Hot Wheels and Skyhawks

When I was a kid, like most children, I adored cartoons. My favorites were the Loony Toons, but I also remember others. 

For example, I remember the Hot Wheels and Skyhawks programs. They were shown back to back on ABC 1969 - 1971.

(I'm slightly surprised I got to see them since we only had two channels and they didn't show ABC shows unless they were popular; that's why I missed the first season of The Six Million Dollar Man.)

Hot Wheels was, obviously, named for the toy cars. I don't know if there were "Skyhawk" toys. Maybe.

But here were two things I loved: cars and airplanes. Now, some 53 years later, I only have vague images from the two shows. I do remember catching Skyhawks re-using footage (I was around 10 at the time). Which they probably did more than I caught.

I remembered that they were 15 minutes each so they totaled 30 minutes. But according to the interwebs, they were 30 minutes each.

I guess they were canceled because the FCC thought they were just half-hour long ads for toys. 

Most people I've asked don't remember these cartoons. For a while I worried that I made them up (or at least made up Skyhawks).

Hot Wheels has it's own Wikipedia page. Skyhawks has an IMDB page. Which is the only tangible evidence I have that these two shows existed.

Did you have a cartoon you liked but almost no one remembers? Do you remember Hot Wheels and Skyhawks? Let me know in the comments below.

I Like Fahrenheit

When I was studying science/engineering at the University of Washington (Go Dawgs!), we always used the celsius scale for measuring temperatures. It made the calculations easier. For example, it takes one calorie to heat one gram of water one degree celsius. Any calculation that involved temperature is easier in celsius. Well, to be honest, all calculations were easier in metric.

But in my regular life, I like Fahrenheit. I think it's more suited to human existence (except for trying to spell it).

For example, 0 celsius is the freezing point of water. Not real cold. But 0 Fahrenheit is freaking cold! Saying it's going to be -18 degrees C doesn't convey the frigidness of 0 degrees F.

Or do weather forecasters in countries that use celsius breathlessly exclaim that it's going to be over 38 degrees? No, but in American, they can say temperatures will be in the triple digits.

Plus Fahrenheit has more precision than celsius. Every degree celsius has 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit. So it's almost twice as precise.

How do you feel about Fahrenheit versus celsius? Let me know in the comments below.

How to Fix One Election Day Problem

Happy Halloween!

Next Tuesday is a presidential Election Day. And there's always problems. One is the media announcing the winner of eastern states too early, perhaps suppressing the vote in western states. In 1980, it was all over by about 6pm on the West Coast. I remember I was in store and on a TV they were displaying for sale, Jimmy Carter was conceding already. I was shocked. My sister said where she lived in Idaho, people heard this and got out of line to vote. (I voted absentee because I was in college at the time.) Long-serving Democrat Frank Church, senator for Idaho, lost that year and that might have been part of the reason why.

In 2000, lots of news outlets called Florida for Gore and made it look as if he were going to win the election. They did this even before the polls were closed in the part of Florida that is in the Central Time Zone (the panhandle). This probably suppressed the Republican vote on the West Coast and the part of Florida that's in the Central Time Zone.

So, do we forbid the media from announcing who won states when? That probably wouldn't stand up to constitutional scrutiny. 

But I have an idea!

Have election day run for 24 hours from midnight Eastern Time to midnight Eastern Time. That's 9pm to 9pm Pacific Time. Then all the polls close at the same time. No one concedes early!

This would also give people 24 hours to vote, making access easier. Not many people might vote at 2am, but people just getting off a swing shift might. And lines might be shorter because people have more options of when to vote.

Then you wake up the next morning and, one would hope, know who won the election.

What do you think of my idea? Do you think it would help voting? Let me know in the comments below.

Predictions

I used to make predictions. Being a science fiction writer, that's kind of what you do. For example: I predicted that the phone, the television, and the computer would all morph into one device. The TV/phone/computer in the 2015 segment of Back to the Future Part II was exactly what I predicted. What I never realized was that it would fit in my pocket! But that's basically what a smartphone is. Now I still used my MacBook as a computer only (although it tries to be more, I just don't let it). But I use my iPhone a lot too. Not so much as a TV (I have one for that), but still it can be a TV.

Another prediction I made was that no one would own media such as records, cassette tapes, VHS tapes, etc. (this was a long time ago). Everything would be downloaded (I didn't say "stream") from the then-nascent internet for a nominal fee. I thought it would be like fifty cents, not the $5.99 that Amazon Prime video charges. 

I'm kind of behind on that. I still own media (I recently bought a 4K Blu-Ray of Smokey and the Bandit). I listen to music off my iPhone rather than stream it using Spotify or whatever. I like to be able to control what I listen to and not have a streaming service play The Police, for example. Or the Grateful Dead.

And, finally, I thought we'd all be on 24-hour military time by now. But, of course, the U.S. is holding back on that. In Europe, they used a 24-hour clock all the time. But the U.S. doesn't. Except in the military and some industries. 

Have you made any predictions that happened. Or didn't happen. Let me know in the comments below.

Will Technological Advances Ever Hit an Asymptote?

I was watching Aliens the other day and I had a thought: will technical advances ever hit an asymptote? 

Here's my thinking. Ripley was drifting in hypersleep (or whatever they call it) for 57 years. Did technology advance during those years? She started in a pretty high-tech society. Would there be a noticeable change after 57 years? Does technology eventually hit an asymptote and only advance at a snail's pace?

Fifty-seven years ago for us was 1967. There was no internet. Not even ARPANET (the precursor to the internet) existed yet. A big television was 27 inches and used a cathode ray tube. Now you can buy televisions that are over 80 inches and are flat and use LEDs. The computer you have in your pocket (smart phone) would probably take up a whole room in 1967. The thought of a "personal computer" was laughable. The thought you would have it in your pocket was inconceivable. 

