Cape Verde sits about 350 miles off the coast of Africa, due west of Senegal. Normally with a tiny island this would probably be another 'arrrrrggghhhh it's just tourism blather' complaining from me. Not here. NASA takes an interest in Cape Verde, because a lot of Atlantic hurricanes form around that area. They have a thing called the Hurricane and Severe Storms Sentinel- HS3 for short- which is an unmanned drone plane they've been sending over the Atlantic on a five-year mission to understand how hurricanes form and how their intensity changes relative to that region. Previous like-minded studies have been hampered by small sample size: there are only so many hurricanes that form in any one area in any one year.
Cape Verde is being considered as a target study area this year when HS3 is sent up in August, as it was when one of those previous studies occurred in 2006 and when Hurricane Nadine was examined last year, as well as a number of other studies over the years, as Cape Verde-type hurricanes, which typically form just south of Cape Verde, stemming from air pressure waves in the African savannah, can easily be the most destructive of the season because of how much distance they have to build up strength before hitting land. Among others, Hugo (1989), Janet (1955), Ivan (2004), Gilbert (1988), Andrew (1992), and the Galveston hurricanes of 1900 and 1915 (yes, there were two; the 1900 one is the one you're more familiar with) all were Cape Verde-types.
Cape Verde itself doesn't get anything more than the odd rainstorm out of them.
Friday, May 31, 2013
Thursday, May 30, 2013
This Is Your Fault, Internet
A cat video has now gotten a movie deal. I blame you. I blame all of you and you're not ashamed of yourself at all.
Wednesday, May 29, 2013
This Shortcut Not Recommended
It's been 60 years now since Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay became the first people to summit Mount Everest. The climb is still challenging, and as we've noted previously, the mountain still can easily assert its authority as strongly as ever, but so many people flock to it these days, and mountaineering has advanced so far since the days of Hillary and Norgay, that Deseret News has called it "the world's largest traffic jam". 52% of the attempts on Everest made in 2012 were successful, compared with a mere 18% of successful attempts in 1990. A study reports that at least part of this is driven by a desire by each climber to get to the summit no matter what, even if another member of the party has died. In non-commercial expeditions, after a party member dies, about 37.8% of attempts are successful, but in commercial expeditions, 80.6% are. The explanation is that if there's some sort of glory on the line, climbers will just leave their partymates to rot, while non-commercial parties will turn back and at least try to mourn the fallen climber's death. NBC News tells the story of David Sharp, a solo climber who collapsed and died 300 meters from the summit in 2006, and who was passed without assistance by 40 other climbers who ignored his plight because, hey, the summit was only 300 meters away.
I didn't know the 52% stat last year, but it's certainly instructive now that I have it. It's just not a very impressive feat to summit Everest anymore. Be rich enough and not completely out of shape and you'll probably get up there now. It's at the point where it's news when an 81-year-old man decides to turn back. On one single day in 2012, about 230 people got to the peak. In one day. The biggest hazard is no longer making it up. The biggest hazard is waiting your turn in line in the death zone while the hundreds of people ahead of you take their turn at the summit. The second biggest hazard is all the garbage the climbers leave up there, including oxygen tanks, tents, the bodies of those that died on the way, and the- and I'm not making this phrase up- "pyramids of human excrement", which causes even more Everest expeditions that have the sole aim of cleaning up after everyone else.
If you want your Everest summit to gain any real attention these days, it has to stand out from the others somehow. It's not enough to simply summit. You have to be the oldest to summit- the 81-year-old man, Min Badahur Surchan, was attempting to reclaim the title of oldest summiter from 80-year-old Yuichiro Mura, who had made it up the previous week. (Reclaim. As in, Surchan had previously made it up at age 78 and was trying to do it again.) Or the youngest to summit. Or climb it while missing a limb, or climb it carrying a particular heavy thing.
Or you could make a world-record BASE jump off the damn thing, as Russian Valery Rozov recently did. That ought to get some airplay. (And to answer your question: yes, of course he was sponsored by Red Bull. As he was when he did the same thing off of Shivling, another Himalayan peak.)
