Category: Whatever

Chicken emergency

Miscellaneous notes:

• I’m mostly taking pictures these days in my available time. Wichita, perhaps the least interesting place visually in North America — it’s not even ugly — is as photogenic as it ever gets right now. Although it’s already summer (spring lasted most of one morning last week), temperatures haven’t yet hit 100°, and I can ride around town without risking heatstroke.

Roadblock

• My route home from work yesterday was more circuitous than usual, with one intersection closed off by the police. I missed the excitement, but that may be just as well.

• I watched several more episodes of some current series but ended up dropping them all. I probably will eventually watch the rest of Suisei no Gargantia on the Verdurous Planet. The first three episodes showed more thought than any of the other shows I sampled, and the art looked good, too. The Brickmuppet and Steven both praise what they’ve seen so far. Valvrave the Liberator features not just mecha, but vampires, too (and in recent episodes, I gather, boys and girls trading bodies). It might be of interest to Wonderduck when he’s recovered from the horrors of Vividred, but I’ve had enough.

Chiaki

Instead, I’ve been rewatching some older favorites, Jinrui wa Suitai Shimashita, Mouretsu Pirates (for the third time) and Shingu (I’ve lost count).

Bunny warrior

• You can download the materials to make a paper model of a tank at the Girls und Panzer website here. Also, Brave Combo has worked its magic, or whatever it is, on “Katyusha.”

• It’s been a while since I mentioned ponies. Here’s a list of several with their Civil War general counterparts. (Via Dusty Sage.)

• The title of this post is from Looking for Bobowicz, which I listened to earlier this evening. You can download it here.

Under the rainbow

Lenten rose

It looked like spring would arrive early this year, but that was before 22 inches of global warming fell. The snow is finally gone, but Wichita is still mostly brown. I figure that it will be another week or two before trees leaf out. I went to the botanical garden yesterday and found very little color aside from pansies and daffodils. The lenten rose, above, was the highlight of the trip. The Corylus avellana was in full bloom; look closely to spot the female flowers.

Corylus avellana

The most colorful item there was the gateway to the children’s garden, below.


Children's garden entrance in Wichita

The okame cherry was showing some pink in its buds. There might be a few flowers opening during the coming week and perhaps more than a few next Saturday. (It’s already cherry blossom season in Japan. Here’s the blooming forecast, should you be planning a trip there soon. (Via J. Greely.))

Update: the panorama works particularly well as a “little planet.”

planet

Nonsense and stuff

Presenting the Pulp-O-Mizer.

Prairie pulp

(Via dotclue)

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While researching jurisimprudence, I came across some additions to The Rules:

Cunningham’s Law – The best way to get the right answer on the Internet is not to ask a question, it’s to post the wrong answer.

Muphry’s Law — The principle that any criticism of the speech or writing of others will itself contain at least one error of usage or spelling

…

Chuck Jones’s Law – If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it’s probably a bunny.

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Via the professor, here’s the Monty Python “Happy Valley” skit. which I hadn’t come across before.

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I quit watching teevee decades ago, so I missed this classic commercial. (Via Robbo.)

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When assembling a web page, be sure to close all tags. (How large a monitor would you need to read the final line above the footer?)

(Via Dustbury.)

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Even rapidly-flowing, basaltic lava, such as that which Tolbachik is currently erupting in Kamchatka, is dense stuff, as illustrated by the process of taking a sample, above.

Here’s a spherical panoramic movie of a helicopter touring Tolbachik. You can click and drag to change the direction of view.

Since lava is so dense, is it possible, with the appropriate footwear, to walk across a fresh flow? Sometimes, if conditions are right:

At Etna you can walk on small lava flows with good hiking boots (it might be their last hike, though), because the lava is more viscous than on Hawai’i. However, you won’t try on a larger flow because heat radiation is so huge.

You go first.

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Mt. Ranier

Mt. Rainier erupting the Milky Way.

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Some true rock music, made with volcanic phonolite.

Memories online

Home in Bigamy City

I wonder sometimes how accurate are my memories of the places I lived when I was young. It occurred to me that I might be able to find out through Google maps. I quickly located the house in Brigham City, Utah, where my family lived for seven years. Aside from my current residence, that is the longest I’ve lived at any particular address. The house looks very much as I remember it, only smaller. The mountains are smaller, too. The neighborhood has changed, though. The horse barn down the street at the right is gone, as is the row of magnificently thorny honey locusts to the east.

Continue reading “Memories online”

Still waiting

Miscellaneous notes:

A few months ago I cancelled my minimal-speed DSL connection and signed up for cable internet. I am supposed to get downstream speeds of 18.5 megabytes per second, and according to online speed tests, I do. In fact, I can download a gigabyte-plus torrent in the time it takes me to shave and brush my hair. However, surfing the world wide wait web is still an exercise in patience. No matter how fast your connection is, a page that is assembled from 150 little items stored on several sluggish servers will always take forever to load, even if you have ads and Flash blocked.

