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

Happy birthday, Dudette!

Hunky Husband's 15 milliseconds of fame

Yesterday, at the Intrust Bank Arena, I spent nearly 40 minutes sitting in Hunky Husband's car, watching him inch his way toward the door on the way to getting his COVID-19 vaccination (1st shot). As I watched, there were two or three people lugging large cameras and tripods, photographing the waiting crowd. I meant to search online this morning to see if HH was in any of the posted photos. I forgot.

A few minutes ago, HH said, "I see that we didn't make the newspaper." He was holding this morning's Wichita Eagle. Contrary to HH's statement, he was in the photo on the front page - he just did not recognize himself from the rear. I would give you a link to the photo; but, although the online version is supposed to be included in our subscription to the printed newspaper, we've not been able to access the online version for the past couple of years - and don't care enough to work the problem. Below is a scan of the photo. What is not shown is the length of the line that snakes to the left, around a small parking lot. I got into line a few minutes later.

HH is the guy with the jacket collar that is partially turned up. I hope he doesn't let the fame go to his head. It's the least HH has ever done to earn a photo in a newspaper!

Wonderful GrandDaughter wrote in an email: "He is famous again! And this time not for a tornado."

BTW: Although each of us had developed a bit of soreness in the muscle into which the vaccine was injected, last evening, we are both ache-free, now, and have no other complaints.

It takes teamwork

I've checked our county's COVID-19 vaccination scheduling website every few hours for the past couple of days - ever since I saw on TV that the county had received some vaccine and were signing up people who were 83 years old and older. Although I'm just shy of 83 years old, Hunky Husband is 84; thus, I wanted to get him signed up ASAP. No dice. Everything was booked up.

I thought that, since we are well situated for waiting, we wouldn't worry as long as he received his first dose before March 1. Even better. I don't know where he chanced upon it; but, HH came across an announcement that some more slots had opened up. Rushing to my computer, I pounced on the website. Still nothing. However, this time I kept checking every few minutes. Lo and behold, not only did a bunch of slots open up, but the minimum age had been lowered to 80. Quickly, I signed HH up for his shot, next Monday. There was a way to set up an "account". Not seeing a downside to it, I signed HH up in an account. Not thinking about the need to sign out, after that, I went ahead and signed myself up for a shot. I was able to pin one down 45 minutes after HH's shot. This should work!

 

Young and old conversants

Working in the kitchen, I heard Hunky Husband guffawing in his basement den, so I had to go ask him why he was laughing. He showed me an item in a newsletter that he was reading. It illustrated the different ways in which various people use language - particularly when one of the people is young, the other old. I've changed the lead-in, for personal reasons, but not the quote. It sounds like something that HH would have told his troops 40 years ago.

After an aide answered a question, the questioner shook his head and said, “Pick up your phone, call your mother, read her what you just told me” ... “If she understands, we can keep talking.”

This was a lot funnier than what had happened about an hour, previously. I happened to go downstairs for something and heard beeps and siren noises coming from HH's den. He had somehow come upon a scam: the one that displays and announces messages to the effect that a bad thing on your computer is going to bring down the internet unless you call the given phone number RIGHT NOW! HH was trying to figure out what to do - difficult for anyone to do with all the bells, whistles, and flashing images. While he went into the laundry room to iron his weeks' worth of shirts, I shut down his machine and cleaned it up. Not that it will help, but I did change a couple of his security settings while I was at it.

A favorite songwriter (Tom Lehrer) releases his lyrics to the public domain

Back when the earth was still cooling, I had a friend (Jack Carter) who belonged to a fraternity (Lambda Alfa?) During the summers in the mid 1950s, the fraternity house closed down - except that Jack, who was taking courses in summer school, stayed at the house to provide security. As I was also taking summer school classes, I was invited to hang out with Jack and others of his friends at that house. It was during the first of those hangout sessions that Jack played some Tom Lehrer recordings (33 1/3 rpm vinyl). I immediately developed a taste for Lehrer's satirical music, passing that taste along to Elder Brother (Sigma Nu) and Younger Brother.

On the rare occasions on which we three siblings were together, there was bound to be singing of Lehrer's songs. Alas, Jack died many years ago in a tragic fire and Younger Brother chose to leave us several years ago; but, Elder Brother and I still observe the tradition - much to Hunky Husband's dismay. It isn't that HH isn't a Lehrer fan. He is. It's that he doesn't appreciate Elder Brother's and my fine singing voices. I think HH was spoiled by the fact that his mother and one of his sisters had wonderful voices.

HH's mother, as a young woman, earned money by singing at weddings and such and his sister sang in amateur opera productions in Phoenix, Arizona. I've never heard HH sing, so I cannot attest to his voice. He played clarinet and saxophone in high school, including in a jazz band; but, he tells me that he cannot carry a tune, vocally. On occasion, just to twit him, I sing "Do You Love ME?" from Fiddler on the Roof to him. He invariably answers me "Yes" in his speaking voice.

