Cop Car's Beat

Oklahoma Storms from Space

Strong Storms Over Oklahoma

This image of the storm system that generated the F-4 tornado in Moore, Oklahoma was taken by NASA's Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instrument aboard one of the Earth Observing System (EOS) satellites.

The image was captured on May 20, 2013, at 19:40 UTC (2:40 p.m. CDT) as the tornado began its deadly swath.

Image Credit: NASA/Goddard/Jeff Schmaltz/MODIS Land Rapid Response Team

Catching up on photos

In the past few weeks I've taken photos that have not made it to posting. This is to remedy the situation (not that you could not live without them!)

In Pillows and Rugosas Have Nothing to do With Each Other, daughter Bogie posted a photo of some decorative pillows that I made and sent to her. Here is a photo of our guest bed that shows, not only the blue pillows that were shipped to Bogie, but the red/orange/yellow pillows that were taken to elder daughter Dudette, last Sunday. In case I failed to tell you, Bogie, the covers are removable and washable. In fact, each of the small pillows has a utility pillow case under the decorative one.

P.S. The framed photo above the bed was taken by Fred First of Fragments from Floyd. (See Photographic Meme for more information on the photo.)

Here are a couple of photos of the mallard duck nest that is against our house - after it had served its purpose and been abandoned. In the closeup view, tufts of dark down are visible among the dried leaves.

This morning, I picked two bouquets: asparagus spears and white lilacs. (I consumed a couple of spears while going about my yard work and a few more at lunch.)

My mother would be proud!

Someone's head has been in the sand.

From Slashdot.org:

Biometric Database Plans Hidden In Immigration Bill314

Posted by Soulskillon Friday May 10, 2013 @10:10AM
from the you-can-trust-us dept.

Doug Otto writes "Buried deep in the bowels of a bi-partisan immigration reform bill is a 'photo tool.' The goal is to create a photo database consisting of every citizen. Wired calls it 'a massive federal database administered by the Department of Homeland Security and containing names, ages, Social Security numbers and photographs of everyone in the country with a driver’s license or other state-issued photo ID.' Of course the database would be used only for good, and never evil. 'This piece of the Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act is aimed at curbing employment of undocumented immigrants. But privacy advocates fear the inevitable mission creep, ending with the proof of self being required at polling places, to rent a house, buy a gun, open a bank account, acquire credit, board a plane or even attend a sporting event or log on the internet.'"

 

It's hard for me to understand where the writer has been for the past few years. When I go to vote, I must produce a government-issued photo ID (thanks, Chris Kobach, for fixing a problem that didn't exist). When I report to a health-related appointment, I must produce a government-issued photo ID (goodness only knows who thought someone else would wish to pretend to be me when I go for an eye exam or to have a lesion burned off!) When I transact business with the credit union (either one to which I belong), I must provide a government-issued photo ID - and that isn't just to "open a bank account" or "acquire credit". When I check in to board a commercial aircraft, you can bet your bottom dollar that I must produce a government-issued photo ID.

Are some people really that out of touch?

An apology

Dear blog friends,

I've experienced so little (as in, none that I recall) spam on this blog that I had forgotten its existence - except in commiserating with some of you who have lamented your own spam problems. I'm getting my come-uppance! The TypePad spam filter had been working so efficiently that I was oblivious. Until recently!

Recently, I've had a problem trying to comment on my own blog. And...I've heard from Stu that his comment had disappeared. The TypePad people had to remind me that there was a spam filter. Having checked the filter a few minutes ago, I find that many of you have been subjected to the bad manners of my spam filter.

Please forgive me!

TypePad and I are working on the problem. Hopefully, we'll soon be back to normal. In the meantime, this blog will operate as if I had activated comment verification rules. I will have to publish each comment that gets caught in the filter. It is interesting that Bogie & Buffy are seemingly golden. Their comments don't get caught up in the filter!

Cop Car

P.S. As the time span that comments are retained in the spam filter is only a few weeks long, I note that the recoveries that I've made this morning go only as far back as Technical postings from Slashdot.org!

P.P.S. If you wish to compare notes: From 3/21/2013 until the current time, there have been 108 truly spammy comments that were caught by the spam filter - nearly 2.25/day.

