It’s Monday, July 29, and although it’s been hot in Chicago the last two days (ca. 90° F, 32° C), it’s supposed to be cooler this week. The ducks will like that. It’s National Lasagne Day (cultural appropriation), International Tiger Day, National Cheese Sacrifice Purchase Day (you’re supposed to buy cheese and “sacrifice” some by baiting a mousetrap, so this holiday is odious), and National Chicken Wing Day.
News of the day: According to CNN, at least three people were killed and 11 injured in a shooting at the Gilroy Garlic Festival south of San Francisco, California. The shooter was killed by police. How many more innocents will die, and their friends and loved ones suffer, because the courts misinterpreted the Second Amendment?
And national intelligence chief Dan Coats resigned after clashing several times with “President” Trump. I can’t keep track of the turnover among Trump’s cabinet and other high officials.
Finally, I never imagined that 237 people (as of this writing) would either take or weigh in on the Pew Religion Quiz. I’ll try to get an average score up today or tomorrow, although of course it will be biased on the high side by the interest in religion of the readers here.
Stuff that happened on July 29 includes:
- 1148 – The Siege of Damascus ends in a decisive crusader defeat and leads to the disintegration of the Second Crusade.
- 1565 – The widowed Mary, Queen of Scots marries Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, Duke of Albany, at Holyrood Palace, Edinburgh, Scotland.
- 1818 – French physicist Augustin Fresnel submits his prizewinning “Memoir on the Diffraction of Light”, precisely accounting for the limited extent to which light spreads into shadows, and thereby demolishing the oldest objection to the wave theory of light.
- 1907 – Sir Robert Baden-Powell sets up the Brownsea Island Scout camp in Poole Harbour on the south coast of England. The camp runs from August 1 to August 9, 1907, and is regarded as the foundation of the Scouting movement.
- 1921 – Adolf Hitler becomes leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party.
- 1958 – U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower signs into law the National Aeronautics and Space Act, which creates the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).
- 1973 – Greeks vote to abolish the monarchy, beginning the first period of the Metapolitefsi.
- 1976 – In New York City, David Berkowitz (a.k.a. the “Son of Sam”) kills one person and seriously wounds another in the first of a series of attacks.
- 1981 – A worldwide television audience of over 700 million people watch the wedding of Charles, Prince of Wales, and Lady Diana Spencer at St Paul’s Cathedral in London.
- 1987 – British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and President of France François Mitterrand sign the agreement to build a tunnel under the English Channel (Eurotunnel).
Here’s a short but interesting video about the “service tunnel” that runs between the two train tunnels, as well as earlier attempts at digging the Chunnel:
Notables born on this day include:
- 1805 – Alexis de Tocqueville, French historian and philosopher (d. 1859)
- 1869 – Booth Tarkington, American novelist and dramatist (d. 1946)
- 1878 – Don Marquis, American author, poet, and playwright (d. 1937)
- 1883 – Benito Mussolini, Italian journalist and politician, 27th Prime Minister of Italy (d. 1945)
- 1885 – Theda Bara, American actress (d. 1955)
- 1898 – Isidor Isaac Rabi, American physicist and academic, Nobel Prize Laureate (d. 1988)
- 1905 – Clara Bow, American actress (d. 1965)
- 1938 – Peter Jennings, Canadian-American journalist and author (d. 2005)
- 1953 – Ken Burns, American director and producer.
Who reads Don Marquis any more? But his Archy and Mehitabel columns (collected into wonderful books) about the adventures of a typing cockroach and a down-at-the-heels alley cat, is a classic. I recommend it highly, and hope that at least one reader investigates. Many of the illustrations, like the one below, were done by the great George Herriman, who also did the Krazy Kat strip (a favorite of Matthew and mine):
Those who shuffled off the mortal coil on July 29 include:
- 1856 – Robert Schumann, German composer and critic (b. 1810)
- 1890 – Vincent van Gogh, Dutch painter and illustrator (b. 1853)
Note that even the van Gogh Museum proclaims that Vincent shot himself (see tweet below), but, as I’ve said before, the most parsimonious hypothesis is that he was shot by a young kid with a gun, probably either by accident or in a tussle (read the Appendix of the definitive biography of van Gogh by Naifeh Smith). In a section on van Gogh’s death, Wikipedia notes this, but it doesn’t appear in the van Gogh biography entry:
In 2014, at Smith and Naifeh’s request, handgun expert Dr. Vincent Di Maio reviewed the forensic evidence surrounding Van Gogh’s shooting. Di Maio noted that to shoot himself in the left abdomen Van Gogh would have had to have held the gun at a very awkward angle, and that there would have been black powder burns on his hands and tattooing and other marks on the skin around the wound, none of which is noted in the contemporary report. Dr Di Maio concluded:
“It is my opinion that, in all medical probability, the wound incurred by Van Gogh was not self-inflicted. In other words, he did not shoot himself.”
