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Link Dump


There's been a lot going on out there on the world wide web. Some of these links come from my own surfin' expeditions and others comes as suggestions from friends and fellow cyber travelers. I absolutely guarantee you won't care for all of them, so I shall add some prose to guide your clicking finger.

The first is a series of color coded maps of racial and ethnic diversity in U.S. cities. These are flickr photos from a gentleman named Eric Fischer. Easy to access and probably more fascinating when you check out the cities you know well. For me two interesting finds: there really is a Chinatown in San Francisco (third row, first map) -- look for the really, really green blob. And Detroit (second row, fourth map), sure there are a lot of racially segregated places all around the country, the original idea behind these maps was to demonstrate "homophily" which is the theory that we group together not because of segregation but because we want to be around those who share our group traits. You decide how that explains your favorite big city or not.

Next a quick science link answering the age old question about the condition of Schrodinger's cat. A good friend and cat lover noted that Schrodinger actually overlooked the fact that the cat is also an observer, dog people don't get that.

On a lighter note, this is came to me entitled Dating 1961, when I forwarded it to my high school friend it most reminded me of, she responded: "I never came home after twenty minutes." Damn, I should have dated her.

Touted as The Best Motivational Video, I suggest you not check it out unless you are a fan of Fight Club. Personally, I think I would take a step back from anyone truly motivated by this but you decide, I've been wrong before. This was sent to me by two friends on the same day, so I took notice.

For those in my generation who never really got it what our parents felt when they saw us listening to Black Sabbath, watching Mick Jagger and growing our hair ever longer... Watch this offering from Evil Boy and feel the generational disconnect. For anyone who started to watch the motivational video above and turned it off -- do not even start watching this one. BTW, there is a 30 second commercial lead-in not part of the video.

Finally for something truly uplifting, if nothing else today has hooked you... try this three minute gymnastic dance video. Even if you are not into modern dance, the gymnastics in this piece are truly spectacular. Wish I could move like that.

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Another little Milestone


This is the 160th post of this year on my little blog here, that number equals my output of last year, which was the most prior to today, err tomorrow, I mean the next one, probably Monday. Now I do admit to being a much more prolific poster when I wrote and edited PokerBlog.com. I produced poker content there at a rate of twenty posts a month; but as they say that was then this is not.

Even though I use this here blog as a daily writing exercise to keep me sharp for larger, longer projects; I did sorta have a goal for this year, which was 182.5 posts, you know every other day. It now appears I will exceed that number should I continue at my current pace. I hadn't really thought much about these numbers until I went to one of my good friend's blog the other day and found a post that simply said: Away.

How simple, how clear, how appropriate, just away.

I too wish to be away.

So I think I am going to take a hiatus from blogging . . . but not just yet. I'm thinking the end of the year. I am even considering a complete timeout from cyber-space including email, skype, facebook, twitter and lovely ladies over sixty dot com. I'm thinking of spending a couple of weeks with a short stack of books, just reading with a cat curled by my side. Yes going off grid.

But not yet, I have a mini list of items I have ignored while gazing at the western skies the last couple of weeks; those shall be coming to you soon.
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A Doh! Sunset

Just forty-five minutes before sunset the cloud layer lifts and there is the bridge with a light blue and pink sky behind it. This is the sunset that will align perfectly with the bridge, lo and behold this might actually happen!

Slowly the golden streaks of sunlight intensify the overcast holds high above the Bay, even with my meager little camera this could be the event I have been blathering about for weeks. 


Yes! A solar appearance and with this angle of decline the sun will appear to be setting right smack in the middle of the bridge, it will actually be cradled between the two towers. Tolkienian prose leaps to mind.

Wait! What is that large dark bank of clouds. Quick check the weather website. Weekend storm moving in -- marine layer 35 miles off shore. Quick mathematical calculation: marine layer 35 miles away, sun 92,875,414 miles away. Hmm, that is going to cause a juxtapositional problem.

Damn! Foiled again by water vapor.
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One Last Weather Post

With the forecast steady for partly cloudy days and evening fog followed by weekend showers, I will make this the last lament about missed sun, moon and bridge observations.
The shot above is from last night just before sunset, framed in that dim pink swath just above the water is the Golden Gate Bridge, trust me. The shot below is from about fifteen minutes later the very faint line across the sun is one of the cables from the bridge. Yes to the naked eye and the binocular assisted view it was a very nice image.

