irony. Anyway, the editorial continues ...
The reliance of the United States on feet…
September 19, 2016
Grunt: The Curious Science of Humans at War by Mary Roach explores, from a scientific perspective, the gear, technologies, and methods used to keep soldiers alive, or at least less injured, overheated, starved or thirsted to death, killed by gasses, and so on.
Roach is a well known and quite funny…
September 18, 2016
There was a dead rabbit in the middle of the road today. I suspected such a thing, nearby, just out of sight, and edible, because I noticed some crows taking off whenever a car went by. Then, when I went over, I could see the rabbit that they were feasting on between drive-bys.
I had been…
September 18, 2016
Update:
From WCCO:
An Islamic State-run news agency claims the man who stabbed and wounded eight people at a mall in Minnesota before being shot dead by an off-duty police officer was a “soldier of the Islamic State.”
Original Post:
We know nearly nothing about the Saint Cloud attack, but I'm going…
September 18, 2016
Back to school special:
I'd like to note that not every teacher who "moves to a school in the suburbs" does so for bad reasons. Some of them do so after being handed a $10,000 per annum pay cut and a contract with zero chance of a raise for the indefinite future or something else along those…
September 17, 2016
Did you ever notice that Pluto doesn't have much of a tail? No, not that Pluto! This Pluto:
This has been known for a while. NASA noted this last year:
New Horizons has discovered a region of cold, dense ionized gas tens of thousands of miles beyond Pluto -- the planet’s atmosphere being…
September 16, 2016
In the old days, the words "art" and "science" did not mean the same thing they mean today, at least in academia. Today, unfortunately, they have almost come to mean opposites. You can't be doing both at once. Or, at least, that's what people who haven't thought about it much may think.
Art can…
September 16, 2016
Watch this video on The Scene.
Here's the text.
Keith Olbermann is back.
September 16, 2016
"After years of peddling a false conspiracy theory that President Obama wasn't born in the United States, Donald Trump — just 53 days before Election Day — now says he believes the president was born in the U.S.
"President Obama was born in the United States. Period," Trump said at a campaign event…
September 16, 2016
As of October 11th: Samsung is now recalling ALL Galaxy Note 7 Phones. The previous recall and replacement program failed, the phone is basically dangerous, don't use it, get rid of it, make them give you a new one.
In my view. Samsung should be providing cash back for the phones so people can…
September 14, 2016
Ignorant hateful white men who worship a rising fascist dictator look like this.
September 14, 2016
Following up on one of the issues addressed in "How The Press Created FrankenTrump and Ruined Civilization", we have this:
September 14, 2016
It is not easy being Kellyanne Conway. This is fun:
September 14, 2016
Update (Mid day Wed):
The disturbance in the eastern Atlantic is now a depression, and it is reasonably likely that it will be a named storm by mid day tomorrow, Thursday.
The predictions for the next several days do not have this storm turning into a hurricane any time soon; it should remain a…
September 13, 2016
This is a great cartoon by Randall Munroe that makes a very important point very effectively. Spread it around, love it, learn from it.
Here is an excellent video walkthrough of the cartoon, discussing its value as a communication tool.
But do ignore the details of the prehistory because the…
September 13, 2016
ScienceDebate.org is an organization that, for years now, has been pushing to get the candidates running for President of the United States to engage in a debate over science policy, just as they debate foreign policy, or economic policy, etc.
And, ScienceDebate.org has had some success. Some of…
September 13, 2016
Ever been to a CON? Like, ComiCON, or CONvergence? One of the best parts of a CON is the science, often involving panels with interesting science experts, or perhaps even a film or two.
Well, Twin Cities denizen Ryan Johnson founded and organized a new thing, which is set up as a film festival,…
September 13, 2016
A while back it became apparent, or should I say, more apparent, that Exxon corporation had been playing a dangerous and unethical game with the science of climate change, and for decades, misled people on the relationship between their fossil fuel related activities, the effects of those…
September 12, 2016
I have to say, first, that when I hear the term "Basket of Deplorables" I think right away of Edward Gorey, for some reason. Do you?
Anyway, I've seen and hear a lot of whining and bellyaching about this term, and Secretary Clinton's statement.
But most people have only heard the statement,…
September 12, 2016
Wed AM Update:
Meranti passed near the southern tip of Taiwan, and apparently it was pretty windy and nasty there. But, Taiwan has invested heavily in infrastructure with the idea of being hit with giant typhoons now and then, so things were not as bad as they could have been.
apparently Meranti is…
September 12, 2016
I've been testing out the Teclast Tbook 16 Pro 2 in 1 Tablet PC. I think the emerging term for this kind of device is "2 in 1" because if configured one way it is a small notebook computer, configured the other way, it is a standard tablet.
First, a bit of philosophy. When Apple and others…
September 11, 2016
Ever year about 23,000 people die of infections from antibiotic resistant bacterial.
Here is a film of bacteria evolving from regular old bacteria into killer superbugs. On a coffee table size Petri dish.
You can get the story at NPR, where you will learn that
"Getting more people to understand…
September 11, 2016
This looks like a fun project. I think it works so well, or at least, seams to in the video because LEDs are so damn efficient.
I would make it somewhat differently, but this is good. For one thing, I'd probably make it out of an LED flashlight, swapping out the batteries for a motor.
And then…
September 11, 2016
This is a piece I wrote in 2011, on the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. (Originally posted here.)
I believe that the sauntering I refer to has diminished. But instead of sauntering, our local and county police departments seem to have taken up a different hobby: Shooting unarmed people of…
September 10, 2016
In linguistic communication, a pattern generally emerges whereby the speaker or the listener (but not both) work extra hard to make the communication happens. This work (or lack thereof) consists of enunciation, use of contractions, various other things. You know about this because you make such…
September 10, 2016
Update: Mid Day Monday:
Ian is no longer a glimmer in the eyes of NWS forecasters. Ian is now a tropical storm. However, Ian is about to head north over unfavorable waters, will likely never develop hurricane strength, and is not expected to hit anything big. (See map above.)
Nothing else is…