And there’s lots of other evidence that this was not a suicide. For one thing, why would he shoot himself in the belly and not the head or heart? But there’s a lot more. Have a look at Smith and Naifeh’s Appendix.
#OnThisDay its 129 years ago Vincent took his own life. How did it go so wrong? In May 1890 Vincent left the clinic at Saint-Rémy, hoping he would be able to live independently with his illness. He found a certain peace in the village of Auvers-sur-Oise. Sadly, it was not to last pic.twitter.com/2tHGybYXmw
— Van Gogh Museum (@vangoghmuseum) July 29, 2019
(h/t Nilou for the tweet).
Others who died on this day include:
- 1974 – Cass Elliot, American singer (b. 1941)
- 1979 – Herbert Marcuse, German sociologist and philosopher (b. 1898)
- 1994 – Dorothy Hodgkin, Egyptian-English biochemist and biophysicist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1910)
These two announcements of Hodgkin’s Nobel exemplify the Bad Old Days. “Oxford Wife”? Really? Imagine Crick’s prize being announced as “Nobel Prize for a Husband from Cambridge”!
Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili reminisces:
Hili: It was a long time ago that I slept on this sofa.A: You used to hide here.
Hili: Dawno nie spałam na tej sofie.
Ja: Kiedyś lubiłaś tu się chować.
From Facebook, a plot clearly showing that chocolate consumption makes you smarter:
A tweet Grania sent me on November 29 of last year. I don’t know the physics behind this, but it’s stunning.
This is absolutely amazing: A violin bow creates beautiful geometric images from thin air. pic.twitter.com/U3KRnG8XnQ
— Simone Schnall (@SimoneSchnall) November 27, 2018
Two tweets from Heather Hastie. About this first one she says this:
You might not get all these, but Grania would have, and loved it. I love it too, and send it in memory of her.
That’s very sweet, and makes me tear up.
🤓❤️ pic.twitter.com/xb9gXpc2ug
— Mel 🤚🏻STAY AT HOME🏡 (@ScientistMel) July 21, 2019
Lionfish are gorgeous, but they’re becoming dangerously invasive in the Mediterranean Sea:
Venomous lionfish are invading new waters, and scientists say climate change is partially to blame pic.twitter.com/mgkNFAqIVr
— NowThis (@nowthisnews) July 21, 2019
From reader Barry. Okay herpers, what is this frog? A mutant? A hoax?
Okay #herpetology folks, tell me about this blue frog we found. Small stream in northern Pennsylvania. Isn't he gorgeous?!
(Note, he was only briefly and gently captured and released.) pic.twitter.com/rmdImatGkz— Molly. (@Molly_Brook_) July 27, 2019
Four tweets from Matthew, always on the job. The first one shows the Tour de France crossing the courtyard of the Louvre. This may be a first! (A “peloton” in a bike race is what’s known as “the pack”.) The winner? Egan Bernal of Colombia, the first South American winner of the Tour. He’s only 22!
🤩 The peloton crossing the Louvre's famous courtyard.🚴♂️
🤩 Le peloton traversant la Cour Carrée du @MuseeLouvre, c'est l'image du jour. 🚴♂️#TDF2019 pic.twitter.com/p9Rlj7T2GK— Tour de France™ (@LeTour) July 28, 2019
Damn, does this anger me! It’s time to stop making these sea mammals into public entertainment to earn dosh for aquaria and sea parks. STOP IT NOW!
Dear Juliet,
We see you. We care.
We’re sorry. We’re trying.
🐳💔#EmptyTheTanks pic.twitter.com/sfGvDcNYNM
— julie Ⓥ (@jmcappiello) July 27, 2019
The iconic espresso pot’s initial design (I prefer a pump machine):
Bialetti caffè ☕️#design Alfonso Bialetti, 1933 pic.twitter.com/OFE2NbyRgO
— Brindille (@Brindille_) July 28, 2019
I’m not sure this is an optical illusion except in the sense that it gives an illusion of depth, but it’s still very nice. (n.b. Matthew wrote me back and said, “Did you not see the apparent movement? The first ‘inset’ appears to rotate clockwise – to my eyes, anyway…”..
