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Live Blogging the Olympics
OK, I only have a minute to watch while I’m having lunch.
A women’s basketball game has just ended.
Americans playing Olympic basketball is like kids pulling the legs off grasshoppers.
“So, are you ready for your next game, do you have any strategy?”
“I don’t even know who we’re playing. I only need to know who the next team we’re playing is.”
“So, do you know who you’re playing next?”
“No, I don’t even know that.”
“You’ll be playing Canada.”
“OK, whatever.”
Hahaha. The American Women’s basketball team just beat whomever they were just playing (nobody can remember) by 46 points. In games between US basketball teams and anyone else at the Olympics, that would be considered close.
This year, I heard that instead of awarding the Americans the Gold Medals in a ceremony they just sent them by post a couple of weeks ago.
That reminds me, did you see the American Flag fall off the thingie yesterday when Serena Williams was getting her medal? She LOL’s through the whole National Anthem.
Which reminds me. A large number of politicians gathered in Saint Paul yesterday to unveil a new stature of Hubert Humphrey. The news kept cutting live to the event. First they cut in and Senator Klobuchar was speaking. Then, they cut in later and it was Bill Clinton. The very moment they cut in, the former President ducked and made a move towards the floor like he was being assassinated or something, and there was other strange movement on the grainy low quality TV image by people behind him. It turns out the American flag had fallen on him (it was windy). Without skipping a beat, Bill reached down, picked it up of the floor and righted it, and said…
“… which reminds me; Years ago this happened to the Senator in our state when he was giving a speech, and he set the flag up and said ‘I nearly gave my life fighting for that flag…it would be bad if it killed me now.'” or words to that effect.
Anyway, For you young folks, you need to know this: There used to be two countries that could play basketball: The US and the USSR. The USSR didn’t really play basketball, but they hated the Americans (it was mutual) and wanted to beat them at their own game so they measured everyone and found the 10,000 tallest Russians and sent them to a Gulag (which is a kind of department store but you can’t leave) and made them play basketball with each other until there were only a couple of dozen left, and that was the team that could beat the capitalist running dog Americans. And they didn’t. And that is the origin story of Olympic Basketball.
And that is exactly where the phrase “Dream Team” comes from. The US team was the Dream Team.
“…Great last minute correction, to makes sure his horse is back on his hox to get ready for Nelson’s Column..”
wut?
They just said a guy’s rain broke. They said his groom is in big trouble. He’s going to beat his groom. Is that a euphemism for something? I hope so.
OMG this horse thing is mind numbing. I’ve seen it in real life and it is not mind numbing in real life. Must be the that the color commentary is in black and white or something.
It is also funny that the American sports commenters call the buses in London “Double Decker Tourist Buses.” True, double deckers are very often tourist buses in various places around the world one finds them, but in London, those are the buses.
OK, lunch is over.
Genetics of Genius, Sunday Funnies, and Other Matters
This evening, Skeptically Speaking will have Sam Kean, author of The Disappearing Spoon: And Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of the Elements
The Sunday Funnies are here.
And while you are over there, check out Atheism 101 and the latest crazy from our friends on the other side of the culture war that they imagine exists.
Amazing news about Florine Gas and CaF2
A newly-published paper reveals how highly-reactive Fluorine Gas has been found in nature, due do a process which takes place within fluorite.
"Why is the penis shaped like that anyway?"
Researcher and science writer Jesse Bering delights in being provocative. From the description of his new book, Why Is the Penis Shaped Like That?: And Other Reflections on Being Human:
Why do testicles hang the way they do? Is there an adaptive function to the female orgasm? What does it feel like to want to kill yourself? Does “free will” really exist? And why is the penis shaped like that anyway?
In Why Is the Penis Shaped Like That?, the research psychologist and award-winning columnist Jesse Bering features more than thirty of his most popular essays from Scientific American and Slate, as well as two new pieces, that take readers on a bold and captivating journey through some of the most taboo issues related to evolution and human behavior. Exploring the history of cannibalism, the neurology of people who are sexually attracted to animals, the evolution of human body fluids, the science of homosexuality, and serious questions about life and death, Bering astutely covers a generous expanse of our kaleidoscope of quirks and origins.
With his characteristic irreverence and trademark cheekiness, Bering leaves no topic unturned or curiosity unexamined, and he does it all with an audaciously original voice. Whether you’re interested in the psychological history behind the many facets of sexual desire or the evolutionary patterns that have dictated our current mystique and phallic physique, Why Is the Penis Shaped Like That? is bound to create lively discussion and debate for years to come.
