Taking a break

Cat sleeping, photos-public-domain.com

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Will be back on Friday -- with cartoons.

-- Marge

Science: diamonds, q-carbon, and other harder-than-diamond substances

Graphite vs. diamonds, Dept. of Geosciences, Penn State University

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It appears that diamonds have been the subject of research around the world for quite a while. And the results coming in say it's not the hardest substance there is and, possibly, not even that rare. As you know, diamond is a form of carbon, the major chemical constituent of most organic matter.

In the U.S. Johns Hopkins University reports Diamonds May Not Be So Rare As Once Thought. Reasons why they are still rare:

For one thing, the prevalence of diamonds near the Earth’s surface – where they can be mined – still depends on relatively rare volcanic magma eruptions that raise them from the depths where they form. For another, the diamonds being considered in these studies are not necessarily the stuff of engagement rings, unless the recipient is equipped with a microscope. Most are only a few microns across and are not visible to the unaided eye.

Reason why they are not rare:

The new research showed that water could produce diamonds as its pH falls naturally – that is, as it becomes more acidic – while moving from one type of rock to another, Sverjensky said.

The finding is one of many in about the last 25 years that expands scientists’ understanding of how pervasive diamonds may be, Sverjensky [Johns Hopkins geochemist] said.

“The more people look, the more they’re finding diamonds in different rock types now,” Sverjensky said. “I think everybody would agree there’s more and more environments of diamond formation being discovered.”

Meanwhile in other labs substances have been discovered and created that are harder than diamond: wurtzite boron nitride and a cubic form of boron nitride and the mineral lonsdaleite; nano-rods of carbon (ACNR); fullerite; and q-carbon.

Of these q-carbon is the most intriguing because it's easy to make, is magnetic at room temperature, and glows when a voltage is applied. Here are links to 4 articles about q-carbon: ExtremeTech, ScienceNews, Live Science, and a more scholarly article from AIP (American Institue of Physics).

To get an idea of the various forms carbon can take, have a look at Wikipedia's article, Allotropes of carbon.

-- Marge

Season's Greeting 2015

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Wishing you all a peaceful holiday season, here's my tribute to it. (Click on the image.)


-- Marge

Some more Christmas resources

Cute snowmen, skyHDwallpaper

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Have you ever heard a song, then had it go round and round in your head most of the day? And if the song has lyrics, you can't remember all of them. Then you're stuck trying to remember. If this happens with the 12 Days of Christmas, you can find the lyrics to this and many songs at MetroLyrics. Here are the first 3 days worth:

On the first day of Christmas
my true love sent to me:
A Partridge in a Pear Tree

On the second day of Christmas
my true love sent to me:
Two Turtle Doves
and a Partridge in a Pear Tree

On the third day of Christmas
my true love sent to me:
Three French Hens
Two Turtle Doves
and a Partridge in a Pear Tree

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desktop Christmas images, hd-wallpapersdownload

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If you can't get enough fresh Christmas images, try this search: "Christmas 2015" or "Christmas wallpaper" in Google images.

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3 Fantastic Christmas Wallpapers, eskipaper

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Merry Christmas to you and yours.

-- Marge

Cartoons: Broken politics and American heart

Today there's a cartoon about Jeb!, one on D. Trump and the GOP, one on the US budget and one looking at the real Americans. They're pretty much self-explanatory and chosen for hints of humor.

Jeb spoke out in the recent Republican debate and there's hope his campaign may be revived. Here's the transcript.

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Dana Summers, The Week 

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Now that Trump has allied himself with the GOP, will the GOP nominate him to run for president?

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Gary Varvel, The Week

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Everybody on the bus, today we ride for free.

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RJ Matson, The Week

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Where do politics and opinion end and the real America begin?

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Pat Bagley, The Week

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-- Marge

DIY: a public domain Christmas

Thomas Nast’s most famous drawing, “Merry Old Santa Claus”,
from the January 1, 1881 edition of Harper’s Weekly. Public Domain Review

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The simple act of sharing a digital book can become complicated in this patent- and copyright-bound age. If a book, story, poem, or film is public domain, you can use and/or alter the material in any way you chose. This is especially helpful if you create websites, digital art, or publish videos. Keep in mind there's a strong line between offering what you create for personal use and monetizing it. Also, if your creation uses elements of another artist's/entity's creation or alters it, the original artist has a right to say how his/her creation is used. Shepard Fairey got in trouble for his use of Mannie Garcia's photo for his Barack Obama Hope poster. Using public domain pieces just works better.

