Cop Car's Beat

Professor Nicholas Solomey

A friend in the physics department of Wichita State University received big-time publicity, this morning, at the top of the front page of The Wichita Eagle newspaper. I've previously posted about Nick's work with/on neutrinos and the grants that he has been awarded by NASA in Elusive Neutrino, in So far this week...., and probably in other postings long-since forgotten.

From later in the newspaper article, the writer says, "Current methods of studying neutrinos require building giant detectors in the hopes that a neutrino will interact with one of the particles in the detector and scientists can detect that interaction." Amusingly, the writer quotes another professor from Kansas State University, Tim Bolton [Director of the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE)], "...neutrino detectors tend to be very, very large. Basically these detectors are about the size of small naval warships.”

Nick's logic was that the difficult-to-detect but abundant neutrinos could be detected within a smaller chamber if that chamber were positioned much closer to the nearest great neutrino source, our sun - say 3 million miles away, the distance at which NASA has orbiting satellites that study the sun, where the neutrino density is about 1,000 times the density on earth.

Artist’s depiction of what a future mission using Solomey’s detector might look like. NASA

Keeper of the Planes

Hunky Husband just sent me an email from our local newspaper, Derby Informer, that includes a link to an online article, Keeper of the Planes. The excerpt and photos, below, are from that article.

McConnell Air Force Base unveiled its own on-base replica of the iconic Keeper of the Plains statue at a ceremony on Friday morning. 

The Friends of McConnell donated the 10-foot-tall, fiber-glass Keeper replica to the base as part of a public art project called “Keepers on Parade,” which was founded by Together Wichita. 

The project allows local artists to design and paint miniature Keeper replicas and display them across the city. McConnell’s new replica is the 52nd of its kind in the Wichita area. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

....

Officially called the "Freedom Keeper," the replica features a collage of various symbols that represent Kansas, Wichita, and the Air Force community at McConnell, including: a Wichita flag, two aircraft flying together, a field of sunflowers, and a tornado that features Dorothy’s house from "The Wizard of Oz." A message that says "REFUEL THE FIGHT!" lines the top of the figure. 

The original Keeper of the Plains is a 44-foot tall sculpture designed by Comanche and Kiowa artist Blackbear Bosin in 1974. It is located at the confluence of the Arkansas and Little Arkansas rivers in downtown Wichita. 

From the McConnell AFB website is taken the following excerpt.

The 22d Air Refueling Wing (ARW) is the host unit of McConnell Air Force Base, Kansas. The wing is part of 18th Air Force, a numbered Air Force within Air Mobility Command. The 22 ARW has been and continues to be involved in a number of operations providing air refueling, humanitarian airlift and aeromedical evacuation missions around the globe.

Keeper of the Plains - by Blackbear Bosin (1921-1980)

Summary of the week - July 23

SATURDAY, July 17

Edging of street curb

I finished manually edging the street curb, this morning. The photos show the edged curb and the last load of sod that I removed in the edging process.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

SUNDAY, July 18

Flowers for free

On the 11th, Bogie posted More Rain!, including photos of a few flowers that were blooming without her having planted them. She reminded me of a mystery plant that came up under a small mulberry tree that I had saved when having the trees surrounding it removed. I finally thought to take a photo, today. If you can identify the flower, please do so in a comment. I'm calling it a "wild tiger lily" because I don't know what else to call it. For the past three years, I've watched us (carelessly) mow down a couple of irises that I had laid at the base of the tree; thus, I've no idea how long this lily has been there. It has an interesting leaf habit that climbs the blossom stem. The third photo, below, shows what remains of the iris plants for comparison of the leaf configuration to that of the lily. The iris hasn't bloomed for having been mowed down so many times and I no longer recall what sort of iris it is - if I ever knew. I may have picked it up out of my trash heap of irises that were discarded when we sodded along what is now our neighbor's fence line.

 

 

Milkweed

While showing Hunky Husband the free lilies, I took him by my miniature meadow in order to check out the milkweed plants. They are doing well. There was a caterpillar on one of the plants (and a nibbled leaf edge); but, as I read online, "That ain't no Monarch!"

 

 

Addition of 7/19/2021: No caterpillar, no cocoon, no chrysalis, no further nibbling of leaves. Perhaps a bluebird ate the caterpillar.

