A New Spaceflight Revenue Source?

Had a family issue today and just couldn't get anything done.  

I was going to phone it in, but instead, I'll post a story lead from the Rocket Report and the link.  It made me go "what?" 

Falcon 9 flies a suborbital payload. A recent Falcon 9 launch carried two FIFA World Cup official match balls as part of a promotion for SpaceX's Starlink satellite network and the soccer event in Qatar. Packed inside the first stage of the rocket, the footballs reached an altitude of 123 km, Collect Space reports.

A new revenue stream? ... The match balls are the first known example of SpaceX using its Falcon 9's first stage to fly a commercial payload on a suborbital flight. No details were available on exactly where the balls were stowed during the flight, nor their condition—although it is likely they were deflated. It will be interesting to see if SpaceX attempts to fly any research payloads on future flights to monetize first-stage landings.

Photo from Collect Space

Qatar Airways partnered with SpaceX to give two FIFA World Cup official match balls the ultimate kick — all the way to outer space. The soccer balls (or footballs, as they are called everywhere else but in the U.S.) reached 76 miles (123 km) above Earth while packed inside the Falcon 9 first stage.

The white, blue, red and yellow balls then descended with the booster back to a SpaceX droneship, where they completed the first leg of their 800-mile (1,300-km) trip. The balls were then flown by Qatar Airways to Famad International Airport, where they were handed off to World Cup officials.

"A legendary journey for a legendary tournament, from space to kick off," Qatar Airways stated in a video revealing the feat.

123 km up?  Doesn't that mean they've gone higher than any New Glenn tourist flights?  Gives new meaning to the saying, "it takes balls."

 

 

Dumbest Headline of the ... Oh, Nevermind

In a time when at least once a week I say out loud, "what planet is this and how did we get here?" it's hard to say a headline is the dumbest ever, the dumbest of the week, or even the dumbest of the day.  I saw this one yesterday, but there was actually an important story yesterday, so I let this one sit.  Since the important story today is that yesterday's important story is resolved, I'll go back to the dumb shit headline.  

'Urgency is a White Supremacy Value' Says Oregon Health Bureaucrat 

from PJ Media, a story based on coverage from Reason.  A health bureaucrat, as in a state health department officer?  To be as exact in the quote as I can get:

...the Oregon Health Authority’s office for equity and inclusion delayed a meeting with a partner agency on the grounds that “urgency is a white supremacy value.”

Say that again: a HEALTH Authority person thinks urgency is just something those evil, white-privileged people care about?  I can tell at a glance that anybody in healthcare who thinks urgency is some sort of value reserved for white people is not someone actually working with patients at all, and most especially not working in an Emergency Room.  Which is to say they're not healthcare workers and never have been; they're simply bureaucrats.  Furthermore, they've lived such a blessed life that they've never been in a situation where they or a loved one was in need of urgent care in an ER or hospital.

In an email obtained by Reason, Regional Health Equity Coalition Program Manager Danielle Droppers informed the community that a scheduled conversation between OHA officials and relevant members of the public would not take place as planned.

"Thank you for your interest in attending the community conversation between Regional Health Equity Coalitions (RHECs) and Community Advisory Councils (CACs) to discuss the Community Investment Collaboratives (CICs)," wrote Droppers. "We recognize that urgency is a white supremacy value that can get in the way of more intentional and thoughtful work, and we want to attend to this dynamic. Therefore, we will reach out at a later date to reschedule."

Tell you what, Ms. Droppers, I propose an experiment.  I'll put duct tape over your mouth and caulk in your nose to get an airtight seal and see if you feel any urgency about being able to breathe within about, say, 15 seconds.  Or maybe we can induce a heart attack?  Not a cardiac arrest where it's just "lights out" and (if you're lucky) you barely even feel pain, but a racked with chest pain, desperately gasping for air, heart attack.  Think you'll feel any urgency to get help Right Frickin' Now?   

In my book, urgency is appropriate when the situations are urgent, like these two hypothetical conditions.  Urgency can be appropriate at other times, such as in the work world when missing deadlines has serious implications.  Droppers' derogatory use of the word urgency for putting off yet another meeting between bureaucrats is a crock.  Blaming it on white supremacy may agree with some book, but it's still brain dead.  

Image source on Twitter, linked by PJMedia.  

Resolving Some Technical Difficulties

I have some computer issues to deal with, so I've got nothing else. 

This is a Windows 10 computer and I'm perpetually annoyed enough with 10 that I've felt no urges to upgrade to 11.  Pay them to torture me?  Is it gambling that 11 will annoy me more, or is it a mortal lock certainty it's going to annoy me more?

I try to remember to backup the drives on this computer weekly onto a local backup hard drive, a Western Digital "My Cloud" Network Attached Storage (NAS) which is within arm's reach, not to somebody else's computer (AKA - 'the cloud').  Windows 10 kept the completely serviceable Windows 7 backup and restore utility, so I've been running that for around five years.  It doesn't take long, and today it barfed for the first time ever.  It gave me an error message, "Backup encountered a problem while backing up file D:\Misc\. Error:(STATUS_WAIT_2 (0x80070002))," which told me absolutely nothing except that something went wrong.  Where I'd expect it to tell me which file failed, I see no filename, just a period (dot).  When I went to look at the D:\Misc directory to see if I could figure out what file it had trouble with, the entire directory was gone off this computer. 

