What Would Jimmy Do?

The last update to this blog made sport of weather forecasters because they had forecasted snow of historic proportions. I’ve often heard people refer to a blizzard and I realized I’m not sure what constitutes a blizzard — except when I’m at Dairy Queen, of course. So I figured it was time for some extensive research. I discovered that snow is an extremely complex type of precipitation — snowflakes are agglomerates of a lot of frozen ice crystals and most snowflakes are less than a half an inch across. The water content of snowflakes is extremely variable with the “average” snowflake being made up of 180 billion molecules of water. The number of molecules in each flake is dependent on temperature, crystal structure, wind speed and lots of other things.

Before I get too carried away with my new-found knowledge, let’s get the blizzard thing out of the way. A blizzard occurs when visibility is less than a quarter of a mile, the winds must be at least 35 miles an hour and the storm must last at least 3 hours. If any of these conditions are not met, it is only a snowstorm.

I think I learned in school that all snowflakes have six sides. I didn’t check yesterday, but in the past all that I’ve checked did indeed have six sides. If you happen to find a snowflake that has more or less than six sides, I’m not sure what it means….

Snowflakes aren’t really white — in places where the soil is red clay, snowflakes often look pink because red dust from the soil is blown into the air and absorbed by the clouds and when factories burned a lot of coal, the coal dust entered the air and the snow was often gray. Snow in various locations seem to have colors that range from yellow and orange to green and even purple, but the fact is that snow is actually colorless. Sometimes it picks up dirt or particles in the atmosphere, but the complex structure of snow crystals have countless tiny surfaces from which visible light is reflected. Usually what little sunlight is absorbed by snow is absorbed uniformly over the visible wavelengths and gives the snow its white appearance.

Chionophobia is the fear of snow – there is no known cure. About 12% of the Earth’s land surface is permanently covered with snow and ice. People buy more cakes, cookies and candy than any other food when a blizzard is forecasted. The average snowflake falls at a speed of 3.1 miles per hour. Fresh snow is an excellent insulator. Ten inches of fresh snow with a density of 0.07 inches, seven percent water, is approximately equal to a six-inch layer of fiberglass insulation — with an insulation value of R-18.

So as I ponder all this information, I’ve come to the conclusion that snowflakes are a lot like people — no two are alike. Everyone is different and that makes us who we are. But people don’t have six sides.
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When I went to bed last night, all the weather forecasters were predicting a snowfall of historic proportions. When I got up this morning, we had snow on the ground and it was snowing, but it was only of “historic proportions” because it was the largest snowfall this year. I guess it’s easy to criticize and make fun of weather forecasters but they’re wrong so often it kind of takes all the sport out of it.

They say everybody talks about the weather but no one does anything about it. That’s true — but I’m not sure how you’d do anything about it. Weather forecasters don’t do anything about the weather, but  they talk a lot about it — the problem is that the talk is mostly wrong.

I’ve noticed that no matter how the forecast turns out, there’s always another forecaster who “knew it would” but the forecaster who “knew it would happen that way” never told anyone about it beforehand. I’ve also noticed that heavy snow generally ends once a winter storm warning is issued.

I’ve always wondered a few things about the weather that have never been answered to my satisfaction. For instance….
Does a tornado have to be bigger around than whatever its picking up? If our body temperature is normally 98.6 degrees, how come when it’s 98 degrees outside everyone complains because its hot? If you see a heat wave, should you wave back? (I just made that up.) If heat rises, shouldn’t hell be cold? When you see the weather report and its says “partly cloudy” and you see another that says “partly sunny” — what’s the difference?

The problem with weather forecasting is that it’s right just often enough that you can’t completely ignore it but wrong so much that you can’t rely on it. Some years ago I had what turned out to be the best indicator of weather that I’ve ever seen — it was an Old Indian Weather Rock. It basically consisted of three sticks stuck in the ground and tied at a point forming a triangle — from that point a rock was suspended in the middle of the triangle by a leather strap. If the rock was wet, it was raining; if the rock was dry, it wasn’t raining; if the rock was white on top, it was snowing; if the rock was swinging, it was windy; if you couldn’t see the rock, it was foggy; if the rock was gone, it was a tornado. Amazingly enough, the rock was almost never wrong. If I ever find another one, I’m going to get it.

So since our historic snowstorm has ended, here’s the forecast for tonight: Dark. Probably some widely scattered light by morning…..
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The most famous asteroid ever is the one that hit Earth 65 million years ago. It is believed that the asteroid threw so much moisture and dust into the atmosphere that it cut off sunlight, lowering temperatures worldwide and causing the extinction of the dinosaurs.