If one wishes to make a truly impressive climb, there are other mountains far more challenging and far more deadly. The second-highest peak, K2, has killed 19.7% of climbers from 1990 to May 1012, when Mental Floss prepared a list of five mountains deadlier than Everest. (Everest's rate is about 5%.) And it's a lot less crowded- as of then, 230 people had summited K2, compared with the 3,500-and-climbing that have scrambled up Everest. The third-highest, Kangchenjunga, has killed 22% of climbers since the 1990's and permitted only 187 summits. Annapurna, tenth-highest, had been peaked by only 130 people, with a death rate similar to K2's (though people seem to prefer quoting Annapurna's all-time death rate instead, which gets up towards the 40% mark). The people climbing these peaks are not your adventure tourists with more money than sense. The people attempting K2 and Annapurna are the people who know exactly what they're doing and get clobbered by the mountain anyway.
I doubt there's a line for that. That's really for the best.
I didn't know the 52% stat last year, but it's certainly instructive now that I have it. It's just not a very impressive feat to summit Everest anymore. Be rich enough and not completely out of shape and you'll probably get up there now. It's at the point where it's news when an 81-year-old man decides to turn back. On one single day in 2012, about 230 people got to the peak. In one day. The biggest hazard is no longer making it up. The biggest hazard is waiting your turn in line in the death zone while the hundreds of people ahead of you take their turn at the summit. The second biggest hazard is all the garbage the climbers leave up there, including oxygen tanks, tents, the bodies of those that died on the way, and the- and I'm not making this phrase up- "pyramids of human excrement", which causes even more Everest expeditions that have the sole aim of cleaning up after everyone else.
If you want your Everest summit to gain any real attention these days, it has to stand out from the others somehow. It's not enough to simply summit. You have to be the oldest to summit- the 81-year-old man, Min Badahur Surchan, was attempting to reclaim the title of oldest summiter from 80-year-old Yuichiro Mura, who had made it up the previous week. (Reclaim. As in, Surchan had previously made it up at age 78 and was trying to do it again.) Or the youngest to summit. Or climb it while missing a limb, or climb it carrying a particular heavy thing.
Or you could make a world-record BASE jump off the damn thing, as Russian Valery Rozov recently did. That ought to get some airplay. (And to answer your question: yes, of course he was sponsored by Red Bull. As he was when he did the same thing off of Shivling, another Himalayan peak.)
If one wishes to make a truly impressive climb, there are other mountains far more challenging and far more deadly. The second-highest peak, K2, has killed 19.7% of climbers from 1990 to May 1012, when Mental Floss prepared a list of five mountains deadlier than Everest. (Everest's rate is about 5%.) And it's a lot less crowded- as of then, 230 people had summited K2, compared with the 3,500-and-climbing that have scrambled up Everest. The third-highest, Kangchenjunga, has killed 22% of climbers since the 1990's and permitted only 187 summits. Annapurna, tenth-highest, had been peaked by only 130 people, with a death rate similar to K2's (though people seem to prefer quoting Annapurna's all-time death rate instead, which gets up towards the 40% mark). The people climbing these peaks are not your adventure tourists with more money than sense. The people attempting K2 and Annapurna are the people who know exactly what they're doing and get clobbered by the mountain anyway.
I doubt there's a line for that. That's really for the best.
Tuesday, May 28, 2013
A Note Regarding Ivory Soap
About an hour ago, if you follow me on Twitter (@aallermann), you may have seen a tweet from me that read:
"LOL! RT if you know people like the 5th mom in this#IvorySoap video: [link deleted] via @Ivory"
This is a markedly different tone of writing than anything I ever write. For one, I don't use LOL. Second, I have never asked anyone to retweet anything. Never done it once.
More importantly, at the time of the tweet, I did not have a window open to Twitter. I was watching the most recent episode of Strip Search. I am fairly positive that my account has been hacked. By Ivory. So that they could tweet an ad.
The subsequent posts, where I'm seen mentioning that "#ivorysoap got its name because it's made from elephant tusks. Poached fresh every morning!" and "Once, a crazed murderer broke into the #ivorysoap factory carrying several garbage bags. They never found the bodies of his victims."? Those WERE me.
I've just changed my Twitter password.
In conclusion, Ivory Soap has been found at several archeological sites in the Middle East, but every single time without exception, there has also been a pentagram and an intricately-carved sigil nearby, and the archaeologists frequently report hearing faint moans of agony that have given them nightmares for weeks afterward.