LAGEOS I

By courtesy of NASA:

LAGEOS I, 1976

The LAGEOS I, Laser Geodynamics Satellite, was launched on May 4, 1976 from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California. The two-foot diameter, 900-pound satellite orbited the Earth from pole to pole and measured the movements of the Earth's surface relative to earthquakes, continental drift, and other geophysical phenomena.

The mirrored surface of the satellite precisely reflected laser beams from ground stations for accurate ranging measurements. Scientists at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. came up with the idea for the satellite and built it at the Marshall Center.

Image Credit: NASA/MSFC

________________

I recall marveling at the sight of Echo 1A, one of the first people-made shiny things in the sky  orbiting through the night sky over our home in 1960. Fantastic!

Nesting report

There are several bird nests around our yard about which I know. I visited each of them early this morning.

    Mallard duck (on the ground in nook of front foundation) - Mama was not on nest, total of 5 eggs, 3 eggs broken up. Ferel cat that hangs about our yard may/may not be a factor.

Addition of 5/2/2013 - After not seeing the hen on her nest all day, yesterday, I took a closer look. It appears that there were a total of 6 eggs, 5 of which seemed to have hatched ducklings. (Thanks to HH for suggesting the possibility. I was so convinced that the nest had been there for only a couple of weeks that the possibility had not occurred to me. Duh!) A neighbor had told me of seeing a mama and several fuzz balls cross the street at her house (the most likely crossing that the mama would use to get her ducklings to the pond across the street) and I am now convinced that she saw "our" ducklings!

    House finch (in miniature swing hung near ceiling of front porch) - Nest has seemingly been abandoned for the past two weeks.

    Unknown (in bluebird box in back yard about 20 yeards from house) - A nest has been built within the past week, no eggs. It doesn't look like a bluebird nest to me, but we have seen a male bluebird sitting atop of the house on two or three days. Of course, we've also seen a red-shouldered hawk sitting there and I'm pretty sure it is not a hawk nest!

    Red-shouldered hawk (about 10 feet below tip-top of old walnut tree, near the creek, in the woods) - Mama sitting on nest. I don't have a vantage point to detect any little heads. We have suspected that the nest was there for the past couple of weeks, at least; but, I had not gone back to check it out.

First-of-Season (FOS) Sightings

FOS (for our yard) birds hanging about during my inspection tour included an orange-crowned warbler and a couple of house wrens. Over-flying were FOS for our yard: cattle egret, little blue heron.

Yesterday's FOS birds for our yard: ruby-throated hummingbird, Myrtle warbler.

For fans of touch screens, from Slashdot.org:

$5 Sensor Turns LCD Monitors Into Touchscreens53

Posted by timothyon Friday April 26, 2013 @01:33PM
from the later-comes-the-voice-control dept.

An anonymous reader writes with this snippet from ExtremeTech: "Researchers at the University of Washington's aptly named Ubiquitous Computing Lab can turn any LCD monitor in your house into a touchscreen, with nothing more than a $5 sensor that plugs into the wall and some clever software."  The system works by measuring changes that your hand creates in the electromagnetic signature of the monitor. Surprisingly, it offers some pretty fine-grained detection, too: "full-hand touch, five-finger touch, hovering above the screen, pushing, and pulling." The "$5 sensor" part is mostly theoretical for now to those of us who don't live in a lab, though; on the other hand, "co-author Sidhant Gupta tells Technology Review that the $5 sensor uses off-the-shelf parts, and the algorithms are included in the paper, so it would be fairly easy for you — or a commercial entity — to recreate the uTouch system."

There is more than one way to skin a cat! (Added 5/2/2013)

TypePad is being cruel by losing the comments that I've tried to post. Thrice!

Kay--I would come nearer to believing you had you written, "...I'm pretty unassuming about my own technical skills."

Rain--Thanks! I had forgotten about that photo (cropped from a group photo) until scrounging around in my digital files for a photo of Hunky Husband to use on a flyer concerning a disaster training institute at which HH will be teaching for two days (two courses).

