Cop Car's Beat

I am off

Not I am "off", which may be true; but, I am off - on a journey of somewhere between 2,000 and 3,000 miles. It's a solo adventure brought on by the desire to attend my brother's services (please see In remembrance of my brother, if that phrase needs an explanation) without the hassle of commercial air travel. I'm not current to fly myself, and shall probably never again be current; hence the driving.

I plan to spend a few days with my sister-in-law (but stay in a hotel), to do whatever she needs to have done, to hold her hand, and to listen to her. (I told her that I was coming to get her knee-walking drunk!)

The plan is that I leave this morning and return by September. As I wrote my surviving brother, "Goodness only knows my schedule for the return trip. I may leave Ridgecrest on August 26, 2012 or I may go hog wild and drive over to the San Francisco Bay area or down to the Los Angeles region (if this old bag-o-bones is holding up). On the other hand: If I am too badly off, I may sell the car and take a train back to Kansas!"

Albuquerque is my stop-over place, both going out and returning; so, I plan to hit some of my old haunts there, as well as my haunts in California. "See" you when I return!

I plan to eat dinner at Grandma's K&I Diner, tonight. Yeah!

Younger Brother's memorial service is scheduled for 10:00am on the 25th. Below is a scan of a photo taken of YB following the conferral of his PhD.

Why I'll be driving (referring to next post)

From Slashdot.org:

When Flying Was a Thrill205

Posted by samzenpuson Monday August 20, @05:14AM
from the back-in-the-day dept.

Hugh Pickens writes writes "Bob Greene writes that flying, with jammed-to-the-groaning-point cabins and torture-rack legroom; fees for everything from checking your bags to being handed a paltry package of food; and the endless, we'll-X-ray-you-to-within-an-inch-of-your-dignity security lines, is too often such a dreary, joy-sapping slog that it's difficult to remember that it was ever any other way. But back in the 1930s, '40s and '50s — even the 60s, flying was a big deal. When a family went on vacation by air, it was a major life event. 'Traveling by air in those years wasn't like boarding a flying bus, the way it is today,' says Christopher Lynch, author of  "When Hollywood Landed at Chicago's Midway Airport," a celebration of the golden years of commercial air travel in the United States. 'People didn't travel in flip-flops. I mean, no offense, Mister, but I don't want to see your toes.' The trains were still king in those years and the airlines wanted to convince people that flying was safe. 'People were afraid to fly,' Lynch says. 'And it was expensive. The airlines had to make people think it was something they should try.' That's where Mike Rotunno came in, photographer-for-hire at Midway Airport in Chicago where cross-country flights in those years had to stop to refuel. His pictures of Hollywood stars as they got off the planes made air travel seem to be glamorous, sophisticated, civilized, and thrilling. 'Think of his photos the next time you're shoehorned into a seat next to a fellow who's dripping the sloppy innards of his carry-on submarine sandwich onto your sleeve,' writes Greene. 'Air travel was once a treasured experience, exciting, exotic, something never to be forgotten. You, too, could travel like Elizabeth Taylor.'"

Frustration, thy name is mobile phone

Do you ever get frustrated with your mobile phone? Yes? So do others - all over the world. In an article (found through Slashdot.org) in Parity News...because Technology Matters, is an article from which the following photo, excerpt, and video are taken.

Finland Tops Mobile Phone Throwing Charts

Written by Abhishek Gohel

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In this year’s annual mobile-phone throwing contest held in Finland Ere Karjalainen has smashed the world record by throwing his phone 101.46 meters.

The event, being held every year since 2000 in the town of Savonlinna, saw quite a few mobile-phone throwers participate. The 2nd position went to Jeremy Gallop, a South African who managed to throw his phone 94.67 metres. Finnish public television network YLE covered the Saturday event [Google translated].

.... 

On scientific fronts

For most of August, so far, we have been experiencing much cooler temperatures than we had in July. This relief is welcomed. If we could only get more than a few drops of precipitation, we would be in hog heaven! Now...to bits from the scientific fronts.

From Slashdot.org:

Scientists Reverse Engineer Animal Brains To Create Bionic Prosthetic Eyes92

Posted by Soulskillon Wednesday August 15, @02:50PM
from the we-can-rebuild-him dept.

MrSeb writes "Utilizing neuroscience, gene therapy, and optogenetics, a pair of researchers from Cornell University have created a bionic prosthetic eye that can restore almost-normal vision to animals blinded by destroyed retinas. Prosthetic eyes have been created before, but for the most part these have been dumb prosthetics — chips that wire themselves into the ganglion cells behind the retina, which are the interface between the retina and optic nerve. These chips receive optical stimuli (via a CMOS sensor, for example), which they transmit as electrical signals to the ganglion cells. These prosthetic eyes can produce a low-resolution grayscale field that the brain can then interpret — which is probably better than being completely blind — but they don't actually restore sight. The Cornell prosthetic eye however, developed by Sheila Nirenberg and Chethan Pandarinath, is a much closer analog to a real eye, almost completely restoring sight in mice — and within 1 or 2 years, humans (PDF)."

