Entries Tagged 'Science' ↓

While out in my garden, a few kilometers northwest of Mons, Belgium, my little boy saw this airplane flying overhead.

Its track was roughly east to west.  I have no idea the size of this thing, so it’s deceptive to guess altitude.  20 minutes after I shot these, Euronews weather reported the ceiling at 1981 meters.  So, if that thing was at an altitude of roughly 5000 feet, I’m guessing this thing has a wingspan of 25 to 30 meters.  This is a damn big wingspan.  And slow.  Slower than any plane I’ve seen pass overhead.  By half.

I have no idea whose it is, or even if it is manned.  Pretty interesting, though.

What ends?  Drinking.  Alcohol.  Any of it.

Shit.  I like drinking.  I like the way it feels, tastes, works, everything.  But, I just can’t justify it any longer in light of the effects it has on me.  My wife agrees.  Why?

by Leonard Gross

I read this book years ago.  I remember then the information Gross uncovered was compelling.  Apparently not compelling enough at the time.  Things change.  One’s attitudes towards what is and what is not worth ingesting changes as one ages.  When you’re pushing 50 years old, the risks are palatably more real and tangible.

I will keep the bottom quarter of a bottle of cask strength Glen Livet whiskey I got at the distillery there this year.  Although I can’t think of an occasion now, I think I’ll keep that little special bottle on hand for some possible occasion.  As for the rest, I just stocked up on a bottle of Glen Morangie, Glen Livet, and Maker’s Mark.  I have a half bottle of Frangelico, Bombay Sapphire gin, and Ricardo Pastis Marseilles.  What to do with them?  I’ll bring them into work next week and give them away.  If someone pays me for them, that’s a bonus.  But, I’m not about to dump them down the drain.

I’d like to say I was having two drinks a day, but that wouldn’t be the truth.  The truth is, it was closer to three, on average.  And those drinks were not measured, so each glass of whiskey was probably at least 1.5, more likely 2 measures of alcohol.   My wine glasses are easily six ounce glasses, and we’d take them full.

The cumulative effects to our livers must be evident in fatty liver.  This will reverse itself soon.  So long as we haven’t done significant damage, we should be all right.  The cognitive effects of alcohol were what were concerning me.  Not from  actual experience, but from what Gross reported in his book.  My mind is, to put it bluntly, considerably more capable than most.  I’d like to keep it that way.

So, we learn.  We change our behavior accordingly.  This is what men of science and reason do.

I have an LW scientific stereo microscope, and got a few dead bugs in acrylic blocks for my boys to view.  They look like freaking monsters under ten and thirty magnification.

I noticed something interesting about their legs.  All of them had two claws on the ends of their legs.  The wasp, ant, housefly, scorpion, beetle, cricket, and even the spider.  It seems this little feature works pretty well for bugs, so hasn’t changed a lot across a handful of species.

Here are some drawings I made:

Bugs' legs

I have one of these:

Meade 7" Maksutov-Cassegrain LX-200

But, the goto mount lost it’s fucking mind and Meade no longer supports it.  They actually told me casually how I could buy another LX-200.  As if the optics were consumable or something.  Wankers.  So, I mounted it on one of these:

Losmandy GM-8

In 2000, I was able to take these shots of Luna from my backyard in Texas:

Partial Eclipse

Full half

Full other half

Taken with one of these:

Pentax K1000

As I found, after quite a bit of reading, is that a modern digital camera on the back of my scope is WAY more sensitive than a film camera.  And there’s nothing lost in the scanning translation.