Techy Tuesday - Using Superconductors to Improve Cancer Radiation Therapy

Anyone who has had cancer or even just been close to someone who has had it knows the phrase, "slash, poison, burn"; the standard treatment for cancer.  Just saying surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation is an oversimplification.  Surgery to remove the tumors is usually first, although I've met people who got poisoned first - chemotherapy to shrink the tumors.  Radiation therapy is last in this order, and frequently is last, but it's sometimes the only treatment.  Radiation therapy consists of using high energy subatomic particles; literally exposing the patient to intense blasts of radiation.  As in all cancer treatment, the goal is to kill the cancer without killing the patient.

While there are different ways to apply radiation, in external beam therapy, patients are literally placed at the cross hairs of particle accelerator to slam high energy particles into their bodies.  I'd say "into the tumor", but if the surgery was successful, there's no tumor left. The particle beam is slamming into tissue to wipe out a few bad cells that may have slipped past the scalpel into the body, and not been poisoned by the chemotherapy.

(XKCD 933)

Last week, Design News wrote about an innovation in creating these "flesh-searing relativistic particle cannons" from MIT.

For many different types of cancers among patients in various age groups, proton beam radiotherapy treatment (PBRT) is a desirable alternative to other types of radiation therapy. In PBRT, synchrocyclotrons, cyclotrons, isochronous cyclotrons, synchrotrons, and other proton accelerators release high-energy proton beams to radiate cancerous tumors. A proton beam can be directly aimed at a tumor, sparing healthy surrounding tissue from radiation.

With only 14 clinics in the U.S., PBRT is not available to all who qualify. For more than 10 years, scientists at MIT’s Plasma Science and Fusion Center (PSFC) have been researching new synchrocyclotron designs to lower PBRT-machine costs in cancer-treating clinics around the world.

In 2008, a team at MIT’s Plasma Science and Fusion Center designed a lightweight and compact synchrocyclotron by replacing the copper electromagnetic coils with superconducting varieties. Superconductive coils are cooled to low temperatures in order to reduce the resistivity of the material. They allow for smaller coils with less turns to generate higher magnetic fields, and can decrease the overall weight of an accelerator.

The new design could be placed directly on the gantry head that directs the proton beam at tumors. MIT’s synchrocyclotron gantry design replaces the old setup—the synchrocyclotron’s large size typically requires a separate room from the gantry and patient.

The article claims many improvements for the new PBRT machines over the old design, including a cleaner, more patient friendly layout.  ProNova Solutions is the company commercializing this treatment.  High temperatures superconductors have been around since the late 80s, but don't have much role in the world outside the physics lab.  I'm aware of some superconducting electronics sold for use in cellular base stations (paper here - pdf warning) and that puzzled me.  The infrastructure to pump liquid nitrogen over these systems must be a big cost, but it was explained that the rent paid for cellular installations on buildings like the Sears Tower or Empire State goes into the millions of dollars per square foot. 

(Source)
It's a cool design and interesting to see superconductor technology in medicine... but it's still to create a machine to shoot you with high energy particles out of a "flesh-searing relativistic particle cannons".  It's still a pretty awful thing to do to a person.  I keep hearing that genomics is going to radically change cancer therapy.  Obsoleting this sort of treatment would be wonderful.    

A Quick Hat Tip to Ex-CNN Anchor Lynne Russell

By now, you've probably heard of the robbery with shooting that involved former CNN anchor Lynne Russell and her husband Chuck de Caro.  Both of them are concealed carry permit holders and have spent time in training; de Caro is former Army Special Forces and Russell is credited with being a private investigator and Sheriff's deputy.  They were spending the night in a Motel 6 in an Albuquerque New Mexico last Tuesday, when Lynne went to go get something from their car.  Instead, she was attacked and pushed back into the room by an assailant.  A fight ensued between de Caro and the attacker, and exchange of gunfire.  de Caro was shot three times, but killed the assailant on the spot.

The robber pushed his way into the hotel room and pointed a gun at Russell and de Caro just as de Caro stepped out of the shower.

While the robber was distracted by de Caro, Russell slipped the couple’s concealed weapons into her purse, and then handed it to de Caro, asking if he could find something of value to give to the robber.

“‘Is there anything in here we can give him?'” Russell said she asked. “Chuck said, ‘Oh, yes, there is.'”

Russell said the man took de Caro’s briefcase over to the bed of the motel room and began firing at her husband.

“Chuck fired back, and it was a shootout,” she said. “He expended the rounds from one small handgun and grabbed for the other even as he had taken fire” and was losing blood quickly.

I'm sure we can all agree this is a horrible enough thing to go through, but it appears that during some interviews after the fact, some of the interviewers have been less than supportive of her carrying a gun that saved her life.  She had a very proper response for them.

“The discussion over the debate to own a gun is just ridiculous. As Americans we have the right to bear arms and as humans the right to protect ourselves. I’m sure that the man who shot my husband did not have a gun permit. Criminals will always have guns. The rest of us legally obtain our gun permits.”
...
“If you don’t want to carry please don’t. Then, shut the f–k up about it.”  [emphasis added - SiG]

Fox News reports that de Caro is still hospitalized, and recovering from his three gunshot wounds.  They said his breathing tube is out and he's doing well.  It's great that he was a more accurate shot than the bad guy, but it's still a heavy burden to bear.  Hats off to Chuck de Caro for his composure under pressure and to Lynne Russell for her support.

We Are the Counter Culture

I'm going to riff on a couple of ideas I mentioned in passing way back in 2010.  Take yourself back in time to the summer of 1969 - if you're old enough.  Consider this in the light of the last few years two historical events from that summer.  I'm talking about the Apollo 11, the first moon landing, and then the Woodstock music festival which was about 3 weeks later in mid-August.

