I was surprised to find that I don't have a Burmese python in my files: only the reticulated python and the rock python. We'll have fun with giant snakeys if we get the interwebs back.
Good gnus! My 3 hour long Friday afternoon promotion and tenure (P & T) meeting ended after 40 minutes! 😀 God must love me!
Actually, we had six candidates going up for tenure, and we had rated them last spring, all six were fine then, nothing bad happened in the interim, so each of us basically said "nothing changed since spring; okay if we use last spring's rating", and we all said okey-dokey.
All that is left is to write the formal letters. Since nothing changed, we'll probably just add a congratulatory sentence to last year's letter and call it a day.
I was just thinking about the cute little catfish my mom had in her freshwater aquarium, and then I read about how big they get! And, of course, everyone turned them loose, and now they’re invasive. Apparently that’s part of how nature works! It reminds me of how those darn birds keep dropping seeds for weeds we don’t want, and now have too many!
Oh, no. What a shame, such a fate for those cute little plecos we kept in our aquariums to keep them clean. It was fun watching them move around with their mouths attached to the glass walls.
For the first time I don't feel bad about being so bad at aquarium management that I gradually had all my aquarium species die or cannibalize each other. After a year I threw in the towel. It was an embarrassing failure. But my plecos never had a chance to grow into monsters.
Apparently with an aquarium, unless you put them all in at the same time, the old timers eat the newcomers when you try to replace old-timers that die.
I could never keep goldfish alive for some reason. I had friends whose goldfish lasted so long, it outgrew the fish tank. I finally gave up because I knew I was just condemning the next one to death!
We had a thunderstorm last night with much needed rain. There have been a few field fires in the area because it’s so dry. Good thing the fields had already been picked so it was just the corn stalks that burned.
Gift - instant gas discounts. $.25 to $.50/gallon discount.
Yep. The old Cummins diesel nominally got 15mpg all around (20mpg to 28 highway). But I've been driving deliberately at posted limits and most importantly with the soft pedal. Slow steady acceleration is the key.
So 18mpg all around. 3mpg/15 mpg =20%. Off of $3.50/gal diesel.... equivalent $.70/gal discount.
A gas sedan, far lighter and more aerodynamic, might improve 10%... so you would see a $.30/gallon savings.
I have found that once I got a hybrid I began trying to see how good of gas mileage I can get. it's a form of gamification. I drive a Honda Accord hybrid (Katie did not want me getting a honda Civic hybrid, although I later bought one for our youngest son).
I am learning how to increase fuel efficiency. Since April I have been average 47.8 MPG. I have learned I get worse fuel economy on the interstate, and that having to merge onto the bypass sucks a lot of gas. If I drive home at late night, I can ease onto the bypass more slowly (far less traffic), and improve fuel economy. The issue is the entrance has an exit ramp for the interstate roughly a quarter mile away; everyone is zoom zoom zooming (driving fast, not doing remote meetings) onto the interstate, so you have to get up to speed quickly to not cause an accident. Had they put the entrance on the other side of the bypass, it would be a slow lane and the entrance lane would never have to slow down.
But driving home, when there's no one near me (which, being rural, is often), I often coast down hills. But I don't do "rolling stops"; I do stop entirely. Sometimes driving to work I can hit 60 mpg; coming home 54 is a great day (normally just high 40s).
I also feel in general I am a better driver when I am trying to be more fuel efficient.
I've felt if there was a way to gamify fuel economy, many people would look to improve their fuel economy.
Talk about positive reinforcement! I remember my dad putting his car in neutral, and coasting downhill, thinking it would save on fuel! 🙄 Only on country roads, thank goodness.
Back to the fair today. My daughter has a calculus test today and she is not ready in spite of working diligently. She is really frustrated - hard work is supposed to bring confidence and understanding.
Left home alone yesterday my son got motivated and cleaned the kitchen beyond the load/unload the dishwasher stuff. Very pleasant to come home to.
My husband is being patient and helpful to all of us and playing banjo while the house is empty.
When i first took calculus in college, the professor talked in terms of "pooh sticks". He used different colors of chalk, and the x axis was always the pink chalk. Y axis was always blue.
