gregladen | September 13, 2016Ever 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, to provide these fantastic CONnish features in a very attractive package. Admission is by the day, and thus less expensive than the average convention. Also, you can get a 15% discount if, when you go online to buy your tickets, you use the code "laden"
The Northstar Science Film Festival is a new…
gregladen | September 13, 2016A 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 activities, and possible solutions. (They've known about this problem all along.)
Part of this seems to have involved making misstatements about climate change, and pumping resources into anti science activities and organizations.
The American Geophysical Union is the unifying organization for geologists…
gregladen | September 12, 2016I 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, and not the discussion that led up to it. That, folks, is the real story. So spend two minutes and edumicate yourself:
Personally, I can't see how one would support Trump unless one was fully deplorable, or a basket case, or both. Secretary Clinton underestimated with that 50% thumbsuck guess.
gregladen | September 12, 2016Wed 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 now a category 5 equivalent heading for China. The storm is expected to weaken only a bit as it makes landfall (see this post on what landfall means) so this is going to be a direct hit by a major hurricane. There are some pretty densely populated areas in the storm's path. There are also many…
gregladen | September 12, 2016I'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 invented the iPod Touch and various Smart Phones, it seemed obvious that a larger version of such a device might be helpful. So they went ahead and invented tablets. And tablets are cool. But, as often happens in technology, extreme coolness came to stand in for "the next big thing" in all applications.…
gregladen | September 11, 2016Ever 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 how quickly bacteria evolve antibiotic resistance might help people understand why they shouldn't be prescribed antibiotics. The drug resistance is not some abstract threat. It's real."
gregladen | September 11, 2016This 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, when you have your flashlight ready, you can do this!
(Hat tip: David Cassatt)
gregladen | September 11, 2016This 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 color. I think the problems underscored in this essay are mostly worse now than they were five years ago, and the argument I make here for what happened since 9/11/2001 is stronger, more clearly demonstrated by event. Also, the link between 9/11 and the Donald Trump candidacy is as clear as a brand…
gregladen | September 10, 2016In 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 adjustments all the time. When speaking to a child, or when speaking about your area of expertise but to a non-expert, etc., you not only use an adjusted vocabulary but also speak more clearly and maybe even more loudly; you end up doing more of the work than you would usually do.
Entire cultural…
gregladen | September 10, 2016Update: 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 really happening in the Atlantic at this time, wrt storms. There is a disturbance in the Lesser Antilles, which is not likely to do anything more any time soon, if at all.
Update: Monday AM:
Yes, the chances that a tropical storm that has been tracked for a few days now as a disturbance will form today…
gregladen | September 10, 2016Why is America the Greatest Country in the World?
Diversity and opportunity. And freedom. Lots of freedom, freedom is great. I can tell you, I know freedom and I know we have lots of it, more than any other country. And diversity, we've almost got that under control too.
But seriously ...
If you are like me, the tirade eventually given by the protagonist in the following clip was already formulating in your head for the first two minutes of this scene, and when it spilled out (in a form better than you or I would have managed), you were like "Yeah. Go baby!" (Or words to that effect.)
It is…
gregladen | September 10, 2016Not really. But it is World Suicide Prevention Day. And, one way YOU can help prevent suicides is by keeping your gun locked up, separate from the ammo, and keeping the ammo locked up as well.
Why?
Here’s why:
Suicide is the 2nd leading cause of death among teens and young adults and the 10th leading cause of death among all Americans.
On average, 4 teenagers and 118 total Americans complete suicide every day.
90% people who survive a suicide attempt do not go on to die by suicide.
Many suicide attempts occur with little planning during a short-term crisis.
50% of suicide…
gregladen | September 10, 2016The history of what we call "OpenOffice" is complex and confusing. It started as a project of Sun corporation, to develop an office suit that was not Microsoft Office, to use internally. Later, a version became more generally available known as Star Office, but also, a version called "OpenOffice" soon became available as well. The current histories say that Star Office was commercial, but my memory is that it never cost money to regular users. I think the idea was that large corporations would pay, individuals not. This was all back around 2000, plus or minus a year or two.
In any event,…
gregladen | September 7, 2016Amazon FreeTime Unlimited is a subscription service that covers children. I normally avoid subscription services of any kind. But, I have a six year old, and suddenly it made sense.
Huxley is very tech savvy for a newly minted first grader. Last night I was reviewing a new tablet that had multiple operating systems on it. He was building a robot or something and watching me at the same time (I was projecting the tablet’s image on a big screen). I said out loud, but mainly to myself, “How the heck to I change operating systems on this?” Huxley reached over and pointed at a button that did not…
gregladen | September 5, 2016You may have heard the name, you may have an idea of who she was. This recent item on the Rachel Maddow show (long, but worth every second) puts her in context. Watch it:
Schlafly was one of the key architects of the modern right wing movement. She is one of the worst people in the world, at least in the context of American society and politics. She pretty much single handedly a) defeated the Equal Rights Amendment and b) managed the propaganda campaign that makes a lot of otherwise not-too-stupid people think, even today that the ERA is a bad idea.
She was a white supremacist who urged…
gregladen | September 5, 2016Laborers generally do their jobs, because if they don't they get fired. But there are entire professions where people are not doing their jobs and the rest of us suffer.
Jacob Wetterling was abducted and murdered two and a half decades ago. The guy who did it was known to the cops then, and he had done things like this before, and those thinks were known about. There are all kinds of reasons they should have busted him even before Jacob was murdered, but they weren't doing their job. Turns out that when you look across the country and across decades, you can find FAR more examples of cops…
gregladen | September 3, 2016What I mean by that is that the real guts of the defunct TV show Mythbusters, Kari Byron, Tory Belleci and Grant Imahara, are all over this new thing they are doing for Netflix!
Apparently this is a thing: Network TV shows almost all die a certain kind of death. They get more and more expensive to run every year because the expectation is that contracts become more and more valuable if the show is successful. So, eventually, the producers have to start killing off the staff. For a fictional TV show, this is done by ordering the writers to do in various characters. For a live action non…
gregladen | September 3, 2016The simplest project in the new book Electronics for Kids: Play with Simple Circuits and Experiment with Electricity! by Øyvind Nydal Dahl is the one where you lean a small light bulb against the two terminals of a nine volt battery in order to make the light bulb turn on.
The first several projects in the book involve making electricity, or using it to make light bulbs shine or to run an electromagnet.
The most complicated projects are the ones where you make interactive games using LED lights and buzzers.
Electronics for Kids: Play with Simple Circuits and Experiment with Electricity!…
gregladen | September 3, 2016Not many of them, but so far at least 35. Here's what it looks like after the fact:
As you may know, I'm not a big fan of Samsung smart phones. The version of the operating system they put on your phone takes a HUGE AMOUNT of your storage space, so you are left with almost nothing. There is no apparent reason for that, and no apparent fix. So, generally, I would NEVER recommend a Samsung smartphone. Also, the company does not stand by their product, at least in some cases. We had to return a Samsung smart phone numerous times, and after realizing that ALL the replacements they were…
gregladen | September 3, 2016Hurricanes are well defined systems with characteristics that quite literally set them apart from other storms. Large storms such as Nor'Easters are sometimes less well defined and interact more with major troughs, the jet streams, etc. We have come to understand Hurricanes as the worst case scenario, while other storms are less dangerous.
But sometimes, and I suspect more recently lately, these non-tropical storms become quite dangerous. The Great Storm of '78 killed hundreds in New England and made us suddenly realize that coastal property was a temporary thing. But we sense the danger…