 

MONDAY, July 19

 

Tomato harvest

After giving our four Ninebark bushes a haircut this morning, I harvested tomatoes. The bowl on the left contains tomatoes from a couple of volunteer vines that came up between the garage and the crepe myrtle bushes, this spring, while the bowl on the right contains tomatoes off of a Jet Star vine that I bought and planted. Because of the wonky weather that we had in March-May, our purchased vines had no ripe tomatoes for July 4th - which is the rule of thumb for gauging success of growing tomatoes, around here. The Jet Star and one of the larger tomato varieties ripened up one or two fruits - one week later.

 

For a while, the volunteer tomato plants out-produced our purchased plants. There is still one purchased plant that hasn't set on fruit but has abundant blossoms. (I picked some of the tomatoes a bit under-ripe so as not to give our expected high temperatures this afternoon, and the critters, a chance to spoil them. The temperatures are to crescendo to about 106 degrees Fahrenheit within the next two weeks, making our temperatures more in keeping with expectations for July.)

 

 

Update of 7/24/2021: The one vine that I wrote had not yet set fruit is the Bella Roma and closer inspection, this morning, showed  one walnut-sized and two marble-sized green fruit have actually set on.

 

Tuesday, July 20

 

By 7:15am, I had taken my walk and bought groceries. By 8am, a batch of chocolate chip/pecan cookies had been baked - made necessary by HH's having finished off the sandwich cookies that he likes and by the little WalMart's not having any for sale, this morning.

 

Thursday, July 22

 

Fortunately, I accomplished all necessary outdoor activities before 9am, today - my walk, some yard work, and a quick trip to the little WalMart to purchase more wide-mouth jar flats (for jars of chili that I had ready to put up in jars for Elder Brother). The trip to WalMart was a bust. They had nothing but jars left for sale in the canning supplies area. It seems that canning supplies are in short supply due to COVID-19 shutdowns.

 

I had to re-use some of the flats that I had on hand. I've historically re-used flats when the food is for Hunky Husband and me; because, except for the rare jar of jam, I keep such canned goods in the downstairs refrigerator or freezer. I like to use new flats when someone else is getting the canned goods - even when, as for the chili, the person will similarly store the jars in the cold. EB may choose not to take the chili if that is his preference; but, with careful packing, he should be able to get them to his home at a low enough temperature. I did assure that each jar actually sealed. *ping*

 

The photo, below, shows a loose set of wide-mouth flat and ring, one pint of the chili, and one unopened box of standard-mouth flats. The standard-mouth flats will probably still be in the cabinet when I die. I pretty much have used the wide-mouth jars since an epiphany many years ago in which I realized it is easier for one with tremors to hit a larger target. (My circular error probable, CEP, isn't that small.)

 

 

The reason I was glad to get outdoor activities accomplished early was that the authorities started issuing air quality advisories (stay indoors) at about 10am. The smoke from the wildfires in Northern California wasn't pea soup thick; but, it has been hazy out there.

 

A piece about canning jar flat shortage, Where have all the canning lids gone?, was posted last August. I hadn't noticed, before, because I had plenty of the flats on hand until now. (I've used at least three dozen new flats since August.)

 

Milkweed

While showing Hunky Husband the free lilies, I took him by my miniature meadow in order to check out the milkweed plants. They are doing well. There was a caterpillar on one of the plants (and a nibbled leaf edge); but, as I read online, "That ain't no Monarch!"

 

 

Addition of 7/19/2021: No caterpillar, no cocoon, no chrysalis, no further nibbling of leaves. Perhaps a bluebird ate the caterpillar.

 

MONDAY, July 19

 

Tomato harvest

After giving our four Ninebark bushes a haircut this morning, I harvested tomatoes. The bowl on the left contains tomatoes from a couple of volunteer vines that came up between the garage and the crepe myrtle bushes, this spring, while the bowl on the right contains tomatoes off of a Jet Star vine that I bought and planted. Because of the wonky weather that we had in March-May, our purchased vines had no ripe tomatoes for July 4th - which is the rule of thumb for gauging success of growing tomatoes, around here. The Jet Star and one of the larger tomato varieties ripened up one or two fruits - one week later.

 

For a while, the volunteer tomato plants out-produced our purchased plants. There is still one purchased plant that hasn't set on fruit but has abundant blossoms. (I picked some of the tomatoes a bit under-ripe so as not to give our expected high temperatures this afternoon, and the critters, a chance to spoil them. The temperatures are to crescendo to about 106 degrees Fahrenheit within the next two weeks, making our temperatures more in keeping with expectations for July.)

 

 

Update of 7/24/2021: The one vine that I wrote had not yet set fruit is the Bella Roma and closer inspection, this morning, showed  one walnut-sized and two marble-sized green fruit have actually set on.