I didn't learn much in that class, but when I followed it with stats, the stats prof asked me if I understood the area under the curve was intregal calculus. Then it began to make sense.
I didn’t really understand calculus until after I graduated and started studying for the EIT (engineer in training) exam. I then realized that math and equations were a language for talking about quanties and relationships. Light buIb moment!
I think Pooh sticks is a game that involves sticks and streams or creeks and bridges. No idea how that might relate to calculus graphs.
Daughter B called yesterday to have whoever answered the phone take a personality survey for her psychology class. (It was her dad.) She mentioned she had a chemistry exam yesterday afternoon and said she thought she was ready, having been going to tutoring regularly since the beginning of the semester.
"Take advantage of all the free resources!" is something we told her over and over. I'm glad she's doing it.
Very good. We are still in the "here's why I can't do that" phase, mostly due to tight scheduling. I've told her to go talk to her instructors, even just to introduce herself, establish relationships so she learns she's not in this alone.
Interesting. This aquarium catfish were probably sending out subliminal signals: "Free me and I'll cleanup your waterways!" Clever little (now big) scamps!
Good morning. Cool to warm fall day, with a few more leaves falling. The mothership is coving a summit of the so-called BRICS group, a diverse group of nations broadly opposed to the West, but ranging from emerging powers like India and Brazil, to “Axis of Evil” members like Russia, Beijing’s China and Iran.
The real disgrace there was the attendance by UN Sec-Gen Guterres—at least until this happened:
> The Secretary-General of the United Nations, António Guterres, held a conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin on the sidelines of the BRICS summit in Kazan. The discussion addressed the issue of Russia's military aggression against Ukraine.
It is noted that during the meeting with the Kremlin leader, Guterres "reiterated his position that the Russian invasion of Ukraine was in violation of the United Nations Charter and international law." <
Even at that, it was a bad choice. Dictators rely on the presence of other world leaders beside them for photo ops, which are meant to give them legitimacy.
Unfortunately, countries invaded and taken hostage by the likes of Putin—not to mention people under the boot heels of dictators—are completely abandoned by America, which used to champion their causes. Even though the spineless current administration lacks any clarity of purpose in that regard, the potential replacement “regime” would throw whole peoples into the dictators’ meat grinders in their perverted love (lust?) for authoritarians.
You are correct. Walking catfish, Clarias batrachus, are native to Southeast Asia. Their movement on land is more like "walking" than is the "reffling" of the armored catfish, because their bodies are more flexible, and their fins are positioned more aptly.
Without counting, since 1789, France has had about 15 Constitutions to reflect honestly the changing conditions, by contrast, the USA has used one Constitution to pretend having the same government under about a dozen different guises. 😉
Depending of the whim of barely a handful of people, the same rhing becomes either "constitutional" or "unconstitutional".
It seems that "chaos" has always been part of US politics.
More seriously, you might reflect on the respective trajectories of the extreme rights in Western Europe and in the USA over the last couple of decades: while in Western Europe they have become more moderate, in the USA, they are becoming ever so more extreme.
PS: if I am not mistaken, I was banned for 3 months, but I am not certain that I want to comment again there. Years ago, during a banter session, you "accused" me, if I remember correctly, of being a "foreign interference" in the US election: perhaps The Dispatch wanted me to stop being a " foreign influencer", so that nothing would interfere with the election ...🤪
I don't honestly recall that, if I did it was more "tongue in cheek"
although American politics has always been, shall we say, "different" than in most European countries (even different than in Canada)
Americans have always had a more "independent" streak in relating to a central government, and elites in general, than Europeans
and Americans, to the extent they are religious, are often so as individuals more than as a cultural affectation (as a nation of many religious exiles from European countries with state churches)
which explains, among other things, why Americans tend to be contentious over moral issues like abortion
as for individuality, that also sheds light on Americans valuing individual gun ownership, which puzzles Europeans
Nothing to be worried about, I was banned from commenting in TMD, under the specious pretext of using ironically a word considered a slur, to represent the opinions of people with whom I strongly disagree. 🙂
Without knowing the details--that sounds like something that right wing media was decrying as "cancel culture" back when that was in vogue. A journalist who spoke a racial slur while talking about it as a racial slur lost his job. I forget the rest of the story.
