Maggie's Farm

Okay, science buffs, time for a little quiz.

How many of these didn't you know?

I missed one, darn the luck.  I thought a bald eagle sounded just like they're always pictured, then it turns out they sound exactly like a cross between a squeaky toy and a seagull.  Who knew?  The only one I hadn't heard of was that biz about there not being a Nobel prize for mathematics because of his wife's affair.  And it's pure coincidence that Barrie's post below on 'Correlation vs. Causation' ties in with the last point.

And it's an important point, and one we see abused every day.  Flatbush, Arkansas, just experienced its rainiest June in history?  Climate change.  Hortence Abernathy's garden in Deepfrost, Maine, produced beautiful geraniums for the first time ever?  Climate change.  A barbecue at a company picnic in Drycrik, Arizona, caught some nearby weeds on fire and they didn't get it put out until half the field had burned down?  Climate change.  The entire globe stops warming for 20 years?  Climate change.

After all, stopping is a form of change, right?  Proof positive that climate change exists.

Ah, there you are, the master dog trainer.  Not only have you taught Sparky to sit up, stay and fetch, but now he's learned 'speak'!  "Arf-arf!", he responds with pride.  What a smart little feller!

Of course, it's possible the two of you still have a ways to go.

The long jumps are especially impressive.  With their poor eyesight and lack of stereoscopic vision, when a dog hears "Jump!" from some blurry object fifteen feet away, he's basically wildly leaping into space on nothing but trust.

And then there's the art of shadow dancing.

Without further preamble...

What's particularly striking about this art form are scenes like the jet fighter, where you expect to see them lower a bunch of cardboard props at the next change, yet nothing like that ever appears to happen.

They have a handful of vids on YouTube, and I have a solo artist performing here.  When I originally posted it in my art gallery years ago, I hadn't seen anything else like it and called it a "wonderful, if dying, art form."  It's nice to see artists like the Attraction Theater Group bringing this beautiful genre back to the fore.

Bird Dog posted a link to an interesting article about Amazon.com yesterday, and while it was a fun story, I thought the first paragraph deserved a response.  So I'm reposting this puppy.

The article begins:

What do you usually expect to pay for a book on Amazon? Perhaps $7-$10, if you're scouting for a paperback? Around $20 or so if you're looking to score a hardcover?

Well, not exactly.

---

Like I suppose many people, I thought Amazon.com only sold new things.  Not so!

I became a big fan of Robert B. Parker and his 'Spencer' detective novels.  I had about ten of them out of the thirty or so that are out there.  Having a few bucks on hand, I decided to blow the wad and complete my collection.  I headed over to Amazon.com, dug up the first book I wanted, then noticed an odd "used" link down near the bottom of the ad.  I clicked on it and discovered a whole different side to Amazon.com.

Want to guess how much these used books were going for?  Five bucks?  Two bucks?  One?

"A quarter?"

Nope.  Not even close.  Gee, you're not very good at this 'guessing' stuff, are you?

How about a penny?

The deal is, these are all third-party used book merchants, and they charge $3.95 per book for shipping, so apparently they'd rather make a buck off the shipping — plus one penny — rather than just let the thing sit there rotting on the shelf.  The ol' better-something-than-nothing approach.

It's to note that only the fairly old books go for a penny.  Slightly newer ones actually cost a whole quarter or more, so be prepared to spend some big, big money.

I ordered 20 books.  Granted, I paid $79 in shipping, but compare that to spending two days traveling to every used book store in the tri-county area and paying three to five bucks apiece for them.  Nor, most likely, would I have been able to nail down all 20 books missing from my collection.

For what it's worth, one book didn't show up.  I emailed the vendor, nothing back.  Emailed again, nothing back.  I emailed Amazon, gave them the invoice number, told them what I'd done, and my credit card account was reimbursed within the day.  Ordered the book from a different vendor and out it came.

It's to note that there are also 'used' links for things like DVD movies, audio CDs, and a bunch of other things.  I'm not so sure I'd go for a used rectal thermometer, but most used items are probably fine, and the 3rd-party items fall into little sub-categories such as "Like New", "Very Good", "Acceptable", "Seriously Trashed", etc, along with a brief description, so you'll have a clue as to what you're getting.

And then there's... The Secret of Amazon.com II

First off, since this is science we're talking about, let's make sure we're all on the same page.

Pic: scientific proof that CO² exists in the atmosphere

As we discussed last time, the most wonderful aspect of the climate debate at this moment in time, and a point simply no one could contend, is how many choices we now have:

— If you believe the science, then it's obvious that Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) is the villain.

— On the other hand, if you believe the science, then there's no question that Natural Global Cooling (NGC) is the true menace.

— However, if you believe the science, then it's quite apparent that Anthropogenic Chlorofluorocarbonic Warming (ACW) is the real threat.

— And, for those who believe the science, it's crystal-clear that Natural Global Warming (NGW) is what's really goin' on.