And the science we have learned since 1967 is amazing. I couldn't hope to list it all here.

What do you think? Could science and technology ever come to a crawl because there isn't anything else to discover or invent? Let me know in the comments below.

Rewriting Aliens

I watched the 1986 movie Aliens again a few days ago. I can't tell you how often I've watched that movie. I have it on Blu-Ray DVD so I can watch it whenever I want. I really like this movie.

***SPOILERS AHEAD***

And I, as usual, I didn't understand why they decided after the crash of the drop ship to sit tight and wait for rescue in seventeen days after being declared overdue. First of all, seventeen days makes no sense. If the trip from Earth (or where ever they came from) only takes seventeen days, why did they go into hypersleep (or whatever they called it). So that doesn't make sense to me.

But the biggest issue I have is why not send Bishop to bring down the other drop ship right away. Seems much more logical then waiting for rescue.  Now assuming LV-426 is roughly the size of Earth (it's supposed to be a moon; why in science fiction movies are they always putting people on moons?), and the USS Sulaco is in a low orbit (so the drop ships don't have to drop forever), then a complete orbit should be about 45 minutes. So Bishop heads for the uplink but by the time he gets there, the Sulaco is out of range and he has to wait, say half an hour. That gives more time for the plot to continue. 

We know the Sulaco is in orbit because they say "Nuke the site from orbit."

And, to add tension, they could have the nuclear fusion plant about to explode. Hicks could say "It's going to be close." 

(Nuclear fusion plants don't explode like thermonuclear bombs, by the way.)

I think James Cameron (who wrote and directed Aliens) must be a pantser. Otherwise, he would have figured this out.

So what do you think of my rewrite of Aliens? Do you have a better idea? Let me know in the comments below.

The above photo is being used under Section 107 of the Copyright Act: fair usage.

SUVs and Crossovers

I like to drive and I like cars. I've owned muscle cars, pony cars, sports cars, and sedans. I currently drive a sports sedan.

I define a "car" as a vehicle that is not a pickup, SUV, crossover, or minivan.

According to Car and Driver magazine, sedans don't sell well. In Fact, Ford stopped selling them (and all other cars except the popular Mustang). What people are buying now are SUVs and crossovers. Lots and lots of crossovers.

What's a crossover? It looks like an SUV but it's built on a car chassis so it handles something like a car and not a truck. You see them everywhere. The Ford Edge is a crossover although for marketing reasons, it's sold as an SUV. Look for a station wagon-like car that is puffed up like an SUV.

I've never personally owned an SUV or a crossover because I like cars. I like to accelerate, brake, and corner quickly. And SUVs and crossovers are not great at that. They might do one or two of those things, but rarely all three.

Even BMW is in the crossover game with their X series. Cadillac has a lot of crossovers.

SUVs are so popular, that Ferrari finally broke down and built one. And it probably accelerates, brakes, and corners very well (it is, after all, a Ferrari). 

Yes, sedans don't have the storage capacity of SUVs and crossovers. My sedan can comfortably hold four people. The truck space isn't cavernous. But I'd rather have the speed and cornering of my sedan than have more room for people and stuff. 

I think the reason people drive SUVs and crossovers is they care more about room and cargo space than handling and acceleration. And some tout the fact you sit high and can see better. Which I sometimes envy when trying to exit our Starbucks's parking lot.

What are your thoughts? Do you like cars or SUVs and crossovers. Let me know in the comments below.

Time

Not my grandson

Maybe it's because I'm getting older, but I've been thinking about time and how it slips by us. 

For example, my grandson just turned five years old. I remember when I met him he was just five hours old. And now it's been five years. Seems like it was only a few months, almost. He'll never be only 5 years old again. How long until he graduates high school or college?

Or my "new" car that I bought in June of 2023. It now has 18,732 miles on it and is over fifteen months old. It'll never be brand new again and it will never have only 18,732 miles on it again.

Time goes one way as far as us mortal humans know. I think about the Pink Floyd song "Time" and the line it "Sun is the same, in a relative way, but you're older / Shorter of breath and one day closer to death." At my age I have more days behind me than in front of me. I try not to let it get me down but, it's amazing how fast time is going by and how fast I'm getting closer to death.

There are all sorts of scientific theories about time. Some of them I understand (General Relativity for example) but a lot of them I don't. Can time be stopped or just slowed? Google "Twin Paradox." Well, if you travel close to the speed of light, you can slow down time. But that is impossible for humans with our current technology. Plus, even of you do travel close to the speed of light, you life won't be longer for you, just those who stay behind.

I guess I'll just keep living my life and try to make the best of the time there is left.

How does the passage of time make you feel? One day closer to death or it doesn't bother you? Let me know in the comments below.

Fall Eqinox

Next Sunday (the 22nd) at 12:44 PM UTC (5:44 AM Pacific time) is the fall (or autumnal) equinox in the Northern Hemisphere. This is when the sun is over the Equator and the daylight all over the globe is right around 12 hours. It also marks the beginning of autumn. The tilt of the Earth is pointing sideways to the sun. 

When I was a kid they would say during the summer, the axis of the Earth points toward the sun, and in the winter, it points away. I thought the axis changed, like a wobbling top. But then I couldn't figure out how the axis always pointed at the North Star. It took me years to understand how that happens as the Earth orbits the sun the axis stays the same but the orientation of the axis to the sun changes as the Earth orbits it. I often took things way too literally when I was a kid.

Also, when I was a kid growing up in Idaho, I couldn't understand why winter didn't start until late December (the winter solstice) when it usually started snow in early November. But we were at about 5,000 feet elevation where we lived (the Snake River Plain). 

And as always, time passes and we fly by another milestone.

At least I'm not writing about cars this week!