The longer version of that story is that there are actually two backups on the My Cloud drive, one that I did by just copying every directory and every file from this computer to the network backup drive, and a totally different backup that Windoze creates on the backup drive.  The ones I copied are completely readable, while the Windows backup is compressed in some way into one giant file to save space.  The drawback to Windows' backup is that the backup isn't readable by humans.  That meant I couldn't check it to see if the D:\Misc directory was there in today's backup at all.  I looked at the backup I created and the D:\Misc directory was there, but the most recent files on there were from December of 2020. 

I could copy that directory from the My Cloud over to this computer, but it wouldn't be up to date.  How different was the one in the Windows backup?  For the first time ever, I tried to use the restore part of the Backup and Restore tools.  I was able to use the backup that Windows created last weekend to restore that directory.  The files are pretty much the same dates as my old backup except for the latest ten, which are dated from January of  '21 up to last weekend and not 12/20.  I typically run the backup routine weekly on Sunday, but it moves a day or so either way.

Why did Windoze Backup screw up my hard drive and how can I keep it from doing it again?  I have no idea.  So now I'm trying to understand it.

From the Podcast Macabre.

Odds, Ends and "Best By" Date Approaching

Just an odd bunch of stuff.  Something that happens to me regularly, but may not happen to you is that I see a story in the news and say, "what planet is this and how did I get here?"  Like this one.  

From The Blaze:

Reality star Stephanie Matto, best known for her her stint on TLC's "90 Day Fiancé," is selling the results of her flatulence in jars at $500 a pop — and the item is apparently popular: Matto has reportedly made more than $100,000 over the last month alone selling her own personal aroma.

$100k in a month?  Can she turn that into $1.2 million in a year?  What planet is this...?  

---

Less bizarre, but still a WTF story that's also from The Blaze,  Massachusetts voters passed an "animal welfare" law that will effectively outlaw selling eggs in the state.  

In 2016, Massachusetts voters overwhelmingly passed an animal treatment measure that, in part, made it illegal to sell eggs born of hens with less than 1.5 square feet of floor space in their enclosure.

A similar, well-meaning animal welfare law was passed in Florida in 2002 under our (stupid) constitutional amendment process that said pregnant pigs had to have more space.   In the years after it was passed, word got out that it affected two pigs in the entire state while raising costs of compliance for everyone.  In this Massachusetts case, the law also applies to eggs imported from out of state.  There aren't enough hens in Massachusetts to supply the demand for eggs, so the vast majority come from out of state.  Egg suppliers in other states will most likely ignore the law and sell their eggs into other states.  Egg industry representatives such as the New England Brown Egg Council are predicting that the new rules will decrease the state's current egg supply by approximately 90%.

Brad Mitchell, head of the Massachusetts Farm Bureau, told WCVB-TV that the new rules will make it impossible for egg producers to keep up with the state's demand since, on average, chickens lay one egg per day and each resident eats one egg per day.

"We've got about 300,000 to 400,000 egg-laying chickens in Massachusetts. We've got about 7 million people, so do the math," Mitchell explained.

---

News broke that the Fed is seeing a serious problem coming with the inflation they're creating and is looking to shut down the money printing faster ("tapering") and raise interest rates sooner.  This is another one of those policy ideas that you have to be a Ph.D. to be stupid enough to implement.  Like this:

(Meme from Fee.org)  It works a little better if you realize that line about 1 in 5 dollars being printed in the last year means 1 in 5 dollars that have ever existed were printed in the last year.

---

I got this ad in the email last week.  I was expecting a correction but never got one.  I wonder if they sold any.

Gee!  An $800 value for only $5000?  Sign me up!  A little research showed that they go for closer to the sale price, and are not ordinarily $799.99.

---

And finally... I'd probably have to hurt anyone who did this to me. 

Yeah, there would be enough clues that the steak wasn't real before I cut into it expecting steak and getting cake, but it's just wrong.  

Confidential to Florida Men: Don't Try This at Home

A Florida Man story that Mrs. Graybeard shared with me this morning. 

It worked out well, but as you see, the "professionals" are pretty adamant about not trying this at home.  He did it all wrong.  The fact that it worked out doesn't matter.

I think the common version is, "if it seems stupid but it works, it isn't stupid." I just don't think I'd be trying this.

 

What Planet Is This, Anyway?

It has become a saying between Mrs. Graybeard and I that there isn't a week that goes by that I don't feel like saying, "what planet is this and how did I get here?"  I usually say it several times in a week, but not usually every day.  

This weeks story is that Ford Motor Company has contracted a company to produce a fragrance that is based on the smell of premium gasoline.  I swear I'm not making this up.  

The article is on a site called Electrek.co, and I'm guessing it's in the UK because it refers to petrol instead of gasoline.  They're big on electric cars, other electric transportation and green energy.  

Ford surveyed drivers and found that most of them would “miss the smell of petrol” if they go electric.

The automaker then came up with a Mach-Eau (get it?) scent to help those drivers transition to electric vehicles.

Yes, it’s a thing. Everyone knows a gearhead who loves the smell of burning rubber and petrol. It’s not entirely unusual, but can it actually become a barrier to go electric?

The backstory is that Ford did a survey.  

1 in 5 drivers said the smell of petrol is what they’d miss most when swapping to an electric vehicle, with almost 70% claiming they would miss the smell of petrol to some degree. Petrol also ranked as a more popular scent than both wine and cheese, and almost identically to the smell of new books.