Back to Tom Lehrer: For your enjoyment, below are mp3 files of three of our sing-along favorites:

The Wild West Is Where I Want To Be

Tom Lehrer-We Will All Go Together When We Go (2)

Tom Lehrer-So Long Mom (A Song For World War III)

To see Tom Lehrer's declaration abdicating rights to royalties from his lyrics, go to Tom Lehrer's website. I won't benefit from Lehrer's action - I've never used his lyrics except for my own enjoyment, plus the fact that I own books of his sheet music. In addition, I write non sequitur-ally, over the years I've bought all of his vinyl and CD recordings that I've been able to find.

I hasten to add that I learned of the news through News for Nerds.

92-Year-Old Songwriter Tom Lehrer Releases All His Lyrics Into the Public Domain (tomlehrersongs.com) 11

Posted by EditorDavid on Saturday October 24, 2020 @10:34AM from the national-brotherhood-week dept.

Marketplace reports: Songwriter Tom Lehrer became a star in the 1950s and '60s writing and performing satirical songs that skewered just about everything... Lehrer, 92, announced Tuesday via his website that he's effectively putting everything he ever wrote into the public domain. That means his lyrics and sheet music are available for anyone to use or perform, without having to pay royalties or deal with lawyers... [Most of Lehrer's music "will be added gradually later with further disclaimers," according to Lehrer's web site.]

Lehrer's giving up those royalties. But in exchange, he's trying to give his work a new lease on life, said Siva Vaidhyanathan, a media studies professor at the University of Virginia. "Lehrer, in this case, is basically saying, 'Hey everybody, come revisit my material, come do with it what you want,'" he said... That could mean we'll be hearing more of Tom Lehrer's work, said Jennifer Jenkins, who runs the Center for the Study of the Public Domain at Duke Law School. "There is empirical research showing that when material enters the public domain, it actually gets used more," she said.
Lehrer's lyrics touched on geeky subjects including nuclear weapons, Wernher von Braun, and one song where he set the names of the chemical elements to a tune by Gilbert and Sullivan.

Wikipedia notes he "largely retired" in the 1970s to become a mathematics teacher at the University of California, Santa Cruz (also teaching the history of musical theatre). In the same decade he also wrote ten songs for The Electric Company, an educational TV show about reading broadcast on America's public television, singing two of the songs himself — L-Y and Silent E.

More from News for Nerds - Healthcare

Print These Electronic Circuits Directly Onto Skin (ieee.org) 13

Posted by BeauHD on Thursday October 22, 2020 @08:02PM from the possibilities-are-endless dept.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from IEEE Spectrum: New circuits can get printed directly on human skin to help monitor vital signs, a new study finds. In the new study, researchers developed a way to sinter nanoparticles of silver at room temperature. The key behind this advance is a so-called a sintering aid layer, consisting of a biodegradable polymer paste and additives such as titanium dioxide or calcium carbonate. Positive electrical charges in the sintering aid layer neutralized the negative electrical charges the silver nanoparticles could accumulate from other compounds in their ink. This meant it took less energy for the silver nanoparticles printed on top of the sintering aid layer to come together, says study senior author Huanyu Cheng, a mechanical engineer at Pennsylvania State University.

The sintering aid layer also created a smooth base for circuits printed on top of it. This in turn improved the performance of these circuits in the face of bending, folding, twisting and wrinkling. In experiments, the scientists placed the silver nanoparticle circuit designs and the sintering aid layer onto a wooden stamp, which they pressed onto the back of a human hand. They next used a hair dryer set to cool to evaporate the solvent in the ink. A hot shower could easily remove these circuits without damaging the underlying skin. After the circuits sintered, they could help the researchers measure body temperature, skin moisture, blood oxygen, heart rate, respiration rate, blood pressure and bodily electrical signals such as electrocardiogram (ECG or EKG) readings. The data from these sensors were comparable to or better than those measured using conventional commercial sensors that were simply stuck onto the skin, Cheng says. The findings have been published in the journal Applied Materials & Interfaces.

Good neighbors are here

Please notice two things in the above photo of our back lawn: 1) The grass was mowed, today. 2) The grass along the fence has been trimmed. Credit Hunky Husband for the first, our neighbor Adam for the second. Adam came to our front door to ask permission to trim along the fence, which I've been reluctant to tackle for fear of damaging Adam's fence (and it's been too darned hot for me to tackle it!) Adam pointed out that no trimming would be needed had he not installed the fence, so he would like to trim it each time he mows their yard. How sweet! However, I told Adam that his kindness did not really make up for his having installed the fence in the first place since it deprives HH and me of the opportunity to see their children play.

Adam made short work of the trimming - the 150 feet took him about four minutes. He said that he had done lawn work to make his money while he was in school. Terrif! While Adam and I chatted (at about 20' spacing), Krista brought Holly (age 4-5) and Reece (age 8 weeks) over - my first real sighting of the wee one, and he's a cutie (but not very large - 8#). Flynn was inside taking his nap - just as was HH.

