Cop Car's Beat

Deities and belief

Eunoia: Stu Savory's Blog includes an "about" posting in the left-hand sidebar that includes this snippet, "Stubbornly he clings to his beliefs, e.g. that Faith does not give answers, it only prevents you [sic] doing any goddamn questioning. You are as atheist as he is. When you understand why you don't believe in all the other gods, you will know why he does not believe in yours :-)"

I hasten to write that Stu has expressed my own opinion in better words than I would have been able to articulate. My own "aha!" moment on religious beliefs was when, at a young age, I learned that the emperor of Japan was actually raised to believe that he was a direct descendant of a deity. "Aha!" thought I, "If he can be brainwashed to believe that, anyone can be brainwashed to believe anything." Thenceforth, I chose to have faith in the demonstrable and repeatable.

Impetus for this posting: 1) My being nearly constantly bombarded with numerous religious and politico-religious tracts in the past few months* - via the mass media and via USPS and email. 2) A discussion with one of my thoughtful blog friends via email in the past few weeks.

* Actually, for most of my life; but, more particularly lately!

P.S. No, I am not in the business of trying to convert anyone else to my lack of religion; but, I don't mind a polite, well-reasoned debate. However, I do find such things tiresome/pointless in a short period of time!

Random thoughts as I browse the blogosphere/internet/et cetera

It is great reading about how well-prepared many bloggers were for Hurricane/Tropical Storm Irene. My observation is that, the more rural the abode/life style, the more self-reliant a household.

I don't know whether to be amused or flummoxed or just plain pissed over the number of folks who are publicly thanking their deity for watching over them/someone else. Does that mean that the 30+ folks who lost their lives in Irene were marked for extermination by someone's deity?

Now a study says that we should not teach "to" the perceived "learning style" of a student - that we should be researching what different students' "learning styles" have in common. This is only one study, so not definitive; but, I'm thinking that teaching in a style that engages a student, and enforcing the learning of material to extend over a period of time provides the best results for the greater number of students and is, thus, "cost effective".

Neither the Institute of Medicine, nor the World Health Organization has issued a finding that chocolate is good for me. I will, however, continue to partake - in moderation (whatever that is!)

Someone on SlashDot.comasked that someone give him (a college graduate with some calculus and three courses in statistics under his belt) a syllabus of study that within a decade will lead him to understand the General Theory of Relativity. If anyone wants me to post such a syllabus on my blog, I'll be willing to attempt this feat. However, I'm not sure that the guy on SlashDot.com will ever "get it" if he thinks that three courses in statistics will be a huge help. Statistics isn't exactly higher mathematics, and insight into scientific principles is a greater requirement for understanding the theory than is any amount of math. Do I understand the theory? Of course not! I'm not a bloody genius. I do have a glimmer of understanding - I think!

Some folks are upset about the amount of vacation Pres Obama has taken. My thought is that every president has, and needs to have, taken vacation to do an effective job in office without losing it! Congress certainly takes enough days off during the year. My further thinking is that if we allowed the Congress to work only 20 days each year, we might come out ahead.

The New Yorker edition for August 29, 2011 contains Annals of Law: Partners: Will Clarence and Virginia Thomas succeed in killing Obama's health-care plan? by Jeffrey Toobin. I am upset to have such a skanky person on the Supreme Court (perhaps I just don't have reason to think I know as much of the personalities of the other Justices?) and I certainly disagree with his far-far-far right wing politics; but, this even-handed treatment of Justice Thomas gives me reason to respect the Justice as an intellect.

Today is Bogie's Wonderful Spouse's birthday. Happy Birthday, WS!

Expectations: Irene's reign (and rain)

Our younger daughter, Bogie, is expecting, at the very least, some very nasty weather at her home in southern New Hampshire. Her husband is tied up with activities necessary to retain/renew his certification for welding; thus, Bogie has the prep work all to herself. Not to worry. There is no doubt in my mind that, whatever is thrown at her, Bogie* will come out on top. To read of her preparations, please go to Bogieblog which now includes yesterday's posting, Preparing for Irene, and today's posting, The Birds Know.

P.S. If you go to Quaking Good Time, you may read Bogie's comment on the earthquake (epicenter in Virginia) of the other day - which Bogie felt while she was at work.

*Bogie gets her exercise gardening and landscaping, so I know that she is up to anything. For example, see below photos of Bogie gardening in the snow about 17 months ago. (Photos stolen from Bogieblog - camera work by Bogie's Wonderful Spouse.)

 

Shoes

Several days ago Kenju posted photos of some of the weirdest, strangest, most idiotic, most (insert adjective here) shoes that I have ever seen. I could see no reason that anyone would even contemplate actually wearing such idiotic footwear. (Well, to be fair, I believe that the shoes were intended to be whimsical pop art.) Today, via SlashDot.Com,  I found a possible use for those shoes (although I can think of making the same use of saner shoes!) Read on.

Theoretical Shoe Inserts Could Power Your Gadgets150

Posted by Soulskillon Friday August 26, @10:59AM
from the sole-source-of-energy dept.

