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Complex Numbers A complex number is expressed in the standard form a + bi, where a and b are real numbers and i is defined by i^2 = -1 (that is, i is the square root of -1). For example, 3 + 2i is a complex number. The bi term is often referred to as an imaginary number (though this may be misleading, as it is no more "imaginary" than the symbolic abstractions we know as the "real" numbers). Thus, every complex number has a real part, a, and an imaginary part, bi. Complex numbers are often represented on a graph known as the "complex plane," where the horizontal axis represents the infinity of real numbers, and the vertical axis represents the infinity of imaginary numbers. Thus, each complex number has a unique representation on the complex plane: some closer to real; others, more imaginary. If a = b, the number is equal parts real and imaginary. Very simple transformations applied to numbers in the complex plane can lead to fractal structures of enormous intricacy and astonishing beauty. ![Merit Badge in Quill Award
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Sadly, "soil degradation" doesn't refer to a BDSM mud fetish. "Journalistic Intentions"  [18+] #6 of 8:"...and why we won't." A third of the world’s soil is moderately to highly degraded, threatening global food supplies, increasing carbon emissions and foreshadowing mass migration. A change in farming practices has never been more urgent. Lots of things are urgent now. I'm all out of urgent. You might say I'm det-urgent. Detergent useful for removing soil from garments. The dirt beneath our feet often goes unnoticed but it is key to sustaining all life on Earth. I'll just point out that the first organisms on earth existed before soil as we know it, so I wouldn't say "all" life. Just the part we care about. Which, if you think about it, is the problem. Silvia Pressel, a Museum researcher in the Algae, Fungi and Plants Division, says, 'Soil is full of millions of living organisms that interact with one another. These organisms have a major influence on soil, such as its formation, structure and productivity.' One must be cautious when using the term "soil." Its definition depends on context and audience. To a farmer, soil is topsoil: that bioactive layer that you plant seeds in. To a civil engineer, soil has a broader definition, including (mostly) purely mineral layers; it's more of a structural thing than biological. To other people, it may have a negative connotation, as in "that diaper was soiled." And then there's the Soil Stradivarius, which isn't even pronounced the same.I've worked the land, and I've been a civil engineer. I've even seen a Stradivarius up close (though not that one). Fortunately, I've never had to deal with a dirty diaper. Anyway, it's clear to me that this article is concerned primarily with the agricultural definition. Soil degradation describes what happens when the quality of soil declines and diminishes its capacity to support animals and plants. I'm just including this because for those who won't click on the link, I felt a definition was in order. It's when the topsoil and nutrients are lost either naturally, such as via wind erosion, or due to human actions, such as poor land management. Or, often, both. Like you might have heard of the Dust Bowl, which, contrary to popular belief, wasn't a football game played during a drought.There are many types of soil around the world. The UK alone has over 700 varieties, such as clay, sand, silt, loam and peat. Oh yeah, this article is from the UK; I forgot to mention. North America isn't that different in terms of soil types. I learned precise definitions for all of those in engineering school, then promptly forgot them. But I think even an amateur could look at a soil sample and take a fair guess at what its general classification is. In the UK, the most important of these soil types is peat, because it's used in the production of the finest beverage in all the world, single-malt scotch from the island of Islay. Sadly, as noted, soil is largely non-renewable. At some point, Islay scotch will have to change. That will be a tragedy for all the world, but fortunately it'll happen after I'm converted to soil myself. Healthy soil has a good combination of soil structure, chemistry, organic matter content, biology and water permeation for its type. Here in Virginia, there are soil scientists associated with that other state university that evaluate these things for agricultural purposes. I'm sure other localities have similar programs. Thinking of buying some farmland? Get the soil tested first. It may be cheap for a reason. A typically healthy soil will be teeming with biodiversity and may include a variety of earthworms, 20-30 types of small arachnids, 50-100 species of insects, hundreds of different fungi and thousands of bacteria species. I knew a guy in middle school who ate dirt. I think we all knew that guy. If you didn't, you were that guy. His favorite saying was, "God made dirt, so dirt won't hurt." Occasionally, I wonder what became of him, and whether he currently supports cannabis legalization. I'll just point out the logical fallacy there: if God made dirt, then God also made death cap mushrooms. And they definitely hurt. Nowhere else in the world is nature so densely packed. A teaspoon of soil can contain more organisms than there are humans living on Earth. [Citation needed] Your gut biome contains trillions of organisms. Soil plays a vital role in cleaning water. Minerals and microbes filter and buffer potential pollutants, some of which are absorbed by soil particles. This is how septic fields work. We've also harnessed this in parking lots; biofilters can be