News on the COVID-19 front: Adam thinks that he has had it. He and his partner (EMTs) had picked up a patient in early March. Shortly thereafter, both EMTs came down with a fever for a few days. As testing wasn't available, then, Adam's not sure. I'm hoping that he has had COVID-19 and that having had it gives him some measure of immunity.

BTW: We are watching to see if we can catch the fledging of the bluebird babies from that nesting box at the extreme right of the photo.

A couple of weeks in review - 1/12/2020

For us old, old people*, for whom time whizzes by on hummingbird wings, it doesn't take much to overwhelm us. During the holidays, we were happy to have Bogie visit us for a few days. We Wichita-area family members delight in having her come visit. However, I'm afraid that Hunky Husband and I played "party pooper" for most of the activities in which the younger three generations participated. We loved seeing everyone; but, fortunately, the younger folks didn't prod us into doing more than that for which we were energetic enough to participate. (Smart youngsters: we old, old people have become even grumpier as we've aged!)

I think that 2013 was the last time I attempted to feed the whole family (four generations) a holiday meal. For 2019, we had Christmas dinner at our house; but, most of the food preparation was done by Dudette and Wonderful GrandDaughter (WGD). We had, basically, a chili feed, with my contribution being a Crock Pot full of Tex-Mex style chili, a Waldorf salad, and various standard condiments.

In addition, one night during the holidays, the two older generations gathered here for dinner - dining on left-overs. We kept it that simple!

Shortly following the holidays, we were happy to have Elder Brother (EB) visit, from Colorado. We knew that the weather would be dicey for him to come this way; but, as it turned out, the weather was better for him to drive to our little town than would it have been for him to have driven home from middle-western Kansas where he had spent a couple of days birdwatching. His car, upon arrival, had about a 1/4" ice coating over its entirety. The weather wasn't supposed to improve for about 30 hours so we cancelled out on having the younger generations drive down to see EB. (The trip down wouldn't have been so bad but the trip home, in the dark, might have been dangerous.) HH, EB, & I hunkered down with the left-over chili from Christmas, I fixed a green salad, and we chowed down - followed by various cookies and Chex mix that were sitting about.

Saturday, we hunkered down while receiving flurries of snow. Early this morning, we packed EB off (with 3 pints of homemade chili) and returned to bed. I doubt that HH attained further sleep (I know that I did not), but it was nice to put off starting the day. We declared a "slob" day. HH has started the laundry; but, that's all he plans for the day and I've already put everything back in its place (mostly, we had pulled stuff out for EB - to show him or to allow us to do something, together) and have planned no further great exertion for the day. I should add that EB and Bogie had stripped their beds and gathered the used linens from the guest bathroom - respectively, putting their items down the clothes chute to the basement. Each member of our family is terrific at cleaning up after themselves when they prepare for departure! Oh - let me not forget to mention that for her trip, Bogie had followed my suggestion that she bring a large suitcase - in which she took her quilt home! Enjoy it, Bogie, it was a treat for me to work with you on the design.

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*Generations are as follows:

Generation 1: Hunky Husband (HH) and Cop Car (CC)

Generation 2: Dudette, WichiDude, Bogie

Generation 3: Wonderful GrandDaughter (WGD), Rachie

Generation 4: Next Generation 1, Next Generation 2

A tale of the season

This afternoon, I went to the grocery store to pick up a few items - mostly fresh fruits and vegetables. Not only was there a great deal of traffic on the streets, but the grocery store was crowded and bustling. As I placed the last of my items onto the conveyor belt to the cashier, I suddenly realized that my purse was still at home. This is an annoying, but not unusual, occurrence with me. During my years of graduate school, working for a living, and volunteering, I didn't need to carry a  purse: everything fit into my brief case or office bag. Admittedly, on the rare occasion when I toted a purse, I was apt to leave it in a store or restaurant; but, usually, if I forgot about my purse, it was at home.

I would not have minded running home to get the money; but, it would have involved my placing all of the items back into the shopping cart, replacing items on the shelves, going home and returning, doing the gathering again, and unloading the basket again - which, I was sure, the people behind me in line would appreciate ever-so-much. While I was asking the checker if he had a counter check with which I might pay, the woman in front of me turned back to the checker and said, "Put it on my bill." I asked the woman to please write her name and address on my grocery list, thanked her profusely, and promised to get a check into the mail pronto. She had just saved me and several other people an inconvenience - without really knowing that she would ever be repaid.

When I arrived home, it occurred to me that it would be silly to make my benefactor await delivery of a check. I put together two sets of cash - one set for the amount that I owed the nice woman (Pennie) and an equal amount for her to have on hand the next time she sees me (or someone like me) forlorn in a grocery checkout line. I stuck them into a greeting card and delivered it to her house, leaving before she had a chance to open the card - but - not before we had the chance to exchange a warm hug!

They say that no good turn goes unpunished. Pennie has picked herself up a "Secret Sister" for 2020!