Black Wheels

We talked about why tires are black. Now we'll discuss black wheels:

It seems to me that black wheels on cars are the current popular style. I see them a lot on newer vehicles and in car ads. I drove by a car dealership the other day and there were five or six vehicles on their lot all in a row and all with black wheels. Maybe the car manufactures are trying to push them on us. I don't know.

In fact, my new car (well, it's over a year old now) came with black wheels:

At first I was thinking "I could live with them" even though I prefer more... blingy wheels. Then I lived with them. They got dirty if you looked at them wrong and they were hard to clean. And, as I said, I just didn't like the look of them. 

So when it was time to take off my winter tires, I left them on the black wheels and installed a set of BBS wheels which are much more pretty and don't get dirty as easily and are easier to clean.

I like the look so much more than the black wheels. I kept the winter tires on the black wheels to use when keeping a car clean is less important.

I don't know why black wheels are so popular, at least with automakers. I remembered being baffled by the large wheel phenomenon (which, to an extent, is still happening), too. 

What do you think of black wheels? Do you care? Or are they just mostly ugly? Let me know in the comments below.

Why is the Michelin Man White?

Has it ever bothered you that the Michelin Man is white and tires are black? Why is that?

The Michelin tire company was started in 1889 in France. Tires were (and are) made of rubber. But rubber is white. So tires were white. So the Michelin Man was probably made white for that reason. 

And Michelin is now running ads in the US with cartoon white tires on cars. Which I find kind of funny.

Tires stayed white until 1910 when the Goodrich tire company in the U.S. started putting carbon black into tire formulations. Carbon black acts as a catalyst during the vulcanization process, which turns soft rubber into the more durable and elastic substance we use in automotive tires and elsewhere. It not only prevents the rubber's deterioration by stabilizing dozens of chemical bonds, but it increases the material's tensile strength, or the maximum amount of stress it can bear before breaking. This is obviously a boon for tires, which face constant strain. There is still carbon black in modern tires.

What is carbon black? It is a material produced by the incomplete combustion of coal tar, vegetable matter, or petroleum products, including fuel oil. The biggest use of carbon black in the world is tires. It is used as a pigment and reinforcing phase in automobile tires. Carbon black also helps conduct heat away from the tread and belt area of the tire, reducing thermal damage and increasing tire life.

Why is the Michelin Man still white after over 120 years of black tires? Well, you'd have to ask the company. But a black Michelin Man just would look strange, these days.

What do you think? Should the Michelin Man be black? Or are you okay with white? Let me know in the comments below.

The Huskies Start Play this Weekend

Saturday, the University of Washington Huskies start their play for the 2024 season. They play Weber State (an FCS team out of Utah) first. The game will be Saturday at 8pm PDT on the Big10 Network. That's a very late game.

I have no idea how good my favorite team will be this season. 

Last year we went 14-1, undefeated until losing the national championship game to the very good Michigan team. We even beat the hated Oregon twice.

But then our amazing coach left for Alabama. Jerk.

So the school hired Jedd Fisch out of the University of Arizona. He had turned that school around in three years. 

The Huskies lost a lot of players and only two starters stayed. But a transfer quarterback, Will Rogers, stayed even after the old coach left. 

I've only seen this iteration of the Huskies play in the spring game which was at the end of spring camp. They looked okay. So we'll have to see how they play against Weber State. I'm having flashbacks to the time we lost to Montana (an FCS team) under coach Jimmy Lake. He was fired before the end of the season.

Years ago, when the Huskies weren't very good, I came up with my criteria for a good season:

1) Win at least 8 games

2) Beat Oregon

3) Beat Washington State

4) Go to a good bowl game and win it.

The move to the Big10 has sort of messed up that Washington State game. Could be in the future we won't play WSU (we are this year). Also, they went from being a big fish in a medium-sized pond to being a medium-sized fish in a gargantuan pond. I think that's part of the reason our Weber State game is so late (11pm Eastern Time).

And they will have to travel more. Their first away game they play Rutgers... in New Jersey. Other far-away places they will play this year are Iowa City, Iowa, Bloomington, Indiana, and University Park, Pennsylvania. Those will make the trip to Eugene, Oregon to play the Ducks seem like a breeze.  

Another thing I'm not happy about is that the Apple Cup game against Washington State (which is now a non-conference game) is going to be exclusively on Peacock. So I'm going to have to subscribe to that streaming service. At least for a month.

When the AP top 25 pre-season poll came out, the Huskies weren't even on it. Oregon was number three, though. It would be great if we could beat Oregon on the last regular season game. Ex-coach at Vanderbilt and Louisiana State, Gerry DiNardo, says the Huskies could go 5-0 to start their season. That might get us back in the AP top 25.

Are there any college football teams you're looking forward to watching this year. Let me know in the comments below.

Umbrellas

Where I grew up in Idaho it rarely rained. And when it did, it didn't last long. There was very little reason to be outside in the rain. You'd just wait until it stopped raining.

Now snow was another matter. We lived at about 5,000 feet elevation and it snowed all winter starting about the end of October well into April. 

But, anyway, you had no need for an umbrella.

Then I moved to Seattle to attend the University of Washington (Go Dawgs!). And you had to walk between classes in the incessant rain. And walking to the bus stop. And waiting for the bus. And walking from the bus stop to where you lived. You needed an umbrella or you got soaked. 

These days a lot of Seattle and environ natives don't bother with umbrellas. They just dress for wet weather. But that didn't seem to be the case when I lived there in the early 1980s.

And I literally had to ask someone where to buy an umbrella. They looked at me as if I were nuts. Like, how could I not know that. 

So I bought an umbrella at Sears.

When I went back to college in the early 90s, I don't remember people, including me, using umbrellas. 

I still have an umbrella, even though I live now where we get 8 inches of rain a year. But I use it if I go to the West/wet side of the state.

