Cop Car's Beat

Haven't read the book

I've been whipping out my new Nikon 1, attempting to capture images of birds. Not having read the manual, all were snapped using fully automatic mode - all I set was the zoom, mostly at full zoom of whichever lens I had on the camera. Of 71 photos, only 7 or 8 were close enough to be in focus that I went ahead and cropped them.

First up, are a couple of photos (below) of the previously posted red-breasted nuthatch. This time I got a couple of frames in focus. The bird in the background of the photo on the right is a female downy woodpecker.

           

Ever since at least mid-summer, we have had a family of tufted titmice hanging about our yard. Although we started with a family of five, I believe that one or two of them have met untimely ends - I only see three at a time, these days. Here are a couple of photos (below)that include two titmice - the extra bird being a chickadee. Don't ask me which kind: I don't know. I used to think that I could tell the difference between a black-capped and a Carolina. However, we live in an overlap area where I am convinced that the two species teach one another their calls/songs and where they may even interbreed. If you want to "bone up" on the differences, see Tricky Bird IDs. (The photos make it appear that it is easy to differentiate the two species. That is misleading - they appear more alike, in person, than the two photos imply. They got two specimens that were at the extremes of their plummages.)

     
The next couple of photos (below) are posted with some trepidation on my part. The reason I snapped photos of the birds at all was because they were flitting about too much for my old eyes to be able to focus on them. I believe that they are female pine siskins. Just a week previously, we had had a mixed flock of 7 male and female pine siskins; but, this time, I saw no males.

       

Echoes of family dinner

Because we thought that everyone would be off of work on the 24th, that was the date set to have all of the local family over for dinner. Wichi Dude & Dudette, Wonderful GrandDaughter & Next Generations 1 & 2, and Rachie (eventually! - she, unexpectly, had her shift change and arrived after the rest of the family had finished dinner.) joined Hunky Husband and me for a family dinner. Birds at our feeders entertained us before dinner. I broke out my new Nikon 1 to snap a photo of a red-breasted nuthatch.

Pre-dinner stuff included 3 kinds of olives, 2 kinds of pepper rings, cauliflorettes, pickled artichoke hearts, cherry tomatoes, peas, Mandarin orange sections, grapes, 3 kinds of chips (bruschetta pita, garlic pita, tortilla), 3 kinds of dip (ranch, jalapeno fiesta, and RoTel cheese), and stuffed celery. Dinner comprised 2 pork loins (1 wrapped in spicy cornbread, the other in mild Italian sausage), cauliflower/broccoli/asparagus gratin, sweet potato casserole, freshly-baked hard rolls & butter, home canned pickled beets, home canned cranberry/orange relish, chocolate cheese pie, and lemon cheese pie]. Plus wines. We were stuffed by the end of the meal!

Speaking of wines: WD & Dudette brought a few bottles of wine and a couple of boxes of gigantic Junior Mint candies (photo, below). Wonderful! The Hogue Riesling is my current favorite, in which WD joins me.

After dinner, we amused ourselves in the living room. The photo, below, is of WGD using her phone to snap a photo Rachie. (You can tell that the boys are paying rapt attention.)

NG2 played with his great-grandfather (HH) a lot (photo, below).

NG1 came over to me, asking that I take his photo. I took several. During the snapping of each photo (see one of them, below), NG1 looks dour. As soon as the shutter clicked, NG1 would break into a big smile. We'll have to work with him on his timing!

I was barely able to get NG2 to pause for a microsecond while he was running around the room.

I don't recall what Dudette was saying at the time, but I do note that her ring is very sparkly.

Unfortunately, the photo that I took of WD & Dudette with the boys turned out as a blur!

The following two photos are to explain to Buffy what minimalism actually looks like. I made the wreath for my parents back in the 1960s. Most of the costume jewelry were cast-offs from Mom's collection, that she had passed along to our girls (Dudette & Bogie, of course!) for playing.

Dudette & WD gifted us with the three birds, below, each of which is peering through a tiny set of "binoculars". As I recall, they accompanied a membership to the National Audabon Society that year.

Wouldn't it be nice if...

From Slashdot.org comes a posting reflecting how science fiction might become science fact - within our lifetimes, perhaps! (Well...probably not within my lifetime, but within the lifetimes of some of you.)

NASA Plans To "Lasso" Asteroid and Turn It Into Space Station120

Posted by samzenpuson Monday December 24, @10:36AM
from the rock-roping dept.