Again, it's all about the science, folks, and the wonderful options it provides.  And that's not to mention the unity it brings to the community as we can all now agree that science is ultimately the answer to this imposing problem.

Unfortunately, as in any contest where there are multiple participants, scores are being kept and tallies are being tabbed.  Since I'm on the NGW team, it's my duty to mock, scorn and degrade the other three contestants at every opportunity.  They constantly do the same to my team, so no hard feelings.  As they say, all's fair in love and global thermonuclear war.

First off, to those few brave souls who donated a few shekels to my Help Keep Doc Alive & Online fund a while back, much-much thanks.  It all helps.  At the moment, I'm almost two thousand clams in debt to the hospital and my local GP and thus am still considering dumping my expensive $120/mo online service and just using the local library a few times a week, but we'll see.  I'd still make the occasional post, but nothing like those monster video essays I'm famous notorious for.  In case you missed them, recent essays include one on the great TV show NCIS, one on the Asiana airliner crash, the disinterment of Flight 800, the amazing answer to the crash of Flight 447, and a shorter one on golf movies.

The good news is that whatever ill effects I've been feeling since around last Xmas appear to be nothing more than ultra-high blood pressure (something like 195 over 155, aka Stroke City) and something about an "elevated red blood cell count", but I never pay any attention to the details.  It's just "gimme the pills" and I'm outta there.

I did, however, make one real glaring error in my last post on the subject when, puzzling over the recent diagnosis of ultra-high blood pressure, I noted that I hadn't recently changed anything in my dietary routine.

That is, if you call your lunches and dinners going from 5% frozen TV dinners to 95% frozen TV dinners over the course of a year "not changing anything".

I honestly (because I had ultra-high blood pressure at the time is my best excuse) wasn't thinking clearly and had only dashed back a year in my mind as I typed the words.  In truth, until a year ago, I've never been into TV dinners much, usually eating either sandwiches (homemade, deli, Subway) or canned goods for lunch and dinner.  It was only after the operation, when moving around became such a chore, than I fell into the warm bosom of easy pop-in, pop-out, meals.

Worse, I then discovered how delicious some of them are.  The Marie Callender's Salisbury Steak is totally scrumptious.  That set me down the whole dark path of going through every Marie Callender's and Stofer's on the shelf, plus the lesser brands, only to end up one day at a notable moment in my life.  I had turned down the canned goods aisle by habit, glanced over the beef stew and chili and spaghetti and... and then just kept walking.  It was the first time in my life I'd ever done that.  All I had eyes for was the frozen section.

Such are the depths of the addicted.

Well, these days, all tuned into the Daily Value (DV) figure on the back of the package, I have heart palpitations just reading the labels of the things I used to gobble down by the bucketful.  With admonishments of "DON'T EAT ANYTHING WITH A DV OVER 20%!!!" blaring in my head, most of the TV dinners and canned meats out there are somewhere around the (cough!) 50% mark.  And that's what I'd been piling down for both lunch and dinner for almost a year.

And that's before grabbing the salt shaker and giving everything a good blast.  In my whole adult life, I've salted very few things (eggs, potatoes), but once you're in the tropics, aka Sweat City, you just naturally start adding salt to your diet to make up for what you drip onto the ground while walking out to the car.

As a couple of commenters noted in the thread, some people are much more susceptible to sodium kicking up blood pressure than others, and it appears I'm of that group.  I can only say "appears", though, as I've been on blood pressure medicine since that day so I can't really measure how the sudden lack of salt in my diet affects it.

I'd also note that both Bird Dog and Dr. Bliss have recently linked to the latest findings by the CDC that salt isn't as harmful as has previously been the notion, although I have reservations about the overall "IT'S OKAY, EVERYBODY, EAT ALL THE SALT YOU WANT! YIPPEE!" tone of the articles.  Since human beings are involved, we always have to be on the lookout for that classic human foible of jumping from one extreme to the other, and just because something isn't as bad as previously thought doesn't mean it suddenly goes into the Eat All You Want! column.

I have a few more notes below the fold, but that's the gist.  Again, my deepest thanks to those who have tossed a little something into my Help Keep Doc From Gnawing Off His Right Foot fund.  Any help with these nasty medical bills would be very much appreciated.

NCIS fans, be sure to tune in tomorrow for an intriguing update!

First off, for those who enjoyed my post on the recent Asiana airliner crash, we have an update.  Thankfully, local station KTVU finally nailed down the names of the four pilots involved.  There's been some confusion up until now due to translation problems.

Next, I'm sure you'll sympathize with me concerning the rude event that occurred last weekend.  There I was, innocently tooling along in my Hoverflight XB-3000 personal spy drone (the 1-seat model) when suddenly the rudest thing happened!

The nerve of that pilot, startling me like that!

Finally, I'm sure you've been secretly pondering the same question I have:

So what kind of pet would Rube Goldberg have owned?

As if you had to ask.