NASA, Extraterrestrial Life: and Titan is a Moon of Saturn, not Mars

---

Update (December 2, 2010)
More on the NASA announcement:

• "Arsenic and Old Science: NASA and Extraterrestrial Life"
  (December 2, 2010)

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Another reason why the Lemming takes what's in the news with a few truckloads of salt:

"Rumor Roundup: Has NASA Discovered Alien Life?"
Air & Space, FOXNews (December 1, 2010)

"A NASA press release announcing "an astrobiology finding" -- something that will impact the search for extraterrestrial life -- has sent shockwaves through the blogosphere.

The press release simply announces an event, set for Thursday at 2 p.m. EST, to discuss an astrobiology discovery 'that will impact the search for evidence of extraterrestrial life.' Astrobiology is the study of the origin, evolution, distribution and future of life in the universe.

And the concept of NASA discussing alien life has everyone a-Twitter. Gawker, PC World, New Scientist and others have all speculated about the news -- even suggesting that the space agency may reveal that E.T. has finally arrived.

The reality may be less dramatic, though still intriguing: Based on the background of the four conference participants NASA cites, the announcement will probably concern lifeforms that live off of poisonous arsenic. Popular blogger Jason Kottke and others have concluded that the announcement will tie into the quest for life on the Martian moon Titan.

'I'd say that they've discovered arsenic on Titan and maybe even detected chemical evidence of bacteria utilizing it for photosynthesis,' Kottke theorizes, a hypothesis short of actually confirming alien life...."

Again, a link to the Kottke post:

• "Has NASA discovered extraterrestrial life?"
  Kottke.org (November 29, 2010)

Mr. Kottke, by the way, identifies Titan - correctly - as a moon of SATURN, not Mars.

Yes: Mars has moons. Two of them. Really tiny moons. They're called Phobos and Demos.

Mars is not Saturn. Saturn is an entirely different planet. Titan orbits Saturn.

The NASA media advisory ("NASA Sets News Conference on Astrobiology Discovery; Science Journal Has Embargoed Details Until 2 p.m. EST On Dec. 2" (November 29, 2010)) doesn't mention Titan, Saturn, or Mars, by the way.

FOXNews sometimes identifies an article's writer: not this time. Just as well, maybe. This isn't the sort of gaffe a reporter - or editor - would want 'on the record.'

It's a little like a sports writer referring to the Super Bowl as a basketball game, or someone covering international news writing, "in Hong Kong, the capital of Germany...."

The Lemming speculates that the 'Titan is a moon of Saturn' reporter may have been lead astray by the Gawker article.


(NASA, cited by Gawker, used w/o permission)
Red, yes; Mars, no.

Gawker displays an artist's impression of a lake on Titan: and identifies it as such, at the end of their article. So I suppose a reporter could have seen the picture, noticed that it was red, associated red -> red planet -> The Angry Red Planet -> Mars: and did not noticed the "Did NASA Discover Life on One of Saturn's Moons?" headline right above the picture.

Still - "the Martian moon Titan"?!!

Related posts:

• "Viking Life Experiments, Revisited"
  (September 14, 2010)
• "Organic Compounds in Murchison Meteor: Lots of Them"
  (February 16, 2010)
• "Another Hot Jupiter With Organic Compounds"
  (October 21, 2009)
• "DNA - A Universal Pattern? Could Be"
  (April 8, 2009)
• "Life on Ceres? Could Be"
  (March 5, 2009)
  Particularly
  • Exploding Martians and the Viking Life Experiment

More related posts, at

• "Mars, Mostly"
• "A Serious Search for Other Worlds, Life, and - Maybe - Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence"

New Oval Office Rug: No, This isn't Political

"Oval Office rug gets history wrong"
Washington Post (September 4, 2010)

"A mistake has been made in the Oval Office makeover that goes beyond the beige.

"President Obama's new presidential rug seemed beyond reproach, with quotations from Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. woven along its curved edge.

" 'The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.' According media reports, this quote keeping Obama company on his wheat-colored carpet is from King.

"Except it's not a King quote. The words belong to a long-gone Bostonian champion of social progress. His roots in the republic ran so deep that his grandfather commanded the Minutemen at the Battle of Lexington.

"For the record, Theodore Parker is your man, President Obama. Unless you're fascinated by antebellum American reformers, you may not know of the lyrically gifted Parker, an abolitionist, Unitarian minister and Transcendentalist thinker who foresaw the end of slavery, though he did not live to see emancipation. He died at age 49 in 1860, on the eve of the Civil War.

"A century later, during the civil rights movement, King, an admirer of Parker, quoted the Bostonian's lofty prophecy during marches and speeches. Often he'd ask in a refrain, 'How long? Not long.' He would finish in a flourish: 'Not long, because the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.'

"King made no secret of the author of this idea. As a Baptist preacher on the front lines of racial justice, he regarded Parker, a religious leader, as a kindred spirit...."

The Lemming doesn't generally do long excerpts like that - but I didn't want to edit out the article's discussion of (1) who actually made the "moral arc" remark; and (2) that Martin Luther King acknowledged the source.

I don't blame "media" for getting it wrong: most of America's reporters, and many editors, are younger than I am. I've gotten the impression that most of them went to America's government schools. That's another topic. The point is, this is the sort of thing I've gotten used to seeing in America's news media. And that's yet another topic.

Here's the "King" quote, done strictly for laughs, in another blog:

---

"Snug as a flub in a rug?"
Oddly Enough, Reuters blog (September 7, 2010)

"Blog Guy, did you read about the problem with that brand-new rug in the Oval Office, with the great American quotes woven along the edge?

" 'The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice,' is attributed to Martin Luther King, Jr. on the rug, but it turns out King was quoting Theodore Parker, a 19th century abolitionist and Unitarian minister...."

The payoff in that post is at the end:

"...Very inspirational. Hey Blog Guy, can you list ALL of the rug’s great American quotes?

"Sure, here they are, a rug-full of Americana:..."

They're funnier, if you're familiar with recent American history - and aren't particularly brittle when it comes to some of our recent presidents.

Churchill: Oh, the Cigar! Oh, the Horror!

I AM NOT MAKING THIS UP

---

"Spot the difference: How today's airbrushing PC censors decided Churchill could do without his cigar"
MailOnline (UK) (June 15, 2010)

"The face is instantly familiar, the two-fingered salute unmistakable.

But are these actually the same photograph of Sir Winston Churchill?

In the original photograph the war leader has his cigar gripped firmly in the corner of his mouth.

