Author: Don

Above the hot zone

I expected that at least one of the many active volcanoes on caldera-ridden Kyushu would land on the New Decade Volcano Program at Volcano Café, though I wasn’t sure which it would be: Aira, Aso, or one of the less-publicized ones. This weekend NDVP #4 turned out to be the Aso Caldera and, yes, it is potentially extremely nightmarish.

There are three more to go. From the comments to the Café post:

BillG: So this is #4…. I can’t imagine there are three worse scenarios..

Henrik: Trust me Bill, there are. One marginally more so, one decidedly worse and the final one so utterly mind-blowing that eventually Hollywood will make a blockbuster movie of it.

I would guess that one of those three is either Campi Flegrei or Vesuvius; the other two, I have no idea. I note that five of the volcanoes announced in the NDVP so far are in Asia and none in South America, and there are a lot of interesting mountains and lakes in Central and South America.

You can watch the Nakadake crater at Aso at the JMA site. The link to the camera is highlighted here (“Aso grass Chisato,” according to Giggle Translate):

Aso grass Chisato

You can usually see a plume of steam and gasses when the weather is clear, and occasionally some incandescence.

Update (9/13/15): Aso had a bit of a cough today (or tomorrow, depending on which side of the International Date Line you’re on).

Update II (9/18/15): … and coming in at #3, it’s Campi Flegrei.

Physics and technology, plus magic

The most dangerous person in the trans-gate territories.
The most dangerous person in the trans-gate territories.

One of the finest examples of sheer geekery I’ve ever come across is the comments thread to this post of Steven’s.

Of current shows, I’m watching only GATE and Ushio and Tora. Both, however, are very good in their different ways and are sufficient to make this a good summer for anime.

A better ensemble

Update: The ninth episode of GATE was a major disappointment, and I’ll probably skip it in future rewatches. However, it did give Rory a chance to wear something more tasteful than her usual ita outfit.

I won’t settle for the lesser of two evils …

… but I won’t vote for Cthulhu, either. Instead, here’s my choice for 2016:

Straight talk

• But they’re fictional characters! you say. And Donald Trump is real?

• But it’s against the Constitution! That might have been true in the past, but no longer. Nowadays, the meaning of the Constitution depends on what side of the bed Anthony Kennedy gets up on in the morning. It’s just a matter of picking the right day to present the question.

• But they’re not even from our world, let alone our country! Big deal. The same is true of the lousy golfer currently in the white house.

Do I expect Lelei and Rory to win? Probably not; I have a poor record with political endorsements. But there’s no question that an intelligent, responsible mage and a semi-divine warrior would do a better job leading the country than the present administration or the clown who wants to run the circus.

Continue reading “I won’t settle for the lesser of two evils …”

Deepening the field

Rose "Tiffany"

I recently discovered that Photoshop is capable of focus-stacking, though you have to dig through the menus to find the commands. I thought I’d see how well it works before investing in something like Zerene Stacker or Helicon Focus.

The picture above was assembled from 24 frames at f/5.6, with the camera mounted on a focusing rail. I could have added some more frames to get further depth, but this was enough to show that the process works.

So Photoshop works pretty well when the subject is uncomplicated. How well does it fare with something more intricate, such as Bidens bipinnata?

Bidens bipinnata

(Click to see the barbs on the needles.) Not so well. Photoshop has problems with depth perception, it seems. If I’m going to do stacked focus regularly, I probably will have to use a dedicated program.

In praise of fan fiction

Bruce Charlton:

The importance of Fan Fiction is that, while very few people can (like Tolkien, Rowling etc) primarily create a meaningful, purposeful, participative Imaginative Universe – a much larger number of people can take such a universe and secondarily create within it; can incrementally extrapolate, interpolate, combine it with other such Universes, deepen and extend characters from it, make new plots using characters from it – and so forth.

…

Since this secondary creativity is typically done within a better ‘world’ than the self-hating mainstream secular-alienated-nihilistic world of modern public discourse; and since the world of Fan Fiction is a part of a person’s life; this can serve to make a person’s life more meaningful – which is to say Fan Fiction can make a person’s life not just better but deeply better. And it has done, for very large numbers of people.