With 20% saying the smell of premium gas would be the biggest thing they miss and 70% saying they'd miss it to some degree, Ford commissioned a fragrance company by the name of Olfiction to produce one.  Olfiction, incidentally, seems like a nice play on the word "olfactory" with the emphasis on fact vs. fiction.  The name of the fragrance is Mach-Eau^GT, which I'm guessing is using the French word for water (pronounced "Oh") as another pun; Mach - 0?  (as in Mach zero).  They even designed a bottle for the perfume that's reminiscent of a gas pump, complete with the Mustang logo. 

Here's where the story gets even weirder. Ford says they're not going to sell it, and don't seem to be trying to use it to incentivize buyers. 

The automaker did clarify that it doesn’t necessarily smell like petrol, but it was designed to remind them of it:

The new scent is designed to help usher these drivers into the future of driving through their sense of smell. Rather than just smelling like petrol though, Mach-Eau is designed to please the nose of any wearer; a high-end fragrance that fuses smoky accords, aspects of rubber and even an ‘animal’ element to give a nod to the Mustang heritage.

Ford says that it doesn’t actually sell the scent, but it was created to “help dispel myths around electric cars and convince traditional car enthusiasts of the potential of electric vehicles.”

'Animal' element?  Considering their electric Mustang, perhaps they incorporated some horse sweat - or worse?  In trace amounts, of course.

They don't say exactly how the scent will be used to remind potential buyers of the smell of premium gas.  When you consider some luxury cars have scent diffusers in them, could they be using a diffuser to subliminally remind buyers that it's still a car? 

Brings a whole new meaning to the term, "essential oil."

Oh the Precious Goal in Life to Be A Victim

There was a story this week, toward the bottom of the news where it belongs, about a dude who considers himself a woman, but hasn't actually had the surgery that matters the most, yet.  You know, the surgery Rush used to call the Chopadickoffofme.  When poor dude goes through the TSA checks to get on an airplane, they always find this anomaly between his legs and need to resolve it.  Dude has gone screaming to any camera and microphone that he can find to scream to about (I suppose) how unfair it is that the scanners can't read his mind and learn how he identifies.  The story on the Blaze says that model and content creator Rosalynne Montoya recently shared an experience with social media users and insisted that TSA is transphobic.  

"Can we talk about how horrible it is to travel while being transgender sometimes?" Montoya asked in the now-viral video, which has been seen by at least 18 million people at the time of this reporting. "I always have immense anxiety leading up to going through security. And this means that I totally recognize the privilege of having all of my documents correct. So, the gender marker on my license, for example, says 'female.'"

"But, going through the scanner, there's a male scanner and a female scanner in the TSA checkpoint," Montoya continued. "And, looking at me, you know, I look like a woman and I am a woman. So, that's great. I love having systemic privilege when I feel unsafe, which is in an airport. But, going through the scanner, I always have an 'anomaly' between my legs that sets off the alarm.

Pardon me if I get your pronouns wrong, but the TSA isn't transphobic; they're bomb-phobic. 

He/she/xe/xshe (whatever) tells the sad story about always having the anomaly between his legs if he goes through the scanners as a woman and has an anomaly in his chest if he goes through as a man.  Apparently he was committed enough to get breast implants, so augmented, but not committed enough to get subtracted from. 

The story is also covered at PJ Media, who got in contact with TSA and reprints much of the way they address the situation. 

I have a simpler example.  Back two days before New Years Day of Y2K, Mrs. Graybeard and I were hit by a pickup truck while riding our bikes.  She had several stainless rods inserted in her back; we call it a pound but don't really know what it weighed.  As a result, she was given a card by her doctor to hand to the TSA.  It states she has implants that will show up on their scanners.  We've taken at least a dozen trips in the intervening years and Every Single Time she goes through the scanners, they stop her for more thorough investigation.  Every Single Time we've asked the TSA about the cards they say (in effect) "nice cards, but we have to be sure."  Essentially, anyone could print up cards like that. 

And that's what's going on with Rosalynne Montoya.  Anybody could say they're a trans woman and have a pound of explosives between their legs.  Once the anomaly shows up, they have to prove it's safe.  They're responding to the risk, not the person. 

Technical Difficulties Today

Completely unrelated to the blog, but plumbing issues that knocked me off kilter for the afternoon.  

Sort of a Halloween-ish motif for Halloween week.  From the Podcast Macabre.   

Around the time the washing machine was discharging into the kitchen and garage sinks, I had left YouTube showing the booster from Saturday coming back into Port Canaveral.  It's kinda cool. 

Whenever someone mentions that the Starship has three Raptor engines on it.  Somebody thinks, "three raptors?  Like this?" and posts this picture.  On just about every online forum there is. 

Sooner or later you get used to it. 

And Now For Something Completely Different

I'm acutely aware of the troubling reports coming from all around the country, as all of you are, but I have a hard time thinking I can make a meaningful improvement to the signal to noise ratio of what's being said around the blogs.  

But every so often, I come across something so bizarre that I have to share it.  Like many of you, I have more than a passing interest in photography, and have been trying to be a better photographer since the early '70s.  I subscribe to a weekly newsletter called Digital Photography Review, which is gateway to many features necessary if you're evaluating a choice of a camera or lens.  Along with a weekly dose of photography news. 

