Fink

The song of the day is Wheels from the 2011 album Perfect Darkness by English singer-songwriter Fink (Fin Greenall).

The Anti-Science Crowd

In my humble opinion—which, after all, is what this blog is all about—the reason for so much anti-science thinking today is because of a lack of education about the fundamentals of science. So when people try to refute climate science, or believe vaccinations are harmful, or refuse to believe the Apollo moon landings happened, or think Earth is flat, it’s understandable. They’re looking at the top of the pyramid and they can’t understand what’s holding it up in the air, because they can’t see the rest of the pyramid below the top. They don’t know it exists, so they’re confused.

I’ve spent much of my life immersed in the scientific world. I worked as an engineer, a job in which you’d better believe the science or your career will be very short. Even in high school, I read some fascinating science-oriented books. The book Microbe Hunters by Paul de Kruif comes to mind. The book is getting long in the tooth now, but it offered a younger me a fascinating glimpse into the scientific hunt for the causes of diseases like malaria and yellow fever. Like reading a detective story, I saw how the building blocks of scientific discovery fall into place.

The human urge to explore and colonize may be pushing us in a bad direction. We are actually considering going to a planet with no liquid water and almost no oxygen. It’s an unlivable place, at least without advanced technology. The danger is that it steals our responsibility to take care of our own planet because, if we mess up here, we think we’ll have a “backup planet”. We won’t.

Too many people today want to live in a fairyland of conspiracy theories and secret technologies. That’s okay as long as we remember it’s just a fairyland—a fun place to visit—but sooner or later we have to come back and live in reality. We humans are changing the world in ways that are not good. Species go extinct every day. There have been five mass extinctions in Earth’s history. A sixth mass extinction is underway. According to a UN report, one in four species are at risk of extinction today as a result of habitat loss, over-exploitation of animal populations, the spread of invasive species and diseases by humans, pollution and climate change.

Is the globe getting hotter and are humans causing it? There is no doubt the world is getting hotter. We have decades of temperature measurements from all over the planet. We have evidence from our own eyes, as invasive species move north, temperate forests recede, ice packs become thinner, sea levels rise and cause more frequent coastal flooding, etc. But is human activity causing all this?

More than 97 percent of the world’s climate scientists answer “Yes” to that question. Numerous scientific societies, science academies, government agencies and intergovernmental bodies agree that human activity is making the Earth warmer. (List)

If we take steps to reduce our impact on climate and it turns out the scientists are wrong, then at worst we will have had no significant impact on climate and its warming is out of our hands. But if we wait until the tipping point is behind us and we have iron-clad proof humans have changed Earth’s climate, we may have no chance to stop it.

According to Wikipedia:

The campaign to undermine public trust in climate science has been described as a "denial machine" organized by industrial, political and ideological interests, and supported by conservative media and skeptical bloggers to manufacture uncertainty about global warming.

Do you want to be scientific and use logic and your own brain? Or do you want to allow vested interests to tell you what to think? You decide. But make your decision as if the future of our planet—your planet—depends on it.

Salmon and Chips

Tonight for dinner I ate skillet-cooked salmon topped with garlic butter. I paired it with a semi-sweet red wine. And for a side—wait for it—potato chips. Or, as the French say, “saumon et croustilles.” I would have eaten sautéed kale or asparagus if only they came in a bag, cooked and ready to eat.

While the salmon cooked, I placed an optimistically named “splatter” screen over the skillet. Here’s how a splatter screen works: large drops of hot oil pop into the screen, which breaks them into tiny droplets before they continue on their journey to the stovetop and countertop. The only problem with a splatter screen is—it’s a screen. If someone threatens to spray you with water, see if you can stay dry by holding up a screen.

What else has happened in the past few days? Well, uh, the sewer line got stopped up and sewage backed up, first into the basement laundry sink, then overflowing onto the floor before I discovered the problem. How bad was it? Bad. Very, very bad. I won’t go into details. Use your imagination. Then let me assure you, it was worse. Next, my magicJack failed. I spent two hours on a fruitless debugging session with their tech support. Got nowhere. Why is it that tech support will point their finger anywhere except at their own product which does, on occasion and inevitably, fail, regardless of what is printed in the tech support troubleshooting manual?

Now it’s 12:30 AM. Probably a good time to try to get some shuteye. Later.

The Nick Tree Band

The song of the day is 2011's Creature Comforts by London-based group The Nick Tree Band.

Livvia

The song of the day is Damn from the 2018 album Damn by singer-songwriter Livvia (Olivia Somerlyn Hollins Christensen).