But in the other image - currently greeting visitors to a London museum - his favourite smoke has been digitally extinguished.

Which is a little embarrassing for the staff at the charitable trust, because the photograph features on a giant poster hanging above the museum's main door.

So just who did pinch the great man's Havana?..."

There's a short list of folks who didn't play an obvious role in re-imagining Winston Churchill. So far, though, who should be given the - credit? - isn't at all clear:

"...But intriguingly the museum, which gives all profits to charity, declined to name who put together the display and, crucially, who enlarged the image for the poster...."

You'll have to read the rest of the article to get the MailOnline's take on this weirdness.


(from MailOnline, used w/o permission)
The doctored photo is the center top one: MailOnline's copy is larger than this thumbnail.

Winston Churchill? Never Heard of Him

Actually, I have. But given the emphasis on history that's been the norm for the last couple generations, a little background may be called for.

Winston Churchill wound up being Sir Winston Churchill before he died in 1965. He was England's Prime Minister during World War II. (those who haven't heard of that, either, will find a little about it in Churchill's bio)

When he took office, there was fairly good reason to think that German forces, carrying the German Chancellor's vision of a new and improved Europe with them, would shortly cross the English Channel and start remolding Great Britain into something acceptable to the National Socialist German Workers Party.

The British weren't, for the most part, all that keen on the prospect.

One of Churchill's best-known remarks, at least when they were generally known in the English-speaking world, was "I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat." That doesn't sound like the most uplifting thing to hear: but for a British public who had gotten used to hearing their leaders say the sort of thing that politicians do, it must have been a refreshing change of pace.

Germany didn't succeed in turning Europe into a fit place for 'Aryans,' by the way. But that's another story.

Naughty Winston / Nice Winston

That tidied-up photo of Winston Churchill reminds me of the way 'naughty' books were Bowdlerized in Victorian times; how General Custer wasn't portrayed as an ambitious doofus a half-century ago; and how important it was to keep up with the latest politically correct terminology the last time I did time in American academia.¹

Let's take a look at Nice Winston and Naughty Winston.

Naughty Winston

I suppose I should have warned you. We're not used to seeing people smoking cigars, these days.

When Churchill was Prime Minister, we didn't know as much about the effects of chronic smoking on health. Well, on most people's health Winston Churchill lived into his nineties.

That isn't a peace sign he's making, by the way. Until the sixties, that two-fingered gesture meant 'V for victory.'

About smoking and health? There's a large body of evidence that smoking isn't a good idea. There are also some debatable claims, but for the most part folks who smoke stogies regularly don't live as long as Sir Winston.

Nice Winston

Credit where credit is due: whoever altered this photo did a pretty good job of making that cigar disappear.

I don't think it's a good idea to fake pictorial records like this - but from a technical point of view, that forgery was a good job.

What's the big deal? Let's take some of hypothetical examples from American history

George Washington

George Washington: first American president, among other things. And a dude who sported long hair.

Considering how hysterical 'real Americans' were about long hair on men, back in the sixties, it's a little surprising that George W. didn't get a makeover. I suppose they had more sense than to try.

Harriet Tubman

Harriet Tubman, you've probably heard of: if you're an American, and have been paying attention for the last few decades. She was an abolitionist, among other things.

If you're at all familiar with American culture: consider what would happen if someone took that photo, gave her a nose job and made her look like a white woman. Make that a white man. (I can - barely- imagine someone trying to justify a stunt like that on the basis of traditional role models.)

I would be rather upset, myself. She made a contribution to American history - and that's what she looked like.

Back to Winston Churchill: the Real One

Winston Churchill and the cigar? Okay, let's say cigars aren't particularly safe to smoke. Is that a good reason for making nice-nice with a photo? Winston Churchill helped pull the United Kingdom out of World War II. And he smoked a cigar.

Deal with it.

In a way, it's nice to know that do-gooder crackpots aren't an American monopoly.

Joking aside, The Lemming thinks there's an important lesson to be learned here. As the article says:

"The altered image was spotted by museum visitor David McAdam.

"He said: 'I pointed out this crude alteration to a museum steward who said she hadn't noticed the change before, nor had anyone else pointed it out.

" 'Viewing the now disfigured image reveals just how unhinged the vociferous anti-smoking lobby has become. So much for the notion that only communist tyrants airbrushed history.'..."

Sadly, it's not just the "vociferous anti-smoking lobby" - this sort of ideological distaste for unwanted realities goes back decades, and is by now a deeply cherished tradition in American academia, at least.

Related posts:

• "Denver, the Daniels Mansion, the Mayor's Wife, and a Fire Pole"
  (June 15, 2010)
• "No Beer Between Meals? What's Denmark Coming to?"
  (April 9, 2010)
• "Yogi Yorgesson's 'I Yust Go Nuts At Christmas' and the Hamms Bear"
  (December 15, 2009)
  • Includes Shocking, BANNED LYRICS!

More about traditional information gatekeepers, and the tribulations they're experiencing in the Information Age:

• "Internet Freedom: 'What are the rules? Who decides?' "
  (March 23, 2010)
• "Google, China, Censorship, Compromise: 'Totally Wrong;' or, Not"
  (March 23, 2010)
• "Google Stops Censoring Service: And This is News"
  (March 22, 2010)
• "Criticism is Terrorism: Chavez and Twitter Terrorists"
  (February 1, 2010)
• "Net Neutrality, Comcast, the FCC, Censorship and Freedom"
  (January 9, 2010)
• "About Google, Change, and News"
  (December 6, 2009)
• "Times Change: The Wall Street Journal Now Top-Selling Daily"
  (October 14, 2009)
• "What is an Information Gatekeeper?"
  Another War-on-Terror Blog (August 14, 2009)
• "Sounds of Silence: 2009"
  Another War-on-Terror Blog (March 31, 2009)
• "William Felkner vs. College Conformity: Traditional Information Gatekeepers Face Another Challenge"
  Another War-on-Terror Blog (December 16, 2008)
• "The New York Times, Insularity, and Assumptions"
  Another War-on-Terror Blog (October 21, 2008)
• "DC Gun Ban, Online Censorship, Individual Rights, and Power to the People"
  Another War-on-Terror Blog (June 27, 2008)

---

¹ Times change - but people don't. Not all that much:

• "Four Millennia of Human Nature: I Think Qoheleth is Right"
  Drifting at the Edge of Time and Space (August 3, 2009)

Lemming Tracks: BP, Exxon, and the Walrus in the Parlor

"Exxon, Oil Companies Slammed for 'Carbon-Copy' Plans (Update1)"
Jim Efstathiou Jr. and Joe Carroll, Bloomberg BusinessWeek (June 15, 2010)

"Exxon Mobil Corp., ConocoPhillips, Chevron Corp. and Royal Dutch Shell Plc are as ill-prepared as BP Plc to halt and clean up an offshore oil spill because they all use “carbon copy” disaster plans, lawmakers said.