Maybe the latest events and near misses have people thinking about asteroids and the Earth’s vulnerability, because I read in yesterday’s paper that after the asteroid explosion over Russia, a United Nations panel took up — again — how to keep a far more damaging space rock from hitting Earth. Apparently this is suddenly an urgent topic for the UN. The panel met last week in Vienna and according to the article, is finally close to endorsing a plan for countries to share asteroid warnings and prepare realistic mission designs to deflect a rogue object. The Science and Technical Subcommittee’s Near-Earth Object Working Group and its expert panel, Action Team 14, have been debating the details of an international approach since 2001.

Now I don’t know about you, but if the Earth is about to be hit by a giant asteroid, I’m not sure the United Nations is the first place I’d look for help. Right after the asteroid broke apart over Russia, I found some information about work being done at the University of California and California Polytechnic to create an asteroid defense system using lasers. One of the scientists working on the system said, “All the components of this system pretty much exist today. Maybe not quite at the scale that we’d need — scaling up would the the challenge — but the basic elements are all there and ready to go. We just need to put them into a larger system to be effective, and once the system is there, it can do many things.” The problem, of course, is that the system is hypothetical and has yet to be created — but it sounds pretty cool.

Scientists have a lot of ideas about how to deal with this asteroid problem, but none of them have really been tested in the real world. Probably the most popular idea is to launch a space craft to actually slam into the asteroid. The thinking is that if you can nudge it just a little bit off course, it probably won’t hit the Earth because just a small change in its orbit will put it in a little different trajectory.

As I think about this, it sounds reasonable — assuming you have everything ready to go. If you have to build a spacecraft, you’d probably need a few years warning that the asteroid was coming. One problem with asteroids is they don’t glow, they’re just these chunks of rock. We can see them because they reflect sunlight, but they’re fairly small and we don’t see them too well until they come close to the sun — and us.

So would we have time to pull this spacecraft collision feat off? On one hand, I think if we discover one too late, there’s little we could do — in fact we might not be able to do anything even with plenty of warning due to filibusters, fiscal cliff, debt limit, and the sequester. But then on the other hand, I think we can build that spacecraft in no time — we just have to put together a diverse team to build it and ensure that it is environmentally friendly. Once the environmental impact study is complete and we’ve sent a scout vehicle on a fly-by of the asteroid to be sure there are no endangered species on it, we’ll be ready to knock that asteroid into another orbit. Good old American ingenuity will save us.
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Well, here it is March. When I was a kid, in March you flew kites. I remember all the 5 and 10 cent stores (subject of another blog) had kites for sale and we usually got a new kite — no one ever saved a kite from the previous year — saved the string sometimes, but not the kite. I remember being a reasonably good ‘kite flyer’ but I always had better luck with a box kite rather than the ‘regular’ kinds. I didn’t realize until I was much older that there were more than two kinds of kites — regular and box. You could buy a regular kite for about a dime — box kites were expensive, going for around a quarter. I tried making kites, but was never very successful, and usually wound up with the “store bought” variety.

I think March is acknowledged as Kite Flying Month, but for some reason Kite Flying “Day” is allocated to February — why on earth that should be is beyond me — its so screwy it must be some kind of congressional mandate or something.

Arguably, the most famous kite flyer was Ben Franklin — his kite experiment has grown into an American legend. Ben hypothesized that lightening was an electrical phenomenon and that its effect could be transferred to another object (a key) that could be recognized as electricity. Of course his hypothesis proved correct and led to the development of lightening rods among other things. If you’ve been to the Air and Space museum, you probably learned that the Wright Brothers did a lot of experimenting with kites and that knowledge contributed to the development of the airplane.

The exact date and origin of the kite isn’t known but evidence points to kites being flown in China more than two thousand years ago. One Chinese legend suggests that when a Chinese farmer tied a string to his hat to keep it from blowing away in a strong wind, the first kite was born.

Kites have played key roles in technology development, wars, weather and even transportation. In 1822 George Pocock (a schoolmaster) used a pair of kites to pull a carriage at speeds of up to 20 miles and hour — some of his kite trips were recorded at over 100 miles. At the time, road taxes and tolls were based on the number of horses pulling the carriage, so clever George was exempted from any tolls…. In 1862 there was a stage coach service between London and Bristol using kites instead of horses.

During World War I kites were used for enemy observation and signaling…. in World War II, the U.S. Navy pilots lost at sea used box kites so they could be found easier.