I was mocking ironically, i.e. as if I agreed with her, the opinions of the flag -flying wife of a Justice of the SCOTUS, regarding homosexuality, and instead of using *** in the middle of the word, word which every reader would have pronounced in his head anyway, I spelled the whole word.
Whether they were looking for a pretext to ban me, as I have been very critical of their boss and some of their writers, or whether they did not like my mocking of a Supreme-Court-adjacent lady, or they objected to my disparaging of flying flags, or whether they disapprove of the original edition of Huckleberry Finn, because some characters there employ words deemed objectionable, it shows indeed the hypocrisy of the right in the USA, not just the extreme right: they are very happy to do themselves what they find unbearable when others do it.🫣
Well, those kinds of things happen on the interwebs. When people would ask where you were, I would say that I hoped you were off on an adventure somewhere.
Here in the basement storage room, as it were, we have chirpy chat.
When your nasal passages dry out, your body kicks the mucus production into high gear to fight back.
That's why they advise people to avoid using decongestants like Dristan, oxymetazoline, etc., or Sudafed for any longer than 3 days. The same mucus-producing mechanism is triggered. So decongestants ultimately end up producing increased congestion.
(I'm retired now, but I can't quit the habit of medical explaining.)
That’s perfectly fine. I have the habit of attributing everything as an improvement in my health after radically cutting carbs from my diet. To wit: an unexpected benefit was that my mucous production decreased and my respiration got easier. You wouldn’t think dietary carbohydrate (for those of us sensitive to them and/or the associated elevated levels of insulin) had anything to do with breathing, but in mine and others’ experience, it matters.
I was surprised to find that I don't have a Burmese python in my files: only the reticulated python and the rock python. We'll have fun with giant snakeys if we get the interwebs back.
Good gnus! My 3 hour long Friday afternoon promotion and tenure (P & T) meeting ended after 40 minutes! 😀 God must love me!
Actually, we had six candidates going up for tenure, and we had rated them last spring, all six were fine then, nothing bad happened in the interim, so each of us basically said "nothing changed since spring; okay if we use last spring's rating", and we all said okey-dokey.
All that is left is to write the formal letters. Since nothing changed, we'll probably just add a congratulatory sentence to last year's letter and call it a day.
Very efficient.
Shux! Just realized the author attribution was wrong again...maybe I need a checklist...hmm...
Thanks Cynthia--and apologies!
It's okay. I didn't even notice.
I was just thinking about the cute little catfish my mom had in her freshwater aquarium, and then I read about how big they get! And, of course, everyone turned them loose, and now they’re invasive. Apparently that’s part of how nature works! It reminds me of how those darn birds keep dropping seeds for weeds we don’t want, and now have too many!
Oh, no. What a shame, such a fate for those cute little plecos we kept in our aquariums to keep them clean. It was fun watching them move around with their mouths attached to the glass walls.
For the first time I don't feel bad about being so bad at aquarium management that I gradually had all my aquarium species die or cannibalize each other. After a year I threw in the towel. It was an embarrassing failure. But my plecos never had a chance to grow into monsters.
Apparently with an aquarium, unless you put them all in at the same time, the old timers eat the newcomers when you try to replace old-timers that die.
I could never keep goldfish alive for some reason. I had friends whose goldfish lasted so long, it outgrew the fish tank. I finally gave up because I knew I was just condemning the next one to death!
Sea monkeys ftw!
https://www.livescience.com/33907-sea-monkeys.html
Are you saying this is what I should feed goldfish, or that this is what I might be more successful in keeping alive?! 🙃
I don't suppose there's folks noodling this particular catfish.
It's Florida: I'd bet there are.
Yeah...the toothless guy most likely.
Alternative headline inspired by caffeine:
“Sea Cows Dogged by Catfish?”
We had a thunderstorm last night with much needed rain. There have been a few field fires in the area because it’s so dry. Good thing the fields had already been picked so it was just the corn stalks that burned.
I know! What a surprise!! I was watching a TV series, and it was raining. At first I thought it was that, but then I saw the flashes outside. YES!!