"Eight weeks after a drilling rig leased by BP exploded in the Gulf of Mexico, killing 11 workers and triggering the worst spill in U.S. history, executives from the companies sought at a House Energy Committee hearing to distance themselves from BP's practices that lawmakers said put profits before safety.

"Lawmakers faulted the four executives for disaster-response plans that would halt oil leaks at the sea floor using the same techniques that failed for BP at its Macondo well. The same firm wrote the plans and included references to making sure crude doesn't injure walruses, which don't live in the Gulf of Mexico...."

This embarrassing matter of the walruses of the Gulf, the Big Three automakers collapse, and the financial industry meltdowns (plural) are among the reasons that The Lemming is glad he didn't pursue a nice, smooth 'success track' in some major corporation, decades back.

Too many of those places, it seems, have too many nitwits in too many responsible positions.

I've explained before, that The Lemming is apathetic only in the sense that I don't care - passionately, blindly, irrationally - about the culturally-approved things.

One thing I don't like to see is daft decision-making. Particularly when it's done by someone who determines what a whole lot of other people do.

The 'related posts' at the end of this post are mostly from another blog, where I discuss (rant?) why I don't think that the executives who ran their companies into the ground should be rewarded and given a whack at doing it again.

Off on a Tangent About Congressional Wisdom

Congress is at it again, pulling oil company CEOs in and making speeches at them. If they left it at that, there'd be no harm in the time-honored custom of Congressional inquiries. It keeps members of Congress and established CEOs occupied. Besides giving both, I suppose, a sense of purpose, those inquiries also keep them out of mischief. For a while.

Problem is, Congress eventually goes back to dreaming up 'solutions,' and the CEOs go back to making the same kind of decisions that brought them to Capitol Hill in the first place.

I suppose it 'feels good' to think that bailing out anachronistic holdovers from the fifties will 'save the workers.' My view is that, for the automotive industry at least, there's a huge and steady demand for their product: and the people with good ideas who couldn't compete against the triumvirate of 800-pound gorillas will need to hire assembly line workers, clerical staffs, and all the rest that it takes to run a company.

And, quite possibly, not run their companies into the ground.

Back to the Walrus in the Parlor

"Walrus in the Parlor?" Folks who grew up speaking American English have probably heard about the elephant in the room / living room / parlor / whatever. The phrase means 'an obvious fact that nobody wants to acknowledge.' There's a pretty good writeup on the saying in Wikipedia. Moving along.

Those walruses in the BP plan to save wildlife in the Gulf of Mexico are probably going to haunt the company for years. My guess is that the wunderkind who's responsible for that plan is either experiencing a career change now - or is about to. I have difficulty imagining that British Petroleum got to be as big as it is by letting SNAFUS like that be routine.

BP executives may also decide that telling a drill crew to cut corners until they kill themselves is a bad idea. I hope so, anyway.

Another excerpt from that BusinessWeek article:

"...BP, the biggest Gulf of Mexico oil producer, made five 'questionable decisions' aimed at cutting costs and speeding completion of an overdue project before the disaster, Democratic Representatives Henry Waxman of California and Stupak wrote in a letter to Hayward released yesterday.

"Walruses in Plans

"Markey pressed the CEOs on why their safety plans for a Gulf spill described the effects on walruses. Two of the companies also incorporated contact information for a Florida marine researcher who died in 2005, Markey said...." ["Markey?" That's probably Representative Edward Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat. (AP, via MSNBC)]

I think there are several walruses in the parlor here, although they're not all in the same 'parlor:'

• Safety on the cheap is dangerous
  • Particularly
    • On the ocean floor
    • A mile down
• Contingency plans should not make the company filing them look ignorant
  • And the federal agency accepting them look incompetent
    
  • Duh
    
• Any operation that involves large masses and a lot of energy is dangerous
  • Given time, there will be accidents
  • The idea is to lower the odds of something going wrong
  • Complete, perfect safety doesn't exist
• Congress can't make everything better

What's a bit troubling about the BusinessWeek article is that it looks like BP got 'lucky,' and was the first company operating in the Gulf to have their weirdly inappropriate contingency plans revealed as badly-written fantasy.

I wrote "a bit troubling" because there's an opportunity now, for BP and all the rest to shape up:

• Give nice retirement packages to the decision-makers who decided 11 people to death
  • And save more lives in other companies by doing the same for their own nitwits
• Have someone with a little common sense
  • Look for stupid ideas in every operation:
    • Drilling
    • Pumping
    • Transporting
    • Storage
  • Before we have another Texas City, 1947 disaster

I think there's a chance that Exxon and all may wake up and make some changes before they decide themselves into BP's current position.

I also I think there's a chance that the White House and/or Congress may realize that ordering a halt to all Gulf drilling for the next two quarters isn't a good idea.

Remember: the newer, less accident-prone, rigs are portable, and their owners will take them elsewhere if the United States won't let them operate here. Which will not be good for the folks around the Gulf, who depend on those operations for their livelihood.

Maybe it would be 'nicer' if all offshore drilling were stopped forever - and nobody needed to work for a living - and all women were beautiful. But out here where most of us live, we need petroleum products. The walruses of the Gulf Coast will, I think, have to take their chances.

Sort-of-related posts:

• "BP Oil Spill, Clean Beaches, and Maps"
  (June 15, 2010)
• "Lemming Tracks: BP, the Gulf of Mexico, Oil, and - Walruses?!"
  (June 9, 2010)
• "The New York Times, a Crazy Bonus, and Entrepreneurs"
  Starting a Small Business Without Losing My Mind (March 16, 2010)
• "AIG, Outrage, Corporations, Unions, and Common Sense"
  Starting a Small Business Without Losing My Mind (March 16, 2009)
• "Govenment Bailouts of American Automakers, Financial Firms: Feels Good, But - - - "
  Starting a Small Business Without Losing My Mind (March 9, 2009)
• "Bank Bailouts, Bloated Bonuses, and Common Sense"
  Starting a Small Business Without Losing My Mind (December 21, 2008)
• "So the Big Three Collapse: Is That a Problem?"
  Starting a Small Business Without Losing My Mind (December 12, 2008)
• "Oil in the Gulf of Mexico: Posts"
  • A link list

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More:

• "Oil in the Gulf of Mexico: Posts"

Lemming Tracks: BP, the Gulf of Mexico, Oil, and - Walruses?!