To get started with finding public domain information, take a look at How to Celebrate a Public Domain Christmas at wikiHow. While the article goes a little overboard--you can use any image you want in your own home--it gives some ideas on finding pieces that are in the public domain. But do take care when you make something available to the general public.

For a list of free Christmas plays and stories, there's 10 classic Christmas stories, free to download. A helpful feature of this article is the reference to Project Gutenberg. Something I just learned: "Project Gutenberg is facilitating online publishing by contemporary authors." I also learned that there's a site called WikiLeaks: "WikiLeaks is a not-for-profit media organisation. Our goal is to bring important news and information to the public. We provide an innovative, secure and anonymous way for sources to leak information to our journalists..."

An interesting site that offers pieces in the public domain is The Public Domain Review. In the Collections section many sources are named and content made available. Some of the pieces are the digitized form of documents and works of art that are centuries old. Careful, some of the images can be disturbing. You can select what to view by medium or era.

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Ellis Island immigrants, Dutch children, Public Domain Review

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Finding background music for videos can be time-consuming. Google's Audio Library offers a very nice selection with descriptions including the genre and mood. Also included are precise notes on fair use/rights. You can find this library by logging into your YouTube account and choosing "My Channel" in the upper left menu. Then choose "Video Manager" from the bar above your YouTube banner. Along the left side of the page is a list with "Create" at the bottom. The Create dropdown includes "Audio Library" and "Video Editor." Once on the Audio Library page there are several options to filter its contents. You can download the audio sample selected.


--Marge

Art and design: Christmas websites

Christmas wallpaper, iSkysoft

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Today's mission was to find some of the best non-commercial websites online in the last 2 years. I return empty-handed. If you want to buy something, be inspired with lovely Christmas templates (to buy), or go to church, you're in luck.

The recent lists of best websites mostly tout flat design anyway, which frankly I find flat. That is, without any visual interest. Perhaps the best list about Christmas in general is the Telegraph's Christmas 2015. Christmas.com may hold some treasures for you.

If you want a template for your own website, take a look at Christmas Templates 2015: A List Of 14 Best Templates For Professional Blogs And Websites. If Wordpress is your CMS (content management system) of choice, there's 10 Best WordPress Christmas themes 2015. (Note: some links at Design Maz point to discontinued themes. Go figure.) Here's a live demo of the Christmas Lights theme from TemplateMonster.

The site iSkysoft has a good list of free Christmas images. Many of the links point to wallpapers; these can be resized to be usable as smaller images, as shown here.

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Christmas wallpaper, iSkysoft

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Then there's Elf Yourself. It's up to 1.2 billion visitors and counting. With it you can take a photo with your webcam, save it to your desktop, and send it to Facebook. There are apps for iPhone and Android. (You must agree to the terms and conditions before you can operate the site options.)

-- Marge

Cartoons: Trumped and terrorized

Seems to me Donald Trump's current popularity is due to his talent for saying out loud what many people in America feel but don't have the courage to say. Pretty sad, huh? Today's cartoons look at Trump and terrorism. Also sad is how we're being educated in the language of terrorism: radicalized (also look at the talk page) and suicide belt.

Remember when Trump said that, as President, he would build a wall between the US and Mexico and make Mexico pay for it?

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Mike Luckovich, The Week

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We've progressed from Trump the Petty and Petulant Isolationist to Trump the Terrorist.

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Nate Beeler, The Week

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Meanwhile, 'ISIS' (vs. 'ISIL' vs. 'Islamic State') gloats.

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Walt Handelsman, The Week

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Republicans, especially the Tea Party, have been radicalized for some time now.

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Jack Ohman, The Week

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Meanwhile, Earth bears our misdeeds.

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Mike Keefe, The Week

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I quote Thomas Paine (The Crisis):

THESE are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated.

Terrorism is tyranny from within.


-- Marge

DIY: Digital trash

Lamprecht & Moderegger sign for digital dump, New Scientist

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Most of us have had to clean files off that overloaded hard drive eventually: at least this was true before the days of terabyte drives. But inventory in an MMORPG or a virtual world like Second Life is a different story. In-game inventory space disappears fast; in Second Life carrying around 14,000 items (at last count) can slow you down. And abandoned builds can be pretty unsightly.

