from Bruce
Anecdotes
Scientists and Science
• At the South Pole, the temperature has been measured as low as minus 117 degrees Fahrenheit. How cold is that? If you were to take a glass of water and throw the water into the air, it would turn to ice before it hit the ground. Living in very cold environments requires adjustments: 1) Batteries don’t work at very low temperatures, so scientists at the South Pole use solar energy to power their Walkmans when they can, but during the long Antarctic night, they use a frying pan to carefully heat up batteries so they will work. 2) At the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station, located at the South Pole, food is kept in a walk-in refrigerator. Unlike ordinary refrigerators, however, the South Pole refrigerator is kept heated so that the food doesn’t freeze. 3) Researchers and animals at Antarctica eat high-calorie, high-fat diets — simply keeping one’s body warm requires a huge number of calories. The milk that Weddell seal pups drink contains about 20 times the fat of the milk that comes from cows. (Weddell seals are interesting animals — because they can store huge amounts of oxygen in their blood and muscles, they can swim under the Antarctic ice for close to an hour without taking a breath.) 4) Life can be tenacious. At Antarctica, where the environment is brutal, lichens live just underneath the surface of rocks. By the way, on Antarctica is an aquarium used for the purpose of studying Antarctic cod. A sign by the aquarium says, “Experiment in Progress. Do Not Feed, Pinch, Fondle, or Kiss the Fish.” This is good advice, as the mouth of the Antarctic cod is so large that it could easily bite someone’s hand off.
• Anton Mesmer invented mesmerism, based on the idea that people had animal magnetism, and that people could pass this animal magnetism from one person to another person. People who thought they had been magnetized did odd things, and some people who were ill claimed to feel better after being magnetized. In 1784, Antoine Lavoisier, the founder of modern chemistry, and some other scientists investigated animal magnetism. In one experiment, the scientists blindfolded people and told them that Mr. Mesmer was present and was magnetizing them. The people, who did not know that Mr. Mesmer was not present and was not trying to magnetize them, acted oddly. In another experiment, Mr. Mesmer hid behind a screen and tried to magnetize people. The people, who did not know that Mr. Mesmer was behind the screen and was trying to magnetize them, acted normally. As a result of their investigation, Mr. Lavoisier and the other scientists concluded that animal magnetism did not exist.
• As a young man, Charles Darwin was a collector of zoological specimens, including beetles. Once he found three rare specimens of beetles at the same time. Not wanting to lose any of the specimens, he carried a beetle in each of his hands, and he put the third beetle in his mouth. Unfortunately, the beetle sprayed a liquid that burned his mouth so badly that he spit the beetle out. Of course, during his voyage on the HMS Beagle, Mr. Darwin spent a great deal of time on land, where he collected zoological and botanical specimens. Each time he saw a new species of animal, he shot it and shipped it back to England to be studied by specialists. In a single day, Mr. Darwin once collected 68 new beetle species, and during a single morning walk, he once shot 80 different bird species. Sailors on the Beagle called him “the Flycatcher” and joked that he wanted to collect all of South American animal and plant life and send it to England in specimen jars.
• As a mathematics professor at Princeton, John von Neumann acquired a reputation among his students for writing numbers on the board and then erasing them before the students were able to copy them. He was also known for driving poorly. In fact, he had so many auto accidents at one particular corner that it became informally known as the “Von Neumann Corner.” Mr. von Neumann worked on the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos, New Mexico, and helped develop the atomic bomb. Later, he worked for the Atomic Energy Commission. When he was dying of cancer, he had to take heavy dosages of medicine. The government made sure that the people taking care of him all had security clearances just in case he accidentally let secrets slip while under the medication.
***
© Copyright Bruce D. Bruce; All Rights Reserved
***
Boredom is Anti-Life: 250 Anecdotes and Stories — Buy
Boredom is Anti-Life: 250 Anecdotes and Stories — Buy The Paperback
Boredom is Anti-Life: 250 Anecdotes and Stories — Buy Kindle
Boredom is Anti-Life: 250 Anecdotes and Stories — Buy Apple
Boredom is Anti-Life: 250 Anecdotes and Stories — Buy Barnes and Noble
Boredom is Anti-Life: 250 Anecdotes and Stories — Buy Kobo
Boredom is Anti-Life: 250 Anecdotes and Stories — Buy Smashwords: Many Formats, Including PDF
Presenting
Michael Egan
has returned to semi-retired status.