This could be filed under "YOU - HAVE - GOT - TO - BE - KIDDING!"

"BP's error-prone spill response plans overstate preparedness, understate dangers"
The Associated Press, via FOXNews (June 9 2010)

"Professor Peter Lutz is listed in BP's 2009 response plan for a Gulf of Mexico oil spill as a national wildlife expert. He died in 2005.

"Under the heading 'sensitive biological resources,' the plan lists marine mammals including walruses, sea otters, sea lions and seals. None lives anywhere near the Gulf.

"The names and phone numbers of several Texas A&M University marine life specialists are wrong. So are the numbers for marine mammal stranding network offices in Louisiana and Florida, which are no longer in service.

"BP PLC's 582-page regional spill plan for the Gulf, and its 52-page, site-specific plan for the Deepwater Horizon rig are riddled with omissions and glaring errors, according to an Associated Press analysis that details how BP officials have pretty much been making it up as they go along. The lengthy plans approved by the federal government last year before BP drilled its ill-fated well vastly understate the dangers posed by an uncontrolled leak and vastly overstate the company's preparedness to deal with one...."

It's not just British Petroleum. Some federal worker apparently signed off on a plan that seems to have included an explanation of how walruses in the Gulf of Mexico would be taken care of.

Walruses?!!

On the Gulf of Mexico?!!!

In a zoo, maybe. But you're as likely to see a wild walrus on the Alabama coast, as you are to see elephant herds roaming the plains of Minnesota. Or polar bears basking on the ice floes of Uganda.

How Could a Report Like That be Approved?

I suppose allowances should be made.

Federal employees are, I'm sure, mostly well-intentioned folks who are just trying to make a living. Over the decades, I've had pretty good experiences with federal employees.

However, the last time I applied for a job with the federal government, my application was weighed according to a well-defined point system. Some of the points came from how well my skills and background matched those of the job. But quite a few points came from factors that had nothing to do with job performance, like who my ancestors were.

BP, British Petroleum, is a British company. They probably employ Americans, but the outfit is, as the name says, British - with corporate headquarters in London. I wouldn't be terribly surprised if they had entrusted a vital report like that "walruses of the Gulf" thing to an expert. A nice, trusted, British expert. Someone whose residence was a place like Hillingdon Heath or South Oxney.

A proper Englishman might not readily appreciate the difference in scale between the British Isles and North America. There is considerably more distinction between coastal Alaska and the Gulf shore of Louisiana than there there is between Liverpool and Southampton.

Or, maybe BP intentionally filed a bogus report made with a dead man's help. Assuming, correctly, that it would be rubber-stamped by some federal employee who can't, in practice, be fired.

It Gets Better - or Worse

Back to that AP article:

"...In the spill scenarios detailed in the documents, fish, marine mammals and birds escape serious harm; beaches remain pristine; water quality is only a temporary problem. And those are the projections for a leak about 10 times worse than what has been calculated for the ongoing disaster.

"Billy Nungesser, president of Plaquemines Parish, La., says there are '3,000 acres (of wetlands) where life as we know it is dead, and we continue to lose precious marshland every day.'

"There are other wildly false assumptions. BP's proposed method to calculate spill volume based on the darkness of the oil sheen is way off. The internationally accepted formula would produce estimates 100 times higher.

"The Gulf's loop current, which is projected to help eventually send oil hundreds of miles around Florida's southern tip and up the Atlantic coast, isn't mentioned in either plan.

"The website listed for Marine Spill Response Corp. - one of two firms that BP relies on for equipment to clean a spill - links to a defunct Japanese-language page...."

I have nothing against Japan, per se. I can easily imagine that a London-based company operating in one of the former colonies might reasonably decide to contract some of the work out to a Japanese company. That's not the issue, as far as I'm concerned.

It's like the dead man who's supposed to have helped BP write that report. Japanese companies that I'm aware of, which deal with people in English-speaking countries, maintain English-language websites. Which, as a rule, are still online.

Listing a website that isn't in English - and which disappears by the time someone takes a hard look at the report - is just plain not prudent.

Who is More Foolish? The Fool, or the Fool Who Relies on Him?

I can, sort of, see BP's point of view. Their executives may, based on observations of America's federal employees, assumed that any hooey would do, as long as there were lots of pages in a report. Still, I think it's apparent that relying on federal foolishness to maintain a business's operations was - not prudent.

British Petroleum's execs should have realized that they were in a comparatively high-risk business - and that most Americans are not fools.

Also, that when something went wrong, those Americans would find out. We're not living in the 'good old days' when embarrassing little mistakes could be politely ignored or smoothed over. The 'good old boys' network of information gatekeepers doesn't have the monopoly it once had.

Which is fine by me.

Maybe BP Really Didn't Get It

I'd still like to think that British Petroleum isn't run by clueless nitwits who had no idea that one of their drilling operations might not work quite as it should.

Given the way they're trying another, bigger, cap for the broken drilling site: they may really want to get control of the mess they're making. They may even succeed.

And, given that the gusher is under a mile of water, and is the sort of problem we didn't have a century ago, I'm quite willing to assume that the task is difficult.

But that report? Who did they think they were going to fool, in the long run?

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More:

• "Oil in the Gulf of Mexico: Posts"

East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit: Science Okay; Reporting, Not So Much

"Climate scientists at East Anglia University cleared by inquiry"
Times Online (London) (April 14, 2010)

" Climate scientists at the centre of the row over stolen e-mails acted with integrity and made no attempt to manipulate their research on global temperatures, an external inquiry has found.

"Their research was, however, misrepresented by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which failed to reflect uncertainties the scientists had reported concerning the raw temperature data.

"An inquiry panel of leading scientists, nominated by the Royal Society, said that the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit may not have used the best methods for analysing temperature records.

"The unit had also failed to store all its data and keep full records of exactly what it had done, preventing other scientists from checking all its findings.

"But after interviewing the unit's scientists and studying 11 of their reports, the panel concluded: 'We found them to be objective and dispassionate in their view of the data and their results, and there was no hint of tailoring results to a particular agenda...'...."

I'm inclined to take the Times Online article at face value. It's not that I have blind faith in scientists, and think that they are a breed apart which simply cannot be wrong.

Particularly in a post-Watergate world, I really didn't want to believe that a bunch of scientists could have, cold-sober, cooked up ersatz climate data and then shredded the evidence. If nothing else, I'd think that if they were lying - they'd be sharp enough to fake the records.