The first was a tribute to hard working men and women: engineers, technicians, assemblers, and tens of thousands of hard working people who undertook a task that many viewed as impossible.  "To land a man on the moon and return him safely to earth by the end of this decade".  It was hard work, it was risky work.  Men died: outstanding men you'd be proud to have known or worked with.  It was a triumph of intellect, done with slide rules and calculators that your Smart Phone out powers by a factor of thousands.  Even today, it is thought of as being so hard to do that about 5% of the US population thinks we never did it.

These men weren't perfect; nobody ever is.  They worked hard, and in some cases played just as hard.  When it was the weekend, the workers on Kennedy Space Center, in Houston's Manned Spaceflight Center, and on the campuses of the many subcontractors by and large came home to their families and lived the suburban life of the dominant American culture.  Think weekend barbecues, Sunday drives, backyard swimming pools and dozens of other ideas that have come to be associated with the 50s and 60s.  Certainly Sunday included church for many of them. A song in the early '60s, Little Boxes, mocked that culture; mocked the idea of suburban tract houses.  It was a popular idea to attack; the Monkees did the same in "Pleasant Valley Sunday" within five years.  This was the dominant culture of the time, so the counterculture attacked it.   

The second was a bunch of kids having sex in the mud while drugged out of their minds, listening to singers and musicians drugged out of their minds.

The first group was dedicated to doing things others can barely only imagine - bending the universe to their will through sheer intellect and power.  They are "can do" people. 

The second group was dedicated to rubbing body parts against each other with no effort of will and no character.  Their entire focus in life is their genitals.   

The second group is now in charge of the country.

There's no denying that the counterculture of the 1960s is now the dominant culture in our country.  The examples are everywhere: the sexualization of even young children is widespread; the increasing sexualization of the content of movies and other entertainment is obvious to anyone who compares songs or movies from that period with now; the hookup culture is straight out of Woodstock; it is simply everywhere.  In the summer of 1969, TV family sitcoms like My Three Sons had functional fathers.  Today, if there is a father at all, he's shown as a bumbling moron always being educated by his children or wife.  Nowhere is this more apparent than in commercials, where men are always morons. 

One the worst effects of an incessant stream of labor and other regulations is a constant reduction in the number of people working a steady full-time job, and while the progress of technology has enabled more and higher quality home entertainment options for the dwindling incomes, there are fewer homes living in the older culture.  

Today, those of us who live a quiet life trying to work honestly and diligently at a career, provide for our families, spend time in quiet reverence and just keep plugging are the minority.  Those of us who want to be left alone, free to choose our way of living, our way of working, our way of worshiping and our way of earning, are in the minority.  If you object to having sexuality thrown in your face every time you venture outside, you're in the minority.  If you object to the perpetually intrusive government requiring more and more of you for no benefit to you, you're in the minority. 

In half a century, the country has turned upside down.  Counterculture and mainstream have switched completely.  Of course, I suggest we take it back, but the only way I know to do that is by being a good example.  And that won't work if nobody is watching you.

But I can't talk about this subject without showing this video of Joe Cocker from Woodstock, which always makes me laugh.

I can laugh at it, but I don't want Joe or his peeps telling me how to live.

Happy Independence Day

I'm pleased to see that there's a move to not just call today the 4th of July, but to use the proper name.  Let's remember what it really was - the day we declared our independence of tyranny.

IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776

The Unanimous Declaration of the Thirteen United States of America

When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. --Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his assent to laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his governors to pass laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of representation in the legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved representative houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the legislative powers, incapable of annihilation, have returned to the people at large for their exercise; the state remaining in the meantime exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavored to prevent the population of these states; for that purpose obstructing the laws for naturalization of foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migration hither, and raising the conditions of new appropriations of lands.

He has obstructed the administration of justice, by refusing his assent to laws for establishing judiciary powers.

He has made judges dependent on his will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, standing armies without the consent of our legislature.

He has affected to render the military independent of and superior to civil power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his assent to their acts of pretended legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by mock trial, from punishment for any murders which they should commit on the inhabitants of these states:

For cutting off our trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing taxes on us without our consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of trial by jury:

For transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offenses:

For abolishing the free system of English laws in a neighboring province, establishing therein an arbitrary government, and enlarging its boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule in these colonies:

For taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws, and altering fundamentally the forms of our governments:

For suspending our own legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated government here, by declaring us out of his protection and waging war against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burned our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow citizens taken captive on the high seas to bear arms against their country, to become the executioners of their friends and brethren, or to fall themselves by their hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare, is undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these oppressions we have petitioned for redress in the most humble terms: our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have we been wanting in attention to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, enemies in war, in peace friends.

We, therefore, the representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress, assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name, and by the authority of the good people of these colonies, solemnly publish and declare, that these united colonies are, and of right ought to be free and independent states; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the state of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as free and independent states, they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent states may of right do. And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I would have highlighted portions that I think are particularly apt today, but the whole thing would be highlighted.

Enjoy your day.  To those who serve - and have served - to provide this gift of liberty for us:  Thank You from the bottom of my heart.

Holiday Weekend

As usual, I didn't get as much done today as I would have liked but that's pretty much always the way it goes.  Today was our 4th of July holiday at Major Avionics Corporation and we spent the day goofing off.  The only real project was to figure out how to smoke a few pounds of chicken wings and shrimp. 

We'll have to go easier on the cayenne next time, but otherwise everything was great.   They don't spend much time in the smoker, only an hour and a half, so it's a milder flavor.  In addition, I used fruit woods (apple and cherry) both of which give a milder flavor.  Still came out really good and made it too easy to eat too much. 

Got the summer slows.  Need to throw a few rounds downrange, and do a little fishing.  Saltwater fishing is slow this time of year, pretty much first light until about 9, really slow through the heat of the day, and then back around sunset.  Some of it is best after dark.