Today, a feature article was the Potato Photographer of the Year.  

Yes, you read the headline right. The Potato Photographer of the Year is a real photo contest and this year’s winners have been announced.

If you’re wondering where the idea for a potato photo contest came to be, look no further than Kevin Abosch’s Potato #345 (2010), a now-famous photo of a sole starchy tuber that sold for a wallet-mashing one million dollars in 2016, making it the 15th most expensive photo sold at the time.

The contest had the noble aim of raising money to end hunger and poverty in the United Kingdom - which is reminiscent of the Miss Universe contestants saying they want to bring world peace.  Since people have been committed to ending hunger for all of recorded history, we can be sure they're not going to do it with the proceeds from any contest, let alone one for a small niche market.  Nevertheless the contest was held, and the article linked shows the top 10 photos.  Allow me to present the winner (reduced from the full size version they post):

Caption: 'This picture manages to introduce a topical lockdown obsession to the brief of photographing a potato. It takes a great imagination to see a sprouting potato as a head covered with hair, and there is a lot of humor in the way the picture has been executed.' – Nigel Atherton

Judge’s comment: 'This is delightful, imaginative, and a good laugh. And again, a bit bonkers. What we all need at this grim time. Love it!'– Paul Hill

It's a gallery of goofy, bizarre photographs - the top 10 entries in the contest.  Every one of them is worth looking at and reading the short descriptions. 

Probably The Weirdest Story You Haven't Seen

In 2020, it's saying something to refer to a news story as the weirdest thing you've seen.  This story is definitely among the weirdest things I've run across this year; Wuhan flu and plagues of locusts have nothing on this.  I first saw this picked up at Ars Technica, but have since seen it elsewhere.

The US Department of Justice and US Attorney's Office in Massachusetts together announced that they had charged six former eBay employees with “leading a cyberstalking campaign" against a newsletter editor and publisher, which "included sending the couple anonymous, threatening messages, disturbing deliveries—including a box of live cockroaches, a funeral wreath, and a bloody pig mask—and conducting covert surveillance of the victims."

James Baugh, 45, is eBay's former senior director of safety and security, and David Harville, 48, is eBay's former director of global resiliency—both were arrested today and charged with conspiracy to commit cyberstalking and conspiracy to tamper with witnesses. Each charge "carr[ies] a sentence of up to five years in prison, three years of supervised release, a fine of up to $250,000 and restitution," the DOJ said.

The bloody pig mask was a Halloween mask and shipped via Amazon.com, a court document said. The mask arrived at the victims' home the same day one of the victims "received an email reporting that a 'Preserved Fetal Pig' had been ordered online to be sent to the Victims' house," the document said. A few days later, the victims "received a box of cockroaches" that was purchased from a roach breeder and seller.

The targets of the harassment were a couple from Natick, Massachusetts, who aren't named in the publicly released documents, but who run an online newsletter that covers e-commerce companies.  eBay managers felt the newsletter was unfair to the online auction giant.  One alleged victim is a reporter and editor for the newsletter, while her husband is the publisher.

"Members of the executive leadership team at eBay followed the newsletter's posts, often taking issue with its content and the anonymous comments underneath the editor's stories," the DOJ said.

You probably know the line from Shakespeare that goes, “Oh! What A Tangled Web We Weave When First We Practice To Deceive,” and this is quite a tangled web.  You should read the whole thing if you want the straight story.  Here's a snip. 

The alleged crimes took place in August and September 2019. Four other former eBay employees weren't arrested today but face the same charges. They are Stephanie Popp, 32, eBay's former senior manager of global intelligence; Stephanie Stockwell, 26, former manager of eBay's Global Intelligence Center (GIC); Veronica Zea, 26, a former eBay contractor who worked as an intelligence analyst in the GIC; and Brian Gilbert, 51, a former senior manager of special operations for eBay's Global Security Team. Harville is from New York City while the other five defendants are from California.

"It is alleged that in August 2019, after the newsletter published an article about litigation involving eBay, two members of eBay's executive leadership team sent or forwarded text messages suggesting that it was time to 'take down' the newsletter's editor," the DOJ announcement said. Another message from one unnamed eBay executive to another said "we are going to crush this lady," according to the charging document.

The "take down" message was followed by a three-part harassment campaign by the six defendants, the DOJ said. The first phase included anonymous deliveries such as "a bloody pig Halloween mask, a funeral wreath, a book on surviving the loss of a spouse, and pornography—the last of these addressed to the newsletter's publisher but sent to his neighbors' homes."

For their part, eBay said that as soon as they found out about this, everyone involved was fired.   That included the company's former Chief Communications Officer, fired last September.  It gets a little weirder: the CEO of eBay at the time of the incidents was Devin Wenig.  He was also let go of in September of  '19.  Being a CEO, there was a more public announcement than for the others let go last September.  The announcement said something intended not to scare investors, that "both Devin and the Board believe that a new CEO is best for the company at this time."  Was the ex-CEO the guy who said it was time to take down the newsletter?  Was his departure linked to this mess? 

The Florida Alligator Rules Apply in South Carolina, Too

Over a year ago, I responded to an email from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission about "living with alligators".  One of those laws (from the FWC) was "if you see an alligator keep your distance."  A recent death in South Carolina shows those rules apply there as well.