They haven’t just invaded Texas and Florida; catfish been spotted all over the Internet! 😡
Invasive indeed!
There were a lot of surprises in this TSAF. We might have to rename this column TSAE (enemy.)
I was surprised, too.
Gift - instant gas discounts. $.25 to $.50/gallon discount.
Yep. The old Cummins diesel nominally got 15mpg all around (20mpg to 28 highway). But I've been driving deliberately at posted limits and most importantly with the soft pedal. Slow steady acceleration is the key.
So 18mpg all around. 3mpg/15 mpg =20%. Off of $3.50/gal diesel.... equivalent $.70/gal discount.
A gas sedan, far lighter and more aerodynamic, might improve 10%... so you would see a $.30/gallon savings.
59F
I have found that once I got a hybrid I began trying to see how good of gas mileage I can get. it's a form of gamification. I drive a Honda Accord hybrid (Katie did not want me getting a honda Civic hybrid, although I later bought one for our youngest son).
I am learning how to increase fuel efficiency. Since April I have been average 47.8 MPG. I have learned I get worse fuel economy on the interstate, and that having to merge onto the bypass sucks a lot of gas. If I drive home at late night, I can ease onto the bypass more slowly (far less traffic), and improve fuel economy. The issue is the entrance has an exit ramp for the interstate roughly a quarter mile away; everyone is zoom zoom zooming (driving fast, not doing remote meetings) onto the interstate, so you have to get up to speed quickly to not cause an accident. Had they put the entrance on the other side of the bypass, it would be a slow lane and the entrance lane would never have to slow down.
But driving home, when there's no one near me (which, being rural, is often), I often coast down hills. But I don't do "rolling stops"; I do stop entirely. Sometimes driving to work I can hit 60 mpg; coming home 54 is a great day (normally just high 40s).
I also feel in general I am a better driver when I am trying to be more fuel efficient.
I've felt if there was a way to gamify fuel economy, many people would look to improve their fuel economy.
You totally get it!
Remember the old "speed kills"? When Hwy speed in the 70s was mandated down from 70 to 55, fatalities fell, national mpg rose.
Mpg is ~ velocity^2
And accelerating is a fuel suck down !
As to gamify..I agree! There are more cars now that have an direct mpg slider to see at the odometer.
Talk about positive reinforcement! I remember my dad putting his car in neutral, and coasting downhill, thinking it would save on fuel! 🙄 Only on country roads, thank goodness.
Hybrids are fun that way. We had a Prius plug-in for awhile and liked watching the constantly updating display.
Once we drove from NY to Louisville KY and back and the gas mileage ended up 64 mpg.
I love my hybrid mini that gets around 37 MPG. I get 560 mi on a full tank.
Hybrids are wonderful!
Colder here this morning. The air is dry.
Back to the fair today. My daughter has a calculus test today and she is not ready in spite of working diligently. She is really frustrated - hard work is supposed to bring confidence and understanding.
Left home alone yesterday my son got motivated and cleaned the kitchen beyond the load/unload the dishwasher stuff. Very pleasant to come home to.
My husband is being patient and helpful to all of us and playing banjo while the house is empty.
When i first took calculus in college, the professor talked in terms of "pooh sticks". He used different colors of chalk, and the x axis was always the pink chalk. Y axis was always blue.
I didn't learn much in that class, but when I followed it with stats, the stats prof asked me if I understood the area under the curve was intregal calculus. Then it began to make sense.
I didn’t really understand calculus until after I graduated and started studying for the EIT (engineer in training) exam. I then realized that math and equations were a language for talking about quanties and relationships. Light buIb moment!
I think Pooh sticks is a game that involves sticks and streams or creeks and bridges. No idea how that might relate to calculus graphs.
“Pooh sticks” sounds like a great way to annoy Xi Jinping, come to think…
I had my math-y son define/describe calculus to me the other day which was a mistake. 😑🥱😵💫
Aw, its really interesting, although a math person's explanation may obscure that fact.
Approx. 36 years later, and I’m still not ready for another go at that calculus test…
More best wishes to your daughter.
"playing banjo while the house is empty"
Sounds perfect for everyone!