SternisheFan writes "NASA scientists are planning to capture a 500 ton asteroid, relocate it and turn it into a space station for astronauts to refuel on their way to Mars. From the article: 'The 1.6bn-pound plan will be considered by the White House's Office of Science and technology in the coming weeks, as it prepares to set its space exploration agenda for the next decade, the Daily Mail reported. According to a report prepared by NASA and California Institute of Technology (Caltech) scientists, a, 'asteroid capture capsule' would be attached to an old Atlas V rocket and directed towards the asteroid between the earth and the moon. Once close, the asteroid capsule would release a 50ft diameter bag that wrap around the spinning rock using drawstrings. The craft would then turn on its thrusters, using an estimated 300kg of propellant, to stop the asteroid in its tracks and tow it into a gravitationally neutral spot. From here space explorers would have a stationary base from which to launch trips deeper into space.   Though NASA declined to comment on the project, it is believed that technology would make it possible within 10-12 years. The technology would also open up the possibility of mining other asteroids for their metals and minerals.  Some are full of iron which could be used for in the making of new space stations, others are made up of water which could be broken down into hydrogen and oxygen to make fuel. t is hoped that the project will increase our understanding of asteroids, and even shed new light on the origin of life on Earth.'"

Worm holes for Santa

For those who missed hearing Morning Edition, this morning, I suggest that you go to the NPR website to read about/hear what you missed. This is how the introduction to an audio file (accessed by clicking on "tongue-in-cheekily" link) starts:

Forget About Chimneys: Think Wormholes If You Want To See Santa

Sorry, Google. Sorry, NORAD.

Your online "Santa trackers" are cool.

But that jolly old elf has you both fooled.

At least that's what astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson suspects. He tongue-in-cheekily tells Morning Edition's David Greene that the whole bit about flying around the world in a sleigh pulled by reindeer and landing on rooftops is just a ruse. He says that what St. Nick is really doing, if you think about the "science of Santa," is whipping around the world and into the homes of good girls and boys via some wondrous wormholes.

The audio file takes about 4 minutes to play and is well worth it.

Happy whatever-it-is-that-you-celebrate-at-this-time-of-year!!!!!

Project SPUDS

The following are excerpts from an Associated Press news article (linked by the title).

Boeing Engineers Use Spuds to Improve in-Air Wi-Fi

by Jason Keyser, Associated Press

CHICAGO December 23, 2012

....

While major airlines offer in-flight Wi-Fi on many flights, the signal strength can be spotty. Airlines and aircraft makers have been striving to improve this with the growing use of wireless devices and the number of people who don't want to be disconnected, even 35,000 feet up.

Engineers at Chicago-based Boeing Co. used sacks of potatoes as stand-ins for passengers as they worked to eliminate weak spots in in-flight wireless signals. They needed full planes to get accurate results during signal testing, but they couldn't ask people to sit motionless for days while data was [sic] gathered.

....

It turns out that potatoes — because of their water content and chemistry — absorb and reflect radio wave signals much the same way as the human body does, making them suitable substitutes for airline passengers.

....

In a nod to the humor in using a tuber to solve a high-tech problem, researchers dubbed the project Synthetic Personnel Using Dialectic Substitution, or SPUDS.

....

A hat tip to Hunky Husband for emailing me a link to the article. In the interest of full disclosure, HH spent just shy of 35 years (Feb 1959 - Sep 1993) with Boeing. HH, being a pharmacist student gone bad, did most of his university work in electronics engineering and worked in avionics* engineering (1959 - 1974) and program management (1975 - 1993).

_____

* Avionics = code for electronics used on aeronautical platforms

Goodies from Bogie

Although, over the years I think that I have become my mother, our younger daughter (Bogie, of Bogieblog) reminds me of my mother in ways that I do not. Either of them would have made a great farmer! Below is a photo of the bounty that arrived at our door step yesterday afternoon. Envy me! (I might even share some of it with Hunky Husband - lol.)

           

The back row comprises six pints of homemade salsa, ranging from mild to medium to hot. HH gets the short end of the stick when it comes to salsa since I eat the Lion's share! the next row forward comprises two pints of homemade applie pie filling. As you can see, they look different. I will definitely be able to tell why the two fillings are different colors when I taste them; but, Bogie will hopefully take pity on me by telling me whether they are made from different varieties of apples and/or whether one contains spices that the other does not.

The two tiny bottles (tiny in comparison to the pint jars - the bottles look to hold somewhere between two and four fluid ounces, to me) contain homemade, flavored vanilla extracts - homemade from vanilla beans. Bogie went all out: she bought special bottles, labeled them nicely (I turned them because Bogie's real name is on the labels), and even applied shrink wrap to the neck/cap area to assure integrity of the product. Below are Bogie's own words (with minor redactions) from an email that she sent to enlighten me. (I had asked!)