Do you own/use an umbrella. Why or why not? Let me know in the comments below.

Counting

About four years ago I posted on this very blog that I can't count more than four things in one glance and without going "one, two, three, four, five..."

And I wonder about other people, do they have similar problems?

Then I read about the the Piraha Tribe of the Amazon. They have three numbers: one, two, and many.

So anything bigger than two is just "many." Which would, I think, make a civilization very difficult. 

They apparently don't have zero either.  But that's okay, neither did the Egyptians, the Romans, and the medieval Europeans until they learned it from the Muslims. 

Anyway, I felt a little better about my difficulty counting because Pirahas have similar problems. Here's about 200 people who don't even know "four" exists.

Do you have trouble counting quickly numbers that are too big? How many can you count at a quick glance? Let me know in the comments below.

Reoccurring Dreams

I find it interesting that I keep having this reoccurring dream.

It goes something like this: in order to earn my college degree I have to pass a certain math class. But I don't know or understand the math. In some dreams I'm faced with the test and I completely do not understand it. (At least I'm not naked.) 

Then I'll wake up and be relieved, knowing that I have my degree (since 1994) and I don't have to take any math classes again. 

I have taken a lot of math classes in college: a year of calculus and one class of deferential equations. I took a fluid dynamics class that had me doing differential equations in my sleep, literally. Don't ask me to do differential equations now, though.

But I still have this dream/nightmare. It's almost as bad as the dreams I have about being back in the corporate world.

Do you have reoccurring dreams? Do they upset you? Let me know in the comments below.

I Don't Watch Reality Shows

Welcome to August!

I have never watched reality and talent contest shows. Unless you count Jeopardy as a reality show. I have watched some clips, such as this one because I thought the woman had amazing talent. Oh, and this one, because the woman's story was so uplifting yet tragic (watch to the end).

But I've never watched The Bachelor or The Bachelorette or Survivor or... pretty much anything else.  Haven't watched The Voice or American Idol or So You Think You Can Dance.

Why? Mostly because I don't care. I don't want to see people humiliate themselves on television, I guess. 

When I was a kid, there was a show called The Gong Show. It featured people trying to win... pretty much nothing if I remember correctly. Some of the acts were pretty good. Some were just awful (and would get the eponymous gong). People would do horrible things just to be on TV. And I guess that soured me on the whole reality show craze. And, in a lot of cases, they are manipulating people to get ratings. Reminds me of this clip from The Simpsons.

How do you feel about reality show and talent contest shows? Let me know in the comments below.

The above photo is being used under Section 107 of the Copyright Act: fair usage.

Lily's Eyes

Lily

About four years ago I wrote a blog post about eyes. And I said sometimes I can see through sideways our cat Lily's cornea. And I wished I could catch that on camera.

I recently took a picture of Lily where that is true... a little. It wasn't my intention to take such a picture. I just took one for Caturday on social media. 

Later I was looking at the picture close up, and I noticed in her right eye, I could see through the cornea. Not a lot, but some. Here's a closeup of that eye:

Isn't that cool? You can see the right side of her eye from the left. You can also see the reflection of the window she's looking out.

Have you seen that before on a cat. I think human corneas are too flat to do that.

Let me know in the comments below.

Trailers and Previews

I was watching Shōgun on FX, DVR'ing it and then watching it at my convenience. FX is part of the Fox networks of channels (now owned by Disney) so Shōgun ads were shown on lots of channels, not just FX. And when an ad would come on, I'd mute the TV and put my hand up so I couldn't see it. I didn't want any spoilers.

By the way, Shōgun was excellent and, as far as I know, is available to stream on Hulu. I could have done without the one scene in the first episode that graphically shows one of my nightmare ways of dying. I found it quite disturbing.

So, I thought I'd do a blog post about how much I hate (and yet, love) movie trailers and previews. But I already did. That was almost ten years ago. Yes, this blog has been around that long. In fact, the first post on this blog was September 19, 2012.

So now I've not blogged about trailers and previews. What should I do now?

I guess I'll quit while I'm ahead.

Let me know what you think about trailers and previews in the comments below.

Rx

Eye of Horus

The other day I was looking at one of my prescriptions (my inhaler for my COPD), and I noticed it had written on it "Rx only." Which I knew meant "prescription only." 

I've probably seen that Rx thing all my life and knew since I was a kid that it meant "prescription." But on that day, I thought, "Why does 'Rx' mean 'prescription'?" I'd literally never thought about. But prescription doesn't start with "r" and has no "x" in it. Why?

Well, Google to the rescue....

Sort of. When I googled "Rx" I got a lot of sponsored links to places wanting to sell me prescription medicine. But I finally found the answer.

One source claims it goes back to the Egyptian Eye of Horus, "a powerful symbol associated with protection and healing was used in medicinal and protective contexts."

In Latin, the word for "take" is "recipe" (that's interesting in of itself). As in "take this stuff to feel better." The word "recipe" was shortened to "Rx." Which makes a lot more sense than shortening prescription to "Rx." 

In medieval times, the "Rx" was stylized as we still see it today:

What do you think of "Rx" meaning prescription? Does it make sense now? Let me know in the comments below.

Check Your Tire Pressure!

Happy Independence Day! Which just happens to fall on the fourth of July.

My wife got a new car. It's a PHEV (Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicle) which is great for her because she normally just drives around town but occasionally goes farther. She can run on electricity in town but has a gas engine if she needs to go farther than the battery can take her.

The car comes with an app for her phone and she was showing me stuff in the app and I noticed the tire pressures were over 50 psi. I wondered if that could be correct. Maybe hybrids have higher tire pressure to reduce rolling resistance. But, no. She checked the sticker on the driver-side door frame, and the correct pressures were 32 in front, 35 in back. 