By the way, if you are building a website and want to add comments, please don’t use Disqus. It takes far too long to load, if it loads at all.

Continue reading “Still waiting”

Piano mysteries and more

Here’s about two week’s worth of accumulated trivia.

I lost patience with radio years ago. The only time I listen nowadays is during storm warnings. Consequently, I never knew the Piano Puzzler existed until Angela at Mommy Bytes recently mentioned its tenth anniversary. Each week, pianist Bruce Adolphe arranges a “familiar” tune in the style of another composer, and the contestant’s task is to identify both the composer and the melody. I can usually identify the composer right off, but naming the tune is often difficult. What makes the segments memorable is Adolphe’s fantastic ingenuity in devising his arrangments, which must be heard to be believed. He does things like combine Schubert with Gershwin, Gershwin with Copland, The Fantasticks with Berg, spirituals with Handel, “Old MacDonald Had a Farm” with Brahms, etc., and makes each combination, no matter how unlikely, work. You can stream the programs or download them here. My favorite so far is the April 6, 2011 program.

Continue reading “Piano mysteries and more”

Historical notes

32 years ago today, Mt. St. Helens exploded. Stupendous though it was, it was scarecely more than a hiccup compared to the Katmai/Novarupta eruption of 1912 in Alaska, which has fascinated me ever since I came across an article on the Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes in a 1918 National Geographic. In anticipation of its centennial next month, the U.S. Geological Survey has published a paper about the eruption and the history of research on it, which can be downloaded here.

Update
Also free to download: Alaska Park Science Journal, Volume 11 Issue 1: Katmai Scientific Studies

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A friend forwarded this picture to me. This is the note that accompanied it:

The 120° panoramic image (and its crop) you see above is titled “Daguerreotype View of Cincinnati” and was captured in 1848 by Porter and Fontayne from Newport, Kentucky. It was created with eight full-plate daguerreotypes and shows a two mile stretch of the Cincinatti waterfront. Codex 99 writes,

The panorama is not only the first photograph of the Cincinnati waterfront but the earliest surviving photo of any American city. It is also the earliest image of inland steamboats, of a railroad terminal and of freed slaves. It may very well be one of the most important American photographs ever taken.

Yoctometers, yottameters and ponies

Two weeks’ worth of random stuff.

Of all the mysteries in Mouretsu Pirates, the most puzzling, and the least likely to be satisfactorily explained, are the Sailor Moon shout-outs. This Princess Serenity is anything but a ditzy airhead.

By the way, it is impossible to watch just one episode of Shingu.

Continue reading “Yoctometers, yottameters and ponies”

Danger: Timewaster ahead

Steven found a nice set of Flash puzzles. Some are easy; others are trickier and require finesse to solve. Don’t click on the link unless you have at least a half-hour to spare.

By the way, you have four days left to figure out this year’s little number puzzle while it’s still timely. What is the next number in this sequence? It’s not 71.

23
27
31
39
43
47
55
59
63

(This is the American version. In other countries, the sequence is:

23
39
55
27
43
59
31
47
63

The solution is the same as for the American version.)

Miscellany

I’m not a biker, and I quit watching George Lucas after The Empire Strikes Out, but I have to say that these motorcycle leathers are kinda cool. Utterly ridiculous, but in a cool way.

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Not your ususal Swiss army knife:

This is an excellent tool, but you need to be aware that the time jump utility (tool #713, first control panel on the right when leaving the French restaurant on level 3 through the rear exit) is somewhat limited. I spoke with the telephone support, and they told me that recent models are unable to travel back in time past their manufacturing date. Apparently, they overlooked one aspect of the time travel equations in the early models, and some owners are now stuck in previous ages, unable to return because their knives cannot generate enough power to overcome the energy gradient to the present. If you’re looking to buy one of these knives for its time travel capability, you may be better off considering a different model.

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Planning to vacation in the Ukraine?

A friendly hint, when arrested, put on your most unintelligent tourist expression, just talk a lot in a friendly manner in any language except Russian, after a while they understand that they you will not give them you hard earned cash. They might though beat you up and just take it, but that rarely happens unless you go into the suburbs.

Oh, and “[t]he ‘Dong’ in the side of the car is just the Ukrainian way of greeting tourists.”

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The Hubble Space Telescope Advent Calendar.

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“10 Myths About Introverts.” A useful companion article to the classic “Caring for Your Introvert.”

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Some of these via the Rat, AoSHQ and the Anchoress.

Fun with …

(When you’ve got nothing to say, play games and post links. ((Actually, I have plenty to say, but it’s mostly unprintable.)))

… Wikipedia:

Go to your browser’s address bar and start typing en.wikipedia and report the five top results.

On my computer at home:
Surtsey
King Kung Fu
Headphones
Absaroka Range
Greasy Love Songs

At work:
Viscosity index
Cronopio (mammal)
Noble savage
Location hypotheses of Atlantis
Minoan eruption

I tried the game with the ANN encyclopedia:
Moyasimon (manga)
Tales of Agriculture (TV)
Tenchi Muyo! GXP
Junichi SATO
Phi Brain: Kami no Puzzle (TV)

(Sato has an impressive resume, including Sailor Moon, Princess Tutu, Aria and Kerero Gunsou, so I gave Phi Brain a try. I lasted half an episode.