Suite in B

2015 marks the 50th anniversary of the discovery of P.D.Q. Bach by Peter Schickele. (Strictly speaking, the above isn’t P.D.Q.B., though it is from one of the early albums.)

Here’s another approach to Beethoven. (Via the Borderline Boy.)

1965 also saw The Baroque Beatles Book of Joshua Rifkin.

According to the liner notes of a reissue, Schickele was the first choice to write the arrangements, but he had just been signed to a different label, so Rifkin got the job. Incidentally, Rifkin sang in the first performance of P.D.Q. Bach’s “Iphigenia in Brooklyn.” A few years later, he would jumpstart the ragtime revival with his Scott Joplin recordings.

Here’s a more modern approach to the Beatles.

Glorieux’s Beatle recordings, which range stylistically from Bach to Bartok, are out of print, but you can find them on YouTube.

Ouchies

I

Cenchrus longinspinus

Cenchrus longispinus, “sandbur,” which is replacing crabgrass in Wichita lawns. Those minutely-barbed spines penetrate skin with alarming ease and resist extraction. They have a particular affinity for socks.

II

David French:

Whoa to the white liberal … who doesn’t pay homage.

I assume this was a spellchecker accident. If not, then whoa to French and his editor at National Review. (Update: It’s fixed now.)

Grab your hard hat

Sakurajima, from episode 5 of Katanagatari
Sakurajima, from episode 5 of Katanagatari

The volcanic webcam star Sakurajima might be heading for a major eruption in the near future. The Japanese Meteorological Agency has raised the alert level for the Kagoshima area to “4,” advising residents in the districts nearest the volcano to prepare to evacuate.

While there are numerous webcams pointed at the Kyushu mountain, the only one I’ve found with a reliable night-time view is on the JMA’s page. Starting at the bottom of the list, it’s the first entry with a four-character name.

For further discussion, scroll down to the most recent comments here. The JMA released a statement here (pdf). It’s in Japanese only, but there are interesting maps and charts to study, and you can copy and paste the text into Giggle Translate.

Shichika, Togame, Sakurajima
Shichika, Togame, Sakurajima

Katanagatari, by the way, is a very good show.

Update: Meanwhile, in Ecuador …

A few quotes

Charles G. Hill:

Maybe pitchforks just aren’t enough.

*****

Jonathan Clements:

Thank God they didn’t know about Queen’s Blade…

*****

The Duke of Wellington:

Gentlemen

Whilst marching from Portugal to a position which commands the approach to Madrid and the French forces, my officers have been complying diligently with your requests which have been sent by H.M ship from London to Lisbon and thence by dispatch to our headquarters. We have enumerated our saddles, bridles, tents and tent poles, and all manner of sundry items for which His Majesty’s Government holds me accountable. I have dispatched reports on the character, wit and spleen of every officer. Each item and every farthing has been accounted for , with two regrettable exceptions for which I beg your indulgence.

Unfortunately the sum of one shilling and ninepence remains unaccounted for in one infantry battalion’s petty cash and there has been a hideous confusion as to the number of jars of raspberry jam issued to one cavalry regiment during a sandstorm in western Spain. This reprehensible carelessness may be related to the pressure of circumstance, since we are at war with France, a fact which may come as a bit of a surprise to you gentlemen in Whitehall.

This brings me to my present purpose, which is to request elucidation of my instructions from His Majesty’s Government so that I may better understand why I am dragging an Army across these barren plains. I construe that perforce it must be one of two alternative duties, as given below. I shall pursue either one to the best of my ability, but I cannot do both:

1. To train an army of uniformed British clerks in Spain for the benefit of the accountants and copy-boys in London, or, perchance,

2. To see to it that the forces of Napoleon are driven from Spain.

Your most obedient servant

Wellington.

*****

The Czar of Muscovy:

As with most political analysis pieces, the Czar will follow convention and ask what are your thoughts? Whom did you like? Whom did you dislike? Although, don’t write in because the Czar doesn’t care what you think.