Advance Warning System For Solar Flares Hinges On Surprising Hypothesis186

Posted by Soulskillon Wednesday August 15, @03:31PM
from the correlates-with-bofh-laziness dept.

cylonlover writes "Scientists may have hit upon a new means of predicting solar flares more than a day in advance, which hinges on a hypothesis dating back to 2006 that solar activity affects the rate of decay of radioactive materials on Earth. Study of the phenomenon could lead to a new system which monitors changes in gamma radiation emitted from radioactive materials, and if the underlying hypothesis proves correct (abstract), this could lead to solar flare advance warning systems that would assist in the protection of satellites, power systems and astronauts."

Independent Labs To Verify High-Profile Research Papers71

Posted by Soulskillon Wednesday August 15, @01:27PM
from the oh-the-drama dept.

ananyo writes "Scientific publishers are backing an initiative to encourage authors of high-profile research papers to get their results replicated by independent labs. Validation studies will earn authors a certificate and a second publication, and will save other researchers from basing their work on faulty results. The problem of irreproducible results has gained prominence in recent months. In March, a cancer researcher at Amgen pharmaceutical company reported that its scientists had repeated experiments in 53 'landmark' papers, but managed to confirm findings from only six of the studies. And last year, an internal survey at Bayer HealthCare found that inconsistencies between published findings and the company's own results caused delays or cancellations in about two-thirds of projects. Now, 'Reproducibility Initiative,' a commercial online portal is offering authors the chance of getting their results validated (albeit for a price). Once the validation studies are complete, the original authors will have the option of publishing the results in the open access journal PLoS ONE, linked to the original publication."

Tidbits

Most of the following articles illustrate how squishy human standards of truth and logic seem to be.

From slashdot.org:

How Pictures Skew Our Judgment77

Posted by Soulskillon Friday August 10, @11:37AM
from the it's-true-i-saw-it-on-tv dept.

An article at Ars summarizes a study into how simply seeing pictures can alter what we believe, even if the pictures don't provide any information about the topic at hand (abstract). Researchers asked true-or-false questions to a group of test subjects about whether a minor celebrity was still alive. When they provided a picture of the celebrity, more people evaluated the statement as 'true' than when no picture was provided. The researchers then switched the question, asking whether it was true or false that the celebrity was dead. Again, the subjects shown a picture were more likely to respond with 'true.' Experiments also showed this phenomenon wasn't limited to questions about people, but general knowledge as well."The authors spend a bit of time discussing why this sort of truth bias might arise. In cases where we have rich information—a photo or detailed description of something—it's easier to pull additional information out of our memory. So, even if a photo doesn't tell us much about whether the person is alive, it does make it easier to retrieve relevant information on them—if they're wearing a suit in the photo, we might reason they're a political or financial figure, etc. When the information flows that readily, we're more likely to conclude that we're familiar with the question that's being posed, and will then tend to conclude it's true." 

From The Psychologist:

If it’s easy to read, it’s easy to do, pretty, good, and true

Hyunjin Song and Norbert Schwarz describe some fascinating findings on how fluency affects judgement, choice and processing style - Pages: 108-111

Suppose you ponder whether a new exercise routine is suitable for you or whether a statement like ‘Orsono is a city in Chile’ is true or false. What would your decision be based on? Most psychological theories suggest that you would consider the nature of the exercise or draw on your knowledge about geography to arrive at an informed decision. Surely, you wouldn’t base your judgement on the print font in which the material is presented – or would you?

Surprisingly, recent experimental research shows that the print font can exert a profound influence on such decisions. This is the case because print fonts and related variables influence how fluently new information can be processed. The resulting feeling of ease or difficulty, in turn, informs a wide variety of judgements, from judgements of effort to judgements of familiarity, truth, risk and beauty (for a review see Schwarz et al., 2009). We illustrate some of these effects, discuss their applied implications, and note parallels between people’s reliance on the metacognitive feelings of ease and difficulty and their reliance on moods and emotions as sources of information (Schwarz & Clore, 2007).

From slashdot.org:

Baskerville Is the Greatest Font, Statistically, Says Filmmaker Errol Morris156

Posted by timothyon Thursday August 09, @09:35AM
from the your-brain-is-vulnerable dept.

An anonymous reader writes "A survey of unsuspecting New York Times readers implicitly answered the question: Does a certain font make you agree or disagree more often than another font? It turns out Baskerville confers a 1.5% advantage towards agreement on a survey question, compared to an average of six fonts. They were asked to agree or disagree to a passage from physicist David Deutsch's book The Beginning of Infinity, and were found to have an optimistic, if Baskerville-favoring, outlook on life. David Dunning, a psychologist awarded a Nobel prize and, separately, an IgNobel prize (for the eponymous Dunning-Kruger Effect), called Baskerville 'the king of fonts.' Sadly, Comic Sans — notable for its appearance in the Higgs Boson announcement — seems to be the weakest font. And why did Lisa Randall, the Harvard physicist responsible for that Higgs announcement use Comic Sans? According to the article, 'Because I like it.'"