I think the craziest thing I've ever done on the 4th of July was century bike ride (100 miles).  I recall stopping at some convenience store and rubbing ice up and down my arms.  Too hot to spend the whole day outside this time of year.

Git 'er Dun!

Chris Muir over at Day By Day is doing is his annual fundraiser, but it has gone overtime from the expected June 1 to June 30.   Only a few bucks more are needed, so if you enjoy the cartoon, just go drop a sheckel or three.  If you're into cartoons of beautiful nekkid wimmins (as they said when I was growing up), he'll send you a few.  Yes, I gave my annual contribution, too.  Been doing it as long as I've had this blog, I think.   

Chris is the nearest to real time on the response to events of anyone except for professional editorial cartoonists, and has a good cast of characters.

Speaking of the editorial cartoonists, this is good example:

Chip Bok at Townhall and Bokbluster.com.

Shaky Economies From East to West

Greece shook the US markets this Tuesday.  For a day, anyway, after which they seem to have shaken it back off.  In my mind, the 300 point drop can hard be called a "correction" (<2%), so the smallness of the drop is interesting.  I suppose they were worrying that the zombie apocalypse was going to start the next day and when it didn't they went back to - SQUIRREL!!! - their normal mode, which is that as long as Janet keeps sticking money in their pockets, they'll keep cranking up the market.  Even with that, the DJIA closed well under 18,000  (17,730 today) which is down from the first of the year. 

But don't think of Greece as an isolated case of a really badly run economy.  In fact, Greece is the rule, not the exception.  According to Credit Suisse, Greece has total debt – including households, businesses, and government – equal to 353% of GDP.   But U.S. debt is even higher at 370%.  Germany, that supposed paragon of the European Unions highest financial virtue, has 302%. China, with its state-controlled economy, is at 250%.  Did you notice that China's Shanghai stock market is down over 20% in the last 30 days?  The Shenzhen stock market has dropped over 30% as well. 

On the other hand,  a debt to GDP ratio of either Greece's 353% or our 370% is great compared to Britain. It has total debt equal to 546% of GDP.   Japan is in an even worse state. Its total-debt-to-GDP is 646%.  And if the Credit Suisse numbers are correct, Ireland is off the charts with total debt equal to more than 1,000 times GDP.

Will there be a "Grexit" after all of this plays out?  I don't know.  It seems most Greeks want to stay in EU and prefer the Euro over their old currency, the Drachma.  I've read the same about the other countries; notably Ireland, Italy, and Spain, all of them larger economies than Greece.  It's said that the European Union is more a political union than an economic one, and people want to stay in the EU for those reasons. 

But the takeaway is that these problems are not unique to Greece or the EU.  The entire world is awash in debt, addicted to the transient high of growth being pulled in from the future and accelerated.  Greece is the focal point this week, but it will be somewhere else soon enough.  It can be anywhere.  At some point, the money creation will stop and interest rates will have to go up.  The sense of today's jobs reports is that the often talked-about September rate hike is less likely than it had been.  Interest rates simply have to go up at some point.  That storm will unavoidably rage.  

One Step Closer to Holodecks

A persistent idea in SciFi movies is holograms as either 3D videos that can be projected into thin air or tangible objects you can touch and interact with.  It's a disappointment for almost everyone when they learn that the hologram can't be seen unless it's projected onto something like smoke or wispy cloth.  Similarly, the laser beams in movies that can be seen from any angle as colored streaks across the screen are only visible in that kind of smoke or fog. 

Released to the world on June 22, we get news of a breakthrough that gives us a little bit of both.
Released by The Digital Nature Group at Japan’s University of Tsukuba, this video shows a technique they've developed that not only projects an image in thin air, you can interact with it and touch it.  Furthermore, their system can sense your touch and change in response.  While it's very, very far from a solid image you could touch like they used to portray in Star Trek Holodeck scenes, something like the displays that Tom Cruise's character manipulates in Minority Report just got a step closer.  Suddenly they seem like something that could be 10 years away.  The displays in this video are quite small, so they'll need to be made bigger, but that doesn't seem hard just looking at their approach.

So what's different in this breakthrough? They are using very short laser pulses, measured in femtoseconds (fs).  In some experiments the pulses were 269 fs, in others 30-100fs.  (1 fs is 10^-15 second)  The laser pulses essentially ignite the air turning it into plasma and the plasma is illuminated by the laser.  The plasma takes the place of the smoke, water vapor or other media currently used.  Plasma is hot but the combination of tiny amounts of energy, less than 50 micro joules, and those short pulses results in a plasma you can touch without being burned. 

The future is looking like a neat place.

Techy Tuesday - Did Tuesday Seem Like A Long Day to You?

Strangely, it really was longer than the usual day today.  Exactly one second longer because a leap second was inserted into Coordinated Universal Time (UTC).  This was at 0000 UTC on July 1st, which was 8:00 PM on June 30th Eastern Daylight Time, 7:00 PM Central or 1349 PM on October 13th, The Year of the Walrus in California. 

Instead of the clock rolling around to 00:00:00 on July 1 as per usual, the time will actually jump to 23:59:60 before finally ending up in July a second later. The previous leap second, which was inserted in June 2012, caused a number of high-profile technological issues, and it's likely that the leap tonight will cause some problems as well.

Leap seconds are added because the rotation of the Earth just isn't quite as perfect time as we can measure.  I gave a few examples here of just how accurately we can measure time and some of the implications.   In UTC, which is the basis for all the time zones on Earth, a day is defined as 86400 SI seconds.  How long the Earth actually takes to rotate on its axis is somewhat varied, however: for the past few centuries, the rotation of the Earth has been slowing, causing mean solar days to get ever so slightly longer.  The kicker is that not only is the Earth's rotation slowing, it's slowing at an irregular rate.