Best wishes to your daughter.
Thanks.
Daughter B called yesterday to have whoever answered the phone take a personality survey for her psychology class. (It was her dad.) She mentioned she had a chemistry exam yesterday afternoon and said she thought she was ready, having been going to tutoring regularly since the beginning of the semester.
"Take advantage of all the free resources!" is something we told her over and over. I'm glad she's doing it.
Very good. We are still in the "here's why I can't do that" phase, mostly due to tight scheduling. I've told her to go talk to her instructors, even just to introduce herself, establish relationships so she learns she's not in this alone.
Interesting. This aquarium catfish were probably sending out subliminal signals: "Free me and I'll cleanup your waterways!" Clever little (now big) scamps!
“We’ll fix this problem by bringing in the Tasmanian Riders of the Apocalypse Fish and turning them loose! What could go wrong?”
We once had an algae-eater in a fish bowl, but it died on its own. I didn't know they were a real thing in the wild.
Someone forgot to get them to agree not to harrass the manatees.
Good morning. Cool to warm fall day, with a few more leaves falling. The mothership is coving a summit of the so-called BRICS group, a diverse group of nations broadly opposed to the West, but ranging from emerging powers like India and Brazil, to “Axis of Evil” members like Russia, Beijing’s China and Iran.
The real disgrace there was the attendance by UN Sec-Gen Guterres—at least until this happened:
> The Secretary-General of the United Nations, António Guterres, held a conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin on the sidelines of the BRICS summit in Kazan. The discussion addressed the issue of Russia's military aggression against Ukraine.
It is noted that during the meeting with the Kremlin leader, Guterres "reiterated his position that the Russian invasion of Ukraine was in violation of the United Nations Charter and international law." <
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/guterres-tells-putin-at-brics-summit-that-russia-s-invasion-of-ukraine-violates-un-charter/ar-AA1sUoEK
Even at that, it was a bad choice. Dictators rely on the presence of other world leaders beside them for photo ops, which are meant to give them legitimacy.
Unfortunately, countries invaded and taken hostage by the likes of Putin—not to mention people under the boot heels of dictators—are completely abandoned by America, which used to champion their causes. Even though the spineless current administration lacks any clarity of purpose in that regard, the potential replacement “regime” would throw whole peoples into the dictators’ meat grinders in their perverted love (lust?) for authoritarians.
If there ever is a real Godzilla vs. King Kong battle, it will be as a result of a pet someone dumped in the Florida Everglades…
Burmese Python vs. Armored Catfish
Who ya got?
I would have to bet on the python. I don't see the catfish getting the better of that big snake in a fight.
I was looking at it as species vs. species, rather than one-on-one.
I'll take the catfish.
I heard about “walking catfish” in Florida years ago, but these seem like a different group of species. The ones I remember had no armor plating.
You are correct. Walking catfish, Clarias batrachus, are native to Southeast Asia. Their movement on land is more like "walking" than is the "reffling" of the armored catfish, because their bodies are more flexible, and their fins are positioned more aptly.
Good morning. It's Friday here, and I have a case of the sneezes.
As Humphrey Bogart might say "Here's looking ATCHOO! Kid"
Dear CynthiaW,
Glad to see that you persevere in your investigations in the animal kingdom. 😉
Hi JCJ
Having noted your absence, I didn't know if it was a technical glitch or if someone upstairs at TD lacks a sense of humor. But welcome!
Hi JCJ, welcome!
Hi, Jean-Christophe, I've been wondering what happened to you!
Dear Stéphanie,
See my answers to CynthiaW and Phil H. I was sent, figuratively, to Coventry (or Limoges in France).😊
Welcome M Jouffrey. TMD has missed your repartee.
Dear Phil H,
Well, as explained to CynthiaW, it was their choice.😊
That being said, the satire writes itself in US politics these days...
Indeed it does. Maybe the US, by introducing chaos in its politics, is trying to catch up to the number of republics France has had. 🙂
I'm sorry to hear TMD banned you, I never thought you offensive.