 

Tuesday, July 20

 

By 7:15am, I had taken my walk and bought groceries. By 8am, a batch of chocolate chip/pecan cookies had been baked - made necessary by HH's having finished off the sandwich cookies that he likes and by the little WalMart's not having any for sale, this morning.

 

Thursday, July 22

 

Fortunately, I accomplished all necessary outdoor activities before 9am, today - my walk, some yard work, and a quick trip to the little WalMart to purchase more wide-mouth jar flats (for jars of chili that I had ready to put up in jars for Elder Brother). The trip to WalMart was a bust. They had nothing but jars left for sale in the canning supplies area. It seems that canning supplies are in short supply due to COVID-19 shutdowns.

 

I had to re-use some of the flats that I had on hand. I've historically re-used flats when the food is for Hunky Husband and me; because, except for the rare jar of jam, I keep such canned goods in the downstairs refrigerator or freezer. I like to use new flats when someone else is getting the canned goods - even when, as for the chili, the person will similarly store the jars in the cold. EB may choose not to take the chili if that is his preference; but, with careful packing, he should be able to get them to his home at a low enough temperature. I did assure that each jar actually sealed. *ping*

 

The photo, below, shows a loose set of wide-mouth flat and ring, one pint of the chili, and one unopened box of standard-mouth flats. The standard-mouth flats will probably still be in the cabinet when I die. I pretty much have used the wide-mouth jars since an epiphany many years ago in which I realized it is easier for one with tremors to hit a larger target. (My circular error probable, CEP, isn't that small.)

 

 

The reason I was glad to get outdoor activities accomplished early was that the authorities started issuing air quality advisories (stay indoors) at about 10am. The smoke from the wildfires in Northern California wasn't pea soup thick; but, it has been hazy out there.

 

A piece about canning jar flat shortage, Where have all the canning lids gone?, was posted last August. I hadn't noticed, before, because I had plenty of the flats on hand until now. (I've used at least three dozen new flats since August.)

Residential electrical service entrance

Earlier this month, a comment string on the posting, More from News for Nerds - Heat pumps, led to another posting, Determining electrical service requirements - for the non-professional, with an abundance of comments. I do not intend to extend (I like that phrase; ) the discussion in this posting, but merely wish to provide a place to document some of the information and sources that I ran across during the earlier exchange. In no particular order, I include the following items.

City of Derby, Kansas, Underground Wiring in Residential Subdivisions 

I've made previous mention of utility supply lines of various sorts' being delivered to our homes by underground installations, and below is an excerpt pertaining to electrical and telephone service supply from our city's Subdivision Regulation, Article 7 Installation of Required Improvements (Download Article 7__201304041240165680).

Overhead Power Line Service

If the electrical service is delivered via overhead power lines, as has been the case in about half of the homes in which I've lived, the electrical service entrance is through the roof or through an exterior wall - above grade. 

The graphics, below, are from a simplified presentation at Electrical Academia, and illustrate some of the routing and terminology having to do with conducting overhead power line electrical service into a residential dwelling. The graphic on the left shows a "mast service drop"; on the right, a "clevis service drop".

 

 

 

 

 

Dealing with restoration of electrical service following damage due to a disaster

It is a sticky wicket, figuring out whom to call when disaster strikes a home, damaging the electrical service entrance. During my volunteer disaster relief work, in coordinating with governmental agencies, I have been party to several conversations concerning what various levels of government can/cannot do, what utility companies can/cannot do, and the responsibility of the home owner (who may engage a qualified electrician) in restoring electrical service following a disaster. It got very frustrating for the stressed home owners.

The following table of responsibility is from Basics of Residential Electric Service Drops (thespruce.com). 

How [sic - should be Who] Is Responsible For Fixing the Service Drop?
	Power Company	Qualified Electrician
Overhead wires running from pole to house	X
Service bracket attaching service wires to house	X
Electric meter	X
Weather head that attaches to service cable		X
Service cable from weather head to meter box, then to service panel (circuit breakers)		X
Meter socket		X

Summary of the week - July 16

Inside Work

This week, I was able to finish cleaning the second one-third of our built-in china cabinet (in-progress photo, below).

Notice the rope hanging at the right-hand edge of the above photo. It is one support of the three-tiered macramé/glass table that has hung in the corner of the dining room for the past 10 years or so. It had previously hung in the living room in the corner next to the piano; but, during the early years in this house, I had discovered that when I watered the over-wintering house plants that were on that table, the water found a way to drip into the carpeting. It's much easier to clean the mess off of vinyl roll goods floor covering.