But I don’t really see the movement. . .
Best optical illusion I've seen for a while pic.twitter.com/ycPBbMnXy2
— Bence Nanay (@BenceNanay) July 28, 2019
??? On the Pew quiz, I got 14 out of 15 (I missed the question on the Buddhist “truth of suffering”), and I’m a Pagan!
Fish delivered to wrong address – try THIS pond next door, I think they’re in.
Lasagna style pasta dishes come from Greece [Greek “Laganon”] – And/Or – Pasta in general came to Italy from China courtesy of Italian trader & traveller Marco Polo.
But, I hold with the view that Newton-le-Willows, Lancashire, UK played a part!
“And/Or – Pasta in general came to Italy from China courtesy of Italian trader & traveller Marco Polo.”
Wrong! Pasta has been documented in Sicily in the 12th century; Marco Polo came back from China a century later. Italian pasta is likely to have an Arab origin.
Not Newton-le-Willows, Lancashire then?
Time for Diogenes to break out his lantern; the Trump administration has lost its last honest man.
Yes, he’s fired everyone who knows the Russians interfered in the 2016 election and continue their intrusions. This new puppet Coats won’t investigate any Russian meddling. Putin is a happy camper.
Like Don Marquis, I can’t stand Wordsworth’s poetry–but I really like Archy’s, especially “The Lesson of the Moth.”
I read all of Archie and Mehitabel years ago.
With great pleasure.
Apparently I have bot read enough about Buddhism as I scored 14/15 on the religion quiz.
I took the quiz, got 15/15. Didn’t have time to post my results yesterday; we were in the middle of a large catering job, which, thankfully turned out great and is done.
I love Don Marquis.
L
Another Marquis lover here.
No mammals and most other life forms do not belong in cages or aquariums.
Do you care to share your list of mammals (or other animals) which do belong in cages. With, preferably, justifications.
(I was listening to “Day of the Triffids” yesterday. Now there’s an organism best kept in cages. Fictional though.)
I think Silvia was thinking of DT, although, to call him a non-mammal is a little extreme. 😎
I got all 15 questions right on the Pew quiz. I, too, am an atheist Jew … as well as an ex-spiritual seeker. It’s not uncommon for Jews to dabble in Eastern religions, and I was one of them, embracing Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, and Sufism by turns. Ask me anything, ha ha.
It’s awful enough to make them into public entertainments.
But no sentient creature should ever be made to dance to Deep Purple. Ever!
That video was bloody horrible. Deep Purple was just the awful, Spinal-Tap-esque cherry-turd on top. That gormless riff playing in the background as a living creature flops about choking to death(?).
I’d like to know where it was taking place – seeing a whale flop onto dry land even for a short period made me uncomfortable, so the idea that that’s part of the act made me think it had to be somewhere like China or Russia…but it’ll probably turn out to be California or somewhere. Depressing.
Yes, I think the body weight will compress the lungs when a large mammal of the sea is moved to the land. Not fun for very long.
“no sentient creature should ever be made to dance to Deep Purple. Ever!”
I would agree, except in this case:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGDbXEk9USE
Gorgeous.
Hell, I could get up and shake my fluke to that.
Our fluke?
Our fluke?
Now, that, I’d pay money to see. 😉
I got 100% on the Pew test too – I had one 50/50 guess on a question relating to Buddhism but it turned out right. I’m a culturally anglican atheist.
In general though, these are pretty much questions that a generally well-educated audience should score well on. The inverse correlation between education and religiosity is well recognized, but it’s a population level effect. Anecdotally, a well educated but inexplicably still catholic (force of habit?) friend also aced the test.
The ties that bind?
I’m another who doesn’t see any movement in the optical illusion, though it is pretty. I even tried blinking my eyes a lot but that didn’t work.
If I get the full image on my screen then move it up and down rapidly, then I see some movement, but just a little.
I see movement. It appears to rotate, except on the spot I am focusing on. Oddly, if I focus on the center, the sense of motion disappears.
Stare at it large screen. I didn’t see it a first either, but they it kept of moving and was giving me a headache.