In his first accepted submission, Anon8---) writes "As published on nature.com, a process called electrowetting, 'in which a conductive liquid droplet, placed on an electrode, is physically deformed by an applied electric charge,' could be used to provide 10 watts of juice to smartphones and other gadgets as you walk. 'The technique depends on the use of a dielectric material — which is usually an insulator but that can be polarized in an electric field — to coat the electrode. When the dielectric is charged the droplet can wet the surface more easily, and deforms. In his system, Krupenkin runs this process backwards, using the changing physical form of liquid drops between dielectric-coated plates to generate charge and therefore electrical power.' So far, Krupenkin and Ashley Taylor have been able to produce a few milliwatts of power along tiny channels a few millimeters wide. They have patented the idea and are now concentrating on scaling up the device and designing a shoe to contain it."

Origin of Life on Jupiter

As a follow up to my posting Origin of Life on Earth, comes the following bit - from the same source - SlashDot.org.

KentuckyFC writes "Various astronomers have studied how far rocks can travel through space after being ejected from Earth. Their conclusion is that it's relatively easy for bits of Earth to end up on the Moon or Venus, but very little would get to Mars because it would have to overcome gravity from both the Sun and the Earth. Now, the biggest ever simulation of Earth ejecta confirms this result — with a twist. The simulation shows that Jupiter is a much more likely destination than Mars. So bits of Earth could have ended up on Jovian satellites such as Europa. Astrobiologists estimate that Earth's hardiest organisms can survive up to 30,000 years in space, which means that if conditions are just right, Earth ejecta could seed life there."

Or perhaps both Earth & Jupitor were sprinkled with the same DNA from outside the solar system. I think that I shall copyright the name of the DNA sprinkles - call it "Fairy Dust"? Kidding aside, the whole subject is intriguing to me.

For the hippies - from SlashDot.com

Sequencing the Weed Genome215

Posted by Soulskillon Saturday August 20, @11:33PM
from the department-of..-wait-no..-i'm-hungry dept.

GNUman writes "Maybe soon we'll be able to genetically modify humans so that a specific action (e.g., tapping your nose, pinching your ear) triggers the release of THC directly from your own cells. From the Nature blog post: 'At last, the field of genomics has something to offer Cheech and Chong. DNA sequencing hit a new high last night with the midnight release of the Cannabis sativa genome. The raw sequence was posted on Amazon's EC2 public cloud computing service by a young company called Medicinal Genomics, which aims to explore the genomes of therapeutic plants.'"

Bogie hits a winner

Bogie (Bogieblog) found a winner of a political commentary on Cats are Republicans, dogs are Dems. Bogie credits Alphecca for the find.

If you are into motorcycles, Bogie has posted a photo of her sleek bike - after cleanup of the aftermaths of riding through a storm.

Call to hummingbird lovers

I discovered a fabulous website, today, while researching ruby-throated hummingbirds. My intent was to confirm my identification of the little fella shown below.

 
Each year we see strange hummingbirds at our feeders. It always takes me a bit to convince myself that they are, indeed, immature ruby-throated hummingbirds - as the one pictured above, is (male). In researching, Google provided me a link to the Operation Ruby Throat website - the link for which I shall provide later. Just now, I would like to entice you to go to the Index of their website. What enchants me about their index page is that a tiny, flying ruby-throated hummingbird follows my computer monitor cursor, wherever I take it.

OK...now I'll give you the page that I first observed, which tells one everything they ever wanted to know about ruby-throated hummingbirds - with lots of photos. It is here.

No dummy, this kid!

From SlashDot, an interesting piece about a youngster with a good head on his shoulders:

13-Year-Old Uses Fibonacci Sequence For Solar Power Breakthrough350

Posted by Soulskillon Friday August 19, @08:43AM
from the one-one-two-three-five-eureka dept.

An anonymous reader tips news of 7th grader Aidan Dwyer, who used phyllotaxis — the way leaves are arranged on plant stems in nature — as inspiration to arrange an array of solar panels in a way that generates 20-50% more energy than a uniform, flat panel array. Aidan wrote,"I designed and built my own test model, copying the Fibonacci pattern of an oak tree. I studied my results with the compass tool and figured out the branch angles. The pattern was about 137 degrees and the Fibonacci sequence was 2/5. Then I built a model using this pattern from PVC tubing. In place of leaves, I used PV solar panels hooked up in series that produced up to 1/2 volt, so the peak output of the model was 5 volts. The entire design copied the pattern of an oak tree as closely as possible. ... The Fibonacci tree design performed better than the flat-panel model. The tree design made 20% more electricity and collected 2 1/2 more hours of sunlight during the day. But the most interesting results were in December, when the Sun was at its lowest point in the sky. The tree design made 50% more electricity, and the collection time of sunlight was up to 50% longer!"His work earned him a Young Naturalist Award from the American Museum of Natural History and a provisional patent on the design.

For a short exposition on Fibonacci's Fractals, follow the link which includes a link to a short video (embedded link, below). The unobtrusive ads by Google may be skipped by clicking on the "x" in the upper right-hand corner of the text box.

Happy Birthday Millie & Hats off to all Bloggers who are over 80

I am continually gratified by the postings of bloggers who are over 80 - who have probably had little exposure to computers during most of their lives. (If one hasn't used computers in school and/or work, where does one pick them up?)

Hats off to all of my over-80 blog friends

and happy birthday to Millie Garfield on her 86th birthday!

 

As the kids say, "stay strong!"