used to remove some of the most harmful pollutants from surface runoff. While soil degradation is a natural process, it can also be caused by human activity. In the last few decades, soil degradation has been sped up by intensive farming practices like deforestation, overgrazing, intensive cultivation, forest fires and construction work. One of the trickiest parts of designing what we glibly call "improvements" (subdivisions, strip malls, industrial parks, etc.) is dealing with the soil. You take a guess at how deep the topsoil is; that's stripped out and sold to farmers and whatnot, at least the part that isn't used to resurface the green spaces. The rest should balance cut and fill volumes, but at that point we're talking about the engineering definition of "soil." This is further complicated by also having to guess at depth to rock. These actions disturb soil and leave it vulnerable to wind and water erosion, which damages the complex systems underneath. We also had to present erosion control plans for approval, and contractors had to follow them. And yet I'm always seeing those measures poorly maintained, with obvious water erosion leaving construction sites. But it's not just agriculture that is to blame: increasing urbanisation also has a negative impact. The widespread use of tarmac and concrete prevents water from being absorbed into the ground. This results in the death of millions of microorganisms and can lead to water runoff in other areas where it may cause flooding and erosion. Like that. Developing a site can vastly increase the runoff from it. While mitigation measures are normally required and implemented, they have their limitations. Areas that are most likely to be affected are developing countries which usually provide services and materials to middle- and high-income countries. Many of the people who live in low-income countries could be forced to leave their homes in search of safety and fertile lands, resulting in the loss of cultural identity as well as possible economic and political instability in other areas. Newsflash: this is happening now. Not just due to soil degradation, but they're running out of fresh water. Not just in "developing" countries, but right here in the US. Many practices can be changed to prevent, and in some cases reverse, soil degradation. This part of the article is wishful thinking. Most mitigation measures cost money, or reduce a farmer's income, which amounts to the same thing. The economic winners will be the ones who ignore these things and pursue short-term profits. At least in the US, most farming is corporate, and they care about nothing but profit. So, in short, we're doomed. The global population size is projected to increase from seven billion today to more than nine billion by 2050. Crop production has risen dramatically over the past few decades due to intensive agricultural practices, but this has had a huge negative impact on the environment and cannot be sustained. In fact, agricultural productivity is now declining because of this, posing a major threat to global food security. Altering our eating habits and moving towards a plant-based diet is something we can all do to help make a difference. Or we could have fewer children. I can't say that ecology isn't the main reason I'm childfree, but it's certainly a factor. Also, fuck this "plant-based diet" crap. Sure, I eat a lot of fruits and vegetables these days, but only as an accompaniment to actual food. But hey, it's not all doom and gloom. At least nuclear winter will offset global warming. |
| Confession: I have never had an actual s'more. The reason why should be obvious from the headline: an actual s'more requires a campfire, which would imply that I'm camping. Which in turn would imply that I'm *shudder* outside. Well, okay, fine. I have gone camping. That's how I know I hate it. And sometimes, someone actually brought marshmallows. But never the particular combination of marshmallows, chocolate, and graham crackers with which to form s'mores. But of course I've consumed that combination on other occasions, sometimes even heated. This summer, millions of marshmallows will be toasted over fires across America. Many will be used as an ingredient in the quintessential summer snack: the s’more. This article, of course, is from back when summer was fresh and new, full of promise and the possibility of redemption. That is to say, the beginning of summer in 2018, in the Before Time. Eating gooey marshmallows and warm chocolate sandwiched between two graham crackers may feel like a primeval tradition. Unless you actually think about it. Or read this article. But every part of the process – including the coat hanger we unbend to use as a roasting spit – is a product of the Industrial Revolution. How long before we make coat hangers illegal? The oldest ingredient in the s'more’s holy trinity is the marshmallow, a sweet that gets its name from a plant called, appropriately enough, the marsh mallow. Yeah, not really. As the article goes on to point out: Today the marshmallow on your s’more contains no marsh mallow sap at all. It’s mostly corn syrup, cornstarch and gelatin. Another vegetarian trap. Chocolate is another ancient food. Mesoamericans have been eating or drinking it for 3,000 years. Yes, from an entirely different continent than the marsh mallow. Which supports once again my claim that international food trade is one of the few actual benefits of endgame capitalism. Also, what the ancients called "chocolate" (or xocolatl or whatever) bears about as much resemblance to a plastic Hershey's bar (from what I understand, that's the preferred ingredient in a s'more) as the marshmallow does to the marsh mallow. The chocolate that the Mesoamericans ate