Data getting lost or destroyed in a move? Yeah: that I can see happening. Accidentally.

I'm not surprised that their research was "misrepresented" by a others. Like so much else that serious researchers deal with, the temperature data included uncertainties.

I can see the panel's point of view, sort of. When you've got a particular result that you just simply know has got to be true because you know it is - it'd be awfully easy to forget about bothersome uncertainties.

Have I No Heart? Am I Not Appalled At the Impending End of the World?

That four-chambered pump in my chest is still operating within normal parameters. And, addressing the metaphor, yes: I care. I think it's a good idea to have rules for how waste is handled. I even think that building codes are, on the whole, a good idea. (As Haiti found out, the hard way.)

But I'm not upset that it's impossible to get fresh trilobite these days.

I have no doubt that the climate is changing. When I was growing up, some folks were convinced - based on a trend or two - that another ice age was coming.

They could be right about that: The last I heard, the jury is still out on whether we're still in the most recent of Earth's major periods of continental glaciation, or just coming out of it. A few thousand years from now, with more data and (I hope) better analytical methods, we'll be in a better position to opine.

For the last several years, we've been told that global warming will doom us.

Let's put it this way: I live in Minnesota. Even in August, it's hard to work up a serious fear of longer summers.

And yes, I know: terrible, awful things could happen.

Or, not.

Related posts:

• "Earth Didn't Freeze Over - Why?"
  (April 1, 2010)
• "Dinosaurs, Runaway Volcanism, Change, and Evolution"
  (March 24, 2010)
• "Earthquakes, Nuclear Winter, the End of the World, and All That"
  (February 28, 2010)
  • "Nuclear winter" was what would happen after WWIII
• "Global Warming: on Pluto. And Mars"
  (December 14, 2009)
• "Global Warming and Lost Documentation - Or, Change Happens: Deal With It"
  (December 1, 2009)
• "- - - 'And We're All Gonna Die!' "
  Drifting at the Edge of Time and Space (June 30, 2009)

More:

• "Change, American Culture, Trilobites, Humanity's History, and the Big Picture "

"Solar Tsunamis" - Cool Name for Fast-Mode Magnetohydrodynamical Waves

"http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/091125-solar-tsunami.html"
Space.com (November 25, 2009)

"Incredibly powerful waves of plasma rippling across the surface of the sun and dubbed "solar tsunamis" were first observed years ago, but were thought to be an optical illusion. Scientists have now confirmed, though, that they are really real.

"When scientists first saw the phenomenon, it was hard to believe that a towering wave of hot plasma was actually racing along the sun's surface. One of the waves rose up higher than the diameter of Earth and rippled out from a central point in a circular pattern millions of miles wide, like a gargantuan pattern of waves created by a pebble dropped in a pond.

"Skeptical observers suggested it might be a shadow of some kind – a trick of the eye. But new observations from NASA's STEREO (Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory) spacecraft are telling researchers that this controversial phenomenon isn't an illusion.

"This week, NASA released a remarkable video of a solar tsunami...."

The "solar tsunamis" discussed by the article aren't the sort of oversize water waves we have on Earth, of course - and they're not called "solar tsunamis" either. The waves are called "fast-mode magnetohydrodynamical waves" – or "MHD waves."

The idea that MHD waves were a sort of shadow wasn't as silly as it might seem. The waves were observed in 1997, and that one was associated with a coronal mass ejection - or "CME." Thinking that the wave was associated with - and possibly a sort of optical illusion generated by the CME - wasn't beyond imagination.

On the other hand, it looks like MHD waves now join the ranks of phenomena like ball lightning and thunderstorm sprites: that were "known" to be hallucinations suffered by credulous, unreliable people like airline pilots and soldiers; and now are the subject of learned papers.

I think video cameras helped: Even an acknowledged scientific expert might hesitate before saying that a video camera had been having a hallucination.

Related posts:

• "Thunderstorm Sprites' Light Source Sought"
  (February 20, 2009)
• "Set PHASERs on Stun: Koloc's Kugelblitz Research is For Real"
  (February 20, 2009)

USS New York "Official" Websites

Apathetic Lemming of the North is not the official blog of the USS New York.

And, the Lemming likes it that way. Fascinating as America's newly-commissioned destroyer is, I like to discuss other topics, too.

The Official* List of USS New York Websites

* Officially designated by the Lemming, this seventh day of November, whatever year it is: as a list I put together today.

The point is, it's very easy to call something "official."

Here are two different websites, each presenting themselves as the "official" website of the USS New York commissioning:

• ussnewyork.com
  • Domain registered by Scott Koen, of Rutherford, New Jersey
  • Created September 8, 2002
• ussny.org
  • Domain registered by Gary Decavage, of Watertown, Connecticut
  • Created January 22, 2008
  • Linked to from new-york.navy.mil, The United States Navy's website for the USS New York (LPD 21)

As far as I can tell, both are very professionally-done websites with interesting content - and are on domains created by individuals with the foresight to nail down high-value domain names. I've got no problem with that: and the results are worth visiting.

But, "official?" My guess is that ussny.org has a better claim to that term, since the United States Navy's USS New York website links to that domain, as the Commissioning Website. The dot-com website may be officially sanctioned, too, for all I know.

About the Navy's USS New York website:

• URL: www.new-york.navy.mil
• Part of the navy.mil website
  • Yes, www.navy.mil is "the official U.S. Navy Web site"
    • See SECNAV INSTRUCTION 5720.47B, dated December 28, 2005

Human Nature, Impressive Words, and Healthy Skepticism

From the looks of things, "official" hasn't fared quite as badly as "genuine" or "new and improved!" as an utterance intended to convey worth and respectability. On the other hand, over the decades I've learned to be a trifle skeptical about assertions.

Not mistrusting, you understand: just willing to see what's real, before accepting a claim as a fact. Happily, there are a plethora of "whois" services available online. I use the one at GoDaddy.com - but they all draw from the same database.

I assume that a major online service company maintains an accurate "whois" service, because they need the software for their own registration services - and stand to lose a great deal, if they were to be caught at falsifying information.

About the dot-com "official" website? From what I saw, it has pretty good content, good 'production values', and isn't hurting anyone who assumes that it has a practical, working relationship with the USS New York.

American culture seems to have a very relaxed attitude toward the application of words like "official:" which is okay, as far as I'm concerned.

But I'm going to keep my habit of checking up on the background of high-profile online entities.

Related post:

• "USS New York (LPD 21)"
  (November 7, 2009)

You Mean Germans, Japanese and Kenyans aren't All Alike?!

