Outside The Interzone: Nov 29, 2009

Monday, December 7, 2009

Good News

Environmental Protection Agency declaration allows it to impose emissions cuts without agreement of reluctant Senate.

The Obama administration adopted its climate change plan B today, formally declaring carbon dioxide a public danger so that it can cut greenhouse gas emissions even without the agreement of a reluctant Senate.

This is actually one of the most positive things I've seen from our young administration. This does not mean that EPA will impose regulations for controlling CO2 emissions, but it means that they are empowered to if Congress, especially the Senate, refuses to act in any meaningful way. The article implies that drafts and guidelines of such regulations have been created.

The announcement gives the EPA a legal basis for capping emissions from major sources such as coal power plants, as well as cars. Jackson said she hoped it would help to spur a deal in Copenhagen.

The EPA action had been seen as a backstop should Congress fail to pass climate change law. Obama and other officials had repeatedly said they would prefer to pass legislation, but that prospect has grown increasingly remote. The House of Representatives narrowly passed a climate change bill in June, but the proposals have stalled in the Senate.

I have been badly backed up on expressing my outrage over the so-called "Climategate" so-called scandal because it seems theres so much I want to say. Let's start with this: scientists are human. Get over it. If you have never referred to someone who, from your perspective, is being stupidly obstinate, by an unflattering epithet, you aren't.

Second, is there anyone who cooks who doesn't have a few kitchen tricks up their sleeve? Auto mechanics? Don't all human activities have "tricks" that get a job done with less hassle, more efficiency, and often better, than simple brute force? Does that mean the food is no good, or the car doesn't run? Of course not; if that's what it meant, such tricks wold be useless. People who refuse to admit that this is an extremely common colloquial usage, and not just by scientists, of the word "trick" are being stupidly obstinate assholes.

Cheney Got a Gun

Just discovered two things: first, many of my friends haven't seen this. Second, it's now on YouTube, which means I can embed it. It's old news, nearly four years old now, but it's still funny. And whoever the vocalist is, he does an excellent impression of Steve Tyler.

Followup: If you have seen the above (or even if you haven't until now), try this on for size: Elmo's Got a Gun. "Big Bird's on the run, Ernie's dialin' 911"

Geology in the UK

Via BBC, I just found out that The British Geological Survey (BGS) has gone online with its Open GeoScience website. I have only spent a couple of minutes browsing, but it looks like one could easily spend a couple of centuries. From The BBC article,

At the 1:50,000 scale, geological details down to about 50m on the surface can be resolved - essentially street level. The BGS says this is a world first in terms of releasing country-wide information.

Those who live in Edinburgh, for example, can see how their city is built on top of an ancient volcano. Glaswegians on the other hand will notice that their city is built on the remains of an ancient tropical forest, evident in the coal measures and fossil trees that can be seen today.

Regular drivers of the M1 motorway between Leicester and Loughborough might be interested to study how their route passes across some of the oldest rocks in England that preserve the remains of soft-bodied animals which once lived in an ancient sea.

The BBC also has a gallery of photos selected from the new site, and here is one photo, of the approximately 50,000 released, that struck me as particularly delicious-looking:

The description reads "Atar sheet. Sodalite-syenite." I don't know the word "atar," but I know sodalite and syenite, and I like.

Index of Refraction

We had a running joke in science ed that kids get so overexposed to discrepant events involving density and air pressure that they tend to try to explain anything and everything they don't understand with respect to science in terms of those two concepts. Why do we have seasons? Ummm... air pressure? Why did Dr. Smith use that particular research design? Ummm... density?

I think we need another catch-all explanation. I suggest index of refraction.

To simplify greatly, index of refraction describes the amount of bending a light ray will undergo as it passes from one medium to another (it's also related to the velocity of light in both media, but I do want to keep this simple). If the two media have significantly different indices, light passing from one to the other at an angle (not perpendicularly, in which case there is no bending) will be bent more than if indices of the two are similar. The first four data points are from Hyperphysics, the final one from Wikipedia... glass has a wide range of compositions and thus indices of refraction.