Yes, the cherry vanilla and orange vanilla are to be used for flavoring while baking. You can use them in place of regular vanilla, or if orange or cherry flavoring is required. I was making regular vanilla and got to thinking about orange sherbet (I don’t know why, haven’t had any for years), and that led to making orange vanilla – then the cherry vanilla just naturally followed. I have started another flavor to see how that turns out too.

No, I haven’t taken any classes, just got to wondering if I could make vanilla one day last winter. Looked it up, found it was easy enough to do that I probably couldn’t screw it up to badly, ordered the vanilla beans, and started the process In April. This vanilla took 9-10 months to make.

When buying bottles (from specialtybottles.com) they had shrink wrap bands. Just put them on and use a hot blow drier for the shrinkage. The first 5-6 I messed up and had to redo, but it is really easy and cheap once you get the hang of it.

I am hoping for lots of snow. I'm thinking what wonderfully flavorful snow ice cream can be made with the extracts!

 

Presents

Frequently, Hunky Husband and/or I will have no earthly clue what to give the other on a gift-giving occasion. We sometimes wait months/years for the other person to express a wish for something that they want. Sometimes, I'm sure, we have gone beyond the limits of our memories and forgotten the intended gift all together. This year is different. HH wanted a new smart phone (we both already had smart phones but have never subscribed to the data packages to enable email and internet access). Come to think of it, he's been researching smart phones for months - maybe, even, a year or so. He now has a Nokia 822 (or something like that).

I had been toying with the idea of a new camera for some months. I now have a Nikon 1 - and one lens that is longer than the one that came with the camera (30-110mm vs 10-30mm).

Here are two views of my new toy.

 

Yes, I realize that the "extra" lens is a different color from the camera; but, white was all they had on hand and I don't really care about the color.

And, here is the first photo taken with the Nikon 1 - taken with natural lighting.

Hi-def model of aerosol distributions

Addition of December 16, 2012 - just for Joared - from Slashdot.org:

Solar Impulse Announces Flight Across America For 201340

Posted by timothyon Sunday December 16, @01:02AM
from the no-checked-baggage dept.

cylonlover writes "Flush with success from their 6,000-km (3,728-mile) Europe-to-Africa round-trip flight earlier this year, the duo behind the Solar Impulse solar-powered aircraft are now planning on flying it across America next spring. It will mark the first time that a solar-powered plane has traversed the country. Solar Impulse partners Bertrand Piccard and André Borschberg made the official announcement this Tuesday, although the logistics of the flight have yet to be finalized. They have stated that the trip will be broken into 20-hour legs, starting at San Francisco and proceeding to New York City. As with their previous multi-leg flights, the two pilots will take turns flying the aircraft." You can read about it straight from the doers, too.

Original posting - November 14, 2012

Portrait of Global Aerosols

High-resolution global atmospheric modeling provides a unique tool to study the role of weather within Earth's climate system. The Goddard Earth Observing System Model, Version 5 (GEOS-5) is capable of simulating worldwide weather at resolutions of 10 to 3.5 kilometers (km).

This portrait of global aerosols [Note: not used, in this instance, to denote hydrofluorocarbons and other man-made aerosols - CC] was produced by a GEOS-5 simulation at a 10-kilometer resolution. Dust (red) is lifted from the surface, sea salt (blue) swirls inside cyclones, smoke (green) rises from fires, and sulfate particles (white) stream from volcanoes and fossil fuel emissions.

Image credit: William Putman,
NASA/Goddard

Ig Nobel (Please stop. I'm bored.)

The booklet that was handed out to this year's attendees at the Ig Nobel prize awards ceremony (September 2012) may be accessed at: Download IgBILL-2012_150dpi - downloaded from Improbable Research.

Purposes

I started this posting to draw readers' attentions to today's posting at Ronni Bennett's place, Time Goes By. In particular, I wished to draw attention to a couple of videos that she embedded concerning purposes; as in, "What is the real purpose of life?" and "Does the Universe have a purpose?" However, I appreciate the two videos so much that I, too, am embedding them - below. They provide food for thought.

 

Addition of 12/10/2012:

Stu, in a comment below, mentions Douglas Adams. Adams in his Hitchhiker's Guide to the Universe Galaxy (science fiction comedy) included a super computer that was constructed to figure out the "answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, The Universe, and Everything". While the "Ultimate Question of Life, The Universe, and Everything" is never defined, the computer arrives at the answer of "42". Somehow, it always struck me as funny that the answer would not be a prime number.