COVID-19 Statistics

Here are a few summary statistics of the COVID-19 pandemic. Data is from worldometers (worldwide data) and the NYT (U.S. and Arizona data). These plots will be updated approximately daily, at least until the pandemic is over. Click on the … Continue reading

Protected: The Flute

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Musings on $\pi$ Day

1. The Ubiquity of $\pi$      or, Life, the Universe, and Everything: A Simple Statement of Fact $\pi$ is everywhere you look. It is even the case that there is $\pi$ in the sky. We need $\pi$ in order to live … Continue reading

Snow, Mountains, Telescope

Snow on Flagstaff’s San Francisco Peaks, and a picture of the 61-inch telescope at the U.S. Naval Observatory — Flagstaff Station. Click on an image to enlarge; right-click to open the full-resolution version in a new tab. Canon G3 X, … Continue reading

Moonlit Snowscape

The Moon illuminates a snowy scene (my back yard) in the pre-dawn darkness. This is an 80 second exposure at 35mm f/3.2 and ISO 125. The yellow-gold color on the background trees is from low-pressure sodium streetlights on the next … Continue reading

Twilight Dome Fun

Here are a few images from goofing around yesterday evening with the NOFS 61-inch telescope, dome, and twilight. Images were taken with a Canon G3 X at ISO 125 on 2019-02-07 MST. Click on an image to enlarge; right-click to … Continue reading

If Aesop Were a Modern-Day Scientist, This Would Be a Fable.

When you wake up, get up. When you get up, do something. —one of my favorite quotes, from Viola Babbitt Wake up. Sit with the cat for a bit. Because Cat Time. “Is necessary, hooman. Sit.” Wait for cat to … Continue reading

The Bear and the Butterfingers, the Exploding Dinosaur, Fred, (and Fred, and Fred,) and the Orb Weavers

An always delightfully engaging friend asks of the Hive Mind on Facebook: What is the first wildlife you remember encountering in the actual wild (wild is broadly meant here–not a zoo)? Maybe don’t count squirrels. Or maybe do. I’m pretty … Continue reading

Twilight Jewels: Moon and Venus

I took these from up on the catwalk of the U.S. Naval Observatory Flagstaff Station‘s 61-inch astrometric telescope in Flagstaff, on the evening of 2018-04-17. In all, I got 43 decent exposures, from which I picked four that I liked … Continue reading

Foibles in Finding Fault

A driverless car hit a woman who was walking her bicycle across a street at night. Numerous articles, some less useful than others, but also some more helpful to a better understanding, describe this incident. For example, in order of … Continue reading

Facts Matter: We Know Why Only the U.S. Suffers Frequent Mass Shootings

For the umpteen-gazillionth time, here is a known fact: America has more mass shootings — more gun murders — than any other country on Earth, because America has more guns per person than any other country on Earth[3,6,8,11,10,12,13,15]. Our mass … Continue reading

cretins, fucktards(*), and liars

Trigger warning: I am about to use facts. If you are a conservative, the following will be foreign to your way of thinking and therefore will induce apoplexy. You should probably stop reading NOW. Looky there, my pay check has … Continue reading

My Dear Moore Letter

Hey, Roy Moore, Here are the numbers (WaPo, NYT, and all manner of Fake News): Jones……671,151 Moore……650,436 write-in….22,819 military…..8,700 You lost. It was not a fair contest, since you Republicans prevented thousands upon thousands of those people from exercising their constitutional … Continue reading

Red, White, and Green, and the Children Scream, and it is Impossible to Breathe

Here is one man’s poem. His poetry is not easy to listen to. It is poetry, which means shining a light on uncomfortable things, dark things, things which are hard to look at. But we are human, most of us, … Continue reading