Material: IoR
Vacuum: 1.00000
Air: 1.00029
Water at 20 C: 1.33
Glycerine: 1.473
Typical soda-lime glass: close to 1.5

Since glycerine and glass have similar IoR, light passing from one to the other isn't bent; as long as both are transparent and similarly colored, each will be effectively "invisible" against the other.

So, why does it rain? Umm... index of refraction?

Save the Dino Tracks!

Stealing this post in full from The Coastal Paleontologist, whose work focuses on marine vertebrates mostly in California and Oregon:

An early Jurassic dinosaur track site in New Jersey is currently in danger of being destroyed by development for a new set of high-end condos. The track site is directly adjacent to a park, and if the park boundary is extended only 200 feet, the locality can be preserved for posterity (and I believe *most* or *some* of the condo development can continue as well, so that would be more or less a win-win for both sides).

While many folks don't believe in online petitions, the "Help Save Capitola!" petition catalyzed opposition in 2003 and 2004 to help defeat the seawall that would have been built along the Capitola cliffs; that locality was saved, due in part to the petition I drafted during my freshmen year of college.

Anyway, the petition can be viewed here and signed here. I highly suggest anyone worth their salt as a paleontologist or fossil enthusiast to sign the petition; it broke 1000 signatures friday morning, and as of now, has 1804 signatures.

And my signature makes it 1861.

Smile

I opened the page with the image above, and after a moment, realized that a big wide smile had spread across my face. The abstract symmetry of these martian dunes is exquisitely beautiful to me... with the added bonus that they're on Mars! From NASA's Image of the Day Gallery, where a variety of image sizes are available.

This view from the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter is of the Proctor Crater. The relatively bright, small ridges are ripples. From their study on Earth, and close-up examination by the MER rovers (roving elsewhere on Mars), scientists surmise that the ripples are composed of fine sand (less than 200 microns in diameter) or fine sand coated with coarser sand and granules.

The larger, darker bedforms are dunes composed of sand, most likely of fine size. Ripples tend to move slower than dunes. Because of this, over time, ripples get covered with dust, possibly explaining the bright tone visible here. The dunes are dark probably because they are composed of basaltic sand (derived from dark, volcanic rock) that is blown by the wind enough that dust does not sufficiently accumulate to change their color.

This area in Proctor Crater is being monitored by HiRISE to document any changes over time.

This image is a portion of the HiRISE observation taken on Feb. 9, 2009.

Sunday, December 6, 2009

I Get Spam...

This has to be one of the funniest so far...

From: Mrs Alyssa Walton

I am the above named person from Iceland. I am married to Hewett Walton who worked with Embassy of Iceland - Ottawa, Canada for Ten years before he died .We were married for years without a child. He died after a brief illness. Before his death we were both born again Christians. Since his death I decided not to re-marry or get a child outside my Matrimonial home which the Bible is against. When my late husband was alive he deposited the sum of 19Million Dollars (Nineteen Million United State Dollars) on the safe deposit Box with the diplomatic vault house.

Presently, this money is still deposited on the safe deposit box with the vault house .Recently; my Doctor told me that have cancer Problem. Though what disturbs me most is my stroke sickness. Having known my condition I decided to donate this Funds better still a Christian individual that will utilize this money the way I am going to instruct here in to fund churches, orphanages and widows propagating the word of God and to ensure that the house of God is maintained. The Bible made us to understand that blessed is the hand that giveth.

I took this decision because I don't have any child that will inherit this money and I don't want my husband's hard earned money to be misused by unbelievers. I don’t want a situation where this money will be used in an ungodly manner. Hence the reason for taking this bold decision. I am not afraid of death hence I know where I am going. I know that I am going to be in the bosom of the Lord. The lord he will fight my case and I shall hold my peace. I don't need any telephone communication in this regard because of my health and because of the presence of my husband's relatives around me always. I don't want them to know about this development.