There are archeologists that sift through digital trash to learn about the players, according to the New Scientist. It's a fascinating article, well worth the read. One observation that struck me is

Eventually, Lamprecht and Moderegger hit on the idea of getting the rubbish to decay... 

Suddenly the [digital] dump took on a new light. “It was hard to see things disappear; it was like living with daily loss,” says Lamprecht. Some objects were intricate, things people had put care into making. Many were no more than a few months old. “When is a digital object ready to die?” she asks. “It doesn’t look chipped, it doesn’t become spoiled, it doesn’t start to smell bad.”

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Dumpster Drive logo

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Taking the idea of digital trash dumps a step further, there's Dumpster Drive: Exchange Your Digital Trash with Strangers, which operates on the premise that one person's trash may be another person's treasure. Currently it's only available for Mac OSX 10.6+; you can learn more about the application and download it at the Dumpster Drive site. There are some thoughtful comments about it at PCWorld.

If you're really serious about cleaning up your machine, here are 5 tactics for dumping digital trash, proposed by a study at Johns Hopkins University. The study itself is in PDF format and can be found at the Cornell University Library e-print archive. As an aside, I'll bet Google and other portals like Flickr and Tumblr have a lot of digital trash to deal with.


-- Marge

Science: Tasting calcium

Sixth taste discovered: calcium (image source: Dreamstime), Live Science

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A while back my taster was off. No, not my personal wine taster or food taster, but my taste buds. One day I took a calcium tablet on a whim, and, voilà!, the taster was back on course.

Wikipedia has a good article on taste. It name the five basic tastes:  sweetness, sourness, saltiness, bitterness, and umami. Then adds a bit on other qualities that can be perceived:

The basic tastes contribute only partially to the sensation and flavor of food in the mouth—other factors include smell, detected by the olfactory epithelium of the nose; texture, detected through a variety of mechanoreceptors, muscle nerves, etc.; temperature, detected by thermoreceptors; and "coolness" (such as of menthol) and "hotness" (pungency), through chemesthesis.

But why calcium? It seems that in 2008 a sixth 'taste' was discovered: calcium. The research was conducted by Michael Tordoff, a behavioral geneticist at the Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia. He says about the taste of calcium:

"Calcium tastes calcium-y," Tordoff said. "There isn't a better word for it. It is bitter, perhaps even a little sour. But it's much more because there are actual receptors for calcium, not just bitter or sour compounds."

Apparently a taste receptor for calcium

... makes sense for our survival, since the mineral is key to cell biology and good bones. Low calcium intakes have been implicated in several chronic diseases in people, including osteoporosis, obesity and hypertension.

"Many animals have a specific calcium appetite, which implies they can detect the mineral and consume sufficient quantities of it to meet their needs," Tordoff said.

ScienceDaily also reported on this topic in That Tastes ... Sweet? Sour? No, It's Definitely Calcium!

In 2012 Nature published a scholarly article that essentially followed-up on the discovery. It is titled "T1R3: A human calcium taste receptor." While the article is fairly technical, it make a thought-provoding statement in the discussion:

We are often asked whether calcium is a basic taste, akin to sweet, sour, salty, bitter and umami. Our demonstration of a receptor in the oral cavity fulfills a universally accepted criterion for a basic taste but there is little consensus about what other criteria must be met. For example, is a specific taste quality or a central representation required? The “basic taste” concept is under fire. It cannot deal well with observations that the tastes of complex carbohydrates are bland to humans but avidly preferred by many other species, that dozens of receptors all produce a unitary sensation of bitterness, or that there is apparently no region encoding sour taste in primary taste cortex. Without a better definition we cannot determine whether calcium is a basic taste. Nevertheless, our results showing that calcium and lactisole interact with T1R3 establish T1R3 as a calcium taste receptor, and consequently provide the first evidence for calcium taste transduction in the human oral cavity.

-- Marge

Cartoons: is it the world or our perceptions that are warped?

Today's mix includes comments on global warming and the Paris climate talks, college youth today, and a "new" definition of the Nativity, which may have been the definition all along.

No doubt Earth is in a desperate place right now, not necessarily from global warming alone; there's terrorism, closed minds, and greed heading a list of problems to numerous to name.