In memory.
BRUCE'S RECOMMENDATION
BANDCAMP MUSIC
BRUCE'S RECOMMENDATION OF BANDCAMP MUSIC
Music: "Beast Beneath the Bed"
Album: THE HEART OF THE CITY
Artist: Nathan Seeckts
Artist Location: Geelong, Australia
Info:
“Nathan Seeckts is a powerful singer songwriter who effortlessly fuses the sounds of Americana, folk, country and blues, delivered with a commanding voice that is equal parts gravel and passion. Taking inspiration from the songbooks of artists including Bruce Springsteen, Jason Isbell, Lucero and Steve Earle, his songs could find him comfortably at home in any bar from Melbourne to Memphis.”
Price: $1 (AUS) for track; $10 (AUS) for 10-track album
Genre: Country. Singer-Songwriter.
Links:
THE HEART OF THE CITY
Nathan Seeckts on Bandcamp
Nathan Seeckts on YouTube
Other Links:
Bruce’s Music Recommendations: FREE pdfs
David Bruce's Amazon Author Page
David Bruce's Smashwords Page
David Bruce's Blog #1
David Bruce's Blog #2
David Bruce's Blog #3
David Bruce's Apple iBookstore
David Bruce has over 140 Kindle books on Amazon.com.
Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
BRUCE'S RECOMMENDATION
Betty Bowers
Other Links:
David Bruce's Amazon Author Page
David Bruce's Smashwords Page
David Bruce's Blog #1
David Bruce's Blog #2
David Bruce's Blog #3
David Bruce's Apple iBookstore
David Bruce has over 140 Kindle books on Amazon.com.
New Venture
Michael Egan
Bonus Links
Jeannie the Teed-Off Temp
Reader Comment
Current Events
Linda >^..^<
We are all only temporarily able bodied.
Thanks, Linda!
that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Fog burns off a little earlier every day.
Tradition Returns
Kennedy Center Honors
The Kennedy Center Honors is returning to tradition this year.
The lifetime achievement awards for artistic excellence will be presented Sunday night in a gala at the Kennedy Center’s main opera house after the coronavirus pandemic forced delays and major changes to last year’s plans.
Honorees include Motown Records creator Berry Gordy, “Saturday Night Live” mastermind Lorne Michaels, actress-singer Bette Midler, opera singer Justino Diaz and folk music legend Joni Mitchell.
This year’s event also represents a return to political normalcy, with President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden attending. The Democrat will be the first president to be at the Kennedy Center Honors since 2016.
Kennedy Center Honors
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken with his wife Evan Ryan pose with Kennedy Center Honorees operatic bass-baritone Justino Diaz, Saturday Night Live creator Lorne Michaels, singer-songwriter Joni Mitchell, actress and singer-songwriter Bette Midler, and Motown founder, songwriter, producer, director Berry Gordy, and Deborah Rutter with her husband Peter Ellefson at The 44th Annual Kennedy Center Honors medallion ceremony at the Library of Congress in Washington, U.S. December 4, 2021.
Photo by Ken Cedeno
Weekend Box Office
‘Encanto’
Leftovers were on the menu for moviegoers in North America this weekend. “Encanto,” “Ghostbusters: Afterlife” and “House of Gucci” repeated in the top three spots, according to studio estimates on Sunday. All three films are playing exclusively in theaters.
The big surprise came from Fathom, which snagged the fourth place spot with “Christmas with The Chosen: The Messengers.” It isn’t exactly a movie but an episode of a faith-based streaming series, this focused on the birth of Jesus with several performances by Christian groups, that was shot specifically for a 10-day big screen run. Over the weekend, it grossed $4.1 million from 1,700 screens. Since Wednesday, it’s earned $9 million and has become the highest grossing event in Fathom history.