Lasagna doesn’t count as cultural appropriation because it happened in Europe. When the oppression flow-chart gets to the “Did it happen in Europe?” box, it goes right from there to “Not oppression.” So whether you are an Italian and your ancestors suffered 1000 years of foreign domination, or a Greek and suffered 2000 years of foreign domination, or were Russian or Polish serfs, or were burned by the Inquisition, you are part of the problem. The soi-disant crimes of your ancestors a priori erase any harm they suffered. They (and you) are more sinning than sinned against.
Expanding the chocolate graph:
https://flic.kr/p/2gKjGDt
The real mystery is, given how bad the local stuff is, how Americans manage to stomach that much “chocolate” (and conversely why the Belgians eat so little)
Agreed
Me, too.
Ah, but there’s good chocolate available if you look for it.
Really great chocolate, made in the USA, is now readily available pretty much anywhere in the USA now. It just costs a lot more than the junky stuff. I pretty much don’t eat any of the main brand candy bars. (Well, I don’t eat candy much anyway.)
I buy Trader Joe’s Belgian 70% cacao (made in Belgium, not the USA of course). To me, it is wonderful.
Also available are many chocolates from small producers at various locations around the world (under various labels) and it is very interesting to taste the variety of different flavors from different locations. (Not added flavors, just the flavor of the base chocolate.)
A tweet Grania sent me on November 29 of last year. I don’t know the physics behind this, but it’s stunning.
This is an example of a standing wave set up in a 2D plate. Same idea as standing waves in 1D in stringed instruments. The sand accumulates at the nodes where plate isn’t moving up and down.
Yes: Chladni patterns.
I was trying to remember the name. This guy. We “did” the figures at some point in O-level physics with a sig-genny and a variety of board materials. Different stiffness gives a different pattern. Then we moved on to the single-dimension model to quantify that in terms of string weight-per-unit-length.
Sub
I love a not-terribly-expensive Confection called Bark Thins – dark Chocolate with pretzels. It also comes in other flavors from Costco and elsewhere. I found the other flavors too sweet. It’s called a snacking chocolate and it’s great to have just a little piece of now and then. Not sure where the actual chocolate is from but I generally generally prefer Belgian. Blame the erratic typing on Siri because it’s hard to type with my left hand. An Outfit in Canada called Bulk barn used to carry really good dark chocolate almond bark, but they suddenly change suppliers and the new stuff tasted way too sweet and artificial.
barkTHINS? Obviously Lucy the doggie has hijacked Siri again!
Siri don’t need no hijacking to play silly buggers. Yes those BarkThins, but the pretzel ones are the only ones I like. They have just the right amount of salt. Can you get them in the UK? I went into a kind of panic when the stock was very low In the supermarkets hereabouts, but thankfully they have reappeared. Unfortunately they are often on the very top shelves and I need to ask some kind tall person to grab them for me. First world problems, I know.
You really need to try online order & home delivery if that’s a thing your way. Solve the shelf problem.
barkTHINS was owned by New York based Ripple Brand Collective who sold out to Hershey for huge bags of cash three years ago, but they’ve kept the brand, website & hip image firmly separate – you’ll not see “Hershey” mentioned at the barkTHINS site. It’s hard to know where North American corps get their ingredients because, unlike European food businesses, they don’t have to say, but barkTHINS claim it’s Fair Trade. My suspicious nature would want to see the receipts since Hershey tend to rationalise suppliers & no recipe goes untouched by this.
It’s not on the shelves here in the UK & they’d have to spend money to do so [food regs, package labelling etc], but I can get it from Amazon, but I shan’t bother as it’s double the already inflated CAD price!!
I see Walmart Canada stocks it & you can even buy direct from barkTHINS, but prices there are rubbish & presumably you’d have to sell a husky to cover shipping.
Sea World is the absolute worst at exploiting sea mammals for profit. It should be shut down.
Boycott, disinvest and apply sanctions?
I see quite strong movement in the last optical illusion. The uppermost pattern appears to rotate counterclockwise when observing the first inset, which rotates clockwise, as Matthew wrote.
Makes me nauseated
It has to be large enough. When it is small there is no illusion. Bigify if you don’t see it.
Yeah, for me the movement was so strong, that I at first thought it was a video or animated gif. It took me a few seconds to realize it was a static image.
The effect does appear stronger on my computer monitor, but I still notice it well enough on my phone screen.
I wonder what accounts for such a big difference in perception.