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Adam Zyglis, The Week

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Representing developing nations as Pigpen from Charles Schultz' Peanuts may seem to be in poor taste, but his character had a lot of depth to it. However, on the surface, Pigpen fits the Western nations' view of the undeveloped. At least that's how I see it. This week food was on the agenda at the Paris climate talks.

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Bob Gorrell, The Week

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That somewhat uncertain high school graduate recently sent off to college may return a stranger and a noxious one at that.

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David Horsey, The Week

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Does making the Christmas Nativity an all-white program make it better or just more comfortable?

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Mike Luckovich, The Week

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-- Marge

DIY: Playing with LED lights

The term "led lights" brings up a mix of results on Google. Then the questions arise: do I mean those stick on lights/lamps, or those small electronic components, or string lights, and how do I get the search results I want? Best answer: keep trying until you see something useful.

With the idea of using LED lights for projects, maybe Christmas projects, I found 3 different approaches.

First, there's sparkleballs using strings lights, plastic cups, and zip ties. You can find some instructions at instructables.

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Sparkleballs, instructables

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Another approach is to buy ready-made single LED lights, often called stick on, and devise new ways to use them. For an example of a not-a-string light project, take a look at Loew Cornell's LED lantern. Loew Cornell has a line of mason jar, aka Ball jar, craft items call Transform Mason. You can find some at Jo-Ann and Amazon.

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LED lantern project, Loew-Cornell

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Another approach is wiring LEDs. This can get complicated, so here's a progression of articles on working with LEDs. From eHow there's How to Design a Simple LED Circuit. ElectroSchematics has a wealth of LED projects and circuits. Instructables has a section on LEDs. I've bought LEDs from Super Bright LEDs and they're good to deal with; they have a section on LED Lights For Artistic Projects.

Because I got fixated on finding a good LED-music sync project, here are 3 that look interesting, all from instructables: How to Make an LED Ambient Mood Light: A Beginner Tutorial, Arduino RGB LED Music Lights, and Beat Sync (fairly complex).

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elevenbytes, LED mood light, instructables

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Thanks to Brit & Co for some leads on LED projects.


-- Marge

Art: exploring Bon Exposé

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A recent post on Google+ led to my discovery of the site Bon Exposé.  In August 2012 Leodor Selenier announced their new site.

There are many delights to be found there, such as art installations, 3D graphics, graphic design, and photography. In a section called Inspiration, there's a subsection called Movies, where there are trailers and reviews of films about art and artists. "Surviving Picasso" is one I missed.

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Installation artist Janet Echelman is present; there are some striking photos.

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Janet Echelman, "Line Drawing," Bon Expose

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I particularly like the way they've handled 3D art, making the effort to assign a genre to each artist's work. One of Andrea Bertaccini's pieces is below.

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3D Hyper-Realism: Andrea Bertaccini, Bon Expose

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Another featured work is "Mog's Christmas Calamity." Here's a how-it-was-made video with an introduction by author Judith Kerr.

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If you're an artist you can request that your work be shown at Bon Exposé. Directions are available on the Submissions page.


-- Marge

Cartoons: giving refuge

Today's mix is about the Syrian refugees and the US's refusal to admit them; it also questions who/ what the real security threats are.

The Syrians really need a safe space, mostly from politics and provocateurs.

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Nate Beeler, The Week

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The view of the GOP's City upon a hill is definitely dark.

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Chan Lowe, The Week

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Hey, Congress, while you're debating how to vet security threats from refugees, how about looking at the real and present threats from within.

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Tom Toles, The Week

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-- Marge

Giving thanks

Squirrel image from The Unseen Words Project

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Wishing you all a grand Thanksgiving.

--Marge

Science: possible new route to fusion

Tri Alpha Energy plasma accelerator, Physics.org

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Time Magazine recently published an intriguing article about man's quest for clean energy in the form of fusion: Inside the Quest for Fusion, Clean Energy’s Holy Grail (subscription needed).

In Lev Grossman's very readable article, he reports that startup Tri Alpha Energy is using two linear plasma accelerators pointed at each other to achieve results that larger and far more expensive tokamaks have yet to produce. Furthermore, Tri Alpha Energy will use hydrogen nuclei and boron-11, not the conventional deuterium and tritium, to fuel the reaction. Boron requires a temperature of 3 billion degrees Celsius to fuse. So far Tri Alpha has produced a ball of superheated hydrogen plasma for five milliseconds, a record in the fusion effort. Before I move on, here's Lev's description of attempting fusion:

The heat and pressure necessary are extreme. Essentially you’re trying to replicate conditions in the heart of the sun, where its colossal mass–330,000 times that of Earth–creates crushing pressure, and where the temperature is 17 million degrees Celsius. In fact, because the amounts of fuel are so much smaller, the temperature at which fusion is feasible on Earth starts at around 100 million degrees Celsius.