I have "essential tremors" (don't know  how they compare/relate to "familial") which is one of the reasons I don't use/like the little buttons on my SmartPhone. I use the touch screen on the phone most of the time, for most input. HH just bought a new SmartPhone that, unlike his old one (like mine), has only the touchscreen for input. He misses the buttons. I doubt that I would on a phone; but, in a larger screen format, I might prefer the buttons. Who knows? I might giggle myself to death because the screen reminds me of the "idiot screens" used at food service establishments these days. It's hard to take touch screens as serious computing.

EXCEPT: It occurs to me that I used a version of a screen with a wand as early as 1983 in working on a classified aerospace project. That was serious enough! I'm not sure, but I think that the wand may have emitted a light beam onto the screen when the wand was pressed against the screen, rather than the screen's being touch sensitive.

 

Need a soothing interlude?

With the compliments of NASA comes this video of the sun spinning, accompanied by soothing music. (Found through Slashdot.org.)

If you are inclined toward watching whole episodes of TV programming online, please note the addition of The Universe (TV Series): Season 1, a play list, to the "For Enlightenment" typelist in the left hand sidebar.

Poor birds

Previously, we've "discussed" how the bountiful snow (well, bountiful for around here) that fell on March 25 (see Photos) affected the birds. I pontificated that, "The birds are equipped to cope, for the most part; but, snowy weather makes it easy to gather a goodly crowd at our feeders." Freezing rain is another matter. Here are the words that another birder posted to the Kansas bird list (published online and maintained by Kansas State University - I subscribe to email delivery), yesterday.

"This morning I had to rescue two of our purple martins who had become stuck to their metal house by the tips of their wings and tails because of the frozen rain we had last night.  I freaked them out when my husband lifted me up to their house with the tractor bucket. The female lost a couple tail feathers and managed to get herself unstuck.  The male was more quiet and allowed me to pull the tip of his wing loose from the porch of the house.  He was stuck pretty good. 

"They are all fine now but cold."

Another birder had replied:

"Kinda like sticking your tongue on a frozen ice tray I suppose.  Very tired of this strange weather."

Yet a third birder wrote about a bird in Manhattan KS (about 150 miles NE of here):

"Two minutes ago I saw an ill-timed Blue-gray Gnatcatcher outside my office window in Manhattan. Poor little guy was hopping around like crazy, probably trying to warm himself, wondering where the heck all the gnats are.  I don’t like his prospects for survival the next 24-36 hours.  He didn’t look particularly plump like he could go on an extended fast.

"I love snow.  In December, January and February.  Not so much on April 23."

The weather channel, last evening, presented the data for March 2012 versus March 2013, here in Kansas. In 2012, average temperature (whatever that means) was 46+ degrees; in 2013, 32+ degrees. Average of all years is about 34 degrees; so, this year was actually closer to "normal" than was last year. Last year produced the warmest year in 120 years, here.

In March of 1967, we moved back to the Wichita area from the Seattle area. The day on which we drove into Derby (the 8th), the temperature hit a low of 0 degrees (Fahrenheit), as reported at McConnell AFB about three miles north of Derby. On the 11th, the temperature hit a high of 88 degrees. That is what I call "strange" weather.

Addition of a few hours later:

I saw a blue-grey gnatcatcher in our back yard - first of the season. Obviously, it's not likely to have been the little bird from Manhattan; but, at least one blue-grey made it through the 25-degree temperature of last night.

Wise words

In a comment to a posting by Rain, "view from yesterday", la perigrina (of Santiago Dreaming) included a quote from Robert F Kennedy.

"What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence and lawlessness, but is [sic] love, and wisdom, and compassion toward one another, and a feeling of justice toward those who still suffer within our country."

Especially considering current news reports, we surely could benefit from following the late Sen Kennedy's wise words.

_________________________

The entire paragraph, from Robert F. Kennedy: The Dream Lives, follows:

What we need in the United States is not division; what we need
in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States
is not violence or lawlessness; but love and wisdom, and compassion
toward one another, and a feeling of justice toward those who still
suffer within our country, whether they be white or they be black.
Let us dedicate ourselves to what the Greeks wrote so many years ago:
to tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of the world."
Robert F. Kennedy

_________________________

My paternal grandmother would have been 129, today. Although she died in 1978, I still miss her - one of the gentlest souls I've ever known.