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| http://web.me.com/stewartbrand/DISCIPLINE_footnotes/City_lights.html |
Monday, January 31, 2011
Earth's City Lights
This Audio Slide Show on BBC, regarding counting stars within the four points of Orion and the impact of city lights on the night sky, is very interesting. The narrator comments that Great Britain wastes about 1 Billion Pounds Stirling annually lighting up the sky instead of the ground. That is a lot of money and a lot of wasted electricity with a concurrent waste of hydrocarbon fuels which will vary with how much of their electricity is generated by hydro or nuclear instead of coal or gas.
When one looks at the NASA picture of earth at night from space, you can see where people live and where they do not and how much light is either directed or reflected upwards. This picture is a copy of a much larger version. I found one on Flickr at this site here. It is 1.1 MB. I downloaded one a few years ago that was 3.5 MB. The detail was incredible at high magnification. I found all the little towns in Saskatchewan in the area where I grew up. I haven't tried it on the Flickr site nor have I been able to find the 3.5 MB one again.
Sunday, January 30, 2011
Face Memory Test from BBC Science
The test consists of three parts:
1.You'll be shown 12 photos in the first part,
2. You'll be shown another 12 photos in the second part
3. You'll be shown 48 photos in the third part and asked if you saw them in the first part, the second part - or never saw them at all.
When you have finished the third part, your results will be given to you.
You are advised to wait 5 minutes between each part of the test, so you can keep things separate in your mind easier.
Saturday, January 29, 2011
A Sun Shiny Day
Three days of sun this week; spring must be coming. Tanya was into the on-line seed catalogues again. Temps in the -5C range (23F) so it was a good day for walking. Ronald, the neighbour's dog, has been allowed out of his yard to play when Bobik and Volk have been out so today he went with us on our walk. He likes the company; they mostly ignore him. Unless I pay attention to him, then they play a rough game of tag in which Ronald is "IT" and tag consists of a nip on the rump. I hope it never gets rougher than that. Watching the two dogs work together and Ronald defend against both is very interesting. Smart.
Today we were quite a ways from home when they started this tag game. Ronald finally got tired of it and ran for home with Bobik and Volk in hot pursuit. Ronald is all legs and can out run them easily on the straightaway. They chased him all the way home, then came back to me. With Ronald right behind them.
Bobik and Volk are now three years old. Ronald will be one year old in couple of months.
Today we were quite a ways from home when they started this tag game. Ronald finally got tired of it and ran for home with Bobik and Volk in hot pursuit. Ronald is all legs and can out run them easily on the straightaway. They chased him all the way home, then came back to me. With Ronald right behind them.
Bobik and Volk are now three years old. Ronald will be one year old in couple of months.
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| Bobik and Volk on the front step |
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| Ronald at about 10 months |
Friday, January 28, 2011
The Great Wall of China
This article in the Globalist has some interesting B&W pictures of the series of walls which today are collectively referred to as The Great Wall of China. I am adding Daniel Schwartz's book to my wish list. There are other photographs at the Amazon website.
If you are truly interesting in the history of the Chinese walls and of China, I recommend reading Julia Lovell's book The Great Wall: China Against the World 1000 BC - AD 2000. China has been building walls for two thousand years. Lovell's book covers each dynasty from 221 BC and the associated building of walls, complete with maps. Fascinating reading, especially when each successive series of walls fails but the next dynasty continues on because they are unsure of what else to do. Keeping the people in and the barbarians out was an obsession that Lovell, in the Conclusion "The Great Wall, The Great Mall and The Great Firewall" suggests continues to this day.
The product description and Nathan Hoturoa Gray's review of the book on the Amazon site cover the topic pretty well. Having spend some time in China in the 1990's, I thoroughly enjoyed the book and learned a great deal from it, background to what I observed. For me it was a can't put it down kind of book. For the true historians among you, it is well end-noted with a comprehensive bibliography.
Julia Lovell teaches Chinese history and literature at the University of Cambridge. Her next book, due out this year, she says, is about the Opium Wars, which were a serious defining period in China;'s relationship with the outside world. It too is on my wish list.
