Tuesday  31 Aug 2021           comment?

Dog joins TV meteorologist in front of green screen, walks on water. Video here.

Saturday  28 Aug 2021           comment?

Friday  27 Aug 2021           1 comment

Spencer Elden, whose photo appears on the cover of Nirvana's Nevermind, was in the news this week after he filed suit claiming the cover was pornographic and caused him harm. Not every photo of a naked minor is pornographic and Mr. Elden's complaint reviews the guidelines that courts use in determining whether an image qualifies. From the complaint:

Cobain chose the image depicting Spencer—like a sex worker—grabbing for a dollar bill that is positioned dangling from a fishhook in front of his nude body with his penis explicitly displayed.

I have no idea whether the court will buy this argument. Even though there's a dollar bill in the image I never saw it as suggestive of sex work. But that's just me.

The earliest album I can think of that showed a minor's junk on the cover is Woodstock Two.

Saturday  21 Aug 2021           comment?

Tuesday  17 Aug 2021           comment?

We've had smoke in the air for the past few weeks. It's not as bad as it was last year, at least not during my waking hours. I had a dream last night where visible wisps of smoke were coming in through windows and were seeping out of walls.

Friday the thirteenth  13 Aug 2021           1 comment

California is about to have a special election on whether to recall Governor Gavin Newsom. The state sent me a pamphlet in the mail that includes statements by several of the candidates seeking to replace Newsom. Each candidate who pays for a space in the mailing gets a half page for a statement, enough to fit 300 words or so. More than one candidate had little to say; I'm reproducing just one example here. I was hoping there would be something sillier to post. Some previous elections have provided better entertainment but this was as dopey as it got this year.

Not that gubernatorial recalls are funny. The last one gave us Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Thursday  12 Aug 2021           comment?

My friend Brian and I were talking about geodesic domes the other day and he asked why there can't be six edges at every vertex. Every so often there's a vertex with five edges and Brian doesn't like five.

I said I'd get back to him. The next time we got together, I gave two different proofs why a convex polyhedron whose faces are all triangles can't have six edges at every vertex. Brian didn't like it. It bothered him. As a way of saying I understood, I said that I don't like how far off equal-tempered thirds (minor or major) are from the intervals they have in just intonation.

The background in the diagram is white (not pink). For a fun photo exhibiting this effect, see here.

Wednesday  04 Aug 2021           comment?

Part of the challenge of providing electric service is maintaining the correct AC frequency (in the USA, 60 Hz). Some variation is normal, e.g. increases in load may cause generators to slow down temporarily. Power companies make up for such irregularities with variations in the other direction to keep the total number of cycles per day correct. That way, wall clocks with synchronous motors won't accumulate error even though they run a little fast or slow for a while as they track variations in line frequency.

Audio recordings sometimes include hum from electrical and magnetic fields that emanate from house wiring. Hum in a recording has forensic applications. A law enforcement agency in Bavaria keeps detailed records of moment-to-moment utility power frequency which, when compared with the frequency of hum in an audio recording, can confirm or refute claims about when the recording was made.

(German language) source: sz.de

Tuesday  03 Aug 2021           comment?

I kept a copy of the I Ching in my office at the job I had in Los Angeles (1981‑83). One day my boss came in and asked if I had three pennies. I asked, "Do you want the I Ching too?" and he had no idea what I was talking about. I never found out what he wanted three cents for.

Monday  02 Aug 2021           comment?