"Culture (Not Just Genes) Drives Evolution"
Discovery.com (October 28, 2009)

"Culture, not just genes, can drive evolutionary outcomes, according to a study released Wednesday that compares individualist and group-oriented societies across the globe.

"Bridging a rarely-crossed border between natural and social sciences, the study looks at the interplay across 29 countries of two sets of data, one genetic and the other cultural...."

Well, shazam!

I think some of the silly science I had to learn, back in the seventies, was a reaction to the equally silly science of the 19th century. It's good to see that researchers are starting to look at the data, not just what they'd like as results.

This research is exciting, I think, because it's a start at learning more about differences between groups of people around the world. Not 'proving' that one group is better than another - but how and why we're different.

My guess is that this isn't (by far) the last word on how culture and genetics interact.

"...In China and other east Asian nations, for example, up to 80 percent of the population carry this so-called 'short' allele, or variant, of a stretch of DNA known as 5-HTTLPR...

"...it is also associated with the impulse to stay out of harm's way.

"By contrast, in countries of European origin that prize self-expression and the pursuit of individual over group goals, the long or "L" allele dominates, with only 40 percent of people carrying the "S" variant...."

As the late Steve Irwin said, "crikey!"

Vaguely-related posts:

• "Broca's Center Multitasks: Big Brain Breakthrough"
  (October 15, 2009)
• "Boy Monkeys aren't Like Girl Monkeys: Who'd Have Thunk?"
  (July 30, 2009)

Times Change: The Wall Street Journal Now Top-Selling Daily

"Wall Street Journal surpasses USA Today as No. 1"
The Associated Press, via Breitbart.com (October 14, 2009)

"The Wall Street Journal has surpassed USA Today as the top-selling daily newspaper in the United States.

"The Audit Bureau of Circulations won't be releasing its latest figures until Oct. 26, but the Journal said Wednesday that it gained about 12,000 subscribers in the April-September period, compared with a year earlier.

"That puts its average Monday-Friday circulation at 2.02 million.

"USA Today, which has long been No. 1, said last week that it had its worst circulation decline ever, dropping 17 percent to 1.88 million.

"Audit rules allow newspapers to count some online-only subscriptions. The Journal, a unit of News Corp.-owned Dow Jones & Co., is among the few major newspapers that charge for access to much of its Web site. USA Today does not...."

The AP explains that it isn't that the Wall Street Journal is doing so well:

"...For the most part, however, the Journal's new status as No. 1 is the result of a steep decline at USA Today. Like most major dailies, the Gannett Co.-owned newspaper is struggling because of the recession and the flight of readers to the Web...."

That's most likely part of the explanation.

I also think that the "flight of readers to the Web" is due at least in part to people discovering that traditional news media has printed not so much "all the news that's fit to print," as "all the news we feel like printing."

The article gives a pretty good look at what's happening to USA Today and the Wall Street Journal - from the viewpoint of old-school journalists.

I discuss my take on what's happening to traditional news media in America in another blog. One that's considerably more 'apathetic' than this one.

Sort-of-related posts, from Another War-on-Terror Blog:

• "What is an Information Gatekeeper?"
  (August 14, 2009)
• "Somali-American Rally in Protest Against Terrorism in Minneapolis Today: Probably"
  (July 3, 2009)
• "Journalism in the Information Age, Or Nothing Says 'No' Like a Brightly Burning Motorcycle"
  (June 24, 2009)
• "North Korea, American Journalists, the Internet, and Power to the People"
  (June 16, 2009)
• "The New York Times, Insularity, and Assumptions"
  (October 21, 2008)
• "DC Gun Ban, Online Censorship, Individual Rights, and Power to the People"
  (June 27, 2008)

"Little Regularities" - A Thought for the Day

About the 'laws of Nature' -

" 'Your mistake is to think that the little regularities we have observed on one planet for a few hundred years are the real unbreakable laws....' "

Grace Ironwood, Chapter 17.4, "That Hideous Strength" C. S. Lewis (1946)

Related post:

• " 'My Mind's Made Up: Don't Confuse Me With the Facts' "
  (March 3, 2008)

Shakespeare, Butterflies, the Gilded Age and an Actress's Shoulder Blade

"Learing at a super-hot actress!"
Oddly Enough, Reuters Blog (September 17, 2009)

"Yo Blog Guy, you know that hot actress Megan Fox? She's SO fine! Can you run some pictures of her for me?

"Sorry, sir, this isn't that kind of a blog. We don't run exploitative photos of human beings just because they are 'hot.' My readers have loftier pretentions.

"I get it. Blog Guy, I am a huge fan of Shakespeare. Do you happen to know of anyone in show business with The Bard's quotations tattooed on them?..."

Oddly Enough's author found one: more-or-less over the actress's right shoulder blade. The words there are: "We will all laugh at gilded butterflies"

And yes, it's a quotation from Shakespeare's "King Lear" - almost.

Actually, Hollywood - in the person of the actress and her tattooer - did a more-than-usually-accurate paraphrase of the Bard's words.

"King Lear," in common with quite a few out-of-copyright works, is on the Project Gutenberg website: "King Lear by William Shakespeare" by William Shakespeare [Collins edition] (November, 1998) (Gutenberg Etext #1532)

The quote/paraphrase is from Lear, Act V, Scene III. The British Camp near Dover. Here's Lear's line. I put the tattoo's words in bold.

"...Lear.
No, no, no, no! Come, let's away to prison:
We two alone will sing like birds i' the cage:
When thou dost ask me blessing I'll kneel down
And ask of thee forgiveness: so we'll live,
And pray, and sing, and tell old tales, and laugh
At gilded butterflies, and hear poor rogues
Talk of court news; and we'll talk with them too,--
Who loses and who wins; who's in, who's out;--
And take upon's the mystery of things,
As if we were God's spies: and we'll wear out,
In a wall'd prison, packs and sects of great ones
That ebb and flow by the moon...."

Oddly Enough worked the photo and a fairly common sort of interested in celebrities for laughs - rather well, I think.

The Oddly Enough post is funny - and I've seen quite a few discussion threads about that quote. Together with more-or-less well-informed pronouncements.¹

And, although I haven't made up my mind about tattoos, this one shows a bit more insight than many I've seen. Quite a bit.

---

¹For the record, the Gilded Age in American history was around the 1870s, 1845-1916, or something else, depending on who you read; and is said to have inspired novels like Henry Adams's "Democracy" and F. Marion Crawford's "An American Politician."