Cecil ("our" handyman) un-hung that table (and the table in the opposite front corner of the room) to give us more space in the dining room. We do not frequently have enough family over to require extending the dining table to it's full length with leaves (I gave up being the primary entertainer in our family when I was in my late 70s); but, when we need to seat 10 people, accommodations will be more comfortable. Below are photos of the two vacant corners. (The first photo includes the collapsed table below where it had hung.) BTW: Each of the macramé tables, purchased at an artworks shop in Old Town Albuquerque in the 1980s, hung from a healthy chain and hooks driven into the beam that shows at the top of the second photo.

 

Cecil teased me about the size/strength of the hardware that I used, and for my having used two hooks from which to hang each table. You will note in the photo, below, that I had spray painted the parts to make them blend with the walls (off-white chain) and beam (chocolate brown hooks). I still felt competent to teeter at the top of an 8-foot step ladder in those days. I let Cecil do it, this time.

Cecil's primary purpose of being here was to repair one of the bi-fold doors on the guest bedroom closet. The door had come off its pivots the last time Elder Brother visited us. Since EB is even more anal retentive than is Hunky Husband, it really bothered him that the door "broke" on him - despite my assuring him that the door had been giving me troubles for several years (that bedroom was mine until I moved to the basement.) The pivot point on the bottom had actually been pushed up inside the hollow door. Cecil took the door home with him to see what approach(es) he could come up with and returned it two days later - with, in his words, Plan A. So far, we haven't had to go to Plan B as the door, after Cecil put much elbow grease into adjusting the hardware properly, seems to be working well. (The cranky door is the one on the left in the photo, below.) 

Outside Work

A couple of months ago, one of my postings included a photo a a new string trimmer that I had bought. Since then, I've casually mentioned edging the front sidewalk, the driveway, the street curbing, and our patio. It wasn't until a few days ago that HH pointed out to me that, despite my efforts, the edging of the street curbing did not look all that great. Casting a critical eye on it, I had to agree. Thus, this week, I dug out my manual edger, my Weasel Edge-Chopper, and have been working at establishing neat edgings that I shall then maintain using the string trimmer.

The photo, below, shows a section of the street curb edging. The dark area next to the grass is where the grass had grown out over the concrete - that I had failed to note in edging with the trimmer. I removed about 40 feet of 4-inch-wide sod from along the curbing. I've not quite finished all of the manual edging, but the bit of street curbing that is left to be done has grass that has only overgrown the concrete by about one inch.

While pulling weeds in front, I noted that the one ice plant that has thrived for the past few years is in full bloom (below). The 1/2-inch of rain that we received yesterday made the weeds grow by about six inches in all directions.

When I stepped outside to work, this morning, I was greeted by an unusual sight - an Annual Cicada that had just emerged from its shell. It is on a dill weed that is growing in the rose garden.

Added about 24 hours later - in response to Stu's having asked about the size of cicadas. The photo, below, is out of focus, but will give the idea of size on this particular cicada. I'm judging this cicada's length, nose-to-wingtip, to be about three inches - perhaps a little larger than "normal" in my experience. More information may be found at Common cicadas of Kansas, but in my limited browsing, I didn't see mention of sizes of the numerous varieties listed/shown. BTW: There are nearly 200 varieties (species & sub-species) in North America and over 3,000 world-wide.

Wikipedia notes that "The adult insect, known as an imago, is 2 to 5 cm (1 to 2 in) in total length in most species. The largest, the empress cicada (Megapomponia imperatoria), has a head-body length around 7 cm (2.8 in), and its wingspan is 18–20 cm (7–8 in).^[7][23]"

More from News for Nerds - Auto emissions, Bit Coin cost, & USA Fossil fuel use

Volkswagen, BMW Fined $1 Billion For Colluding To Make Dirtier Cars (theverge.com)123

Posted by msmash on Thursday July 08, 2021 @02:02PM from the closer-look dept.

Volkswagen, Audi, Porsche, BMW, and Mercedes-Benz parent company Daimler spent years illegally colluding to slow the deployment of cleaner emissions technology, says the European Union, which is dishing out fines as a result. From a report: The EU's executive branch hit the Volkswagen Group (which owns Audi and Porsche) and BMW with a collective $1 billion fine on Thursday for their role in the scheme. Volkswagen Group must pay $595 million, while BMW will pay $442 million. Daimler, however, evaded a $861 million fine of its own because the automaker revealed the collusion to the regulators.