Late Night Video Fun

Last night, 8 PM. I had a 60 minute video file and I wanted to save the last 3 minutes, and only the last 3 minutes. So I needed a video splitter. It had to be simple enough that I wouldn’t need to spend hours learning it just to make one split, and it had to be free because I only needed to use it one time.

There are a number of free video splitters, but every splitter I downloaded had problems. My video was a Matroska, a frequently-encountered container format, but some splitters could not write a Matroska output file so that was one hurdle. One splitter was so user-unfriendly that I couldn’t figure out how to use it—another hurdle. One splitter could split the file and save the result, but the file length of the result was zero. Another splitter could make any number of splits but would not allow me to define the split points. I even installed VSDC, a nonlinear video editor, but its interface had changed since I last used it and I would have to spend hours re-learning it. And on it went, for three hours.

Finally I dusted off an old splitter that I downloaded a few years ago: Avidemux. I hadn’t tried Avidemux to this point because it is complicated enough that you really have to know a lot about video to use it. But the old Avidemux had no problem reading the video file, and it was easy to set the start and end points.

I left the defaults alone and let Avidemux do its thing. There was one glitch. When I told it to save the file, I got a popup box that read,

“Using H264/H265 in AVI is a bad idea. MKV is better for that. Do you want to continue anyway?”

I didn’t want AVI, I wanted MKV, so I clicked No. Then Avidemux complained that it couldn’t open the Muxer. So I saved the file again, only this time I clicked Yes when it asked if it should continue.

It produced a nice video file. Except for one very tiny problem: the brightness of the video flickered just a little, now and then. Maybe it was because the program needed updating, or maybe one of the dependent libraries needed updating. Maybe it was just a bug. So I downloaded the latest version of Avidemux from FossHub and ran it.

It wrote the output without doing any encoding. (That’s important because re-encoding degrades the quality of the video.) This newer version didn’t object to my using “H264 in an AVI”. It was MKV all the way in a split second. (I know I just came dangerously close to coining a pun.) The video it produced was perfect.

I wish I had more video editing skills. There was a time I did. But that was many yarns ago and I’ve forgotten far more than I remember. Now I know just enough to get myself in trouble. But I muddle onward.

Then it was time for the second big decision of the evening. Do I pour a couple of shots before going to bed, or do I pop the cork on that bottle of Shiraz?

So many decisions.

Glitch in Reality

So this happened. To me. Today.

I drove to Wally World to pickup medications from their pharmacy. While there, I decided to buy a few food items from their grocery.

There is a product called Boost, which is a nutritional supplement drink. I had never bought it so I decided to buy two 6-packs—one vanilla, one chocolate, to try it out.

I went home and put away my purchases. Noon came and I decided to try one of the Boost drinks. I opened the fridge door and was dismayed to see only one six-pack. What happened to the second six-pack?

I considered the possibilities. One: I had left it sitting on the sofa where I put the bags when I entered the house. So I checked. There were no bags on the sofa.

Two: I left the bag in my Jeep. If so, the product would keep until the next time I used the Jeep.

Three: I left it in the cart at the store. If so, I was out of luck.

I went back to the fridge and checked again. Bottom shelf: just one six-pack. I scanned the other shelves but they didn’t have any Boost on them. I shut the door.

Later, I opened the fridge and triple-checked, looking at every item on every shelf. The only six-pack of Boost was on the bottom shelf. I was perplexed, but I put it out of my mind.

An hour later I decided to eat a sandwich for lunch. I opened the door of the fridge to retrieve some ingredients I needed, and the first thing I saw was the bottom shelf. There were the two six-packs of Boost sitting side-by-side!

I’ve experienced this kind of thing before and have described a few of those experiences on this blog. What can a person do but shrug and say, “That’s weird!”

People will say, “The two six-packs were there all along.” To them I say, “Sure, I searched the fridge thoroughly three times and I failed to notice two six-packs sitting side-by-side.” But how realistic an explanation is that?

Remember, in the movie “The Matrix”, when Neo (Keanu Reeves) saw the cat walk by the door twice? My opinion is when these things happen it’s a “glitch in Reality.” Call it parallel realities or whatever you want. When it happens to you, you’ll discover people won’t believe it and will go to any length to dismiss it with the most trivial explanation. But it’s real, and it happens.

E-Cigs

According to the morning TV news, President Trump is considering banning flavored e-cigarettes because of the deaths associated with them. So how many people have died (possibly) because of e-cigarettes? At this time, six people. Plus there are more than 450 cases of pulmonary illness believed to be linked to vaping. So maybe e-cigarettes should be banned.