In other notable showings, Warner Bros.’ brought “Dune” back to IMAX screens this weekend. The premium screens accounted for over half of its $1.8 million domestic earnings.
Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Comscore. Final domestic figures will be released Monday.
1. “Encanto,” $12.7 million.
2. “Ghostbusters: Afterlife,” $10.4 million.
3. “House of Gucci,” $6.8 million.
4. “Christmas with the Chosen: The Messengers,” $4.1 million.
5. “Eternals,” $3.9 million.
6. “Resident Evil: Raccoon City,” $2.7 million.
7. “Clifford the Big Red Dog,” $1.8 million.
8. “Dune,” $1.8 million.
9. “King Richard,” $1.2 million.
10. “Venom: Let There Be Carnage,” $1 million.
‘Encanto’
Nominees Dropped
Grammys
Taylor Swift will not be going to the podium, after all, if Olivia Rodigo’s “Sour” beats Swift’s own “Evermore” for album of the year at the Grammys. Not that she probably would have, but she could have, up until now. Swift was originally listed as a nominee for Rodrigo’s album due to an interpolation on the latter artist’s album, but the Recording Academy has now updated its list of nominees and excluded several names that previously were listed.
Also no longer nominated for being part of Rodrigo’s “Sour” songwriting team in the nominations list are St. Vincent, aka Annie Clark, and Jack Antonoff. Those two and Swift together wrote “Cruel Summer,” a song from the “Lover” album, which Rodrigo and her camp credited as an interpolation in the hit “Deja Vu,” even though it bore only the most modest similarity to the Swift album track.
In removing the nominations Sunday, the Recording Academy said that its policy is not to include the writers of interpolated songs in nominations, and that it did so in the case of Rodrigo only because of a submission that incorrectly named Swift, Clark and Antonoff as full co-writers.
In contrast, Justin Bieber’s “Justice” album lists 73 songwriters as nominees. (Ironically, one of them is Finneas.) And Kanye West’s “Donda” has Bieber’s album slightly beat by listing 77 Grammy-eligible songwriters. The H.E.R.album has 51 nominated writers, while Doja Cat’s has a modest 35 in line for a a Grammy.
Grammys
What Could Go Wrong?
Facebook
If you’re worried about nudes or other intimate images circulating on social media, Facebook has a solution. Send them copies.
The social media service, which just this year settled a privacy lawsuit for using photo face-tagging and other biometric data without permission, is now asking users to trust it and take a bigger risk. It has partnered with a UK based nonprofit called Revenge Porn Helpline. The goal is to build a tool to prevent intimate images from being uploaded without consent to Facebook, Instagram and other participating platforms.
The tool launched Thursday, and asks users to submit the images to a central, global website called StopNCII.org, which stands for “Stop Non-Consensual Intimate Images.”
The submission process requires StopNCII.org to ask for confirmation that they are in an image. The photos or videos will then be converted into unique digital fingerprints which will be given to participating companies, starting with Facebook and Instagram.
Facebook tried such a program before. In its 2017 pilot, the images were reviewed by human moderators at the point of submission and converted into hashes. That raised privacy issues.
Facebook
'Liar' & 'Coward'
Kevin
Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., harshly criticized House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Gelding) on Sunday for his tepid response to anti-Muslim remarks made by Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo.
"McCarthy is a liar and a coward. He doesn't have the ability to condemn the kind of bigoted Islamophobia and anti-Muslim rhetoric that are being trafficked by a member of his conference," Omar said on CNN's "State of the Union."
"We have to be able to stand up to them. And we have to push them to reckon with the fact that their party, right now, is normalizing anti-Muslim bigotry," she continued.
More than 40 House Democrats have called on Boebert to be stripped of her committee assignments, saying in a joint letter last week that there "must be consequences when Members of Congress demonize an entire religion and promote hate from their positions of public trust." A handful of GOP lawmakers have also condemned Boebert.
McCarthy responded similarly to a recent controversy in which Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Ariz., posted an animated video depicting him killing Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and swinging a sword at President Biden. Democrats stripped Gosar of his committee assignments; McCarthy said he would restore them as speaker.