I don't know if it came from the factory at 50 psi (I doubt it) or the dealership did that (probably). But that was ridiculous. (Some mechanics will fill the tire to its maximum pressure, not to the correct pressure.)

Correct tire pressure will give you longer tire life, better handling, and better gas mileage.So the first thing we did the next morning was set the tire pressures at the right level.

Listen folks: set your tire pressure. Buy a good tire pressure gauge and use it:

1) at least once a month

2) after getting any tire work done (new tires, rotation, etc.)

3) apparently now, after buying a new car. Or at least new to you car.

4) after getting maintenance done by anyone. Anyone.

Check tire pressures in the morning before you drive the car at whatever the ambient temperature is. Try to do it in the shade so heat from the sun isn't warming up the tires. If your tire pressure is high, let some air out. If it's low, unless you have a source of compressed air at your house, you'll need to go somewhere to get air. This will skew your readings but it's better than nothing.

Here is more information about tire pressure.

But please, check your tire pressure.

AI Girlfriends

The other day I heard on the news that someone is predicting that AI girlfriends are going to be a billion dollar industry. So I googled the story and found it. And in the article it says a man is spending $10,000 a month ($120,000 a year) on his AI girlfriend. And he loves doing it. 

I remember in the 2001 movie A. I. Artificial Intelligence that a man killed his wife for having an affair with a male sexbot. But if you add AI girlfriend (or boyfriend) to a realistic robot... that's what you have.

The AI girlfriend ads I have seen on Facebook have slowed lately. Maybe they got as many suckers as the algorithm could handle.

So you could have a perfect girlfriend that never ages, never gets fat, never gets sick, never gets pregnant, and never nags or argues. And never divorces you and take half your assets. If you tire of her, you can just trade her in for a new model, sort of like a car.

And we thought the US was having fertility problems now! Once again, Futurama predicts the future.

I kind of see the appeal of an AI girlfriend but I think (at least. until sexbots are perfected), you'd miss the touch of human flesh. 

What do you think of AI girlfriends? The future of mankind or will they just appeal to some people? Let me know in the comments below.

Summer Solstice

Today is the Summer Solstice (in the Northern Hemisphere). It'll happen at 20:51 UTC (1:51 PM PST or 4:51 PM EST). 

But what is a "solstice"? Well, "sol" is Latin for the sun. The actual name of the sun is "Sol." "Stice" come from Latin to make stand, or stop. So it means "sun stopping." The same root, by the way, is used in armistice. That is, arms (weapons) standing.

The summer solstice is when the sun stops moving north. It halts its northern progress at the Tropic of Cancer. On the Summer Solstice it is directly overhead of the Tropic of Cancer. This is partially how Eratosthenes measured the circumference of the Earth in 240 BC with surprising accuracy.

This Summer Solstice is the earliest in 228 years. And over the next 72 years, the solstice will get progressively earlier every four years. This happens not because of some cosmological reason, but how we humans measure time. Our calendar does not exactly line up with astronomical events. 

Read more in depth about it here.

Some people call the Summer Solstice "the longest day." This is not exactly accurate. The day is still (pretty close to) 24 hours long. What it is is that, in the Northern Hemisphere, it is the day with the most hours of daylight. How much daylight depends on your latitude. The farther north you are, the more daylight you will have. If you are at or above the Arctic Circle, you'll have at least one day where the sun never sets. 

Some people ascribe special meaning to the solstice. But it really means nothing more than the tilt of the Earth's axis causing the seasons. On the summer solstice, the axis is leaning toward the sun at the north (and away at the south). 

Do you have any plans for the summer solstice? Let me know in the comments below.

Space Missions I'd Like to See

I'm getting older. If I live another 20 years I'll be lucky. But there is still so much to learn and see. I'd love to see some of the following space missions happen before I go. (Some of these may be actually planned; I don't keep up on all the space agencies' projects.)

A mission to Europa (moon of Jupiter) to see if there is life under the ice. Same with Encladus (moon of Saturn). Both would involve somehow drilling through layers of ice (10 to 15 miles in the case of Europa). Or maybe they could use radar to see if something is swimming under the ice. 

A mission to Titan (moon of Saturn) to see what if anything is swimming in the methane lakes. Maybe a submarine.

A manned mission to Mars (this is in the works, I know).

The launch of a fast probe to the Alpha Centauri system to look for life. Like maybe it travels at 0.1% the speed of light. I'd never see it arrive because it would take about 400 years to get there. Don't ask me where the energy will come from to propel a probe that fast. (Yes, this was inspired by 3 Body Problem.)

Are there any space missions you'd like to see? Let me know in the comments below.

Disneyland Canoes

Not Disneyland Canoes

My wife and I have twice gone to Disneyland without kids. The first time was in 1986 before we had any kids. I was in the Army stationed at the Presidio of Monterey and driving to Los Angeles wasn't a big deal. 

On that trip, we (probably me) decided to take the "Davy's Crockette's Explorer Canoes" ride. Which is the oldest ride at Disneyland. You are in a real canoe and paddling around Tom Sawyer Island. The water is dark, probably so you can't see the track that the Mark Twain Riverboat and Sailing Ship Columbia ride on. The water is called "Rivers of America." The canoes are big and hold about twenty people.

On this trip, we got in the canoe and started paddling. 

Going into the water near the start of the canoes is the rafts that take people to Tom Sawyer Island. As we paddled past where they launch into the rafts, one came toward our canoe probably because the raft driver didn't see us. The Disneyland employee in the canoe started yelling and banging his oar on the side of the canoe. A woman screamed when the raft got closer. And I thought that was a bit of an over-reaction. I started wondering how deep the Rivers of America is. It was a bit scary.

Suddenly, the driver of the raft saw us and steered away. So a fun little adventure on our adventure.

Have you had any unintentionally scary things happen at a theme park? Let me know in the comments below.