But not so fast. How many deaths are caused by real cigarettes, which are legally sold every day? In the US, cigarette smoking causes more than 480,000 deaths every year, including more than 41,000 deaths from second-hand smoke. That’s according to a CDC fact sheet. Furthermore, according to the CDC, more than 16 million Americans are living with a disease caused by smoking.

So the US has seen 6 people die from vaping and people are freaking out, while over 480,000 die every year from real cigarettes. But just try banning real cigarettes and see what happens. I’ll tell you now, it won’t be pretty.

LP

The song of the day is Lost On You from the 2015 album Lost On You by singer-songwriter LP (Laura Pergolizzi).

Blood Orange

The song of the day is 2013's You're Not Good Enough by English singer-songwriter Blood Orange (Devonté Hynes).

Billie Eilish

The song of the day is Ocean Eyes by singer-songwriter Billie Eilish (Billie Eilish Pirate Baird O'Connell). The song is from the 2017 romantic drama film Everything, Everything.

Trump versus the Experts

Headline:
NOAA staff warned in Sept. 1 directive against contradicting Trump

The next time a hurricane is on the way, I won’t visit the NOAA website to see if I’m in the path of the storm. Instead, I’ll call the White House. Multiple news sources report NOAA scientists were advised to not contradict anything Trump had to say about the storm prediction. If that’s true and NOAA is simply relaying Trump’s forecast, why not skip the middleman? Go directly to the person who knows what the storm will do. Go to the top.

In fact, do we really need NOAA? Do we really need a National Hurricane Center? For that matter, do we really need the National Weather Service? All of these agencies could be replaced with tweets from you-know-who. Think of the savings! Plus, the president would be occupied with weather predictions and wouldn’t have time to rip up treaties we have with other nations.

Headline:
Trump contradicts CBP head on Bahamian refugees

I guess Customs and Border Protection now have to be micro-managed from the White House.

At least we can be comforted by the knowledge there is nothing bad happening around the globe that might require our president’s attention. We know that because if bad stuff was happening, Trump wouldn’t have time to waste on twitter feuds with celebrities like John Legend and Chrissy Teigen. And he wouldn’t have time to redraw weather maps to support his own predictions.

Headline:
US mental health staff warned not to contradict Trump after mass shootings
Human Services directive orders medical professionals not to post anything on social media running contrary to president's comments on tragedies in El Paso and Dayton

Want to know who else has contradicted Trump? Here’s a short list:

• All of our nation’s intelligence agencies
• National Park Service 
• Rolling Thunder organizers
• All 4 living presidents

And so it goes. You can go to your favorite search engine and enter “Trump contradicts” and you’ll get a list of news articles that will keep you busy reading for weeks.

It reminds me of the Danish tale called The Emperor’s New Clothes. It is, of course, not an exact comparison, but in the story written by Hans Christian Andersen the crowds around the emperor were supposed to believe what they were told rather than the evidence of their own eyes. “Believe what I tell you, not what you see” seems to be the motto of the current administration.

Toto

The song of the day is Africa from the 1982 album Toto IV by American rock band Toto. Africa rose to number 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. Also on the album was Rosanna, which peaked at number 2 for five weeks.

Pentastich

I get out of bed. It's dark outside. I go to the living room and sit down. I don't turn on the TV. I just sit silently. The silence is palpable. More real than real sound would be. This is what the wee hours of the morning sound like. I hear nothing but the tinnitus in my head. I pour a glass of wine. I sit at my computer. I decide to write a pentastich.

time goes by
the candle grows short
wax runs down
soon a burnt wick
grows from a waxy puddle

There you go. It’s late. I’m going to bed. Goodnight.

Blue October

The song of the day is Into The Ocean from the 2009 album Foiled by American alternative rock band Blue October. (There is also a British band named Blue October.)

Madilyn Bailey

The song of the day is Titanium from the 2011 album Nothing but the Beat by French DJ and songwriter David Guetta. The original release featured vocals by Australian singer/songwriter Sia. The song is covered in this video by singer/songwriter Madilyn Bailey.

Hadag Nahash

The song of the day is Bella Bellissima from the 2003 album Lazuz by Israeli hip hop/funk band Hadag Nahash.

Dorian Out

Dorian brought misery and death to some, but it sputtered when it passed Virginia. Central Virginia received modest rain and mild breezes for a short time. Then the day turned sunny and comfortable.

Now it’s twilight. All is quiet except for kids playing in the park across the street. The air is 71° headed for a low of 60° tonight, but it feels cooler. I close the back door and front window, cutting off the night sounds. I hear nothing except the ever-present tinnitus in my head. The weekend will see more sunshine and temps in the 80s. I’ll do some housekeeping, sort the mail, throw away advertising circulars, and maybe I’ll drive to Food Lion and buy some baby back ribs. And cereal. And cookies. And the rest of the stuff I forgot to get at Wally World today.