If you are truly interesting in the history of the Chinese walls and of China, I recommend reading Julia Lovell's book The Great Wall: China Against the World 1000 BC - AD 2000. China has been building walls for two thousand years. Lovell's book covers each dynasty from 221 BC and the associated building of walls, complete with maps. Fascinating reading, especially when each successive series of walls fails but the next dynasty continues on because they are unsure of what else to do. Keeping the people in and the barbarians out was an obsession that Lovell, in the Conclusion "The Great Wall, The Great Mall and The Great Firewall" suggests continues to this day.
The product description and Nathan Hoturoa Gray's review of the book on the Amazon site cover the topic pretty well. Having spend some time in China in the 1990's, I thoroughly enjoyed the book and learned a great deal from it, background to what I observed. For me it was a can't put it down kind of book. For the true historians among you, it is well end-noted with a comprehensive bibliography.
Julia Lovell teaches Chinese history and literature at the University of Cambridge. Her next book, due out this year, she says, is about the Opium Wars, which were a serious defining period in China;'s relationship with the outside world. It too is on my wish list.
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
Send in the Clones
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| Our PURPLE 2008 Kia Carens. Note licence number |
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| Another PURPLE 2008 Kia Carens. Note licence number |
Hard Times (Pudding)
Today is Saint Tatiana Day, the Name Day of all Tatianas everywhere. My Tanya and Andrei's Tanya, along with Masha and Lena celebrated by going for lunch to Marichka's for pizza while I reloaded programs on my computer. We then invited friends over for supper for which I was responsible for dessert. I made Oatmeal Squares (my kids will recognize this). They turned out perfect except for one small flaw. They were glued solidly to the cookie sheet and one needed a chisel to remove them - in small pieces, not 3" squares. Plan B was to serve ice cream with lots of cookie crumbs sprinkled on it. Still tasted good. And now I know why the recipe said to cover the cookie sheet with wax paper. It is what you call Cookie Doh!!
I got looking at all the different family dessert recipes handed down over the generations made with flour, oatmeal, brown sugar, raisins, baking powder, milk and butter. These are pretty basic ingredients, not fancy, not expensive. Homestead food, poor farmer food. The milk and butter were home grown, the rest of the stuff bought in bulk with no use before date and no refrigeration needed, so to speak.
A favourite of our family when I was growing up was Hard Times Pudding also known as quick raisin pudding, though at our house it was "Raisin pudding in its own sauce", a rather cumbersome title. Basically it is sweet biscuit dough, filled with raisins and baked in a brown sugar sauce. Mom would sometimes make it for supper but most often it was a surprise dessert hot out of oven late on a cold Friday night or Saturday night when Dad, my brothers and I would come in from working late outside on "weekend chores". A double recipe would fill the big green Pyrex bowl, (the same one in which she baked scalloped potatoes), and the six of us would make quick work of it.
Ice cream would have been perfect with it and that is how I serve it now but in those days, even at 99 cents for a half gallon, it was a rare treat. Now I need to go chisel the rest of the cookies off the cookie sheet. #%^&@@@# to coin a phrase.
I got looking at all the different family dessert recipes handed down over the generations made with flour, oatmeal, brown sugar, raisins, baking powder, milk and butter. These are pretty basic ingredients, not fancy, not expensive. Homestead food, poor farmer food. The milk and butter were home grown, the rest of the stuff bought in bulk with no use before date and no refrigeration needed, so to speak.
A favourite of our family when I was growing up was Hard Times Pudding also known as quick raisin pudding, though at our house it was "Raisin pudding in its own sauce", a rather cumbersome title. Basically it is sweet biscuit dough, filled with raisins and baked in a brown sugar sauce. Mom would sometimes make it for supper but most often it was a surprise dessert hot out of oven late on a cold Friday night or Saturday night when Dad, my brothers and I would come in from working late outside on "weekend chores". A double recipe would fill the big green Pyrex bowl, (the same one in which she baked scalloped potatoes), and the six of us would make quick work of it.