The term "gilded age" was coined by Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner in their novel, "The Gilded Age: A Tale of To-day (1874).

Shakespeare pre-dates 1900 by about three centuries, and stopped writing plays when he died, in 1616.

"All's Quiet on West 23rd" - With a Legend Like This, Who Needs Facts?

If you're an American, and around my age, you probably remember "All's Quiet on West 23rd" - a song sung by quite a few singers, vocal stylists, and people who had a contract with a record company. The song was about as ubiquitous as "It's a Small, Small World." It felt like that, anyway.

"Everybody knows" about the cruel, heartless indifference with which apathetic people ignored the piteous cries of a helpless victim while - - - you get the idea.

That's the legend. Although Catherine 'Kitty' Genovese was killed, and did cry for help, the rest of what "everybody knows" leaves quite a few facts on the cutting room floor.

But that doesn't matter. As the legend of West 23rd spread across the land, "I don't want to get involved" became a catchphrase, apathy became a four-letter word, and people were worked up something fierce about being against crime and indifference and things like that.

We got "good Samaritan" laws out of that mix, I think - and being reminded to look out for your neighbors is, again I think, a basically good idea.

That March, 2009, post used some research that I'd done the year before: And pretty boring stuff it is, too. It's two discographies, telling about two performances of the song:

• The Jades
  (May 1967)
• Julie Budd
  (1968)
• The Jades
  (1970) (45, with Love of a Woman) (with Whistle A Tune)

Related posts:

• "Catherine 'Kitty' Genovese Did Not Die in Vain"
  (March 13, 2009)
• "Florida Teen College Student Online Suicide - No Joke, No Fake"
  (November 22, 2008)

Interior Design: Yes, it Can be Taught

"Interior Design Fact Sheet"
College of Human Development and Education, NDSU (North Dakota State University)

"A professional interior designer is one who is qualified by education and experience to identify, research and creatively solve problems relative to the function and quality of people's interior environments. The course of study in interior design leads to a first professional degree.

"Background Information

"Students pursue courses in aesthetic awareness, visual communication and technical skills that enable them to successfully complete studio projects in residential and commercial interiors including: institutional, entertainment, educational, hospitality, health care, retail and office space. Students learn how to approach design problems through a methodology that includes data gathering, product specification, identification of details, contractual documents and design business procedures...."

I don't think that training will make everyone into good interior designers, any more than I think you can train anyone to be a good auto mechanic or brain surgeon.

On the other hand, a program like what NDSU describes might help someone who wants to become an interior designer pick up skills and knowledge more quickly and efficiently than trying to learn on-the-job.

This fact sheet is a pretty good resource, intended for someone who is considering an interior design career. And, by some of the entries, apparently for someone who is still in high school.

This isn't one of the more exciting pages I've linked to. Actually, the content's a tad on the dry side. I picked this because I'm rather interested in design - interior and otherwise - and this NDSU fact sheet has a very good fact-to-sentence ratio.

Fluffy, it isn't.

Father's Day Facts, Fun and Otherwise, From the Government

"Father's Day"
USA.gov

"Fun facts and tips for Father's Day from the U.S. government"

For all of you who aren't hesitant to view one of 'their' websites, this is (partly) that: links to fun facts and tips. Starting with "Facts About Father's Day / Census Bureau facts and figures about Father's Day." This may be where that 1909 origin year came from. On a more serious note, the census page discusses child-support payments, too.

The page this micro-review is about also has "Prescription Drug Help for Your Dad / Social Security and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services are working together to get Medicare beneficiaries extra help with their prescription drug costs."

I think that's about enough seriousness for now.

"Recreation and Tourism" is another of the links. ("National parks, National Atlas, outdoor maps, the National Zoo, museums, hobbies, leisure activities..."

Now, I'm going to enjoy a bit of my own Father's Day.

Influenza A(H1N1) / Swine Flu - Come On, How Bad Could it Be?

Pretty bad, actually.

The good news is that we've learned a great deal, since influenza killed around 40,000,000 people, back in 1918. That was the first pandemic of the 20th century.

PBS put together a timeline of the 1918 influenza event. Aside from historical interest, I think it's a good example of how a disease that's not all that unlike the influenza A(H1N1) we're dealing with waxed and waned over several months.

Stanford University's website includes a more detailed look at the 20th century's first pandemic:

"The Influenza Pandemic of 1918"
Molly Billings, June, 1997 modified RDS February, 2005, Stanford University website

"The influenza pandemic of 1918-1919 killed more people than the Great War, known today as World War I (WWI), at somewhere between 20 and 40 million people. It has been cited as the most devastating epidemic in recorded world history. More people died of influenza in a single year than in four-years of the Black Death Bubonic Plague from 1347 to 1351. Known as 'Spanish Flu' or 'La Grippe' the influenza of 1918-1919 was a global disaster...."

The article says that about a fifth of the world's population was infected. About 28% of all Americans were infected: and around 675,000 Americans died.

"...In the two years that this scourge ravaged the earth, a fifth of the world's population was infected. The flu was most deadly for people ages 20 to 40. This pattern of morbidity was unusual for influenza which is usually a killer of the elderly and young children...." (Stanford)

Influenza A(H1N1) is No Ordinary Flu

The conventional wisdom is that diseases like the flu are particularly dangerous for the young, the elderly, and people with compromised immune systems. And, generally speaking, that's true.

Influenza A(H1N1), or the version of swine flu we're dealing with (a virus with DNA that combines avian, human, and swine flu coding), may not be as infectious as it could be. Unhappily, it seems to be particularly dangerous for relatively healthy adults.

"...'When you think about the flu, the seasonal flu, the flu that we're accustomed to, it typically tends to have the worse ramifications in people that don't have developed immune systems -- the elderly and the very young. They can't fight it off,' said Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN's chief medical correspondent.

" 'What's counterintuitive with this particular virus, it's in the people who have robust immune systems. As their body starts to respond, to try and fight off that virus, they produce tons of inflammatory cells. Those inflammatory cells can sort of flood the lungs.

" 'So, in essence, it's not the virus itself that's so problematic, but the body's reaction to it.' " (CNN) [emphasis mine]

Cytokine Storm - Cool Name for a Serious Issue

One overreaction of the immune system is hypercytokinemia - or "cytokine storm," which I'll admit is a cooler name. The University of Minnesota Academic Health Center published an article on H5N1 and hypercytokinemia back in 2006. The gist of it seems to be that, when the body gets infected with a new virus - one that the immune system can't handle at first - "...explosive viral growth and the resulting cytokine storm, or excessive immune response..." can be lethal. (CIDRAP) Looks like H1N1 may act the same way.