We’ve spent a bit of time in Asia and kite flying there is much more popular than in the United States, especially among the kids. Asia has a long history with kites and they seem to be much more a part of their culture than in other parts of the world. Kite flying was banned in China during the Cultural Revolution; there are 78 rules pertaining to kite flying in Thailand; kite flying in Japan was banned in 1760 because too many people preferred to fly kites rather than work. The Chinese believe that looking at kites high in the sky maintains good eyesight and when you tilt your head back to look at a kite in the sky your mouth opens slightly, which gets rid of excess body heat, giving you a healthy yin-yang balance. The Chinese name for a kite is Fen Zheng, which means wind harp. In Asia, kites are given to someone to bring them happiness, good luck, prosperity and cure illness. In fairly recent times, kites were banned in East Germany because of the possibility of one being used to lift over the Berlin Wall.

Although kites don’t seem as popular with the kids of today, they’re still ingrained in our society — you hear the term in books (The Kite Runner,) songs (Kite Dance, Kites in the Wind, Kites Without Stings) and we’ve all heard phrases like. “higher than a kite” and “go fly a kite.” The “go fly a kite” phrase actually came up in our conversation a few months ago on the golf course. During the discussion, everyone seemed to agree that it meant that someone was really annoying and just go away — like, “go jump in a lake,” or “go climb a tree.” In other words, find an activity like flying a kite to keep you busy for awhile so I can get some work done. Naturally I couldn’t just agree with everyone, so I suggested that the phrase came from the idea that while flying a kite, Ben Franklin discovered electricity, so “go fly a kite” was suggesting that someone get a better idea or make a new discovery. I don’t care that I was voted down — I like my view better.

Anyhow, don’t let March pass you by without some serious thinking about kites — if you don’t want to go out, imagination is the highest kite you can fly.
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As both you readers know, the Pope resigned on February 11 and since then I’ve been doing extensive research into all things Pope-ish. One of the more fascinating things I’ve discovered is a prophecy that the next Pope to be elected will be the final Pope. This may turn out to be just like the Mayan calendar, but its an interesting topic for extensive research.

This prophecy was new to me — turns out that Saint Malachy was an Irish saint and Archbishop of Armagh, to whom were attributed several miracles and an alleged vision of 112 Popes later attributed to the apocalyptic list of Prophecy of the Popes.

It seems that in 1139 AD St. Malachy was visiting Pope Innocent II in Rome. He saw a vision of all the 112 Popes who would follow Innocent II. He wrote down a short sentence of cryptic words about each one as a means of describing them, making what today is called the Prophecy of the Popes. It’s interesting to note that Benedict is the 111th Pope after Innocent II, making the next one the last.

So if the next pope will be the last, some are convinced that Judgment Day is quickly approaching. The prophecy offers brief descriptions about each pope, and some of them appear to align with reality is some way — much like Nostradamus’ predictions. For example, St. Malachy described the 111th pope (Benedict) as the “glory of the olive,” and the Olivetans are affiliated with the Benedictine Order. He also described John Paul II (110th) as ‘from the labour of the sun.’ Turns out that Pope John Paul II was born the day of a solar eclipse and buried on the day of a solar eclipse 84 years later. Something to hang your hat on if you really want to believe….

The Prophecy of Popes stops at the 112th pope and ends with this cryptic warning of doomsday: “In the extreme persecution of the Holy Roman Church, there will sit…Peter the Roman, who will pasture his sheep in many tribulations: and when these things are finished, the city of seven hills will be destroyed, and the terrible judge will judge his people. The End.”

Wow! It turns out that Rome is known as the city of seven hills, and there don’t appear to be any Roman-born cardinals in the running to be be the next pope, but Cardinal Peter Turkson of Ghana bears the same name as the person mentioned in the prophecy.

You have to admit that God gave important visions to a number of highly dubious people down through the years, so maybe he did give the Prophecy of the Popes to the church through Malachy….