Ice cream would have been perfect with it and that is how I serve it now but in those days, even at 99 cents for a half gallon, it was a rare treat. Now I need to go chisel the rest of the cookies off the cookie sheet. #%^&@@@# to coin a phrase.
Sunday, January 23, 2011
Shopping for Clothes
Tanya took me shopping for clothes today. I have a love/hate relationship with clothes shopping. I love new clothes but hate spending money on them. But Tanya was buying, so what could I do. I don't mind suits and ties but always feel uncomfortable in them as they do not always fit like they should. No matter what, I never look like the Armani models. I am a jeans and shirt man. I never met a shirt I didn't like, especially western style, in loud colours with pearl snaps. Two pairs of jeans and forty-'leven shirts and I am good to go for years. I would meet the Crowned Heads of Europe wearing jeans and shirt except my wife would be embarrassed to tears if I did.
A local magazine "Animal Industry Today" is sponsoring a Round Table on the Ukrainian beef industry on Feb 2. The magazine has published a few articles of mine related to improving the beef industry in Ukraine. These have come to the attention of the Deputy Minister (Livestock) of the Ministry of Agrarian Policy. The publisher asked me to write an article for the January issue in preparation for the Round Table that would (my paraphrase) agitate the fecal mass a bit. Not that I am good at that but I gave it my best shot; repeating in my usual diplomatic style, advice that the Ministry was given 10 years ago and never acted on. I have now been invited to participate in the Round Table. The Minister of Agrarian Policy will be there as will the Deputy Minister and several other heavy hitters from around the country.
This is NOT a jeans and shirt crowd. Darn! The suit I wore to my daughter's wedding two years ago (well,17 months ago) is still good as new. But I need a car length dress coat. My good leather coat is too heavy unless it is -30. And a new shirt. A shirt?? Now you are talking my language. Let's go!
Left for Krivii Rih at 10 am, Andrei driving. Best men's store in town ( I bought the suit there) has some very nice coats but not my size. A city of almost 1 million people and no "Big and Tall" that any one knew of. If Andrei can't find it in Krivii Rih, it doesn't exist. By 2:00 we were in Dnipropetrovs'k at a "Big and Tall" where winter coats were half price, no less. There were several that fit and I got one both Tanya and I liked. Along with a new shirt.
We next stopped at Tanya's favourite ladies' wear (She is coming to the Round Table with me, of course! I don't leave home without her; she keeps me out of trouble). Tanya got a skirt and two tops for the same price as my new shirt. There is no justice.
A local magazine "Animal Industry Today" is sponsoring a Round Table on the Ukrainian beef industry on Feb 2. The magazine has published a few articles of mine related to improving the beef industry in Ukraine. These have come to the attention of the Deputy Minister (Livestock) of the Ministry of Agrarian Policy. The publisher asked me to write an article for the January issue in preparation for the Round Table that would (my paraphrase) agitate the fecal mass a bit. Not that I am good at that but I gave it my best shot; repeating in my usual diplomatic style, advice that the Ministry was given 10 years ago and never acted on. I have now been invited to participate in the Round Table. The Minister of Agrarian Policy will be there as will the Deputy Minister and several other heavy hitters from around the country.
This is NOT a jeans and shirt crowd. Darn! The suit I wore to my daughter's wedding two years ago (well,17 months ago) is still good as new. But I need a car length dress coat. My good leather coat is too heavy unless it is -30. And a new shirt. A shirt?? Now you are talking my language. Let's go!
Left for Krivii Rih at 10 am, Andrei driving. Best men's store in town ( I bought the suit there) has some very nice coats but not my size. A city of almost 1 million people and no "Big and Tall" that any one knew of. If Andrei can't find it in Krivii Rih, it doesn't exist. By 2:00 we were in Dnipropetrovs'k at a "Big and Tall" where winter coats were half price, no less. There were several that fit and I got one both Tanya and I liked. Along with a new shirt.
We next stopped at Tanya's favourite ladies' wear (She is coming to the Round Table with me, of course! I don't leave home without her; she keeps me out of trouble). Tanya got a skirt and two tops for the same price as my new shirt. There is no justice.
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