Singing Cars

Toyota Prius

I was in the Starbucks parking lot (big shock, I know) and I just got out of my car. The white, Toyota SUV parked beside me started backing up. And it was... singing. Almost sounded like whale songs. Then I realized that I didn't hear an engine running. So it must have been moving via battery power.

Upon a little research, I decided it was a Toyota RAV4 Prime plug-in hybrid vehicle (PHEV). The only fully electric vehicle (EV) Toyota currently sells is bZ4X and I was pretty sure it wasn't that.

PHEVs have both a battery that's larger than a hybrid's and smaller than an EV's. This allows the use of battery power for commuting or running errands around town but then you have an engine for longer range than an EV.

Then I bought my wife a Prius Prime PHEV. And when it's running on battery power... it sings. Just like that RAV4 Prime did. I bought it for her because she does the vast majority of her driving around town. She gets about 30 miles out of the battery and uses almost no gas (she went 1,000 miles before having to put gas in it on a trip). I calculated it costs 64 cents to fill her battery (at local power rates). That's about the equivalent of 64 cents per gallon if the car it replaces gets 30 miles to the gallon (which it did).

I've decided the singing is to warn people the car is moving when there's no engine noise. I think it only plays when the car is moving in reverse or under a certain speed. I know it sings when she's pulling into the garage at our house. I don't know if other EVs or PHEVs other than Toyota do this.

Maybe the singing is a form of communication between Toyotas. They are plotting the overtake of the world...

Maybe in the future you'll be able to choose what noise you what your EV or PHEV to make. You can buy sounds, sort of like they used to sell ringtones for cell phones.

What do you think of singing cars. Let me know in the comments below.

The War of the Worlds 1953

When I was a kid, probably about eight years old, I remembered watching the 1953 version of The War of the Worlds movie on T.V. And it scared me... a little. I remember the three guys at the beginning being turned to ash and the army colonel being zapped. And I remembered the end (no spoilers here).

In later years, I read the book by H.G. Wells.

I came across the old movie a little while ago on Paramount+ and decided to watch it. And it was pretty much as I remembered it, except some details.

But one thing that struck me was the female lead/love interest Ann Robinson played by Sylvia Van Buren. I don't blame Ms. Van Buren for how she portrayed Ann. After all, it was in the script (written by Barré Lyndon). But the character spent most of the film screaming. And needing rescued. And screaming some more. She was just helpless. I found it annoying she was so weak. And she wore skirts the entire movie (okay, it was 1953). There was no analogous character in the book, by the way, so don't blame Wells.

And I contrasted that to movies these days where women are strong and rescue themselves. Or rescue the men. 

Times have changed.

What do you think about women's roles in the 50s versus today? Let me know in the comments below.

Flat Earth Believers

I was going to write about and show one of my pictures from last Friday when the Northern Lights were, for the first time in my life, actually overhead. But it seems everyone north of Florida saw them and posted pictures on Facebook. So I'll talk about something else today.

Somehow I found this group on Facebook that had the title "Flat Earth Official." Later it changed its name to "Don’t be fecking stupid, of course Earth’s not flat" That didn't seem to discourage the flat earth zealots.

What amazes me is that these people believe the Earth is flat despite all the evidence to the contrary. You show them a picture of the Earth and they'll say it's fake. Or a "cartoon." You point out that NASA had pictures of a globe Earth in the 1960s and they'll say NASA had CGI then. And, of course, they think the Moon landing was faked because the Moon is "local" and some sort of light source. They don't seem quite sure about that. They don't

understand gravity ("It's just a theory"/"It's magical"). They don't understand orbits. They say density makes things fall down. They think south is equivalent to "down" as if there's up and down in space. They post the picture at right saying all water would go down to the south if we lived on a globe.

One even said he went to Australia and nothing was upside down so therefore the Earth is flat.

I don't know why it frustrates me so much. I guess I'm annoyed at the ignorance. They will point out that there's no stars in space pictures. You try to explain why (because of how cameras work) and they say you're lying. I've never seen such pig-headed people. Well, except some political types.

And the wonders they are denying themselves. They say the pictures the Hubble and James Webb Space Telescopes are fake. They say space probes are fake. They deny the wonders of the universe that are both beautiful and sometimes frightening.

I tried to leave the group, but I was sucked back in by the sheer ignorance displayed. 

Oh, and the scary news, it has 126,700 members last I looked (and growing). Some of those, like me, are not flat earth believers. But I bet most of them are. I finally had to leave the group for good. It was making me angry to encounter such willful ignorance. But now flat earthers are invading other Facebook groups, such as the one for the James Web Space Telescope. Very annoying and frustrating.

I wonder what they thought of the aurora borealis. How do they explain away that?

Have you ran into flat Earth believers? What did you think? Let me know in the comments below.

Okay, here's a Northern Lights picture that I took last Friday:

National Parks

Glacier National Park (photo by me)

For some reason the other day I started counting the National Parks (in the US) I've visited. I think I've visited four in Canada: Banff, Jasper, Lake Louise, and Waterton Lakes. 

All the parks I've visited are in the west part of the US. Probably because I live in the west part of the US.

The park I've visited most is Yellowstone. I lived less than 200 miles from it as a kid and we went there every year, at least. TIP: Go after Labor Day and before it snows. It's much less crowded. Yellowstone is mostly in the north-west corner of Wyoming but a bit of it leaks into Idaho and Montana.

Just south of Yellowstone is Grand Teton. The main attraction there is the Teton Range and the three mountains of the Tetons.

I've only been to Glacier once. It's in northern Montana and a long ways from everything. But it's worth the trip. It's gorgeous and the old hotels (built by the railroad) are amazing. 

In Washington State (where I now live), I've been to Mount Rainier once. That despite living close to it (I can see the mountain from my house on a clear day).  Someday I'd like to visit the Olympic National Park in western Washington and the North Cascades National Park in northern Washington State.