The scheme described by EU authorities is separate from the Volkswagen Group's massive Dieselgate scandal, in which the company installed software on its diesel vehicles that helped fool environmental regulators into believing they were compliant, when in reality, they were polluting far more than the legal limit. Dieselgate ultimately led to nearly $40 billion in fines, buybacks, and legal fees for the Volkswagen Group. Daimler also installed software on some of its diesel vehicles to cheat emissions tests and has paid billions of dollars in fines. BMW was careful to point out Thursday that, unlike the other companies it was caught colluding with, it had not cheated emissions testing.

 

Bitcoin Power Plant Is Turning a 12,000-Year-Old Glacial Lake Into a Hot Tub (arstechnica.com)69

Posted by BeauHD on Tuesday July 06, 2021 @11:30PM from the hot-tub-time-machine dept.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: The fossil fuel power plant that a private equity firm revived to mine bitcoin is at it again. Not content to just pollute the atmosphere in pursuit of a volatile crypto asset with little real-world utility, this experiment in free marketeering is also dumping tens of millions of gallons of hot water into glacial Seneca Lake in upstate New York. "The lake is so warm you feel like you're in a hot tub," Abi Buddington, who lives near the Greenidge power plant, told NBC News. In the past, nearby residents weren't necessarily enamored with the idea of a pollution-spewing power plant warming their deep, cold water lake, but at least the electricity produced by the plant was powering their homes. Today, they're lucky if a small fraction does. Most of the time, the turbines are burning natural gas solely to mint profits for the private equity firm Atlas Holdings by mining bitcoin.

Atlas, the firm that bought Greenidge has been ramping up its bitcoin mining aspirations over the last year and a half, installing thousands of mining rigs that have produced over 1,100 bitcoin as of February 2021. The company has plans to install thousands more rigs, ultimately using 85 MW of the station's total 108 MW capacity. [...] The 12,000-year-old Seneca Lake is a sparkling specimen of the Finger Lakes region. It still boasts high water quality, clean enough to drink with just limited treatment. Its waters are home to a sizable lake trout population that's large enough to maintain the National Lake Trout Derby for 57 years running. The prized fish spawn in the rivers that feed the lake, and it's into one of those rivers -- the Keuka Lake Outlet, known to locals for its rainbow trout fishing -- that Greenidge dumps its heated water. Rainbow trout are highly sensitive to fluctuations in water temperature, with the fish happiest in the mid-50s. Because cold water holds more oxygen, as temps rise, fish become stressed. Above 70 F, rainbow trout stop growing and stressed individuals start dying. Experienced anglers don't bother fishing when water temps get to that point.

Greenidge has a permit to dump 135 million gallons of water per day into the Keuka Lake Outlet as hot as 108 F in the summer and 86 F in the winter. New York's Department of Environmental Conservation reports that over the last four years, the plant's daily maximum discharge temperatures have averaged 98 in summer and 70 in winter. That water eventually makes its way to Seneca Lake, where it can result in tropical surface temps and harmful algal blooms. Residents say lake temperatures are already up, though a full study won't be completed until 2023.

 

America Used Fewer Fossil Fuels In 2020 Than It Has In Three Decades (theverge.com)76

Posted by BeauHD on Tuesday July 06, 2021 @10:02PM from the pandemic-side-effects dept.

Americans gobbled up fewer fossil fuels in 2020 than they have in three decades, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA). The Verge reports: Consumption of petroleum, natural gas, and coal dropped by 9 percent last year compared to 2019, the biggest annual decrease since the EIA started keeping track in 1949. The COVID-19 pandemic was responsible for much of the fall as people stayed home to curb the spread of the virus and used less gas. In April 2020, oil prices nosedived below zero because there was so little demand. The U.S. transportation sector alone used up 15 percent less energy in 2020 compared to the year before. Higher temperatures last winter also helped to cut energy demand for heating, according to the EIA. As a result, greenhouse gas emissions from burning fossil fuels plummeted to a near 40-year low.

That downward trend will have to continue in order to stave off the climate crisis. Upon rejoining the Paris climate agreement, President Joe Biden committed the U.S. to slash its planet-heating pollution in half this decade from near-peak levels it reached in 2005. That's part of a global effort to keep global warming from surpassing a point that life on Earth would struggle to adapt to, a global average temperature that's roughly 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels. To hit that goal, there should be no further investments in new fossil fuel projects, according to a recent landmark report from the International Energy Agency. The oil and gas industries are already feeling the crunch from lawsuits and activist investors forcing them to move faster toward more sustainable forms of energy.