"LOL! RT if you know people like the 5th mom in this
This is a markedly different tone of writing than anything I ever write. For one, I don't use LOL. Second, I have never asked anyone to retweet anything. Never done it once.
More importantly, at the time of the tweet, I did not have a window open to Twitter. I was watching the most recent episode of Strip Search. I am fairly positive that my account has been hacked. By Ivory. So that they could tweet an ad.
The subsequent posts, where I'm seen mentioning that "
I've just changed my Twitter password.
In conclusion, Ivory Soap has been found at several archeological sites in the Middle East, but every single time without exception, there has also been a pentagram and an intricately-carved sigil nearby, and the archaeologists frequently report hearing faint moans of agony that have given them nightmares for weeks afterward.
Monday, May 27, 2013
A Brand New Way To Flunk The Spelling Bee
Tomorrow begins the 2013 National Spelling Bee. The televised portion- the part you're familiar with, where every speller takes a turn and it's single-elimination- that doesn't begin quite yet. That will come on Thursday. Tomorrow begins the three-day preliminaries, with a computer test of the 281 regional qualifiers
This year's roster is here. As usual, Wisconsin only sends a single speller; the qualifier through the Wisconsin State Journal acts as a de facto state championship. This year, the qualifier is Aisha Khan of Madison's Spring Harbor Middle School, one of the bee's usual glut of spellers with origins in India. India itself isn't sending anyone, but there are qualifiers from American Samoa, the Bahamas, Canada's two qualifiers, China's two qualifiers, "Europe" (who sends Anuk Dayaprema of Vicenza, Italy), Ghana, Guam, Jamaica, Japan, Puerto Rico, South Korea, and the US Virgin Islands. Anyone who speaks English is eligible.
The way the preliminaries work has changed this year. Last year, the Round 1 computerized test gave you 50 words to spell, of which only 25 were actually scored. This year, you're expected to start knowing definitions, so as to discourage rote learning. It's no longer enough to just be able to recite a bunch of letters; now you have to know what those letters mean as well. So in the test this year, you're first given 24 words to spell, of which 12 count. Then you are given 24 multiple-choice definition questions, of which, again, only 12 count. Each scored question answered correctly gets you one point. You are then given a single definition question which is scored as if it were in Round 2, and then another scored as Round 3. What that means is that those are worth three points apiece. Your optimal total here is 30 points.
The actual Round 2 and Round 3 take place on Wednesday: each of the 281 spellers gets up and spells one word per round, again each worth three points. These words all come from a booklet called Spell It! that Scripps-Howard has previously distributed. Miss your word in either round, and you get the bell and get the hook. This will be viewable on ESPN3, ESPN's online coverage, beginning at 8 AM Eastern.
After that's all accomplished, a maximum of 50 spellers advance. It's top 50 minus ties: if 49th, 50th and 51st have tied after the prelims, all three of them are bounced.
About two hours after the cut, the semifinals start with another computer test on Wednesday night. It works like the preliminaries, except the 12 nonscoring words and vocabulary definitions are removed, leaving 12 words and 12 definitions that are all scored at a point a pop. A Round 5 and Round 6 vocabulary question is added to the computer test, again worth three points each. On Thursday afternoon, starting at 2 PM Eastern on ESPN2, we go down the line on the microphone again for the Round 5 and Round 6 three-point words. And as always, miss a word on the microphone and you go home.
After that's done, the total scores from all six rounds are used to determine the finalists. The field is cut to a maximum of 12 and a minimum of 9. (If it happens that the field is going to be cut to a smaller field than that, the bee officials will get together and figure out if they can accommodate the next tier of spellers. If so, those spellers advance as well; if not, they just plow on shorthanded.)
From there, we finally get to the spelling gauntlet you know and love at 8 PM Eastern on ESPN.
This year's roster is here. As usual, Wisconsin only sends a single speller; the qualifier through the Wisconsin State Journal acts as a de facto state championship. This year, the qualifier is Aisha Khan of Madison's Spring Harbor Middle School, one of the bee's usual glut of spellers with origins in India. India itself isn't sending anyone, but there are qualifiers from American Samoa, the Bahamas, Canada's two qualifiers, China's two qualifiers, "Europe" (who sends Anuk Dayaprema of Vicenza, Italy), Ghana, Guam, Jamaica, Japan, Puerto Rico, South Korea, and the US Virgin Islands. Anyone who speaks English is eligible.