Next post, I shall return to those thrilling days of yesteryear when I blather on about whatever comes to mind, heart, soul or spleen.

Oh and the moonrise was brilliant last night, I was out in North Berkeley and got a perfect view of the gibbous moon slipping in and out of the high clouds but that was far to the east, by the time the moon had swung across the sky to my windowed western view, twas nary a shimmer behind the grey.

Twilight Time, to dream awhile
In veils of deepening gloom
As fantasy strides over colourful skies
The fog disappearing from view
Moody Blues, Twilight
Days of Future Passed
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If the Sun Sets in the Darkness . . .

This is the view from my window this morning, which provides you with all the information you need about the moonset early this morning. Unfortunately the weather predictors are not encouraging about our chances for more celestial dazzlement this week. The much anticipated full moon settling over San Francisco will occur this Friday and Saturday, which as you can see below is not apparently going to be prime viewer weather.

TODAYTOMORROWTHUFRISAT6-10 DAY

Partly Cloudy
Sunny
Partly Cloudy
Few Showers
Showers		Extended Forecast
High: 73°
Low: 51°
High: 69°
Low: 50°
High: 62°
Low: 51°
High: 64°
Low: 51°
High: 65°
Low: 52°


The first sunset through the Golden Gate narrows happened yesterday, you will not notice in my shot below any sort of bridge or the golden opening to the Pacific. A near fifty mile long fog bank crept in during the late afternoon yesterday to fill San Francisco Bay from end to end.


I would mention one final time that I really am fond of this type of weather. The rain and fog are fascinating for me, my spirits are lifting by the damp and chilled weather, it's like be wrapped in a cocoon the size of the universe. Sounds are muffled, perceptions shrink and we are forced to go on internal sensors. Perhaps in the next few days we will get a glimpse of the astronomical workings between the clouds, if not, I shall attempt to entertain and minister from the internal microcosm.

Pinprick holes in a colourless sky
Let insipid figures of light pass by
The mighty light of ten thousand suns
Challenges infinity and is soon gone
Night time, to some a brief interlude
To others the fear of solitude

Brave Helios, wake up your steeds
Bring the warmth the countryside needs
Moody Blues The Day Begins
from Days of Future Passed
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A Little Lunar Physics

With my celestial gazing blotted out by the grey weather again last night, I turn to a bit of chat about astronomical angles with some solar/lunar synchronicity tossed in for leavening. As I am sure most of you know, but may not often contemplate, the moon has no light of its own. Earth's satellite is a reflective surface, what we see as the illuminated moon is completely solar energy cast back at us.

So when we see or don't see the new moon, it is because the moon is between the earth and the sun. All the light of the sun is on the far side of the moon, which contrary to what Pink Floyd is thought to have said, is not the dark side of the moon at all. At the other apex of earth/sun/moon alignment, a full moon occurs when the earth is between the sun and the moon with the full illumination of the sun on the earth facing moon countenance. The graphic below illustrates these facts of celestial physics. 

When the earth lines up exactly between the sun and the moon, we get a lunar eclipse and I would be remise if I did not remind you that this year on the winter solstice (Dec. 21st) there will be a total lunar eclipse visible in most of North America.

There is no dark side of the moon really. Matter of fact it's all dark.
Pink Floyd Eclipse from Dark Side of the Moon
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Whether San Francisco Weather

Robert Burns

After several autumnal heat waves, true fall weather has arrived here in the Bay area. With the lowering to shivering temperatures comes overcast, undercast, fog banks and assorted sky-sea phenomenon. All of these have combined to make my celestial observations more or less muted the last forty-eight hours. The sun has set into high stacks of clouds the last two evenings, the moonset on Friday was an hour early into a high fog bank and last night there was nary a glow from behind the overcast. Today we awoke to grey with a smattering of gray. I was worried that the full moonset next weekend would be blotted out by the dawn but unless we have another change in weather patterns I will miss this highly anticipated week of solar and lunar settings altogether.

I did manage one shot of the setting sun just north of the golden gate narrows last night, you can clearly make out the Golden Gate Bridge. Hope that was not the last sunset this week.

Beauty I'd always missed
With these eyes before
Just what the truth is
I can't say anymore
Moody Blues
Nights in White Satin
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