Archiving my Twitter, Facebook and other social network activity
A Thirsty Town Debates Need for New Source of Water
I remember stopping at Cambria a few years back when visiting Hearst Castle. There’s some interesting stuff in here about using treated wastewater to recharge aquifers and prevent seawater intrusion.
https://phys.org/news/2014-12-quantum-physics-complicated.html
It turns out you can mathematically describe wave-partical duality as a manifestation of the uncertainty principle, rather than as a distinct feature of quantum mechanics.
https://medium.com/the-nib/vaccines-work-here-are-the-facts-5de3d0f9ffd0
How vaccines work, and countering some of the myths about them and their safety, explained in comic strip form.
https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-drive-in-the-rain-20141202-story.html
I know I shouldn't laugh at this headline, but…
https://www.kqed.org/science/23789/designing-california-cities-for-a-long-term-drought
Some interesting stuff here including redesigning roofs to collect rain, and redesigning ground cover to allow rain to soak into the ground instead of sending it out to sea as quickly as possible.
In an interesting bit of timing, this picture got some attention from a reddit discussion over the weekend…right before we drove down to Orange County for Sunday afternoon. I've been meaning to check whether it's still there, but keep forgetting. This time, we remembered to look.
It's gone now. The sign only shows the diamond symbol and “5 NORTH.”
Hey, Galileo Was Right! – Phil Plait
One of the funny things about being a human is that our intuition can steer us wrong, even on things that should be pretty obvious, things we see literally every day.
A simple example of why it’s worth applying the scientific method, even to things that seem obvious.
This sounds fascinating. Descanso Gardens has attempted to recreate the oak woodlands of a pre-colonial Los Angeles landscape.
AMELIA EARHART: The fears are paper tigers
The latest illustrated quote from Zen Pencils: Amelia Earhart on getting past fear. (I should probably mention: there is a monster at the end of this comic strip.)
https://slate.com/technology/2014/11/hl-tau-new-observations-of-a-young-planetary-system.html
That's an image of a young star with a disc of dust around it…with gaps, indicating that something's cleared out an orbit in those regions…like a whole mess of planets.
https://www.washington.edu/news/2014/11/05/uw-study-shows-direct-brain-interface-between-humans/
“Researchers were able to transmit the signals from one person’s brain over the Internet and use these signals to control the hand motions of another person within a split second of sending that signal.”
https://www.vox.com/2014/10/22/7031243/china-grip-rare-earth-metals-supply-weakening
Interesting reading, and a reminder that “rare earth” metals aren't actually that rare.
The Scariest Comic Of All Time Is A 1989 ‘Garfield’ Story
I think it says something that I knew from the headline which Garfield story this was going to be.
Watch the Moon Eat the Sun: The Partial Solar Eclipse on Thursday, Oct. 23
Solar eclipse tomorrow. I need to pay more attention to this sort of thing so I can plan farther ahead.
KQED: Drought-Stressed Crops May Be Better For You
Well, maybe. Some kinds of stresses cause plants to produce more antioxidants. Meanwhile, it's an interesting look at experiments to find out just how much water various crops actually *need* to be practical…and how much they need in order to be commercial.
Not content with systematically harassing critics and female game developers and making them fear for their own lives, the “Gamergate” … I hesitate to call it a movement, or a discussion … has reached a new low: Threatening *mass murder* in order to intimidate someone into silence.
https://comicsalliance.com/archie-comics-dark-horse-archie-meets-predator/
And I thought Archie Meets the Punisher was a bizarre crossover idea.
https://www.latimes.com/science/la-me-megadrought-20141006-story.html
Interesting: a computer simulation shows how California might survive a decades-long mega-drought without collapsing or emptying out. More importantly, it suggests that the state *could* adapt. We just have to actually do it.