It’s a green frog (Rana clamitans). Green and blue are of course close on the spectrum, and in the coloration of many animals. In anoles, many species are green (at least some of the time), and preserved specimens stored in alcohol turn blue, because the yellow pigment is soluble in alcohol. In Anolis grahami, blue vs. green is subject to geographic variation– the ones from eastern Jamaica being quite green, those from western and central Jamaica showing more blue. Occasional individuals of Anolis carolinensis of the southern U.S. are blue– I’ve only seen photos, though, so I don’t know if these individuals’ color change repertoire includes green. There is a completely blue anole, Anolis gorgonae, found on one small island off Colombia. The blue in some anoles (?and frog) may result from variations in the production of the yellow pigment, the less yellow pigment produced, the more blue the color.
“The first one shows the Tour de France crossing the courtyard of the Louvre. This may be a first! (A “peloton” in a bike race is what’s known as “the pack”.) The winner? Egan Bernal of Colombia, the first South American winner of the Tour. He’s only 22!”
When I heard on my TV “coming up next, a big first for this year’s Tour de France,” my first thought was, “the winner wasn’t on drugs this time?”
The physics behind the geometric patterns on the metal plate is quite simple. The violin bow causes the plate to oscillate in a specific way, and the metal beads concentrate at the locations on the plate which are stationary. Google “Chladni plate” for an explanation.
Metal beads are probably not ideal – too dense, too round, not enough friction so they would flow to a low point if plate isn’t level & too noisy. Steve Mould in the video is using couscous, but salt, rice or sand are also commonly used.
Glitter is also commonly used.
A PITA to clean up after though. And most glitters I’ve looked at under the microscope are plain vanilla microplastic fragments, ready to be discharged directly into the environment.
I was actually half-expecting the glitter to be dyed mica when the the question “is it safe to eat?” was asked. Even as plastic slivers, it’s probably safe to eat in the sense of unlikely to harm the eater. But it’s going to go somewhere.
I’d stick with the sand, or rice.
The plate is vibrating in two dimensions (the violin bow is only relevant as a source of excitation). The grains of rice? are settling on the stationary nodes between the vibrating areas.
It is remarkable how quickly the pattern forms, though.
Here’s the original Youtube video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CR_XL192wXw
Steve Mould’s channel is full of interesting stuff.
(I wish people would link to the originals on Youtube or elsewhere instead of posting little snippets on Tw*tter. I think Tw*tter is just a parasite on the Internet).
cr
Archy and Mehitabel really is good. Yes!
i love archie and mehitable too and shared one of archie’s poems with fellow weit reader dominic a few weeks ago sorry no punctuation or capitals boss
doh I meant archy of course
here is one of his classic takes on human stupidity
what the ants are saying
no insect likes human beings
and if you think you can see why
the only reason i tolerate you is because
you seem less human to me than most of them
it wont be long now it wont be long
man is making deserts of the earth
it wont be long now
before man will have used it up
so that nothing but ants
and centipedes and scorpions
can find a living on it
man has oppressed us for a million years
but he goes on steadily
cutting the ground from under
his own feet making deserts deserts deserts
what man calls civilization always results in deserts
men talk of money and industry
of hard times and recoveries
of finance and economics
but the ants wait and the scorpions wait
for while men talk they are making deserts all the time getting the world ready for the conquering ant
drought and erosion and desert
because men cannot learn
each generation wastes a little more
of the future with greed and lust for riches
it wont be long now It won’t be long
till earth is barren as the moon
and sapless as a mumbled bone
dear boss i relay this information
without any fear that humanity
will take warning and reform
the other classic:
boss, a flea i was talking to
said millionaires and bums
tasted about alike to me
“‘You might not get all these, but Grania would have, and loved it. I love it too, and send it in memory of her.'”
+1
I saw a programme about Van Gogh ,the presenter said that Vincent should have stayed in the gloomy Netherlands ,he blamed the clear light of Southern France for driving him crazy .
My theory is that his brother shot him ,in an attempt to boost the sales of his paintings .
Dorothy Hodgkin, the British housewife awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry was a remarkable woman: her life and achievements are well described in “Dorothy Hodgkin: a life” by Georgina Ferry(1998, Granta).
Which rulings in particular, and how do you feel they misinterpreted?
The killer used a WASR-10, a crude derivative of the AK-47 imported from Romania and refurbished in the US to take 30-round magazines. This gun is banned in California, but was purchased in Nevada, where it is legal. They cost around $600-700.
No SC ruling categorically bars regulation of this type of weapon, as evidenced by CA’s standing ban.