The way the preliminaries work has changed this year. Last year, the Round 1 computerized test gave you 50 words to spell, of which only 25 were actually scored. This year, you're expected to start knowing definitions, so as to discourage rote learning. It's no longer enough to just be able to recite a bunch of letters; now you have to know what those letters mean as well. So in the test this year, you're first given 24 words to spell, of which 12 count. Then you are given 24 multiple-choice definition questions, of which, again, only 12 count. Each scored question answered correctly gets you one point. You are then given a single definition question which is scored as if it were in Round 2, and then another scored as Round 3. What that means is that those are worth three points apiece. Your optimal total here is 30 points.
The actual Round 2 and Round 3 take place on Wednesday: each of the 281 spellers gets up and spells one word per round, again each worth three points. These words all come from a booklet called Spell It! that Scripps-Howard has previously distributed. Miss your word in either round, and you get the bell and get the hook. This will be viewable on ESPN3, ESPN's online coverage, beginning at 8 AM Eastern.
After that's all accomplished, a maximum of 50 spellers advance. It's top 50 minus ties: if 49th, 50th and 51st have tied after the prelims, all three of them are bounced.
About two hours after the cut, the semifinals start with another computer test on Wednesday night. It works like the preliminaries, except the 12 nonscoring words and vocabulary definitions are removed, leaving 12 words and 12 definitions that are all scored at a point a pop. A Round 5 and Round 6 vocabulary question is added to the computer test, again worth three points each. On Thursday afternoon, starting at 2 PM Eastern on ESPN2, we go down the line on the microphone again for the Round 5 and Round 6 three-point words. And as always, miss a word on the microphone and you go home.
After that's done, the total scores from all six rounds are used to determine the finalists. The field is cut to a maximum of 12 and a minimum of 9. (If it happens that the field is going to be cut to a smaller field than that, the bee officials will get together and figure out if they can accommodate the next tier of spellers. If so, those spellers advance as well; if not, they just plow on shorthanded.)
From there, we finally get to the spelling gauntlet you know and love at 8 PM Eastern on ESPN.
Sunday, May 26, 2013
How To Commit Burglary
1. Don't commit burglary.
2. If you must commit burglary, try to run a slim operation. Excess lines of communication should be cut.
3. If using accomplices, if your entire crew is with you, phones will be unnecessary for the task at hand. Don't carry a phone.
4. If you must carry a phone, turn it off until needed.
5. If you must have the phone on, use a keypad lock so that numbers are not accidentally dialed.
6. Do not carry the phone in a place where a number can be accidentally dialed with your butt.
7. Do make sure that any number accidentally dialed is not 911.
8. If you think 911 may have been dialed, get rid of the phone quickly.
9. Do not allow the 911 dispatcher to listen to the duration of the crime.
10. Yes, even if it also involves drugs.
BONUS TIP: If there's a murder that you may have committed, don't butt-dial 911 for that either.
2. If you must commit burglary, try to run a slim operation. Excess lines of communication should be cut.
3. If using accomplices, if your entire crew is with you, phones will be unnecessary for the task at hand. Don't carry a phone.
4. If you must carry a phone, turn it off until needed.
5. If you must have the phone on, use a keypad lock so that numbers are not accidentally dialed.
6. Do not carry the phone in a place where a number can be accidentally dialed with your butt.
7. Do make sure that any number accidentally dialed is not 911.
8. If you think 911 may have been dialed, get rid of the phone quickly.
9. Do not allow the 911 dispatcher to listen to the duration of the crime.
10. Yes, even if it also involves drugs.
BONUS TIP: If there's a murder that you may have committed, don't butt-dial 911 for that either.
Saturday, May 25, 2013
Wibbly-Wobbly, Printy-Winty Stuff
I think it's time for a TED talk. (The UEFA Champions League final's about to kick off. You might need a halftime show.)
So 3D printers are becoming a thing now. Awesome. Let's start talking 4D printers then. By this, we're talking objects that can assemble and reassemble themselves. Skylar Tibbits will explain that one, or at least, he already did, in February in Long Beach.
So 3D printers are becoming a thing now. Awesome. Let's start talking 4D printers then. By this, we're talking objects that can assemble and reassemble themselves. Skylar Tibbits will explain that one, or at least, he already did, in February in Long Beach.
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