That’s the first problem. The second problem is that your fuel is in the form of a plasma, and plasma, as mentioned above, is weird. It’s a fourth state of matter, neither liquid nor solid nor gas. When you torture plasma with temperatures and pressures like these, it becomes wildly unstable and writhes like a cat in a sack. So not only do you have to confine and control it, and heat it and squeeze it; you have to do all that without touching it, because at 100 million degrees, this is a cat that will instantly vaporize solid matter.

News (with a skeptical tone) of Tri Alpha's recent milestone was published by Physics.org in Tri Alpha Energy reportedly makes important breakthrough in developing fusion reactor. It's important to note that the physics community has a lot of tokamaks and funding to defend. Here's the link to Tri Alpha Energy's website.

For information on plasma acceleration, take a look at Oxford University's page on plasma accelerators. Note that a laser beam qualifies as a particle beam. Overturned scientific explanation may be good news for nuclear fusion (2011) talks about new information on the hydrogen-boron reaction.

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Electron injection ramp, Oxford University-Physics Dept.

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-- Marge

Cartoons: only the 2016 GOP presidential race is funny (and that not so much)

Today's comments include Bernie Sanders on climate change and terrorism, ISIS, a no-Syrians policy in America, innocent Muslim bystanders, and the 2012 vs. 2015 presidential races.

While some scoff, Bernie has a good point and doubles down on [the] climate change-terrorism link in a CBS news piece, which reported:

"If we are going to see an increase in drought, in flood, and extreme weather disturbances as a result of climate change, what that means is that people all over the world are going to be fighting over limited natural resources," the Vermont senator said Sunday on CBS' "Face the Nation," elaborating on an argument he made during the CBS News Democratic debate Saturday night. "If there is not enough water, if there is not enough land to grow your crops, then you're going to see migrations of people fighting over land that will sustain them. And that will lead to international conflict."

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Chip Bok, The Week

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I must admit it feels good to reduce ISIS to cockroaches.

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David Horsey, The Week

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The New York Times reports: G.O.P. Governors Vow to Close Doors to Syrian Refugees. I take exception to the word 'prudent' in the video; sounds like doublespeak to me.

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Jack Ohman, The Week

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Molenbeek, a Muslim community in Belgium, is where Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the suspected architect of the Paris attacks, lived. The residents of  Molenbeek are telling us, 'We are not terrorists'.

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Chan Lowe, The Week

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I keep wondering, if I were to vote for a Republican candidate, who could I possibly vote for?

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John Cole, The Week

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-- Marge

Out sick

Cat's Eye Nebula, HubbleSite

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The attacks in Paris may have been the last straw, they seem to have pierced to heart: so many people going out to have a good time or enjoy a meal together and finding terror.

At any rate now I have a cold, which often happens when I'm depressed. Besides Golden Seal (or its substitute Oregon Grape), Elecampane, germ-fighting essential oils, and rest, I seek out things that make me feel better.

This one did.

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Marge

What is there to say...

I am Paris, a memorial, The Nation

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...when 8 attackers (according to ISIS) kill over 100 Parisians in the name of Allah.

-- Marge

Cartoons: safe spaces vs. no safe space

Glenn McCoy, The Week

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Today's cartoons look at 'safe spaces' vs. the constant barrage of conservative hatespeak.

First of all what's a 'safe space'? Basically it's about people In College and Hiding From Scary Ideas. According to author Judith Shulevitz:

Safe spaces are an expression of the conviction, increasingly prevalent among college students, that their schools should keep them from being “bombarded” by discomfiting or distressing viewpoints. Think of the safe space as the live-action version of the better-known trigger warning, a notice put on top of a syllabus or an assigned reading to alert students to the presence of potentially disturbing material.

The Wall Street Journal gives us the Roots of the ‘Safe Space’ Controversy.

Some would argue that college is a place for expanding one's mind and world view. At least that's what it used to be. Now college is where you get training for a profession, then try to get hired.

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Nate Beeler, The Week

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Then there's everyday life in America.

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David Horsey, The Week

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-- Marge