Summary of the week - 7/10/2021

Monday, July 5, 2021

Today would be a quiet day at home for us were it not for our having several neighbors who didn't satisfy their tastes for noise and explosions in the past few days. Today is the last day to, legally, set off fireworks. It's too bad that most of our neighbors don't seem to realize that setting off fireworks in the street is not legal. (The retired USAF colonel up the street grumbles about this.) Most of the neighbors are pretty good about cleaning up the next day; but, they aren't really meticulous. Starting Thursday (to give time for all embers to die out), my walks will include picking up much trash from expended fireworks.

BTW: Hunky Husband says that the "retired USAF colonel", Mike, hasn't really retired, at all - that he is still looking after "his troops". Mike stops in every couple of weeks, if he and I haven't recently seen one another while out walking, to make sure that we are doing all right. Mike is a bundle of energy, taking on jobs that might come around. He was scheduled to go work in Texas for a few months, a year ago, when COVID-19 put the Kibosh on it.

Tuesday, July 6, 2021

Hunky Husband had another session with his audiologist today. IMHO, it is unfortunate that he let Dr Combs talk him into going back to manual control of his hearing aids; but, perhaps he will do better this time. (Dr C didn't recall that HH had had manual control for his first week with the hearing aids and that he didn't do well with it.)

This being grocery shopping day, we stopped to buy groceries on our way home from Wichita. Of course, I had decided against taking my want list with us, thinking that HH wouldn't feel like making the stop. He fooled me! We purchased about half of the items on my list, the only important omission's being block chili. I bought three pounds of ground beef at our local meat market the other day, planning to make chili for freezing to send home with Elder Brother the next time he visits us. He brought me the empty jars, last trip.

Wednesday, July 7, 2021

I had my annual eye exam. Everything is looking good, according to Dr Agpoon.

HH mowed the front and back lawns. It has been a challenge for him to get the mowing done during the past few weeks - working around the bouts of rain. In the month of June, we surpassed the "normal" rainfall total by a bit over 0.50". As frequently as it seemed to rain, I was surprised that the excess wasn't greater. Of course, they had just updated "normal" to include statistics from 1990-2020 this past month. Previous "normal" had been based on 1980-2010.

Thursday, July 8, 2021

Walked for 45 minutes, this morning, and gathered half of a grocery bag full of leavings from fireworks. The rest of the bag was filled, mostly, by bits and pieces of marker flags that had been installed along the semi-major artery up the street from us when optical cable was being installed (again?!) and shredded by the mowers of the lawn service that cares for our Home Owner Association's common areas. I did not pull up any of the flags that had not been shredded - just picked up the pieces. Surprisingly (to me) was that the actual markers on the route of the optical cable were paper rather than the plastic used by other utilities along that route. Well done!

Washed all of the dishes from one-third of our china cabinet (above). This is an annual event that I hate, but which must be done. I haven't yet worked up the energy to replace items into the top two (cleaned) shelves, having used too much energy pulling weeds and mowing the "deep back" part of our back yard. (It got done, eventually.)

Every once-in-a-while I am surprised by something that HH does remember or that he does not remember. Today, it was not. He told me that he was taking one of his clean hand towels to the basement with him - that he intended to treat his scalp with his special shampoo. I let him know that there was already a towel for him to use, on the towel bar at the sink next to the clothes washing machine. Regardless, he took the clean hand towel downstairs with him. A minute later, he returned with the towel, exclaiming "I just found a towel bar I didn't know it was there!" Never mind that he has routinely used a black hand towel (photo, below - not HH's shampoo shown) that always hangs on that bar - whenever he washes his hands while doing laundry, or after he works out in his weights room.

HH had surprised me the other day by, without a word, replenishing the supply of paper napkins that we keep in a holder (that Bogie made in a high school course) on the breakfast table. Prior to that day, for several months, I had had to ask that he perform the tasking - and tell him where we keep the supply of paper napkins. That was a does surprise.

Determining electrical service requirements - for the non-professional

Stu commented, "Interesting that all your electrical services enter the house well above ground. Is that just you, or is it generally so in the USA? Here in Germany they all come in underground via the cellar." 

I posted an answer to Stu's question that, on later reading, made me think that it was written when I was intoxicated (if only I drank!) or delirious (the explanation of my joining the US Navy Reserves 41 years ago).  I found my answer confused, incomplete, and (worse) partially incorrect. Oh, me. Fortunately, Bogie, a mere few hours after I unpublished my comment, published her answer that was much superior to mine. Bogie wrote, "Above ground seems to be the norm in most areas I believe."