Cynthia Covert, 58, came to Kiawah Island, a gated community southeast of Charleston, to give the homeowner a manicure Friday.  The homeowner reported that while Ms. Covert was "professional in her salon," but was relaxed and excited at the home, talking about her boyfriend’s visit from Tennessee, and brought a glass of wine with her.  Uh oh.  Alcohol is not usually a good sign in stories like this.

Covert saw the alligator while working on the woman’s porch and when Covert finished she started taking pictures of the alligator, the woman told deputies.

The woman and her husband started screaming for Covert to get away from the alligator because they saw it grab a deer a few days earlier, deputies said.

Covert said “I don’t look like a deer” and reached to touch the alligator when the animal attacked, according to the report.

The husband and a neighbor grabbed a rope and threw it to Covert when she surfaced and stood in the pond. Covert grabbed the rope and said “I guess I wont do this again,” but was suddenly pulled under by the alligator, the police report said.

Her official cause of death was not Covid-19 the alligator's bite injuries (one of her legs was badly mauled) but drowning.  This is how alligators attack; they'll grab a leg and spin.  Worst case (to the gator) is they rip off the leg and get that to eat.  Most of the time they drown the animal and eat the whole thing.

I don't think alligators fall into the "cute and cuddly" category from Disney/Bambi, I just think it's total ignorance of the reality of nature.  She thought it was neat and unusual enough to take pictures of.  Ms. Covert won't be around to learn from her mistake, though.  I don't want to make fun of her, but sometimes a person only gets one chance to not make the mistake.

Another great Robert A. Heinlein quote comes to mind, or a portion of it.  It's from the Notebooks of Lazarus Long.  Heinlein wrote this in the context of space flight and exploration (if I remember the book correctly!) but it applies whenever we interact with nature. 

... stupidity is the only universal capital crime; the sentence is death, there is no appeal and execution is carried out automatically and without pity.

Remember, folks, the alligator has the right of way.  You let go where it wants and leave it the f*** alone.  You get out of its way.  You don't try to feed it, unless you want to be known as "stumpy" for the rest of your life, or "the late..."  There's more at the March '19 post.

Taking the Long View

There's a saying that goes, “A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in.”  I've always taken that to mean when we do things that are for the good of people who come long after us. 

Maybe it's a reach to apply that story here, but Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and MIT Professor Danny Hillis have embarked on project that has an even farther off payoff than planting a tree today.  They've begun construction of a clock that Hillis first conceived of in 1986; it's a clock that will tick just once a year and chime once ever thousand years.  Called The Clock of the Long Now, it's designed to keep time for 10,000 years.  Purely mechanical.  It will be powered by day/night thermal cycles and optomechanically reset daily at solar noon to phase lock the clock to solar time.  Talk about trees whose shade he'll never sit in, Jeff will never even hear this clock chime unless it's in a special qualifications test.

It's safe to say that someone who would fund this has to have money to spare, and while Professor Hillis is a millionaire, the project is being funded by Bezos.  At $42 million, the equivalent of change found between the sofa cushions to the World's Richest Man, the clock is being built on land that Bezos owns in the Sierra Diablo Mountains of west Texas.

How does the clock work? Well, the longness of the time involved is the big engineering challenge. The clock is designed to tick just once a year and chime once per millennium. Experts are blasting rooms out of the interior of the mountain in order to install steampunky piles of gears and flywheels. 

The tweet and video can be viewed here on Twitter.  Jeff has put up a website dedicated to the clock and is soliciting ideas for things it could also do.

If you're puzzled about what could motivate a couple of guys to create a clock intended to keep time for 10,000 years, well, join the club.  The original source I ran across at Popular Mechanics said, “Bezos explained the clock as a way to remind people that the far future not only exists, but will happen to their descendants.”  Wikipedia's article includes this note.

In the words of Stewart Brand, a founding board member of the foundation, "Such a clock, if sufficiently impressive and well-engineered, would embody deep time for people. It should be charismatic to visit, interesting to think about, and famous enough to become iconic in the public discourse. Ideally, it would do for thinking about time what the photographs of Earth from space have done for thinking about the environment. Such icons reframe the way people think."^[2]

They're talking up the clock as if it will be some sort of attraction, but it's also remote and hard to get to.  That implies most people will never be able to ever see the clock in person.

The clock itself, though, seems a lot more like a Howard Hughes-esque whim or a Crazy Horse Memorial kind of distant vision. “Visiting the Clock will take a commitment," the website reads. "The nearest airport is several hours away by car, and the foot trail to the Clock is rugged, rising almost 2,000 feet above the valley floor.” 

The self-righteous, environmentalist-sounding aspect of why they're building the clock makes me want to hate them, but I don't.  As far as I can tell, they're doing it all on their own property with their own money and people can do whatever they want with their own money as long as they don't hurt other people.  It looks to me like another situation where a billionaire creates a bunch of jobs.  He wants something and hires a team to do it. 

More Common Wisdom That's Not Really True

If you're old enough to remember 1964, the big story in March and April '64 was the murder of Kitty Genovese in New York City.  The part of the story most people talked about was the late March report by The New York Times that 37 witnesses watched the attack but didn't intervene or even call the police (Ms. Genovese had been murdered two weeks before that article).  Almost instantly, the phenomenon of "The Bystander Effect" winked into existence and has been considered a psychological effect ever since. 

But is it a real, common, psychological effect? 