In an attempt to ameliorate the artistic differences between UTC and Earth, the leap second system was introduced in 1972. Leap seconds can be inserted (or removed) at the end of June or December. There is no regularity in the system, though—nine seconds were inserted between 1972 and 1979, but only three seconds have been added since 2005—which is problematic in domains that demand regularity.

So who cares?  Anybody in any of the industries that care deeply about how long a day is, and the exact number of seconds since a previous event occurred. 

In June 2012, when the last leap second was applied, reddit crashed, Gawker went down, lots of Linux servers fell over, and Australian airline Qantas had some computer problems that caused up to 50 delayed flights.

In some cases, it was computer operators being caught unprepared (i.e., old systems and software packages that haven't been updated), but sometimes it was newer code that just wasn't tested adequately.  Remember Y2K?  Yeah, it's like that.  I recall going out to an old computer system I was using, tied to an HP Test System that was antiquated but irreplaceable, and setting the date to 2000 a few months ahead of need.  It handled the date just fine, but in some places on the screen  messed up the text-mode display.  (I'm really dating myself - in the archaeological sense).

If you're reading this, the Leap Second has already occurred and everything is cool.  If you're reading this and it's turned into the apocalypse out there, it's all because of this leap second! 

(Speaking of dating myself, Morris Day, of Morris Day and The Time, an entertaining diversion in the 1980s, from). 
  

The Supreme Court Ruling Nobody is Talking About

The media has been hammering on the SCOTUS-care and Gay Marriage rulings, because ratings, but it's not all they did.  What strikes me as another outrageous ruling was in the case of Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs vs. The Inclusive Communities Project that upholds the notion that a seller can be guilty of discrimination against a buyer even if they didn't treat the buyer differently from other buyers and didn't intend to discriminate.   

If you're like me you're saying, "Excuse me?"

[The court ruled that] Texas's biggest housing subsidy has been reinforcing segregated housing. The project claimed that even if Texas did not treat minority applicants differently, the subsidy program had the effect of disadvantaging them, under a so-called "disparate impact" theory.

In other words,  if someone thinks the policy in question has a discriminatory effect, even if it wasn’t motivated by an intent to discriminate, they can sue the organization or seller.  The ruling will have the effect of encouraging lawsuits for discrimination; in doing so, it will force sellers to bend over backwards not to discriminate.  In effect, it will force reverse discrimination.

Last Friday, Bayou Renaissance Man posted an article on the Federal Department of Housing and Urban Development pushing to force towns to build low income housing in the highest income sections of town.  The reasoning?  Poor minorities don't live there because they can't afford it, and while the communities don't intend to discriminate, they are having a disparate impact.  As the NY Post put it:

An African-American millionaire can buy a home in any expensive suburb. Color is no longer a barrier.

Despite this progress, President Obama’s Department of Housing and Urban Development is accusing expensive towns of racism, simply because most minorities can’t afford to live there.
...
HUD’s soon-to-be-released regulation, in the works since 2013, will compel affluent suburbs across the nation to build more high-density, low-income housing, plus sewers, water lines, bus routes and other changes needed to support it.

Obama’s social engineers will eliminate local zoning requirements to achieve what the HUD rule calls “inclusive communities.”

Sound familiar? This is exactly what the Supreme Court decision just encouraged.  There's no intent to discriminate: whoever can afford to live in these suburbs can live there.  So the HUD is going to put projects into these neighborhoods, and force extreme or crippling costs on the local governments in the name of fixing "disparate impact". 
  
Predatory government. 

The Vanishing Craftsman

A friend emailed me this link to this story of one of the last manual baseball bat makers retiring. Danny Luckett has spent over 45 years, turning Louisville Sluggers by hand on a lathe at the Hillerich & Bradsby factory. 

For 45 years, nine months and eight days, Danny Luckett's office consisted of a spinning machine and a cloud of sawdust. Before retiring Friday morning, Luckett turned his final baseball bat, one of an estimated 2½ million he created during nearly half a century making Louisville Sluggers for so many of the moments burned into the sport's history.

Hank Aaron's 715th home run came with a 35-inch, 33-ounce Model A99 run through Luckett's lathe. Ozzie Smith's go-crazy-folks homer in the 1985 NLCS? Luckett and a K75 model. Joe Carter's World Series-winning home run in '93 was a Luckett-spun J93 model, and nearly every Derek Jeter plate appearance came using a P72 turned by Luckett. Every day, Luckett stepped out the door at 4:50 a.m., into the office at 5:30, inhaled the rich smell of metal shaping wood for 10 hours and witnessed his work as quickly as the same evening.

It's a poignant little story, and the craftsman's attitude shows through clearly.  At one point, Luckett says, "I take pride in what I do.  It's not just throwing a piece of wood in there and turning it."  The inevitable increasing need for production output led to more automation and more efficiency.

Luckett is perfectly content to live in the background, as he did throughout his entire career. He witnessed his craft turn to automation, with the shapes of models input into computers that now spit out bats with remarkable efficiency. A dozen bats used to take Luckett three hours to hand turn. Today's machines carve a dozen in 15 minutes. 

Danny Luckett at "the office" - the tool rest on his lathe.

Maybe it's just that I'm nearing retirement, but the idea of the vanishing American craftsman resonates with me.  Og posted a similar story yesterday about an old graybeard technician retiring, and I understand.  I consider myself to be at apprentice or slightly better levels in many things, from cutting metal to shaving glass and even more unusual things (perhaps "jack of all trades but master of none") and deeply value the meticulous work such craftsmen produce.  I can go into a quiet "zen zone" for a long time working on these sorts of projects.  If you scratch the surface on the topic of craftsmanship you'll soon find acres of stories of machinists, master carpenters and other craftsmen who are out of work because the companies went with cheaper ways of doing things.  As I've said numerous times, look around you: if it wasn't grown, harvested and used out of the ground, everything you see was made by someone.  Perhaps a master machinist or tool and die maker made the first ones, and then someone created the methods for making the mass quantities.  Even the mass-produced pieces usually involve someone touching them.