In Oregon I've been to Crater Lake. The lake is very pretty but there's not much to do there unless you like to hike.

In California, I have been to many national parks. The absolute best was Yosemite. It definitely lives up to the hype. But I've also been to Pinnacles (which is not very well known but interesting as the San Andres Fault runs right through it). I've also been to Sequoia and Kings Canyon and Redwoods National Parks.  Redwood trees are amazing for their size. And Sequoia trees are even bigger!

In Utah, I've been to a lot of parks, too. First was Arches. Amazing place. Next door to it is Canyonlands. I've also been to Bryce Canyon (another amazing spot) and Zion.

And finally, the grandaddy of them all: The Grand Canyon in Arizona. If you've never been there, it'll blow you away

So that's 14 national parks I've been to in seven western states. (I'm ignoring monuments such as Craters of the Moon and Devil's Tower.)

I've also been to Gettysburg National Military Park. Not sure that counts. If it does, it's the only national park I've been to that's east of the Rocky Mountains.

For more pictures of Glacier National Park, go here and here.

How many national parks have you been to? What was your favorite. Let me know in the comments below.

3 Body Problem Review

 I recently watched 3 Body Problem on Netflix. And, wow, what a great show. My sole disappointment was that it was only ten episodes and it ended on a cliffhanger. I believe it covered the events in the first book it's based on. There are four books in the series so maybe there will be four seasons.

The show starts with the Cultural Revolution in China in the 1960s. It's a scary scene as it is so reminiscent of what happens on college campuses if someone who's not woke enough (in the eyes of the students) tries to speak. It then jumps to the present and someone (or something) is trying to shut down human science by screwing with experiments and driving scientists insane. Many are committing suicide.

As the mystery deepens, clues are found, including in a VR video game like no other.

I don't want to give any spoilers, but just watch the series. It's amazing. 

Have you seen it? Let me know in the comments below what you thought.

The above photo is being used under Section 107 of the Copyright Act: fair usage.

Transition to a Mac

My old Dell PC was starting to act up. It was almost five years old and almost daily it wanted to fix problems with the hard drive. So I decided to buy a new computer. 

For years, people have been telling me to get a Mac. And I thought about. I even drove to Spokane to talk to the people at the Apple Store. The person there was very helpful but tried to sell me a MacBook Air. Instead I bought an refurbished MacBook Pro from Amazon. It was supposed to arrive Monday the 12th of February. Which was okay. I had a big deadline on the 15th. So my thought was to finish the deadline and then slowly work my way into the Mac.

The morning of the 12th my Dell died. Wouldn't boot up. Kaput.

The Mac arrived that afternoon. I set it up and took it to my office, unplugging the Dell, and plugging in the Mac. I was glad to learn that it worked with my monitor, keyboard and mouse. Except the mouse died and I had to buy a new one.  (Later my keyboard died and I had to buy a new one. A new experience for me: both the mouse and the keyboard hook up to the computer via Bluetooth.)

There was a steep learning curve. All my documents were backed up to the cloud and to an external hard drive. The Mac wouldn't recognize the hard drive (probably because it was formatted for Windows)(or I couldn't figure out how to find it). So I found and downloaded the files I needed in the cloud for the big deadline and, not knowing where else to put them, put them on the desktop.

When I'd google stuff, it kept talking about the "Finder side bar." So I kept looking to the left of the screen for a side bar. Then I looked to the right side. Nothing. Finally I found the damn thing in the Finder window, on the left side. And there I found Documents. So I loaded everything into it.

Then, I couldn't open a Word document, modify it, and then save it. All the files I downloaded off the cloud were locked as "read only" and so were the folders. Took me a while to figure that one out.

So slowly I'm learning more and more. It's often pretty easy. But sometimes it's frustrating. Once, most of my documents were grayed out so I couldn't open them. I don't know why and I don't know why the gray went away eventually.

Do you use a Mac or PC? And why? Let me know in the comments below. And why you chose that computer.

Why Star Trek?

Star Trek is a billion dollar property for Paramount Pictures. And I've kind of wondered why. It's not the only science fiction show in the 1960s. I remember Land of the Giants and The Time Tunnel. 

There was also Lost in Space which lasted three seasons (the same as Star Trek). It spawned a movie in 1998 and a series in 2018 that lasted three seasons of ten episodes each. I suspect it was shown on a streaming service. I remember my older siblings wanting to watch Lost in Space but I didn't like it because it scared me (I was around 6 years old).

In the '70s there was Space 1999 (which was syndicated) and the Six Million Dollar Man along with The Bionic Woman. Space 1999 lasted two seasons and got worse as the seasons got longer. Then there's Battlestar Galactica. I think it lasted one season. It wasn't very good. (The reboot in the 2000s was much better.)

In the late 70s there was Buck Rogers in the 25th Century. It also lasted two seasons. The last season they totally screwed it up.

So why Star Trek? It wasn't that good. Some episodes were amazing. But a lot of them were just awful. Campy. A friend of mine recently watch the original series (TOS) for the first time and found it... lacking. 

When I was a teenager, I wasn't surprised by Uhura, a black woman on the bridge: a woman who had authority over white men. I just accepted that's how it was. I grew up in a very white area (I didn't see a black person other than on the TV until I was 12 years old). And Sulu didn't bother me at all. My sister dated an Asian boy in high school. Was that part of what made Star Trek special? It probably was at least part of it; I was just too isolated to realize it.

I was watching the "The Apple" episode and Chekov (an obvious Russian) compared the planet to the Garden of Eden. My mother, who happened to hear this wondered why a Russian believed in the Garden of Eden. I said, "Because communism is dead by this time." And that a Russian and Americans could work together is also part of the magic of Star Trek.