Economist Tyler Curtis at the Foundation for Economic Education, FEE, looks into the details surrounding the effect.  It's probably not what you think it is.  Let's start here:

The story was widely circulated in the media, but later research revealed that it was mostly false. Far fewer people witnessed the attack than was first reported, at least one of the witnesses did contact the police, and some of the witnesses only heard screams but could not actually see the murderer or his victim.

The New York Times publishing fake news in 1964?  This is my shocked face, right?  The reality was that there were far fewer than 38 witnesses; the History.com article only talks of two, mentions them by name, and the second one called the police. 

Research published this month, "Would I Be Helped" puts the concept of the Bystander Effect on very shaky ground. 

After reviewing more than 200 videos of real-life altercations in which bystanders were present, a recent study revealed that at least one bystander intervened 91 percent of the time. Far from discouraging individuals from helping, the researchers concluded, the presence of bystanders actually increased the probability that someone would intervene, precisely the opposite of what the theory of the bystander effect would predict.

A multitude of previous studies has yielded similar results. As Brit Garner notes in a video for SciShow Psych,

A 2011 meta-analysis of more than 50 studies also showed that if the situation is dangerous, like if the perpetrator is still there, people are more likely to help if there are bystanders.

In other words, having an audience encourages heroism.

We can add nuance to this.  With a group of bystanders, there seems to a time lag while everyone waits for someone to do something first.  I suspect most people are going through the reality lag that gets so many killed in a disaster or other emergency; their brain is stuck on, "what's going on?  why is this happening?"  Simply the events are so far out of day to day experience that their brain stalls while trying to understand.  In first aid classes, (I assume some of you have taken these), a common instruction is to point at someone and single them out, saying, "you - call 911" instead of just saying "someone call 911" to help bring them back to reality. 

I view this as another example of bad science being cleaned up.  To the extent psychology can be considered a real science.  In reality, when faced with an emergency situation, most people will attempt to help those in need.  The finer point of helping when you're armed and a conflict happens in front of you is "beyond the scope of this lesson".

Today's Bystander Effect.

A Florida Lizard ... Wait...

I'm probably more tired of Florida man stories than most of you.  I reflexively look to see if they're from my city in hopes that it's not someone I've met.  So far it has always been someone I don't know and only been from this county a couple of times. 

But Florida Lizard stories?  I have yet to see any stories starting with "a Florida Reptile..." but I did get an email from the state Fish and Wildlife Commission about "living with alligators".  They provided a helpful pdf, which is this handy poster.

I'll modify this and make my own rules.

1. The alligator has the right of way  If the alligator comes to your door, don't open the door.  If you're not sure, and you don't see anyone through a peephole, a security camera or something else, ignore the knock and listen for sounds of scratching or clawing.  See the hotline number in that poster.  If you're on the road and come across a gator, don't attempt to run it over.  Unless you have a 4x4 with lots of ground clearance, and then only if you're sure your truck won't tip over.  That was a joke.  Gators are protected species and you shouldn't run them over.
2. Never feed an alligator.  Gators aren't known for being the sharpest knives in the drawer, so to speak.  You can expect them to mistake the hand offering food for the food being offered.  You don't want to go through the rest of your life being called "Stumpy".  Although it might give you a good bar story. 
3. Keep your pets away from the water, especially small white dogs or cats.  If you're new here, know that an old story you hear often in Florida is that gators love marshmallows.  White, fluffy marshmallows.  I've always thought that's why they have a preference for small, fluffy, white poodles.  Maybe they just don't like yapping dogs.  I've never heard of them eating a cat, but I wouldn't doubt it.
4. Don't go swimming if you know there are gators in the water.   Corollary: if your map says "Florida" on it, and you're in fresh water, there are gators in there.  If it's brackish or saltwater, there might be crocodiles with you.  Yeah, it's riskier after dark because they are more active.  It's probably riskiest at sunrise and sunset.  A few years ago, a burglary suspect in nearby Palm Bay decided to hide from police in a lake.  It was early morning, like 2AM.  The gators said "thanks for the meals on wheels" and ate the guy.  Just kidding.  They just killed him and ate pieces. 
5. When in doubt, remember rule #1.  And remember two things.  First, a gator can sprint faster than you can run for short distances.  They're ambush-style predators and not likely to just attack you on land.  If they're hungry, you're close and not aware, I don't rule it out.  Second, the gators have learned how to climb fences.

Every long time Floridian has some gator stories.

Can't Help But Laugh

The news today is all abuzz over the fact that Darth Vader Ginsburg fell and broke three ribs. 

The thing I can't help but laugh over is the rush from some people to donate their ribs or internal organs to the octogenarian. 

When was the last time you heard of a rib transplant? The only thing I could find is some leading edge science?  It's just not done.  Listen, I've had broken ribs before.  It's not a picnic; in fact it hurts like a bitch for the first couple of weeks.  OTOH, transplanting ribs into someone is going to hurt about a thousand times worse.  Getting split open, old ribs sawed off, new ribs bonded in place, sewn back together... 

Her biggest risk for broken ribs is that because of the pain she may not be able to breath deeply enough to ward off pneumonia.  I bet that chance would double or triple if someone actually transplanted ribs into her.  Getting hit by a truck is likely to feel good by comparison.  (I've been there, done that, too - getting hit by a truck - take my word it and don't try this at home: that really hurts, too.) 