Listen to AM 950 KTNF on Sunday at 9 a.m. Central to hear Atheists Talk, produced by Minnesota Atheists. Stream live online. Call in to the studio: 952-946-6205, or send an email to radio@mnatheists.org” … Donate to keep this program on the radio and podcast.
We may have a pig problem
There is a novel strain of swine flu of the H3N2 type with a lot of infections in humans over a short period of time but over a large geographic area.
The CDC reports 12 cases this week, 1 in Hawaii, 10 in Ohio, and one in Indiana. Seventeen more cases were reported since about one year ago. Most of the cases are found in individuals who had direct contact with swine, but some cases appear to be person to person transmission.
A large number of the recent cases seem to have been in individuals who had contact with swine at a fair. This is fair season across much of the US, and apparently petting the pigs is a cool thing for people, mainly kids, to do.
No one has died of this flu, and few seem to have become gravely ill. Three people with high risk factors were hospitalized in all.
The take-home message, the message the CDC is trying to get out, is to wash hour hands very carefully after you pet the pig. But health authorities are also saying to not eat or drink in the presence of swine at these state fairs. Personally, I plan to stay away from the pigs entirely. That will be hard to do because one of our favorite things to do at the State Fair is to visit the Big Pig. They have one really big pig at the fair every year. It is the pig that won the prize for being really really big. Nobody pets it, though. But a lot of people stand around looking at it while they eat their Food on a Stick. This year, I may glance at the pig from a distance, but I will not be eating my corn dog at that particular time.
You can’t get this flu from eating a swine who is infected. So, I can eat the corn dog, just not while petting an influenza infected swine.
Normally, even though swine do get the flu pretty routinely, it does not transmit to humans. While it is possible that there is just a lot more swine flu among the swine and we are seeing unlikely events happening, it is thought that this flu is a variant that is more transmittable to humans than is usual. In prior years, an average of about one person per year in the US gets swine flu from swine. Over the last few years, this number has gone up and the present situation is seemingly unprecedented. However, there have also been significant changes in surveillance and reporting which almost certainly account for some of this apparent increase. The CDC is not sure if there is a real increase in swine flu occurrence, transmission, or mainly reporting. They say:
The increased detection and reporting of these cases could be occurring for a number of reasons, including one or more of the following factors: First, pandemic preparedness efforts have improved state level surveillance and laboratory capacity to detect novel viruses in the United States. Second, in 2007, novel influenza virus infections were made domestically and internationally reportable. And three, it’s also possible that there is a true increase in the number of these cases, possibly occurring from exposure to infected swine or through subsequent, limited human-to-human transmission.
Just don’t pet the pig.
The CDC report is here and additional information is here and in links therein.
A Super PAC Olympics?
I know, I know, it’s too late. But since you are probably ignoring the Olympics anyway, I thought I’d remind you.
Curiosity
The Mars Science Laboratory Mission has piles of cool equipment on board Curiosity Rover, which is closing in on Mars as we speak. The landing is expected to be next Sunday/Monday, 10:31 p.m. Aug. 5 PDT (1:31 a.m. Aug. 6 EDT, 05:31 Aug. 6 Universal Time) plus or minus a minute.. But not really, because the event is happening a it far away in spacetime; those are the times that the signals from Mars will arrive on the planet Earth, about 13.8 minutes after the event has happened. The mission is expected to last one Martian year, which is close to two Earth years. The weather at the landing site will be clear and ranging from 90 degrees below zero C to about freezing (-130F to 32F).
The location of the landing is ner the Martian equator, near the base of Mount Sharp inside the Gale crater.
The rover is about three meters long not ocuting it’s arm, and just under three meters wide, and 2.1 meters high to its tallest point. The arm is about 2.1 meter long and the wheels are about a half a meter in diameter. It weights just under 4,000 kilos (over four tons). The vehicle is a hybrid of sorts, and will run on a nuclear thermoelectric generator with lithium ion batteries. Batteries are included.
The instruments Curiosity will carry include: a Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer, cameras, a robotic Martian-designed loupe, radiation detectors, environmental monitoring gear and a very fancy chemistry set.
NASA says this about the scientific investigations:
NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory mission will study whether the Gale Crater area of Mars has evidence of past and present habitable environments. These studies will be part of a broader examination of past and present processes in the Martian atmosphere and on its surface. The research will use 10 instrument-based science investigations. The mission’s rover, Curiosity, carries the instruments for these investigations and will support their use by providing overland mobility, sample-acquisition capabilities, power and communications. The primary mission will last one Mars year (98 weeks).