With God all things are possible As soon as I receive your reply I shall give you the contact of the diplomatic vault house. I will also issue you a letter of authority that will prove you as the original- beneficiary of this Fund. I want you and the church to always pray for me because the lord is my shepherd. My happiness is that I lived a life of a worthy Christian. Whoever that wants to serve the Lord must serve him in spirit and truth. Please always be prayerful all through your life.

Any delay in your reply will give me room in sourcing for a church or Christian individual for this same purpose. Please assure me that you will act accordingly as I stated herein Hoping to hearing from you.

I have set aside 15% for you and for your time and 10% for any expenses if there is any then remaining balance for the word of God.

Remain blessed in the name of the Lord.

Yours in Christ,

Mrs Alyssa Walton

I was seriously thinking about replying and playing this out. I would love to see where it goes. But in the end, I have better uses for my time than to torment and tease an illiterate scam artist. Anyway, it would be cruel to treat someone with stroke sickness and cancer Problem with anything less than my sincere wishes for a swift and dignified demise.

Only in a culture that sanctifies idiocy would something like this flourish.

Sunday Funnies

Scientifically proven by 7 out of 10 dentists to be superior for your dental health.

WTF WWF. Skull Swap

see more Political Pictures. Not just soldiers.

Partially Clips

see more Lol Celebs

see more Political Pictures

Darius Whiteplume's Tumblr

Saturday Bulletin

epic4chan

A Tee for Charity from Regretsy... as of yesterday, Helen Killer had reached her goal of $200 to knit caps for children going through chemotherapy. Nice.

Hawtness... Commentary on this picture includes,

All She Needs Is A Guy With A Shirt That Says, “Chick Magnet.” T-shirts with silly slogans have gotten out of hand…no good can come of this...

see more Political Pictures

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

Amazing Super Powers (click the pic for readable text)

"Did you hear that? It’s was the sound of a chiropractor’s pupils turning into tiny dollar signs." Don't Judge My Hair (The title of this picture is "I didn’t know H.R. Giger did hair.")

see more Epic Fails. Picture me unsurprised.

Tee shirt design of the day, BiPolar Bear, via The Daily What

Luke Surl

Smile! You're on Candid Camera! No, wait... don't smile! Don't! Stop already! Skull Swap.

"They researched it!" Criggo

The Daily What

see more Celeb Look-A-Likes

see more Funny Graphs

Probably Bad News

Blackadder

My First Dictionary, Via Blackadder

Bingo. Darius Whiteplume's Tumblr

Abstruse Goose... this beats Star Trek's 3-D chess all to pieces.

see more Engrish

Stephen Colbert mimics a nuclear explosion to perfection. The leadership of nuclear-armed countries should be required to watch this annually. Via The Daily What.

The universality of expression is fascinating... no words needed here. Skull Swap

The Daily What... Laughter is contagious; I caught it from this. (Followup, 3PM: I just found out the "clip has been removed by user." But if you go here, you'll find that apparently lots of babies find tape measures hysterically funny)

The great thing about a boomervan is that if it misses its intended target, it comes right back...

LiveLeak

Via Skull Swap:

Good news is that I truly out did myself this year with my Christmas decorations. The bad news is that I had to take him down after two days. I had more people come screaming up to my house than ever. Great stories. But two things made me take it down.

First, the cops advised me that it would cause traffic accidents as they almost wrecked when they drove by.

Second, a 55 year old lady grabbed the 75 pound ladder almost killed herself putting it against my house and didn’t realize that it was fake until she climbed to the top (she was not happy). By the way, she was one of the many people who attempted to do that. My yard couldn’t take it either. I have more than a few tire tracks where people literally drove up my yard.

Criggo

Actually, this is true in lots of disciplines. BuzzFeed

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

Good question... The Daily What

Water polo pleisiosaurs- Skull Swap

Non Sequitur

Merry Zappadan, December 6

(Above from Darius Whiteplume's Tumblr)

Zappa's stance toward commercialism was, if anything, more negative than my own. Below is a clip (with French subtitles) of a terrific commercial he did for/against Portland General Electric. I actually had the privilege of seeing this broadcast during the mid eighties... it never got old.