I like to talk about quartz crystals.  Every computer, every smartphone, every tablet, every digital watch, virtually everything electronic has at least one that controls the timing of everything that goes on inside the box.  Quartz comes out of the ground, but no piece of quartz creates the frequency that's needed right out of the ground.  The quartz is often recrystallized, but it's always cut to size, ground to frequency (thickness), mounted in holders, and tested.  Usually, someone touches every single piece of quartz that's made -- and billions are made every year.  The first ones are always made by the master craftsman; the rest are made by bulk. 

Throughout the aerospace industry - and others - companies are coming to terms with a third of their workforces being eligible to retire.  It's the case at Major Avionics Company where I work, and just since the first of the year a half dozen friends and long term coworkers have retired.  It will have to lead to widespread changes in how things are done as the tribal knowledge of all the previously encountered pitfalls, traps and bad decisions leaves the company.   As Og remarked about his retiring technician, "His skills come from a different era, and are no longer being taught by anyone, and are no less important for that."  Industry will have to figure out how not to repeat the mistakes of the past. 

Is A Major Finanical Collapse Imminent?

Blogger Michael Snyder at ETF Daily News thinks so and posts a pretty sound circumstantial-evidence case that it's going to happen.   Circumstantial evidence is all we ever get, by the way.

Based on information that I have received, things that I have been told, and thousands of hours of research that have gone into the publication of more than 1,300 articles about our ongoing blog, I have come to the conclusion that a major financial collapse is imminent.  Therefore, I am issuing a RED ALERT for the last six months of 2015.

To clarify, when I say “imminent” I do not mean that it will happen within the next 48 hours.  And I am not saying that our problems will be “over” once we get to the end of 2015.  In fact, I believe that the truth is that our problems will only be just beginning as we enter 2016.

For the record, last January, I wrote much the same, so he and I see the same sort of timing.  He says in the second half of the 2015, I narrowed it down to the end of the Federal fiscal year, because most other market crashes happen in within a month either side of October 1.   

The proverbial black swan could fly in at any time in the guise of a really bad attack like the Charlie Hebdo massacre here in the US, or worse.  On the other hand it could sit like this for quite some time.  Given the timing of other market crashes, my bet is on next September or October.

In a list of things that could be the contributing event to collapse, the author points out a few interesting things.  He points out a story I missed in Reuters that the EU has ordered 11 countries so have "bail-in" rules (fancy term for confiscation of your bank account) within two months (making it July 28) or they will face legal action.  Pretty sharp and short deadline.  Are they expecting something?

In the rest of his list, he points out additional ammunition for my September prediction.

• The 70th session of the UN General Assembly begins on September 15th.  It's being reported that France plans to introduce a resolution which would give formal UN Security Council recognition to a Palestinian state.  Up until now, the United States has always been the one blocking such a resolution, but Barack Obama is indicating that things may be much different this time around.  With the Supreme court ruling this week that Jerusalem is essentially not part of Israel by striking down a ruling that people born in Jerusalem are may claim  Israel as their country of birth, that adds backing to this belief. 
• September 25th to September 27th – The United Nations is going to launch a brand new sustainable development agenda for the entire planet.  Some have called this “Agenda 21 on steroids”.  But this new agenda is not just about the environment.  It also includes provisions regarding economics, agriculture, education and gender equality.  On September 25th, the Pope will travel to New York to give a major speech kicking off the UN conference where this new agenda will be unveiled.

There's an additional set of arguments here that rely on biblical prophesy.  He goes into a couple of angles on that and points out something interesting in the recent pattern. The number seven and multiples of seven are prominent.  First, I must explain that in Jewish history, the Shemitah is the 7th year of a cycle.  Much like a seven day week, the Shemitah year was like a sabbath; fields were to lie fallow, and debts were to be forgiven - something foreign to today's world of 30 year mortgages and other long obligations.  Every seventh Shemitah year (every 49 years) is a year of Jubilee, where every Jew was expected to return to their property and their family.  

On September 17th, 2001 (which was Elul 29 on the Biblical calendar), we witnessed the greatest one day stock market crash in U.S. history up until that time.  The Dow plummeted 684 points, and it was a record that held for exactly seven years until the end of the next Shemitah cycle.

On September 29th, 2008 (which was also Elul 29 on the Biblical calendar, so exactly seven years later by that calendar), the Dow fell by an astounding 777 points, which still today remains the greatest one day stock market crash of all time.  [777 is a Biblical number itself, said to be a sign of perfection - SiG]

September 13th of this year is Elul 29 on the Biblical calendar – the last day of the Shemitah year, again exactly seven years later by that calendar, many are concerned about this date because we have seen giant stock market crashes on the last day of the previous two Shemitah cycles. 

For one thing, we can absolutely guarantee there will be no market crash on September 13th.  It's a Sunday; the markets are closed.  Aside from that, the piece is worth reading.  I'll note that there are several links to the Economic Collapse Blog embedded in that article that are not working today.  I suspect they're having some problems.

In what has to be the freakiest example of a "you can't make this stuff up" event, two cows were born with the number 7 on their head at the beginning of this Shemitah year; one in Pennsylvania (named Baby Ben after Steelers' QB Ben Rothlisberger) and one in Texas - a red heifer.  How rare is this?  That is, how many calves are born every year with markings like the number 7?  I couldn't tell you. 

Am I losing it?  Have I already lost it?  The times between the previous crashes and their place on the calendar simply "are what they are".  Whether they mean something is happening this year on Elul 29, the Shemitah, or on the blood moon eclipse on September 25th, or if the markets are going to collapse at all is the leap you must make.  