Dear Phil H,
Without counting, since 1789, France has had about 15 Constitutions to reflect honestly the changing conditions, by contrast, the USA has used one Constitution to pretend having the same government under about a dozen different guises. 😉
Depending of the whim of barely a handful of people, the same rhing becomes either "constitutional" or "unconstitutional".
It seems that "chaos" has always been part of US politics.
More seriously, you might reflect on the respective trajectories of the extreme rights in Western Europe and in the USA over the last couple of decades: while in Western Europe they have become more moderate, in the USA, they are becoming ever so more extreme.
PS: if I am not mistaken, I was banned for 3 months, but I am not certain that I want to comment again there. Years ago, during a banter session, you "accused" me, if I remember correctly, of being a "foreign interference" in the US election: perhaps The Dispatch wanted me to stop being a " foreign influencer", so that nothing would interfere with the election ...🤪
I don't honestly recall that, if I did it was more "tongue in cheek"
although American politics has always been, shall we say, "different" than in most European countries (even different than in Canada)
Americans have always had a more "independent" streak in relating to a central government, and elites in general, than Europeans
and Americans, to the extent they are religious, are often so as individuals more than as a cultural affectation (as a nation of many religious exiles from European countries with state churches)
which explains, among other things, why Americans tend to be contentious over moral issues like abortion
as for individuality, that also sheds light on Americans valuing individual gun ownership, which puzzles Europeans
oversimplifications, but useful to keep in mind
I do, M. Jouffrey, and I'm glad to hear from you. I was worried.
Dear CynthiaW,
Nothing to be worried about, I was banned from commenting in TMD, under the specious pretext of using ironically a word considered a slur, to represent the opinions of people with whom I strongly disagree. 🙂
I believe George Washington called them "Kentuckians", but given 'The Simpsons' is the source for that, I haven't verified it independently.
Without knowing the details--that sounds like something that right wing media was decrying as "cancel culture" back when that was in vogue. A journalist who spoke a racial slur while talking about it as a racial slur lost his job. I forget the rest of the story.
Sorry you got canceled.
Dear Stephanie,
I was mocking ironically, i.e. as if I agreed with her, the opinions of the flag -flying wife of a Justice of the SCOTUS, regarding homosexuality, and instead of using *** in the middle of the word, word which every reader would have pronounced in his head anyway, I spelled the whole word.
Whether they were looking for a pretext to ban me, as I have been very critical of their boss and some of their writers, or whether they did not like my mocking of a Supreme-Court-adjacent lady, or they objected to my disparaging of flying flags, or whether they disapprove of the original edition of Huckleberry Finn, because some characters there employ words deemed objectionable, it shows indeed the hypocrisy of the right in the USA, not just the extreme right: they are very happy to do themselves what they find unbearable when others do it.🫣
Well, those kinds of things happen on the interwebs. When people would ask where you were, I would say that I hoped you were off on an adventure somewhere.
Here in the basement storage room, as it were, we have chirpy chat.
28 degrees up here. No snow yet. But in the San Juan mountains of Colorado, the Wolf Creek ski area got 21". They are officially open.
No sneezes but sinus headaches have been around for several days.
Morning. That happens a lot when the air dries out with cooler weather—and when a forced-air HVAC system kicks in to heat it.
When your nasal passages dry out, your body kicks the mucus production into high gear to fight back.
That's why they advise people to avoid using decongestants like Dristan, oxymetazoline, etc., or Sudafed for any longer than 3 days. The same mucus-producing mechanism is triggered. So decongestants ultimately end up producing increased congestion.
(I'm retired now, but I can't quit the habit of medical explaining.)
I did not know the body responded to dry air that way. Tremendously helpful information (long story). Many thanks!
That’s perfectly fine. I have the habit of attributing everything as an improvement in my health after radically cutting carbs from my diet. To wit: an unexpected benefit was that my mucous production decreased and my respiration got easier. You wouldn’t think dietary carbohydrate (for those of us sensitive to them and/or the associated elevated levels of insulin) had anything to do with breathing, but in mine and others’ experience, it matters.
All the dust that's been collecting on the heat exchanger burns off, filling the house with burnt dirt nastiness.
That happens to us every fall.
We don't have the furnace on, but the air is very dry and with lots of dust.