Just let her get some rest with some quality opioids for a week or two and she'll be fine - as long as the fall is the only thing that broke those ribs. 

As for the other offers of letting her have "any internal organs", that actually makes more sense except for the part about broken ribs probably not causing any damage that won't heal on its own so there's no need for a transplant.

The only rib transplant that makes sense is transplant those beauties into my stomach!

New Angle on That Canadian Mass Shooting

The mass shooting on Toronto's Danforth Avenue in Ontario, Canada last week that killed 12 sent a lot of ripples through the wider world.  It's virtually a meme that if the killer's name isn't instantly released, the killer must have a name that would lead others to conclude it might be an Islamist terrorist attack, and sure enough  the killers' age was released before they said they knew his name was Faisal Hussain.  In what universe can you know someone's age without knowing who they are?

Ammoland News, from the National Shooting Sports Federation, today prints an opinion piece from the Canadian Shooting Sports Federation that deserves a read.

Fahad Hussain, the Danforth killer’s brother, has a long criminal history involving both drugs and guns. By court order, he lived with his family friend Maisum Ansari, his bail surety.

Fahad and Ansari had 42 kilograms of Carfentanil and 33 guns in the basement of Ansari’s home. Thirty of those guns were a single model of Glock pistol, still in their boxes.

That second paragraph pegs my "that's weird" scale.  I have no problem with someone having 33 guns, but thirty identical, New In Box, Glocks?  Starting a store or equipping a task force so everyone has the same hardware?  Still, despite the screams from Toronto's mayor, guns don't commit crimes, and except for (assuming Canada's laws resemble ours) the part about Hussain probably being prohibited from being around those guns, it's just an oddity.  The real eye-popper, though, was 42 kilograms of Carfentanil.  That's an insane amount.  How insane is it?

A dose of just 20 micro-grams, smaller than a poppy seed, is fatal to humans. With 1 billion micro-grams per kilogram (yes, Billion) it translates into 50 million fatal doses per kilogram.

Police seized 42 kilograms of Carfentanil, or 2.1 BILLION fatal doses, from the basement of Ansari’s home, the same home Fahad Hussain was removed from when he overdosed on a combination of cocaine, heroin and an unnamed substance.

What drug dealer can sell 2.1 billion doses of any drug, let alone one as lethal as Carfentanil?

A better question might be what kind of small-time, two-bit drug dealer can get the cash – estimated at $50 to 100 million dollars – for 42 kilograms of Carfentanil when they can order smaller amounts with far less financial risk?  You're left with big questions about that.  Questions the Toronto police appear to be in no hurry to answer.  Could any drug dealer, even a big time dealer, sell that much of any drug in a reasonable amount of time?  Let's assume they don't want to kill everyone, so that instead of 2.1 billion doses, half that amount isn't fatal, so they'd have to sell 4.2 billion doses.  Canada isn't that big.  In fact, the CSSF does the math and tells us:

Hussain and Ansari possessed enough poison to kill the entire Greater Toronto Area (GTA) 328 times over, or enough to kill the entire population of Canada 58 times. 

It also corresponds to enough poison to kill the entire US population more than 6 times over.  

The CSSF goes down the path of assuming this was going to be the basis of a terrorist attack, and I don't think that should be dismissed without more investigation.  A question that they don't address is how Carfentanil needs to be administered.  Could it have been used in a terrorist attack that a couple of guys could pull off?  How about 30 guys (one per new, in box, Glock)?  There are reports that before it was discovered by drug dealers, Carfentanil was viewed (and used) as a chemical weapon, including by the Russians against the Chechens in the 2002 movie theater hostage situation.  Sounds like it could be aerosolized.  

Could this really have been a couple of guys trying to pull off a mass murder on a scale never seen before?  An entire metropolitan city at once?  An entire nation at once?  Could it be related to a suddenly increased police presence at at an area park?  Or the Canadian government expanding its distribution of Naloxone? 

You all know that Toronto's mayor blamed the shooting on guns and refused to acknowledge that it was a terrorist attack.  It would conflict with Trudeau's vision of bending over for Muslims.  The rest of the government is apparently silent about the details on this. 

(From Inmaricopa.com)

Your WTAF? Story of the Day

Where "A" stands for actual.

Thanks to a link at WUWT, we find a Daily Mail story that a man who claims to be a time traveler from the year 6491 and who is trapped here in 2018 passed a lie detector test about his story.

A time traveller who believes he is from the year 6491 but got stuck in 2018 when his time machine broke down, has allegedly passed a lie detector test.

James Oliver's story was doubted but paranormal experts say they were blown away when they put it to the test, because the results showed he was telling the truth.

Mr Oliver claims he lives more than centuries in the future but was sent back in time.

Paranormal YouTube site ApexTV carried out an experiment, which had bizarre results.

Mr Oliver passed every question.

Why is he trapped here?  Simple!  His time machine is broken.  Unlike the plot of Back the Future in which Marty McFly gets stuck in the past because he needs "1.21 Gigawatts" for the Delorean to take him through time.  Other than that, the plot is kinda similar.  Then why, oh why is this "strange visitor from another planet time" here?  Why to tell us about the global warming and one world government, of course!

According to Mr Oliver global warming is going to get worse and our planet is going to get hotter. He also says there is a United Nations style system of planetary leaders to ensure peace.