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… Vocabulary:

DENVER – Denver Police responded to the Crowne Plaza Hotel Friday afternoon where several Occupy Denver protesters reportedly caused a disturbance.
According to reports, a group of conservative bloggers are at the hotel, which may have incited the chanting.

Did you catch that? The presence of “a group of conservative bloggers” at a hotel incited the disturbance — as if the Occupy Denver riffraff were just minding their own business until those nasty bloggers provoked them.

***

If J. Edgar Hoover is a “fact-based person,” who would be a fiction-based person? The Little O, ((Not to be confused with The Big O.)) who based his 2008 campaign strategy on Chauncey Gardiner?

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… Kittens:

Ducks and monkeys

For most of the summer, non-migratory Canadian geese controlled the north bank of the river on my way to work. Now it’s occupied by a corps of ducks. Is there something going on I should know about?

Also in my camera: public enemy #3.

Another approach to weeding:

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There has been some loose talk recently about monkeys typing Shakespeare. This gives me an excuse to mention a couple of favorite short stories. Russell Maloney’s “Inflexible Logic” is the second-best tale on the topic. The best is R.A. Lafferty‘s “Been a Long, Long Time,” which unfortunately is not available online. I did find another Lafferty story, though, which might illustrate why I have a shelf of his books.

A post including the word “paradox” and a mention of G.K. Chesterton, but not in the same paragraph

Very miscellaneous links and curiosities.

Quote of the week:

Lutherans are not Baptists. Catholics are not evangelicals. Methodists are not Presbyterians. Presbyterians are not Anglicans. No one is an Episcopalian.

From the same authority, an appreciation of Joseph Levitch.

Paging AC/DC.

A paradox of quantum etymology.

Expected real-life Batman generation rate.

The inverse law of sanity.

Schopenhauer in the key of E minor: Heavy metal keeps us sane. (Yeah, right. Oh, and G.K. Chesterton was a proto-metalhead.)

Tasted like chicken.

Is the heat wearing you out? There’s plenty of snow at Lassen Volcanic National Park.

Minimalist Marvel posters.

When it comes to Wonder Woman redesigns, skirts beat pants. Colleen Doran did some “high fantasy” concept drawings of WW, which you can see here, here and here.

Want your very own action figure, just like Danny Choo?

Who needs real musicians anymore? Who needs real singers? All you need are a computer, some good instrument sample sets and a troupe of Vocaloids. Here’s a lively twelve-minute musical vaguely based on Lewis Carroll. (I note with annoyance that the Cheshire Nekomimi doesn’t have a grin.)

Some of the above via The Rat, Jonathan Tappan, Project Rooftop and Vocaloidism.

Miscellaneous notes

The server that hosts my websites, while never exactly snappy, has become downright sluggish lately. By a curious coincidence, I just got an email from the hosting service asking if my website has been “running slow” and announcing “a more powerful hosting solution for your website!” I think this is my cue to look for another host. Any recommendations?

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Grr. It looks like I may need to take another look at Gosick. I may also need to watch the rest of Dog Days.

One reason I haven’t been keeping up with current series is that I’ve been more inclined to read books than watch anime recently. ((Another is that it’s too damn hot to do anything; at 7 p.m., it was 101°F outside, and I need to direct the breeze from the air conditioner directly onto the computer to keep it from overheating.)) (This gets frustrating. My eyes get tired after a while, and it takes a half-hour before I can focus on anything again. ((Supposedly, staring at a computer monitor for hours on end is bad for your eyes, but I haven’t ever noticed any problems. (Of course, I’m already very nearsighted and astigmatic.) Reading words on dead tree is another matter.)) ) I suppose I should watch Ano Hi Mita Hana with the Sesquipedelian Name — I saw the first episode and was not hooked, but I gather it’s worth slogging through — but I don’t know when I’ll get to it. Right now, I’m more interested in Florence King and Tim Powers.

So why have I watched more than a dozen episodes of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic? Ack.

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In case anyone reading this is in the area: I plan to spend some time the weekend of July 8-10 at Anime Festival Wichita. You can find me there behind a camera.

Three impossible things

So there might be a live-action Noir? If it’s made, I expect it will be a botch, and I doubt that I’d watch it. Still, I’m curious to see how the crew handles the less plausible aspects of the anime, such as:

• Mireille’s magical skirt. It’s very, very short, yet there’s no panchira.

• Bloodless gunmen. Enough people are killed to furnish a small war. There should have been enough blood shed to float a battleship, yet there’s scarcely a drop shown.

• The lava lake in the basement. Both the heat and the gasses should have been instantly lethal, yet nobody even sweats. (And how could anyone possibly erect a building in such a place?)