On Today's SCOTUS Ruling

For those reading this in an archive some time in the future, in my piece on the Supreme Court becoming Trans-legislators last night (on the outside they look like Justices, but on the inside they feel they were born legislators), I predicted today's ruling, saying:

Tomorrow or Monday, I expect them to rule that gay marriage is the law of the land.  Right behind that, I expect freedom of religion to be rescinded, along with the freedom of conscience.   

Commenter Erin Pallete wrote:

I'm not really clear on how allowing two consenting adults to sign a legally-binding marriage contract wrecks the nation and naturally follows into repeal of the 1st Amendment. Aren't we FOR rights, FOR freedom, and FOR fewer laws?

As I've said before, the only privilege running a blog gets you is the ability to write a wall of text to a two sentence comment like that.  If I may...

To answer the direct question: Of course.  We're all in agreement that we want more rights more freedom, and fewer laws (although I'd like an example of just once in history where getting the Fed.gov involved resulted in fewer laws).  But that's only the beginning and way too incomplete.  The problems always arise where the rights of two people collide. 

Freedom of Religion (NOT freedom of worship, as the president loves to say) is the right to believe in whatever you wish and follow those beliefs.  Pure first amendment.  Let's leave out human sacrifice because that obviously violates a whole host of laws, but my standpoint as both a libertarian and Nazarene (as ISIS says) is that if you want to believe in the Flying Spaghetti Monster or Buddha or just believe in yourself, that's your choice.  Free will.  That's between you and God, at least as I perceive Him.  The line gets crossed if I say you have to believe what I do or else you go to jail or get otherwise destroyed (or if you do the same to me, of course).  That's taking someone else's freedom away.  

There was a story out of Georgia last week about a firefighter who gave a talk as a lay pastor (filling in) at his church where he affirmed the Biblical view of marriage and was fired over it.  From what I've heard, he didn't preach at work; no one claimed he was hostile to anyone at work, I never heard he even talked about it at work but he was fired.  The chaplain for Seal Team 6 was fired over taking a Biblical view, too.  That's a chaplain's job, isn't it?  And, of course, there are all of the cases where bakers or photographers or whatever were sued and are getting economically ruined for refusing to take part in a gay ceremony.  I've heard of gay people being fired for being gay; what's the difference?  Are people looking for equality or revenge?

This sounds like less rights, less freedom and more laws for everyone. Whenever anyone imposes their beliefs on other people, it's a problem.  

Are they going to start arresting Clergy for refusing to marry a gay couple?  At this point, that seems like a distinct possibility.  Will they get arrested when they teach on marriage from the Bible, Torah or Koran?  It seems possible.  By the way, if you say the Government would never arrest people based on what their religion says, how is the situation different from the Feds saying the Catholic church had to pay for abortions for their employees under Obamacare?    

Where is Freedom of Religion if your beliefs are mandated by the state?  Everyone is free to believe whatever they're ordered to?  Or else what?  There's way too big a chance for tyranny to grow here. 

So yeah, I'm completely in favor of more rights, more freedom and fewer laws for everyone.  And I think we'll be getting the complete opposite of that. 

The Constitutional Republic is Gone

Fundamental transformation is complete.  The executive branch has eliminated congress by ruling via executive order or agency regulation.  The supreme court has become the legislative branch by changing laws to mean whatever they wish them to mean.  Send congress home.  You'll save a butt load of money and they aren't doing anything anyway; their function has been taken over.

Today's ruling in Berwell essentially says that the Secretary of Health and Human Services is a State.  I'm not sure what the word for this form of government is, but it clearly isn't what the design used to be. 

Justice Scalia wrote:

[T]he court “accepts that the ‘most natural sense’ of the phrase ‘Exchange established by the State’ is an Exchange established by a State” but then “continues, with no semblance of shame, that ‘it is also possible that the phrase refers to all Exchanges—both State and Federal.’”
...
Words no longer have meaning if an Exchange that is not established by a State is “established by the State.” It is hard to come up with a clearer way to limit tax credits to state Exchanges than to use the words “established by the State.” And it is hard to come up with a reason to include the words “by the State” other than the purpose of limiting credits to state Exchanges.  (Scalia's dissent, page 28 of pdf)

Tomorrow or Monday, I expect them to rule that gay marriage is the law of the land.  Right behind that, I expect freedom of religion to be rescinded, along with the freedom of conscience.   

When Evil Strikes, Blame the Thing, Not the Person

"Blame the thing, not the person" is like the motto of the Brain Dead.  Shooting?  Blame the gun!  (Unless you're in Canada or another place with strict controls, in which case "it's just an outlier").

In this case, it goes: Racism?  Blame the flag!  Hat tip to Irish who points out that all racism ended yesterday.

Well, it is official and in case you have not heard, an inanimate object is to blame for the nations racial strife! Once again libtards and rinos are tripping over themselves in an effort to banish forever from the halls of history, state house lawns and Confederate Memorials the Confederate Battle Flag. From South Carolina to Mississippi "do gooders" are calling for the flags removal! Hell, even WalMart has got in on the act announcing they are pulling merchandise that bears the dreaded "Stars and Bars".  I wish there was some way I could apologize for that social misfit-drugged-zombie-killer being under the "spell" of the flag and shooting those people in their Bible class, but I cannot. Neither can I blame the 1911 .45 a.c.p. handgun. I would love to ask these politically correct wannabes this question; Once the flags are gone and the division of the races fails to disappear, who or what will be to blame? Shame on all of these politicians and the pundits who have turned this tragic event into a media circus and are using it to promote their agendas.

I don't know what they'll blame the next time some psycho goes off.  Whatever object that happens to be around, I suppose.  Since people are incapable of controlling themselves, it must be some object around them that makes them do evil things. 

Although I've lived in the South since I was 3 (so almost a hundred years), the history of the flag and the dark times of the First Civil War have never held much interest to me.  It's only in my later adulthood that I've become more interested in history as a broad subject.  I've had it explained to me, though, that after the War, the Yankees took so much from the south that many felt that the flag was all they had left. I'm sure many of you could teach me a thing or three here.