Even though this is fun to speculate about, the fact is there is no original manuscript of the prediction. Malachy’s “vision” was allegedly discovered and published by Benedictine Arnold de Wyon in 1590. Prior to then, there is no mention or record of it. Church historians and clerics have considered it a forgery since the 18th century. I guess you could say that Malachy’s prophecy is considered malarkey by the church. But — as they say, we shall see…..
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Yesterday I mentioned that one trait (I like to refer to them as talents or gifts) that I have is selective listening. Another talent of mine (probably one of many) that seems to puzzle Claire on occasion is my ability to completely shut off my mental faculties and think about absolutely nothing. She’ll ask, “So whatcha thinking about?” And I say, “nothing.” She says, “nothing??” like it’s hard to believe I can think about nothing. I seriously doubt that Claire could think about nothing — even if she tried. I think this may be a safety mechanism, like selective listening. If my brain is strained too much, it goes into a sort of protective mode. After the crisis or strain has passed, it just reboots. The danger of being in protective mode or the nothing zone is that that you have to avoid a complete system shutdown. Claire is pretty good at getting me out of protective mode, and avoiding any system shutdown — often just the suggestion of a drink or ice cream will do it. She seems to have the knack and knows how to get me out of the zone. How could you not love someone like that?
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Claire often refers to my “selective listening” and I guess to some extent she’s right. I actually do have a hearing problem, so I don’t necessarily hear everything Claire (or anyone else) says. But selective listening is a a trait I have and the fact is if I didn’t invoke it sometimes, I’d be exhausted.

The problem, as I see it, is this:
Claire (and most of her friends) want to know and share everything — every single detail, before, during and after. The reactions, thoughts, emotions, weather at the time, and on and on and on….
I (and most guys I know) want just enough information to move on the next topic. Frivolous information is just noise….

Here’s an example of what I mean….
This is a conversation we had after I helped Fred work on a repair at the church.
Claire: So how’d it go with Fred today?
Me: Fine.
Claire: Did you get it fixed?
Me: Yep.
Claire: Anything exciting happen?
Me. Nope.
Claire: Any good Fred stories?
Me. Nope.

Later in the day I asked Claire a question.
Me: So are you guys still going to get together to sew on Friday?
Claire: Yea, I talked to Pattie and she’ll be working tomorrow and Rosemary wanted to know if she should bring dessert… she had called on her way back from the farm house and mentioned that I would bring the wine and she wanted to know if I had any vegetables… I did, but the last time we forgot about them and I really wonder if I should get something else for Rosemary… I know Pattie likes Raskel Flats but the only thing I got Rosemary was when we went to Route 5 and knew she collected these crystal things because she has them in a cabinet in her living room. I was going to work on some of the thangles, but I think I’ll finish up the pink quilt…. Patty may be helping her friend Susie, so we may start later… I need to go to food lion because I have to make the chicken salad… Anne called, Winfried wants to know if we’d like to go to Kazu’s tonight? You wanna go?
Me: I just asked if you were going to sew.
Claire: I told you.

Now if I actually listened to all the words, my memory would completely overflow. That’s assuming something more serious, like my head exploding, didn’t occur. So you see, it’s really necessary to invoke selective listening sometimes.
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Well, here it is Washington’s Birthday, or as we seem to like to call it now, “President’s Day.” It’s not actually Washington’s Birthday — its just an excuse for a three-day weekend and a chance for retailers to have their “Washington’s Birthday Sales” even though — as I said — it’s not Washington’s Birthday.

George Washington was born on February 11, 1731. But in 1731 Britain and her colonies used the Julian calendar. In 1752, the Gregorian calendar that we use today was adopted. When the new calendar was adopted, we jumped ahead 11 days and made January the first month of the year instead of March and Washington’s Birthday occurred on February 22, 1732.

Washington’s Birthday became an official holiday in 1885 when President Chester Arthur signed a bill making it a federal holiday. That federal holiday was celebrated on February 22 until 1971 when it was moved to the third Monday in February.

In 1968, Congress passed the Monday Holidays Act, moving a lot of holidays around to provide for three day weekends. It moved the official observance of Washington’s Birthday from February 22 to the third Monday in February. Some people, notably Richard Nixon, wanted to change the name of the holiday as well, to “Presidents’ Day.” Nixon proclaimed Washington’s Birthday as a day to remember all the former presidents. Even then, Nixon probably figured his birthday would never become a national holiday. However, Nixon’s proclamation and other proposals were rejected by Congress and the holiday remains officially Washington’s Birthday.

For once Congress did (almost) the right thing by not changing the name. But even so, the name has become popular and even commonplace — it is generally used on calendars, in all sorts of newspaper and TV ads and even by some government agencies.

Now even if you don’t believe Washington chopped down his father’s cherry tree, Washington was a man among men — without him there very well might not be a United States. It’s hard to believe a three day weekend is more important than formal recognition of the accomplishments of “the father of our country.” Even if it’s not the right day — Happy Birthday George!!
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There’s been a lot in the news lately about the battery problems Boeing is having with the new 787 airplane. Batteries have always been a puzzlement to me. Just look at all the advances in electronics over the past 20 years — but battery technology just seems to poke along. I still get about the same amount of hours of use from my notebook computer that I did with my first one, and that was probably at least 15 years ago — maybe more.