Please keep in mind that, unlike my late father, I am not an electrician. I know the difference between a Y- and a Delta-connection (from my EE courses, 1955-1957); but, I know little to nothing about building/electrical codes. Dealing with electrical codes takes patience, perseverance, and practice. The codes that apply to electrical service installations in the States are not easy to find nor, having been found, are they easy to interpret - unless one is an electrician, for whom I should not attempt to speak. To make matters more complicated, each level of our civil government may adopt its own code.

The National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) is the source of the National Electrical Code (NEC) that is adopted (usually with amendments) by most civil governmental bodies in the States - usually by reference within their own codes. Wikipedia states that, "The association publishes more than 300 consensus codes and standards that are intended to minimize the possibility and effects of fire and other risks. The codes and standards are administered by more than 250 technical committees, consisting of approximately 8,000 volunteers." 

The map, below, from HomElectric illustrates the hodge-podge of electrical codes in effect in the 50 States as of June 9, 2018.

In Sedgwick County, Kansas, our construction is supposed to follow the Wichita/Sedgwick County Unified Building & Trade Code. That document includes the excerpt, below. Not only am I not an electrician, I am not an attorney. Double-talk is not my native language. At this point, I abandon trying to find what I need in the codes, and rely (as Bogie did in her comment in answer to Stu's question) upon my own experience. I like Bogie's answer.

ARTICLE 4, SECTION 2 - WIRING INSTALLATION REGULATIONS

Sec. 4.2.010. - Installation standards.

All electrical installations made shall be in strict conformity with the provisions of this Code. If
sections contained within this Code, in a given situation, do not prescribe a specific type or class of
material or specific standards of construction, then the standards as set forth and contained in the
National Electrical Code, 2020 Edition including Informative Annex C (Conduit and Tubing Fill
Tables), as published by the National Fire Protection Association as N.F.P.A. No. 70-2020, as
presently constituted and as may be hereinafter amended, shall apply. with the exception of Section
200.6(d); Section 210.5(c)(1); Section 225.30(b); Section 230.67; Section 334.10; Section
334.12(a)(1); and Section 680.9; of such publication. Said N.F.P.A. No. 70-2020, was adopted by
the National Fire Protection Association at its 2019 June Technical Session and approved as an
American National Standard on August 25, 2019. By this publication, all provisions of such
publication, with noted exceptions, are adopted by reference and made a part of this Code, and this
Section as though fully set forth herein.

More from News for Nerds - Heat pumps

Seven years ago, having been plagued for several years with minor leakage from the air conditioner coolant line that is embedded pretty much inaccessibly within the house structure, we had our Heating/Ventilation/Air Conditioning (HVAC) system replaced with a high efficiency system. It was pricey, but worth the change. The new system is much quieter, provides much more consistent temperatures, and (yay!) uses a heat pump, the natural gas furnace being on standby for really cold episodes. Unfortunately, instead of acting as auxiliary heater for the first winter, the furnace provided primary heat. This escaped my notice because I don't spend much time in the part of the house in which the status display is mounted (I probably wouldn't have noticed, anyway) and, as it turned out, Hunky Husband wasn't paying any attention to the readouts or to the utility bills. Fortunately, the technician who did our twice-yearly checkup of the HVAC system caught it. The wrong chip had been installed in the heat pump unit controller, outside. The reverse heat-flow mode had never been activated.

BTW: You may be interested in Bogie's posting about installation of her new "mini split" ductless HVAC system.

The item, below, is from the News for Nerds website.

Can Heat Pumps Change Demand for Air Conditioners Into a Climate-Change Win? (nytimes.com)266

Posted by EditorDavid on Sunday July 04, 2021 @05:34PM from the forget-the-furnace dept.

The New York Times reports:As global warming fuels deadly heat waves across the country, more Americans in places like the Pacific Northwest are rushing out to buy air-conditioners for the first time. One common concern is that a surge in air-conditioning could make the planet even hotter, by increasing the need for electricity from power plants running on coal or gas, which produce emissions that drive global warming.