All that out of the way, it's just remarkable how quickly the media swooped down onto this topic.  It's like they had a stack of possible battle plans and just picked the appropriate one.  Nobody was talking about the confederate battle flag 10 days ago.  Today, a week after the mass murder, other states are rushing to drop the flag and stores are racing to show just how politically correct they are, too.  Amazon is dropping them, although Nazi items are still cool to sell.   Walmart is dropping them, but still sells products featuring mass murderer Che. 

For some perspective it really hasn't been that long since we saw these:

and even less time since we saw this one:

I really hate the bitter smell of hypocrisy.   (source of both pics)

Techy Tuesday - Making Big Trucks "Invisible"

This is relatively simple solution, and like some things I've covered here before, but Samsung has demonstrated a solution to make big trucks safer to be around on the road.  By putting cameras on the front of a tractor trailer and large flat panels on the back, they effectively make the truck transparent.

Back in 2009, Russian design house Art Lebedev introduced the dramatically titled Transparentius concept for improving road safety. It was remarkably simple: put a camera on the front of large, slow-moving trucks and connect it to video displays on the back, thereby informing trailing drivers whether it's safe to overtake the big rig. That's the exact same idea that Samsung is now pursuing with a new prototype truck. Making use of its abundance of outdoor displays, the Korean company has stitched together a video wall of four displays at the rear of the truck, which transmits video captured by a wireless camera at the front.

In the video, Samsung refers to developing this project in Argentina and saying that on average almost one person dies in a vehicle accident in that country every hour.  They claim a large percentage of them are in overtaking/passing situations.

My guess is that unless Samsung has giant monitors they can't otherwise sell stacked waist deep in a warehouse bigger than a football stadium, it's going to be a bit too pricey for most transportation companies.  From the trucking company's perspective, it would be expense that has no payback or benefit. At the least, it would be hard to quantify what benefit the trucking company gets from it.

Neat idea, but perhaps a bit short on cost-effectiveness.  

It Really Is Religion

When Pope Francis released his encyclical that included strict-global warming doctrine the other day, the talk was about how it was all about reasoned discourse.  On the Sunday talk shows, Cardinal Donald Wuerl of Washington explained:

[Pope Francis is] saying, "Why don't we all discuss this? Why don't we all come to the table, and before we start eliminating other people from the discussion -- before denouncing them or even ridiculing them -- why don't we listen to them and see what they're saying and see where we really ought to be going as a human family?"

Except that statement doesn't appear to be true.  It seems that "eliminating other people from the discussion" is exactly what they're doing.  French climate change skeptic Philippe de Larminat says he was denied a spot at April's summit sponsored by the Vatican’s Pontifical Academy of Sciences. 

De Larminat has written a book arguing that the sun, and not human activity, is the primary cause of climate change

"They did not want to hear an off note," de Larminat told the paper.

Doesn't quite agree with the Cardinal's talking points, does it?  It's more like this:

(Chip Bok at Townhall.com) 

It looks to me like good old Latin American Liberation Theology, think Jeremiah Wright, is mainstream in the Catholic Church these days. 

Is This the Week Greece Drops Out of the EU?

We've been talking about the Greek situation for years - I know I've been writing about it since I started this blog.  You'll see many people refer to this as the Greek financial crisis, but to me it's hard to call something that lasts over five years a crisis.  A crisis is pure adrenaline dump; something that gets you into absolute "fight or flight" mode.  People and countries can't survive five years of adrenaline, so I prefer to call it a situation.

This week there was a massive run on the banks amounting to half a billion Euros per day, and there's speculation that the banks will just be closed tomorrow.  That's not really necessary, now, because the ECB extended them more loans of cash reserves.  About $1.25 billion was extended Wednesday,and another $2 billion on Friday, bringing the total liquidity assistance up to roughly $97.58 billion.  At the current rate of the bank run, they're covered for another month.

There's Yet Another Emergency Summit about Greece tomorrow (Monday, the 22nd - I can never know when you're reading this), but unless Greece finally takes the plunge of leaving the EU, the famous "Grexit", there will be more of these.  The man leading Monday's emergency summit, EU Council president Donald Tusk, is sick of the blame game and the game of chicken. He doesn't like games.

"The game of chicken needs to end, and so does the blame game. There is no time for more games."

"We need to get rid of the illusion that there will be a magic solution at the leaders level. This summit will not be the final step - there will be no detailed technical negotiations, that remains the job of the finance ministers.

We are close to the point where the Greek government will have to choose to accept what I believe is a good offer for support, or to head towards default. At the end of the day, this can only be a Greek decision. There is time, but only a few days. Let us use them wisely.

As for the run on the banks, Investment Watch author "WorkerAnt#11" put it this way: "What is perhaps more shocking is that anyone still had money in Greek banks at all…"., especially with the talk starting to surface about more bank haircuts; get it out before they take it from you.  But it's not just Greece; Citi argues that Italy and Portugal are also on the verge of death spirals.

You may have seen stories about Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras meeting with Vladimir Putin.  While it's possible there might be financial agreements between them, my view is that this is just posturing; Tsipras is trying to put pressure on the EU.  Putin's Russia isn't in good shape economically and there doesn't seem to be much incentive for them to take on a basket case like Greece.  The threat has, however, gotten Angela Merkel to flinch, and say an EU agreement with Greece is not impossible. 

Another of those things I got out of Jim Rickard's book is that the first drive at a Single European Currency isn't this one under the Maastricht Treaty of 1992, but was under Charlemagne.  It's not a new idea, it's an old idea that has been tried and failed before (and Charlemagne's was based on a silver standard, instead of gold).  Will it fail again this time?  What's your bet?