Beware the Nocebo Effect193

Posted by Soulskillon Friday August 10, @06:42PM
from the this-story-may-cause-itchy-palms dept.

An article at the NY Times looks at research into the "nocebo" effect. Named after the placebo effect, it's the term for when patient expectations do harm, rather than good. "When a patient anticipates a pill’s possible side effects, he can suffer them even if the pill is fake." The article describes several instances of patients getting the placebo in a drug trial, but reporting the expected side effects of the drug, rather than the benefits or nothing at all. Quoting:"Consider the number of people in medical trials who, though receiving placebos, stop participating because of side effects. We found that 11 percent of people in fibromyalgia drug trials who were taking fake medication dropped out of the studies because of side effects like dizziness or nausea. Other researchers reported that the discontinuation rates because of side effects in placebo groups in migraine or tension drug trials were as much as 5 percent. Discontinuation rates in trials for statins ranged from 4 percent to 26 percent. ... In one remarkable case, a participant in an antidepressant drug trial was given placebo tablets — and then swallowed 26 of them in a suicide attempt. Even though the tablets were harmless, the participant's blood pressure dropped perilously low."

Man Orders TV On Amazon, Gets Shipped Assault Rifle

Posted by samzenpuson Thursday August 09, @11:25AM

from the blow-up-your-TV dept.

First time accepted submitter InfernoApple writes "Seth Horvitz, a Northeast D.C. resident, thought he had ordered a new high-definition television a few days ago through Amazon.com from a third-party merchant. When the package arrived yesterday, however, Horvitz opened the oddly shaped box to find something completely different. Instead of the flat-panel TV he had bought to enjoy with his wife, who is pregnant, Horvitz opened the long packaging to discover a Sig Sauer SIG716, a high-caliber, semi-automatic assault rifle capable of mowing down, well, just about anything."

In remembrance of my brother

My younger brother has sent our family into a tailspin. He shot himself to death, yesterday. He was a smart fellow (with an earned PhD in Geophysics) and a beloved family man (two children, four grandchildren, and a loving second wife - his first wife having died 21 years ago) with a wicked sense of humor. He had, frequently, an undercurrent of sadness - at times, even, depression - which stayed with him for his 70 1/2 years.

Perhaps I'll add more at a later time; but, for now, I am just missing him. I firmly believe that he had every right to "pull the plug" when he no longer found living worthwhile for him (and, possibly wished to spare his family a more prolonged dying experience); but, such events are inevitably hard on the survivors.

Comments that strike my fancy/funny bone

From: Wanna Do Research on the Afterlife? Here, Have $5,000,000

August 4, 2012 By Hemant Mehta 81 Comments

I’m gonna save the Templeton Foundation and Professor John Martin Fischer a lot of time and money:

There’s no evidence of an afterlife and no amount of research is going to change that.

They won’t listen to me, of course, which is why Fischer just received a $5,000,000 grant (over three years) to study the afterlife:

Comment from: Heidi                     

For $5M I'll study any dumbass thing they want.

 

Comment from: Don Gwinn                     

I would have gotten this done for $4.8 million tops, but I guess they lost my number.  In fact, I'm a simple man with simple needs, and I bet I could have done it for $4.5 million or so.

But you get what you pay for, right?

Comment from: Reginald Selkirk                   

$4.4M, and I'll throw in a sophisticated statistical analysis.

 

Comment from: newavocation                                      

So technically he is looking to confirm that murder isn't really murder and the religious right can abandon their fight against abortion.

 

Keep it simple, stupid!

It doesn't seem like the engineers stuck to the KISS principle; but, they've surely come up with an impressive means of getting an exploring vehicle onto the surface of Mars on Sunday. Meet Curiosity (graphic, below).

To watch a video of the system that is designed to deorbit Curiosity and get it to the Martian surface, click on the link (below).

Curiosity's 7 Minutes of Terror *

From NASA's posting on its Mars Science Laboratory: Curiosity page:

Entry, Descent and Landing Timeline
Activated

Tue, 31 Jul 2012 05:55:42 PM
CDT

The Mars Science Laboratory continues its final preparations for entry,
descent and landing this upcoming weekend. Yesterday, the flight team completed
and confirmed a memory test on the software for the mechanical assembly that
controls MSL's descent motor. They also configured the spacecraft for its
transition to entry, descent and landing approach mode, and they enabled the
spacecraft's hardware pyrotechnic devices. MSL is now under the control of the
autonomous entry, descent and landing timeline flight software. The flight team
continues to monitor Curiosity's onboard systems and flight trajectory. The
spacecraft and ground systems remain in good health, with no significant issues
currently being worked.

*  I do agree with anyone who quibbles with the title. After all, terror is only struck by mortal danger. As no living beings are aboard Curiosity, danger to the craft should not be terrifying.