If you wonder why electric cars are still a novelty and why the new ultra-efficient “Dreamliner” isn’t even flying right now, the answer is simple — batteries. There have been lots of attempts to build a better battery: I can think of lead-acid, carbon-zinc, nickel-oxide, nickel-cadmium, alkaline-manganese, zinc-mercuric oxide and of course today’s “sate-of-the-art” lithium ion. Lithium-ion, like most of its predecessors, was touted to be the battery to solve all our problems. Lithium-ion batteries do store more energy at a higher voltage and a lighter weight than other batteries and I guess represent the most recent “big jump” in battery technology. But the fact is that this technology has struggled with a safety problem from the start. Even today, it’s fairly common to hear about lithium-ion cellphone batteries overheating, short-circuiting and exploding. Supposedly, additional safety features were installed on the batteries used in the 787, but the outcome of that seems questionable.

Now to be fair, when I said I still get about the same amount of use out of my current notebook and the first one I owned, you have to remember that the current notebook consumes considerably more power and the notebook and battery is much lighter and smaller — so batteries have improved, not just in size and weight, but in cost and energy density. I realize that technologies don’t develop at the same rate, its just that with the tremendous demand for battery power, the battery industry is surprisingly slow moving.

In my working days, we spent a lot of time, money and effort to develop fuel cells. Even today, every time the topic of energy-dense storage comes up, people think of fuel cells. They certainly seemed promising at one time and do even today — I still think they’re the technology of the future — maybe they always will be.

I guess this entry wouldn’t be complete without some extensive research. I poked around a bit and discovered that the first batteries may have been developed over 2000 years ago. Some relics belonging to the Parthian Empire were uncovered near the city of Baghdad in 1936. The Parthians were the dominating force in the area between 190 BC and 224 AD. Among the relics found was a clay jar sealed with pitch at its top opening. An iron rod protruded from the center, surrounded by a cylindrical tube made of a copper sheet. Later test of replicas of the jar, when filled with an acidic liquid such as vinegar, showed it could have produced between 1.5 and 2 volts between the iron and copper. I wondered what they would have used a battery for — my extensive research didn’t turn up the discovery of any flashlights or transistor radios… The theory that I like best is that the “battery” may have been used to electroplate gold onto silver artifacts.

The battery industry needs to find the “next big thing.” Unfortunately, from what I can tell, no one knows what that big thing will be yet, or when it will come. But I have faith — I don’t think you’ll be hearing battery engineers saying, “I canna do it, cap’n!”

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If you’ve been watching the news, listening to the radio, reading newspapers, checking the Internet or just talking to people, you’re probably aware that a meteorite struck Russia this morning and caused a bit of damage — from the sonic boom it created — and also excited a few people.

It’s interesting that people were prepared for a near-miss “fly-by” of another asteroid today. Just to set your mind at ease, the asteroid 2012 DA14 has already passed as close to Earth as it’s going to get and is moving away from Earth now. That asteroid was (is) a 150-foot rock. It was the closest known flyby for an asteroid of its size — it passed within 17,000 miles of Earth. That’s closer than the satellites that bring us Dish and Direct TV.

I’ve heard several terms used to describe what happened earlier today. As I understand it, asteroids — like the fly-by today are small solar system bodies that orbit the Sun. They are similar to comets but don’t have a visible coma (“tail”) like a comet has. A meteoroid is an even smaller piece of debris or a particle that goes around the Sun. A meteor is the light phenomenon we wee when a meteoroid burns up as it flies through the atmosphere (we often call these shooting stars.) A meteorite is a meteoroid that survives its fall through the atmosphere and lands on Earth.

I read that today’s meteorite probably weighed about 10 metric tons and may have been made of iron. It entered Earth’s atmosphere and broke apart somewhere between 19 and 31 miles above the ground. The energy released when it entered the atmosphere was equivalent to a few kilotons — the power of a small atomic explosion.

In order for a meteorite to reach the Earth’s surface, it has to be just the right size. Meteors that are too small will disintegrate in the atmosphere before ever reaching the surface. Meteors that are too big tend to explode before reaching the Earth’s surface.

Well anyhow, it’s been an interesting day — all this stuff falling from the sky. I would imagine the Congressional investigation should start early next week.
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