But some energy experts, as well as cities like Denver and Berkeley, California, have recently started exploring a counterintuitive strategy: Soaring demand for air-conditioning might actually be a prime opportunity to reduce fossil fuel emissions and fight climate change. The idea is simple: If Americans are going to buy air-conditioners anyway, either for the first time or to replace older units, why not convince them to buy electric heat pumps instead? Although the name can be confusing, an electric heat pump is essentially an air-conditioner that is slightly modified so that it can run in two directions, cooling the home in the summer and providing heat in the winter. That extra heating function is the key to helping tackle climate change. During the cooler months, heat pumps could warm homes far more efficiently than the furnaces that run on fossil fuels or electric resistance heaters that most households currently use, which would cut down on carbon dioxide emissions. Existing furnaces would only need to be used as backup on the coldest days of the year, since many heat pumps work less efficiently in subzero temperatures.

Most manufacturers already offer heat pump versions of the air-conditioners they sell, but they're typically about $200 to $500 more expensive to make. So, the idea goes, policymakers would have to step in with subsidies or regulations to make adoption universal. But if done right, proponents say, households would see utility bills either drop or stay largely unchanged, and they would even enjoy a more comfortable heating experience.
The Times spoke to Nate Adams, a home performance consultant who proposed the idea in a recent paper written with experts at Harvard University CLASP, a nonprofit formerly known as the Collaborative Labeling and Appliance Standards Program advising governments on energy efficiency. "Working with energy modelers, Mr. Adams and his co-authors estimated that, if two-way heat pumps become the standard option when people installed new central air-conditioning, they would be in 44% of American homes by 2032, up from just 11% today. On average, those homes could cut their fossil fuel use during the colder months by at least one-third. And, as states move to clean up their electricity grids by adding more wind and solar power, the climate benefits from those electric heat pumps would increase..."

"Homes and offices account for 13 percent of the nation's annual greenhouse gas emissions, with much of that from oil or natural gas burned in furnaces, hot water heaters, ovens, stoves and dryers. While the United States has made major strides in reducing pollution from power plants, building emissions have barely budged since 2005."

More from News for Nerds - High-res photo of a crystal

Image shows an electron ptychographic reconstruction of a praseodymium orthoscandate (PrScO₃) crystal, zoomed in 100 million times. Credit: Cornell University

From News for Nerds:

See the Highest-Resolution Atomic Image Ever Captured (scientificamerican.com)38

Posted by BeauHD on Tuesday June 29, 2021 @09:00AM from the record-breaking dept.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Scientific American: Behold the highest-resolution image of atoms ever seen. Cornell University researchers captured a sample from a crystal in three dimensions and magnified it 100 million times, doubling the resolution that earned the same scientists a Guinness World Record in 2018. Their work could help develop materials for designing more powerful and efficient phones, computers and other electronics, as well as longer-lasting batteries. The researchers obtained the image using a technique called electron ptychography. It involves shooting a beam of electrons, about a billion of them per second, at a target material. The beam moves infinitesimally as the electrons are fired, so they hit the sample from slightly different angles each time -- sometimes they pass through cleanly, and other times they hit atoms and bounce around inside the sample on their way out. Cornell physicist David Muller, whose team conducted the recent study, likens the technique to playing dodgeball against opponents who are standing in the dark. The dodgeballs are electrons, and the targets are individual atoms. Though Muller cannot see the targets, he can see where the "dodgeballs" end up, thanks to advanced detectors. Based on the speckle pattern generated by billions of electrons, machine-learning algorithms can calculate where the atoms were in the sample and what their shapes might be.

Previously, electron ptychography had only been used to image extremely flat samples: those merely one to a few atoms thick. The new study, published in Science, now allows it to capture multiple layers tens to hundreds of atoms thick. That makes the technique much more relevant to materials scientists, who typically study the properties of samples with a thickness of about 30 to 50 nanometers. (That range is smaller than the length your fingernails grow in a minute but many times thicker than what electron ptychography could image in the past.) "They can actually look at stacks of atoms now, so it's amazing," says Andrew Maiden, an engineer at the University of Sheffield in England, who helped develop ptychography but was not involved with the new study. "The resolution is just staggering."

 

By visiting the Materials Project website, one may access an interactive presentation of the PrScO₃ crystal. As demonstrated in the screenshot, below, PrScO₃ is "Orthorhombic Perovskite structured and crystallizes in the orthorhombic Pnma space group. The structure is three-dimensional. Pr3+ is bonded in a 8-coordinate geometry to eight O2- atoms. There are a spread of Pr-O bond distances ranging from 2.37-2.89 Å. Sc3+ is bonded to six O2- atoms to form corner-sharing ScO6 octahedra."

Gee. I wish that website had been around when I studied crystallography in a solid state physics class (1958). It took me "forever" to figure out the primitive cell of the crystal assigned to me - iron alpha.