Even discounting or ignoring the Greek melodrama, there's plenty of caution and unrest in the financial world right now.  That article links to a well-read comment from Fidelity UK Fund manager Ian Spreadbury that investors should be preparing for a systemic (read global) 2008-level financial crisis:

The best strategy to deal with this, he said, was for investors to spread their money widely into different assets, including gold and silver, as well as cash in savings accounts. But he went further, suggesting it was wise to hold some “physical cash”, an unusual suggestion from a mainstream fund manager.
...
He declined to predict the exact trigger but said it was more likely to happen in the next five years rather than 10.

It's a little surprising a Fidelity Fund manager would recommend stuffing cash in the mattress instead of a Fidelity product, but I can't see it being really controversial.  If you're talking about savings accounts, you're getting negative interest when real inflation is included, so there's marginally almost no additional loss to keeping that money in the mattress.  According to this web site, the very best savings accounts are paying ~1% interest on all amounts (I only focused on amounts up $50,000 in savings).  The Shadowstats inflation rate, using the 1980s method of measuring, says inflation is around 7%, so your 1% interest is really -6%.  Putting it in your mattress just makes that a 7% loss.  Sure you'd like to lose less, but look at it as paying 1% in insurance for a SHTF event.

This sort of awful market disturbance comes courtesy of the Federal Reserve, the European Central Banks, and all of the other Central Banks.  Stocks are incredibly over-valued, the housing bubble is reinflated, and don't even get me started on how screwed up China is. 

(not mine - from Preparedness Pro)

Noted in Passing

The FDA has decided to ban trans- fats, marking the first time our Federal Government has regulated trans- anything.

Trans fats entered the diet in significant quantities in the early 20th century as food chemists searched for a cheaper way to make a solid fat.  Crisco was the first and eventually quintessential imitation food.  There wasn't much trans fat in the diet until the professional alarmists at the Center for Science in the Public Interest pushed them as a replacement for those evil ol' debbils butter and lard.  Now the same people are pushing to get them out of the food supply because, well, they screwed up.  To me, the lesson here is to always demand higher levels of proof before we jump to regulate.  But they've shown over and over again they don't.  (EPA, cough, cough).

The Treasury Department has said, "Hey, we need to put a woman on the $10 bill!".  As opposed to "We need to re-design the $10 bill to put in more security features.  Who's a prominent woman that deserves to be that widely circulated?", which makes more sense to a Future Dead White Male (FDWM) like me.  I sure don't mind a woman on the ten, but I think the change should be made because they're changing it anyway, which isn't the way they come across.   Since they're not serious, I'm not serious.  I recommend Charo.

There aren't many advantages to being an old FDWM, but I do know that if I get recognized or praised for anything, it's not going to be on my looks.

It Seems Androids Do, in Fact, Dream of Electric Sheep

I'm having a bit of problem with my mind being so completely blown that I don't know where to start, but a friend sent a link to a Guardian article of essentially the same title.  The story concerns research from Google labs about training the neural networks used for image recognition.  Neural networks are a form of computer processor architecture that were created in attempt to mimic the way brains are organized.  A neural network usually involves a large number of processors operating in parallel, each with its own small sphere of knowledge and access to data in its local memory.

These networks have to be trained, and that's typically done by showing them lots of images of the things they're being trained to recognize.  That works to some extent, but the researchers want to know what's going on at each step of the process so that they could optimize the way the programming works. 

We train an artificial neural network by showing it millions of training examples and gradually adjusting the network parameters until it gives the classifications we want. The network typically consists of 10-30 stacked layers of artificial neurons. Each image is fed into the input layer, which then talks to the next layer, until eventually the “output” layer is reached. The network’s “answer” comes from this final output layer.

One of the challenges of neural networks is understanding what exactly goes on at each layer. We know that after training, each layer progressively extracts higher and higher-level features of the image, until the final layer essentially makes a decision on what the image shows. For example, the first layer maybe looks for edges or corners. Intermediate layers interpret the basic features to look for overall shapes or components, like a door or a leaf. The final few layers assemble those into complete interpretations—these neurons activate in response to very complex things such as entire buildings or trees.

It turns out that if they have the knowledge to recognize something in an image, they have most of the knowledge to create images from nothing.  

“One way to visualise what goes on is to turn the network upside down and ask it to enhance an input image in such a way as to elicit a particular interpretation,” they add. “Say you want to know what sort of image would result in ‘banana’. Start with an image full of random noise, then gradually tweak the image towards what the neural net considers a banana.”

In other words, they generate a set of random pixels and feed it into the algorithm.  The output has some features that are more reminiscent of bananas than before so they use that as the input and run the algorithm again.  Eventually, they get something like this:

That doesn't look like a photo of bananas, but it's more like bananas than the original input.  In one interesting example they asked the network to find weight lifters' dumbbells.  The resulting image always had portions of an arm holding the dumbbell!  The network learned to recognize them, but so many of the training photos had a muscular arm holding the dumbbell, it assumed the arm was part of the dumbbell.  The solution might be to just give it many more images that don't include an arm, so that it learns the arm isn't part of it.

The surprise to me was the stunning, beautiful abstract art the networks are creating.  The Google labs team says,

If we apply the algorithm iteratively on its own outputs and apply some zooming after each iteration, we get an endless stream of new impressions, exploring the set of things the network knows about. We can even start this process from a random-noise image, so that the result becomes purely the result of the neural network...

If the network is being trained to recognize buildings, and random noise is fed in, with some zooming and selecting of areas to work on, you eventually come up fantasy-impressionistic landscapes like this one

Fountains, pagodas, arches, aqueducts, and ponds with fountains - or icebergs.  It's reminiscent of an album cover from the days of widespread hallucinogens.  More incredible eye candy at this gallery. 

As the Guardian says,

Androids don’t just dream of electric sheep; they also dream of mesmerising, multicoloured landscapes.