Kevin
Mockable
Marjorie 3Names
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Gym Rat) has been mocked after she criticized COVID-19 restrictions and said that "not a single school has closed" because of cancer.
"Every single year more than 600,000 people in the US die from cancer. The country has never once shut down. Not a single school has closed. And every year, over 600,000 people, of all ages and all races will continue to die from cancer," Greene wrote on Twitter on Saturday.
"Since #COVID19 tracking has started, 780,000+ people have died in 22 mo in the US, but more than 1 million still died of cancer," she said.
"Cancer isn't contagious, dummy," actor and comedian Ken Jeong responded.
Star Trek actor George Takei wrote: "Tell me you're really stupid without saying you're really stupid."
Marjorie 3Names
Concealed Carry Permit For Santa
Colorado
A Colorado sheriff's office said it did not intend to be "insensitive" after it shared a photo depicting Santa Claus applying for a concealed handgun permit days after four students were killed in a shooting at a Michigan high school.
The El Paso County Sheriff's Office shared the photo of a man dressed as Santa applying for a concealed handgun permit on December 3, just three days after four students, aged 14 to 17, were killed after police say a 15-year-old opened fire at Oxford High School in Michigan.
"Guess who came in to receive his Concealed Handgun Permit today?" the sheriff's office said in a tweet. "Did you know the El Paso County Sheriff's Office has issued 49,750 Concealed Handgun Permits with another 2,560 awaiting to be issued?"
Hundreds of people replied to the post, many of whom pointed out the post came only days after the Michigan high school shooting. Hours later, the El Paso County Sheriff's Office appeared to apologize.
"EPSO intended to highlight our staff in the Concealed Handgun Permit Office, not to be insensitive to be self-important. Santa correlates to the month of December and we thought he would help to recognize our hard working staff," the office said in a tweet.
Colorado
Rubies, Emeralds, & Sapphires
Mont Blanc
A mountain climber who discovered a metal box filled with precious gems, buried for decades on a glacier off France's Mont Blanc, has been rewarded a share of the treasure trove eight years after he found it, according to France 24.
The mountaineer discovered the collection of emeralds, rubies, and sapphires in 2013 after seeing something poking out of the snow and ice, near the French-Swiss border, per The Guardian.
He found a box, with "Made in India" inscribed on it, containing around 100 stones, the media outlet said. It is believed to have belonged to a passenger killed in one of two Air India flights that crashed in 1950 and 1966 near Mont Blanc, The Guardian reported in 2013.
The man carried the treasure to a local police station, according to reports, but had to wait years to find out if he would be rewarded for his honesty.
The treasure trove has been split into two equal lots, France 24 reported. Both the man and local authorities will receive a set of gems to the value of 150,000 euros ($169,000), the media outlet said.
Mont Blanc
Tiny Galaxy, Unusually Large Black Hole
Leo I
A tiny galaxy orbiting the Milky Way called Leo I could be harboring a huge secret.
According to a new analysis, the central region of Leo I has an absolutely monster supermassive black hole, compared to the mass of the galaxy. The galaxy itself is around 20 million times the mass of the Sun. The black hole is around 3.3 million solar masses – around 16 percent of the total mass of the galaxy.
Although there's a large uncertainty margin, the result is still a huge surprise. That mass of 3.3 million solar masses is pretty danged close to the mass of Sagittarius A*, the supermassive black hole at the heart of the Milky Way. Sgr A* is around 4 million solar masses – and recent calculations put the mass of the Milky Way at around 1.3 trillion solar masses.
That's an absolutely gobsmacking difference in the mass ratios. The possible presence of such a large black hole in such a small galaxy is surprising since we thought we had some pretty reliable rules for the ratio of a central black hole to its galaxy. But, if verified, it could tell us something new about how galaxies, and the supermassive black holes at their centers, grow and evolve.
"It is the first detection of a black hole in a dwarf spheroidal galaxy using spatially resolved kinematics, it has a mass that is similar to the total stellar mass of the system, and it is a comparable mass to that of the black hole in the center of the Milky Way."
Leo I
| CURRENT MOON lunar phases |