The payload includes mast-mounted instruments to survey the surroundings and assess potential sampling targets from a distance; instruments on Curiosity’s robotic arm for close-up inspections; laboratory instruments inside the rover for analysis of samples from rocks, soils and atmosphere; and instruments to monitor the environment around the rover. In addition to the science payload, engineering sensors on the heat shield will gather information about Mars’ atmosphere and the spacecraft’s performance during its descent through the atmosphere.
To make best use of the rover’s science capabilities, a diverse international team of scientists and engineers will make daily decisions about the rover’s activities for the following day. Even if all the rover’s technology performs flawlessly, some types of evidence the mission will seek about past environments may not have persisted in the rock record. While the possibility that life might have existed on Mars provokes great interest, a finding that conditions did not favor life would also pay off with valuable insight about differences and similarities between early Mars and early Earth.
The landing itself has been dubbed the “seven minutes of terror” because it is so complicated that even engineers will be terrified. Here is a graphic depicting the landing plan:
Here is a video about the mission:
The Genetics of Genius.
I am skeptical. Which is perfect because The Disappearing Spoon byKean
How To Kill Flies
First, Kudos to Twin Cites Kare 11 News for having a weekly spot called “Simply Science.” For the last few years media outlest have been dropping science spots, features, sections, or segments. It is nice to see one added.
And now on to the flies. A Minnesota company called Ecolab, features on Kare 11, has device that kills flies. There is a smell that attracts females that humans supposedly “can’t really smell” (we’ll see about that). Males hang around because of the females, of course. Flies are also attracted to slightly shiny things (the original “Ooo Shiney” then you die effect) and they like the color black (makes sense, they seem to always dress in black). So, the Ecolab device looks like a black shiny TV but it is actually a surface covered with a fly-killing substance. The flies show up, hand around, get the poison on them, then die. Here’s a video demonstration:
How a Bill(ionaire) Becomes a Law(maker)
Anniversary of the Collapse of the I 35W Bridge
This is what I posted on the second anniversary. Yesterday was the fifth. Continue reading Anniversary of the Collapse of the I 35W Bridge
India Blackout: What about the North American Grid?
I have been telling people for several months now that if you want to have an intelligent conversation about energy and especially the power grid, smart grids, electric cars, and electricity production you need to stop talking for a while and read my friend Maggie Koerth Baker’s book, Before the Lights Go Out: Conquering the Energy Crisis Before It Conquers Us
If you want to cheat, and read only one chapter of the book, that is not as good but Maggie is making that easy for you. She is giving you are free chapter, HERE. I don’t recommend that. I recommend reading the whole book, but if you must, that’s the link.
Also, as you will note if you go to that Link, Maggie, who is Science Editor at Boing Boing, is working up a piece involving interviews of power grid experts specifically addressing India, and that will be available in a day or so. Thanks Maggie, looking forward to that!
Gore Vidal October 3, 1925 – July 31, 2012
Gore Vidal died yesterday.
I loved Gore Vidal’s book Creation: A Novel
My More Than Men Project
It has been a while since this has been discussed, and I’ve realized that a lot of people have joined the conversation since, so I’m reposting this project. Also, some details have changed and some links need to be updated.
The More than Men Project is an effort initiated by Women Thinking Free Inc. to develop a space where men, often white and/or straight and/or Of Priv, could spend a little time and energy telling their fellow Hetero-occidentaloid-Y-chromosomists something useful or interesting about diversity, and to encourage the promotion of said diversity.
When I was asked to contribute to this project (which was being cooked up July 2011) I had some concerns. I wasn’t sure if I needed a space to do this, since I have a widely read blog in which I am constantly telling my fellow Hetero-occidentaloid-Y-chromosomists how to behave, and they pretty much do whatever I tell them to do. Hetero-occidentaloid-Y-chromosomists are so compliant and all. So, I thought, why should I bother with another effort like this? Just let the other guys have a space.
But then I decided to take advantage of the offer to try something entirely different. The project is self explanatory, but since you may need some encouragement to pay attention to it, here are the opening sentences in the first of three videos I made for More than Men:
The More Than Men Project is a campaign by the Women Thinking Free Foundation. This is for white men (usually straight, often privileged, etc.) to take an active role in diversity advocacy. This is my chance to tell my fellow white guys what I think about what they should be thinking.
But I get to do that all the time. So, I thought I’d ignore the instructions and try something a little different.
A short memo …. with attachments. It is the attachments that matter.
Dear Straight White Male with Privilege:
This is not hard.
You just need to pay attention to the voices in your head. You supply the head. Below, please find the voices, in three parts, which I call Part I, Part II, and Part III.
Part I: Sheril Kirshenbaum, Desiree Schell, and Jafsica.
Part III: C. Anderson, Stephanie Zvan, Natalie Wagner, Serena
And here are the videos:
The videos are also shown at the More than Men web site.