Long, Slow Burn

I had a guest the other day. No, it wasn’t this guy. It was a red bellied woodpecker. I set up the camera in case he came back but he didn’t as far as I know. While I was testing out the camera, I caught a picture of this little fella. Cute, but he’s costing me a fortune. At least he doesn’t have a long furry tail!

I’ve been saying this for years.  I’m really disappointed in our medical profession that more reliance isn’t placed on computer based diagnosis.  Computers could provide us better differential diagnosis, leading to better testing, quicker diagnosis, and lower medical costs on a patient by patient basis.  I have no clue on why us patients aren’t demanding a greater use of computers.

Here’s a great atomic example.  Computers are better able to determine whether brain scans indicate alzheimers, compared to normal brain scans.    BBC: PC beats doctor in scan tests

There was some interesting news coming from the world of space exploration today.

First, I am pleased to announce that the Space Shuttle finally launched yesterday.  This mission is to deliver the Columbus module to the ISS.  Congratulations NASA on what appears to be a flawless launch, and congratulations to the EU for a major step.  Good news all around.  Read about it here.

The second article is in regards to SETI, a program that I’ve participated in the past.  SETI is starting to re-evaluate on whether we’re searching for ET intelligence in the best manner.  This is a great example of what science is all about.  Come up with a theory, experiment, if the results are not as predicted, re-examine, refine, and test again.  Bravo SETI.  Don’t give up.  Read more about it here.
One interesting fact from the story is that there are over 70 sextillion stars in the visible universe. Sometimes written as 7×10^22.  Let me write out what 70 sextillion looks like:

70,000,000,000,000,000,000,000

Very cool.  Gosh, we’re small.

Yawn.  CNN (and every other news outlet) appears to be trying to create news and fear and angst.  Some US military satellite has lost power sometime in the last year or so, and is going to fall to Earth.  “Strike” is the term that CNN uses.

Here’s my prediction: most all of it will burn up on entry.  What is left will hit somewhere on Earth and it will be very difficult for the scientists to tell us where it actually hit.

Yes, something may fall on populated areas.  It’s very unlikely but it may happen.  Damage may occur.
I think my prediction is going to be much closer to what happens, that what CNN is leading us to believe.  Yawn.

Okay, his name is Forest, but he’s got a killer setup for making snow. 3 feet in one night! Dang, I need a bigger compressor.

Check out how a child turned $500 in parts and machinery into a mountain of snow fun. Click Here.

I’ve wanted to make snow for about 12 years now. I finally succeeded last night. Mind you, I haven’t been trying continuously. Just here and there. I’m proud to say that I made a small amount of snow last night.

Here in Georgia, it rarely snows. It rarely gets below 32 degrees, even in winter. For the last couple of days however, it has been very cold. One morning, it was 10 degrees! For Christmas I received a compressor and a brad nail gun and a finish nail gun. Very nice. I knew that the compressor was my ticket to lots of things, including making snow.

I searched around and found SnowGuns.com and they pointed me to a T-Gun design. I didn’t have the money for a brass outfit, so I decided to make my T-gun out of PVC as a “proof of concept” design. $20 later (and $5 of that was a brass fitting to convert from my air compressor to PVC) I had a prototype. Would it work?

At 8pm at night it was already down to about 28F with no wind. My son, Griffin, and I set up the ladder, garden hose, and compressor. I got things all hooked up and tested out the compressor settings. The garden hose had some ice in the line so it took some time to express out the ice. I cranked up the compressor, got the water going, … and got some water spray. I adjusted the compressor settings between 60PSI and 35PSI. It appeared at if with that temperature that 45PSI was the right balance between water pressure, air pressure, and temperature. Before long, a small patch of snow was appearing on my grass. Very cool. Below are some pictures. We’re in a drought here so I didn’t leave it running but for 45 minutes or so.

I’ve got some tweaks to make but I’m happy with my success.

We’re currently in the worst drought ever recorded in Georgia.  At this moment, a tropical storm is forming off of Bermuda.  It’s projected path is into the Gulf of Mexico.  This is great news.  I don’t want anyone to be hurt in a hurricane or anything, but we need Olga to enter the Gulf, and then take a right hand turn and hit North Georgia and hit us hard.  In fact, she can just hang out over our lakes up here and fill them up with clean fresh water.  Olga is invited to stay for as long as she wants.

Praying for rain : Didn’t work.  Hardly a drop of rain in the last month.

Olga, you’re a pretty sight to see.  Come on over and stay a while.

Las Vegas is running out of drinking water. It’s funny that they mention that “they may have to raise rates.” Oh sure, they’re pumping water from the Colorado river. They’re talking about pumping water from Arizona. Oh yeah, they may have to raise rates. YA THINK?!?

http://www.lasvegasnow.com/Global/story.asp?S=6943263

There’s people living in the desert. People need lots of water. Do you think it’s reasonable that those people should pay more for water than the people in Seattle, where it rains tons?

This my same argument against sending humans to the Moon and Mars. There’s no water. Heck, there’s no air. Sounds just like human thinking. Robots don’t need water, or air, just power.

Pretty soon, Atlanta will be in the same boat. Too many people, not enough water.

The culprit is a microscopic parasite called nosema ceranae said Mariano Higes, who leads a team of researchers at a government-funded apiculture centre in Guadalajara, the province east of Madrid that is the heartland of Spain’s honey industry.

http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/43163/story.htm

The good news is that the treatment will only cost $1.40 per hive twice per year.   Get us back our bees!

In the last week or so, there are these HUGE hornet like creatures buzzing around my back yard.  I hate using bug spray, so I turned to the Internet to find out what these guys are.  Are they dangerous?  Should I kill them before they carry off my children?
It turns out that they are Cicada Killers.  Harmless for the most part.  I think they’re really cool!

Here’s a picture taken from the Lafayette College web site. 

I’m sure glad that I didn’t just go out blasting with Wasp Killer.  First, it wouldn’t do any good in that you are killing the adults but wouldn’t do anything to the larvae that are waiting for next year.  Two, these guys eat the things that make evenings miserable; cicadas.  Three, they’re only going to be around for a month or so and then they’re gone.

See.  We can all just get along!  (Except for Yellow Jackets and fire ants. :O :D)