A lot of people cite the hope Star Trek displayed. People get along. We don't blow ourselves up. Maybe that is it.

I frankly don't know.

Do you? Let me know in the comments below.

The above photo is being used under Section 107 of the Copyright Act: fair usage.

UFOs and Other Paranormal Activity

If you've read this blog, you know I try to think scientifically. I believe natural phenomena have a scientific explanation.

But what about paranormal activity? I have seen things in my life that I can't explain away. Such as a possible UFO sighting.

For example, when I was a kid, a friend and I were sleeping outside in my backyard. It was the late 1960s or early 1970s, you got your entertainment were you could. Anyway, we were talking, looking at the stars, when suddenly a fireball rose from the horizon and shot into the sky. I don't remember if there was any sound associated with it. My friend I and scrambled out of our sleeping bags and hurried into the house.

Or, sometime in the seventies, I was playing in my room on a bright sunny summer day (even then I didn't like the outdoors) when I heard a sound like a jet zooming into the sky from outside. I ran to the front door and my brother was standing by the family car and people were coming out of their houses. My brother said that as he parked the car, a fireball zoomed from the radio antenna into the sky. What was it? I have no idea.

I don't jump to conclusions such as "it was a UFO" or some other paranormal activity. They simply remain unexplained in my memory.

Do you have any UFO sightings or other paranormal activity in your life? Let me know in the comments below.

Why Does Car Exhaust Sound so Good?

A while back I was watching a reel on Facebook of a Shelby Daytona replica running. Not moving, just sitting there idling. And the sound of its V8 engine was... almost erotic. I loved the sound. Then I watched another reel of what looked like a Shelby Cobra accelerating.

And it got me wondering: why do I love the sound of a car engine and its exhaust. And I know I'm not the only one who does.

In fact, I feel sorry for future generations who will only have the hum of electric motors coming from their cars.

I have a theory about why some people, such as me, like the sound of a car's exhaust and engine noises. We associate the sound with good times we've had in cars: accelerating, cornering, braking. For example, when I drove on a racetrack. Doing those things for some people releases dopamine. And that makes me love the sounds associated with them. Such as engine exhaust.

And that's why, I think, some people love the sound of car exhaust and engine noise. I know I do. 

For a lot of exhaust and engine noise, watch this.

What do you think of my theory? Let me know in the comments below.

I Was a Victim of Censorship

I remember watching a few episodes of Star Trek (the Original Series) in first run. The one I remember most is "The Changeling." I would have been six at the time. I didn't get to watch Star Trek a lot because my older siblings didn't like it.

But then when I was a teenager, a local station started showing reruns of Star Trek in the afternoon, right after I got home from school. They showed them every weekday. And I watched them, every weekday. There are 79 TOS episodes (of varying quality). But I only saw 77 of them. 

(If they only showed 77, it must have only taken 15 weeks to show them all. I know I watched them all multiple times.)

A kid moved from the Los Angeles area to the small town I lived in in Idaho. Don't ask me why. We became friends. And one day he said "What are Little Girls Made Of" was one of his favorite episodes. And I had to admit that I'd never seen it. He was shocked. I was shocked. I didn't know that episode existed.

Apparently my local television station wouldn't show it. They finally decided to show "Turnabout Intruder" at some point but only once or twice. 

I was mad that my local station decided to censor my Star Trek watching. Admittedly, I grew up in a pretty conservative part of the world (southeast Idaho). But why should a TV station decide what I can and can't watch? It might have been what Sherry Jackson as Andrea was wearing (see above photo). I don't know.

How do you feel about others making decisions about what you can read or watch? Let me know in the comments below.

The above photo is being used under Section 107 of the Copyright Act: fair usage.

A Little Story

Sometimes (well, often) being a writer brings some fun to the world. For example:

Since we've remodeled our shower, my wife has decreed that the last person showering in the morning will squeegee the glass doors. And most of the time, that's me.

So to entertain myself, I made up a little story about it. And here it goes:

"Here's the brave, world-famous window washer thousands of feet above the street. One false move and he'll plummet to a gruesome death on the asphalt below. Or worse, the windows will have streaks."

And that's it. I find that entertaining while I'm squeegeeing the glass doors.

Appliance Hell

Recently my appliances have put me through hell. 

First, the freezer seemed to be going too high a temperature because I was finding ice in the ice bin that looked melted and refrozen.

So I bought a thermometer that recorded temperatures. And I was right. Temperatures ranged from 29.7°F to -14.3°F. I called my appliance repair guy and told him about it. He said he'd look into the cost of the new thermostat but he thought it might be as much as $400. And since the fridge is old, we might want to consider just buying a new one (which would be about $1,000). 

The day after I talked to him, that fridge stopped making ice (and I love my ice). So I called him about that and he said let's figure out if we want to replace it or not. So we were buying ice and keeping it in our other, older fridge which seems to work fine.

Then, about the same day, our dishwasher wouldn't drain and smelled like something plastic was burning. I didn't call the guy this time. I decided to wait until he called back about the fridge. But I was worried I might have to buy a new dishwasher now

The broken pump

So he shows up and puts a new thermostat in the fridge. Then he discovers the water line to the ice maker is frozen (likely happened when the temp in the freezer reached -14.3°F). So he cleaned that out too and now the ice maker is working.

And then he found the dishwasher's drain pump is not working so he's going to order a new one and put it in.

So a few days later he brought in a new pump, installed it. And everything worked fine... for about two weeks.

Then the dishwasher wasn't filling. Repair guy came and ordered a new filter because junk in the recirculation pump wasn't letting the dishwasher fill.

A few days later he returned and put in the new filter and the dishwasher is working fine (and more quietly). So far, so good. Let's hope that stays.

Have you had problems with your appliances? What was the outcome? Let me know in the comments below.