Dorian is gone but still churning many miles from land, probably unnerving mariners in the seas off Nova Scotia and Newfoundland. But this is early September, and September is the most active month for Atlantic hurricanes. We can’t know what storm lurks in the wings, just off-stage, awaiting its entrance. Humans can’t control the path of hurricanes—yet. But if and when we have that control, I’m sure the first thing we humans will do will be to weaponize hurricanes. Why let all that power and fury go to waste churning up waves when it could be used to threaten our enemies?

The Pentagon is probably working on something like that now.

Kirstin Maldonado

The song of the day is Break A Little from the 2017 EP L O V E by Pentatonix vocalist kirstin™ (Kirstin Taylor Maldonado).

Dream Theater ft Sina

The song of the day is Metropolis—Pt. 1: 'The Miracle and the Sleeper' from the 1992 album Images and Words by progressive metal band Dream Theater. This video features German musician Sina performing a drum cover. Sina has many drum covers on her YouTube channel as well as original songs on her website. Sina plays several instruments in addition to drums.

Kaleo

I haven’t added any “song of the day” music to my blog in quite a while. It’s time to remedy that.

The song of the day is 2015's Way Down We Go, included on the 2016 album A/B by Icelandic blues/rock band KALEO.

The Age of Fakery

I grew up in the age of photographic film. I had a darkroom in the cellar. I loaded film cartridges from bulk reels, developed the film, and printed photos using an enlarger, photographic paper, and chemicals: developer, stop bath, fixer. It was a hobby I enjoyed greatly.

Because of the expense of film and developing and printing, people only took photos that meant something to them. Special occasions like birthdays and Christmas morning were where the camera would come out. Vacations—the family smiling at the beach or in the mountains—were popular targets for the film camera.

How things have changed. Now anyone can afford a digital camera, and even inexpensive phones can capture acceptably good pictures. As a consequence, a lot of junk photos are taken. Instead of taking a picture of a holiday spot, people want to take “selfies”. I don’t know why people like to take pictures of themselves. They already know what they look like. I would rather have a picture of the Grand Canyon than a picture of me with a little portion of the Grand Canyon visible behind me. But that’s me.

“Oh, here’s a picture of me at the Grand Canyon. And here’s a picture of me at Glacier Park. And here’s a picture of me with the Golden Gate Bridge in the background. Sorry that the view of the bridge is mostly blocked by my large head. And here’s a picture of me in front of …”

VW at the world famous Hollywood Sign, made more famous because VW is there, blocking your view of it.

VW at the world famous Eiffel Tower, made more famous because VW is in the picture with it.

It seems that most people today, especially young people, really don’t care about the scenery they’re visiting. They care about showing people what a great time they’re having. For me, shooting selfies is not photography. It’s meaningless. The selfie-shooter is literally turning his or her back on the place they’re visiting in order to snap a picture of their own face.

And despite the photos you see here, I’ve never been to the Hollywood sign nor to the Eiffel Tower. I merely composited these photos, editing myself into another picture. I even added a small amount of blur to the Hollywood sign for a depth-of-field effect. It was a quick job just for this article. I didn’t take time to make the photos look especially “real”. This kind of thing would be difficult and time-consuming to do with film, but it’s a snap in the world of digital photography. Anyone can do this kind of photographic trickery—all the tools you need are freely available online.

And forget about still photos. Now videos can be faked. Celebrities and politicians will be on YouTube saying things that they never actually said. Soon there will be no way to distinguish the genuine article from the fake. Welcome to a world that might or might not be real.

Foggy Morn

It’s foggy this morning. This is the park across the street. The houses on the other side of the park are invisible; tall trees in the park are mere shadows.

Dorian is on the way. At the moment, category 5 Dorian is busy turning Grand Bahama Island into a wasteland. I pity the residents there who are having to endure 200 mph winds.

Is this fog a harbinger of fierce weather on the way here, or is it just fog? I’m keeping my fingers crossed that it’s only fog—a cloud so low that it’s touching the ground. Stay away, Dorian. If the storm predictions are correct, my central Virginia city may see some rain and a little wind, but the worst weather will stay near the coast. Updates to follow.

(Note: the tall pole on the left side of the photo has a cylinder atop it. The cylinder is the BFS of which I have written. The BFS is so loud it scares tornadoes away. I’m not sure how it would affect a category 5 hurricane.)