I don't think it makes any sense to get worked up emotionally about influenza A(H1N1), but I do think that making people aware of the situation - and (very probable) dangers - makes sense.

I certainly prefer the current situation to one in which we're kept ignorant - 'for our own good.'

More:

• "Understanding Swine Flu’s World Spread: Questions and Answers "
  Bloomberg (April 30, 2009)
• "World battles swine flu as death toll rises"
  CNN (April 29, 2009)
• "Clinical study points to cytokine storm in H5N1 cases"
  Center for Infectious Disease Research & Policy, Academic Health Center -- University of Minnesota (September 11, 2006)

List of posts relating to Swine flu 2009; and list of background resources:

• "Swine Flu 2009"
  • "Swine flu 2009 posts"
  • "Background and more information"
    Including links to
    • "1918 Influenza Timeline"
    • "The Influenza Pandemic of 1918"
  • "WHO Alert Phases"
  • " 'Public Health Emergency' - What's That Mean? "

Swine Flu / Influenza A(H1N1) - WHO on Travel Restrictions, CDC Goals

I think "swine flu" is here to stay: the disease that's sweeping the world has been called H1N1 Novel Influenza and influenza 2009 H1N1, But I see that the WHO is settling on influenza A(H1N1).

Rather officially: "30 April 2009 -- From today, WHO will refer to the new influenza virus as influenza A(H1N1)." (WHO)

I'll try to remember the 'influenza A(H1N1)' moniker while it lasts. Just the same, I think "swine flu" is here to stay as a commonly-recognized name for this bug.

World Health Organization on Travel Restrictions

"No rationale for travel restrictions"
World Health Organization (May 1, 2009)

"WHO is not recommending travel restrictions related to the outbreak of the influenza A(H1N1) virus. Today, international travel moves rapidly, with large numbers of individuals visiting various parts of the world. Limiting travel and imposing travel restrictions would have very little effect on stopping the virus from spreading, but would be highly disruptive to the global community.

" Influenza A(H1N1) has already been confirmed in many parts of the world...."

Isolating Mexico from the world would probably have kept this new variety of H1N1 from spreading - if Mexico had been cut off before the new influenza virus had been identified. As it is, by the time we knew there was a new bug in town, it was already spreading across the world.

I suppose the 'swine flu' of 2009 could be used as an example of the 'Evils of International Trade and Dealing With Foreigners' - but I'm not even on the same street as that bandwagon - much less ready to hop on it.

Which Countries Have Had How Many Cases Today

"Influenza A(H1N1) - update 10"
World Health Organization (May 2, 2009)

"The situation continues to evolve. As of 18:00 GMT+1, 2 May 2009, 16 countries have officially reported 658 cases of influenza A(H1N1) infection."

"Mexico has reported 397 confirmed human cases of infection, including 16 deaths. The higher number of cases from Mexico in the past 48 hours reflects ongoing testing of previously collected specimens. The United States Government has reported 160 laboratory confirmed human cases, including one death...."

The countries with confirmed cases of influenza A(H1N1) this morning were:

• Austria (1)
• Canada (51)
• China
• Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (1)
• Costa Rica (1)
• Denmark (1)
• France (2)
• Germany (6)
• Israel (3)
• Mexico (397) (16 deaths)
• Netherlands (1)
• New Zealand (4)
• Republic of Korea (1)
• Spain (13)
• Switzerland (1)
• The United Kingdom (15)
• the United States (160) (1 death)

The World Health Organization has a page on its website, "Epidemic and Pandemic Alert and Response (EPR)... Influenza A(H1N1)," with links to information about influenza A(H1N1).

Meanwhile, Here in America - - -

As of this morning, America has confirmed cases of influenza A(H1N1 in 21 states, a total of 160 cases, and only 1 death. It could be a lot worse.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has a page, "H1N1 Flu (Swine Flu)," on its website with links and information of interest to Americans.

They also outline their goals, regarding this disease:

1. Reduce transmission and illness severity, and
2. Provide information to help health care providers, public health officials and the public address the challenges posed by this emergency.

I'll give the CDC credit: They're making information about the 'swine flu' / influenza A(H1N1) available to people who take the trouble to look for it.

List of posts relating to Swine flu 2009; and list of background resources:

• "Swine Flu 2009"
  • "Swine flu 2009 posts"
  • "Background and more information"
    Including links to
    • "1918 Influenza Timeline"
    • "The Influenza Pandemic of 1918"
  • "WHO Alert Phases"
  • " 'Public Health Emergency' - What's That Mean? "

Everything You Wanted to Know About Cockroaches: But Were Too Disgusted to Ask

"The Cockroach FAQ."
Joe Kunkel's UMass Home Page
U. Massachusetts Amherst (2008)

What can I say? It's the answers to 76 (so far) questions about cockroaches.

I thought it was fascinating, but my interests aren't exactly on the 50th percentile for my demographic. Or any other, I suspect.

So: if you wanted to know what color cockroach blood is (it comes in two colors, by the way), how you can tell if a cockroach is breathing, wondered about the social life of cockroaches, or had other questions: this would be a good place to start looking for an answer.

Cockroaches don't have much of a social life, by the way. Maybe that's why Roach Motel® works as well as it does. ;)

At Last! an Answer to the Question: How Far Should My Elbow Bend?

"Normal Range of Motion Reference Values"
E-Hand.com: the Electronic Textbook of Hand Surgery (undated)

"Typical Range of Motion
"Elbow Extension/Flexion 0/145...."

The data is in a table, and tells how far the elbow, Forearm, Wrist, Thumb basal joint, Thumb Interphalangeal and Metacarpophalangeal joints, and finger DIP,PIP and MCP joints should bend.

Think of it as part of a spec sheet for the lower part of the human arm. Sure, it's not the sort of thing you'll bring up in conversation all that often: but I think it's interesting.

Of course, I think that quite a few things are interesting, that other people don't.

Accuracy Matters for Bloggers

"Errors By Bloggers Kill Credibility & Traffic, Study Finds"
ReadWriteWeb (October 30, 2008)

If you're still reading, I'm probably preaching to the choir.

Here's the first paragraph:

"Blogging is fast, informal and easy to do. Spelling, grammar and factual errors happen - but do they make a material impact on the success of a blogger? A small but interesting survey run by crowdsourced copy editing service GooseGrade concludes that they do...."

The article isn't long, but it's got a fair amount of information.

Recommended for anyone who takes blogging seriously - and who wants to be taken seriously.