The piece is so absurd it's funny.  To their credit, the Mail doesn't give much credibility to the story, and reports the absurdities with a straight face.  You get such gems as:

'Where I'm from, the years are longer.
...
'But we have gifted mathematicians who work to calculate our years from those from other civilisations.'

Oh...Kay... But I think that's simple multiplication, not advanced math.  Maybe in 6491 the ability to use a four function calculator requires "gifted mathematicians".

Although the man has a Birmingham accent, with a US twang, he claims he is from outer space.
...
Describing life lightyears from now, he says more species and planets are discovered – and that there are fights coming between humans and aliens.

Of course, "light years from now" is incorrect.  Light years are a measure of distance, not time, so it either means years from now light years from here.   

The important part, and I'll bet a lot of you have said this already: a "lie detector" does nothing of the sort.  It detects stress and discomfort of the participant.  If he showed no such reaction, it didn't "prove he told the truth", it means either (1) he honestly believes what he's saying and feels no stress, or (2) he has experience with, and possibly training for, taking polygraph tests.  There are places where one can get trained to pass polygraph tests.   Decorum says I should leave it there.

Anybody else notice the year 6491 is 1946 spelled backwards?  Just a coincidence, I'm sure.  Both the ApexTV guy and James Oliver look too young to know anything about 1946. 

From the Daily Mail, but the photo is clearly labeled copyright YouTube/ApexTV.  The 17 minute video is here. 

Any Fellow Bloggers Having Problems with Blogger Itself?

Quick question for any bloggers who drop by: is anybody else having trouble with blogger?  Yesterday, I tried to load the "new post" page several times during the day and it never loaded.  I'd let it sit for up to 10 minutes, and did that for over half an hour with it never opening. 

Likewise the "design" page that allows me to edit the layout, and so on. 

Today, they're loading but it just took at least a full minute for this page to load.

Irresistibly Funny Mistake

It was surprisingly cold this morning, the coldest of the winter (I think), but clear and bright once the sun was clearing the rooftops.  Perhaps a light touch of frost, but not as heavy as earlier in the month. So imagine my surprise when AccuWeather showed this:

It has snowed in the area over the 35 years I've lived here.  Twice.  Neither was more than light flurries.  Needless to say, it's a rare thing when snow appears in the forecast and heavy snow here is unprecedented.  The National Weather Service said 0% chance of any precipitation.

I couldn't help but laugh at it.  And, no, it didn't.

UK Navy Aircraft Carrier Story is Frankly Puzzling

The British Navy recently launched a new aircraft carrier, the HMS Queen Elizabeth.  As is the usual routine, the ship is undergoing a period of sea trials to evaluate how well everything performs.  A couple of weeks ago, the story broke to much fanfare that the ship was leaking and might have to go to dry dock for repairs.

The part I find puzzling?  A big deal is being made over this:

A faulty seal around one of the vast warship’s propeller shafts means 200 litres of sea water pour in every hour.

200 litres per hour?  In Imperial units, that's just shy of 53 gallons per hour.  Granted that nobody wants to be on a ship that's taking on tons of water, but for a ship that displaces 77,800 short tons, 53 gallons, 442 pounds, just isn't much of a leak. 

As a reference to those of you who aren't boaters, here's a low cost bilge pump I've had on a fishing boat before.  For a mere $70, one can buy a bilge pump that will pump out 750 gallons per hour, 14 times as much as is leaking into the carrier.  I know a MilSpec version of that plastic pump will cost at least five times that, but they could still deploy dozens of those on the ship.  And guess what?  Ships that size have pumps.  A little shopping at a Marine Supplies store like West Marine or Overton's will show you bilge pumps for the recreational boater that vastly exceed the capabilities of that little Rule 750 GPH pump and vastly exceed the amount of water leaking in.

If my boat was taking on 53 gallons per hour, I'd run the pump for 4-1/2 minutes every hour and keep an eye on it to make sure it's not getting worse.  

(HMS Queen Elizabeth, heading for her home port of Portsmouth)

So why the kerfuffle?  That's my puzzle.  First off, the purpose of sea trials is specifically to find issues like this.  None of the companies who built the "largest warship in UK history" are contesting that they're at fault.  The Sun reports:

An insider added: “We’re about to uncover the true cost of carrier ­operations.

"There is a feeling that the ACA mugged us off by not sorting this before the handover.” 

The Queen Elizabeth is currently in Portsmouth and may need to go back into dry dock to be fixed.   [Note: the ACA is the Aircraft Carrier Alliance, a grouping of BAE Systems, Babcock and Thales, who built the ship - SiG]

The BBC has what seems like a bit less sensational summary.

The truth is similar leaks in other warships are not unusual and can be fixed relatively easily.

The difference this time though is the scale of HMS Queen Elizabeth and the fact it has just been handed over to the navy.

The big question is whether the leak can be fixed while it is still in the water.

The navy insists the job can be done without her going back to dry dock, which would be costly and add to delays.

Either way, the navy insists the fault will have to be rectified and paid for by the contractors, along with a list of other "snags".

I just don't see what the big deal is.  While I don't claim Naval experience, I think if you buy a multi-billion pound aircraft carrier and this is all that's wrong, you've done pretty damned well.  Perhaps it's some sort of UK politics, which I have to admit is rather opaque to me.  Perhaps someone from the UK might comment if I've missed things.