was dark, grainy and tended to be somewhat bitter. Much like me after my divorce. Finally, the graham cracker was invented by the Presbyterian minister Sylvester Graham, who felt that a vegetarian diet would help suppress carnal urges, especially the scourge of “self-pollution” (read: masturbation). I have it on good authority that it does no such thing, unless you simply clutch a vegetable or a graham cracker in each hand at all times. The original graham cracker used unsifted whole-wheat flour. Graham felt that separating out the bran was against the wishes of God, who, according to Graham, must have had a reason for including bran. Thus proving once more that you can be right for the wrong reasons. As for how the graham cracker became a part of the s'more, the snack’s true origin remains unclear. Probably some marketing guru was like, "Hey, here are three things that are approximately 97% sugar. Let's combine them!" The first mention of this treat is in a 1927 edition of the Girl Scout manual “Tramping and Trailing with the Girl Scouts.” In a nod to the treat’s addictive qualities, it was dubbed “Some More.” I don't think the GSA could get away with issuing a manual that includes the verb "tramping" these days. The term s'more is first found the 1938 guide “Recreational Programs for Summer Camps,” by William Henry Gibson. Some think the s'more may be a homemade version of the Mallomar or the moon pie, two snacks introduced in the 1910s. That would support my "marketing guru" theory. Today, the s'more has become so popular that it’s inspired a range of spin-offs. You can eat a s'mores-flavored Pop Tart for breakfast... Those are actually not bad, but my days of eating sugar bombs for breakfast every day are long behind me. ...munch on a s'mores candy bar for dessert... One of these days, someone will explain to my satisfaction why it's socially acceptable to eat donuts for breakfast, but not cake. Or vice-versa. ...and even unwind after a long day at work with a s'mores martini. Oh, hell to the power of no squared. Okay, no, it's not that I wouldn't drink it. It's just that I'm an absolute purist when it comes to the word "martini." If it's not gin and vermouth with an olive, it's not a martini. I can accept vodka in place of gin, but then it's a vodka martini. I can even accept different garnishes (though some kind of garnish is essential). But in no sane universe does a sweet drink get to be called a "martini," regardless of the shape of the glass it's served in. As I often tell my students, the health-conscious Sylvester Graham is probably rolling over in his grave after what became of his beloved cracker. Only if they eat s'mores while masturbating. |
| Entry #5 for the October round of "Journalistic Intentions" [18+]: One reason for environmental justice I have this conceit, had it for a very long time now, that I can write something about anything. This started when I was quite young, when used to find random quotes in printed material (pre-internet, even pre-home computers) to expand upon in paper journals that have, to my vast relief, since been lost. In a way, this blog has turned into an extension of that; I guess I really haven't changed much, except now I make fewer fart jokes. This prompt, though? This one stretches my abilities. I can't think of one reason for environmental justice. No, I can think of way more than one. For starters, there's a reason corresponding to every person living unwillingly in an environmentally-compromised location. Not just the people, either, but the wildlife and even the vegetation. But I got to thinking: what would environmental justice actually look like? There's eight billion of us on the planet, and we all produce waste. I get the impression that some of the bigger producers of waste are the ones least affected by it, but without doing actual research, I can't be sure about that. Either way, though, it's clear that the bulk of the burden falls on people who are already disadvantaged in other ways. "Justice" implies that, ideally, we should all feel the same burden. Thing is, then that would suck for everyone equally. And rich people would never stand for it; you have to remember the Golden Rule: "Those who have the gold make the rules." I had a friend who was like, "Why don't we just shoot the waste into the sun?" Leaving aside for the moment the incredible expense of doing so, in order to do it, you'd have to cancel the load's angular velocity, as it starts out with the same value as that of the planet (give or take a few angular seconds/second, depending on where it's launched from and when). To do that you'd need reaction mass. Where would we get the reaction mass? Why, from the waste itself, of course. Which would mean, basically, burning it all before it even got to the accursed daystar. Along with the space barge carrying it. But never mind that; it's just that I'm still laughing at the concept. No, in reality, it has to go somewhere on the Earth. And the further you move it from population centers, the more expensive it is to deal with. And then you have to employ people to take care of it—transport it, then bury or burn it—which would mean people traveling to and living near the waste disposal site, which puts the burden on them. We're not advanced enough to automate the whole schlemiel. Producing less waste would be good, but you're never going to get it to zero. Basic thermodynamics. So, what can we do? Hell if I know. Yes, being a civil engineer, this sort of thing is in my wheelhouse, but all that means for me is that I'm maybe more aware of the economies involved. And hell, right now I'm more focused on immediate quandaries. Like, it's getting cold at night now, which means I want to fix myself a nice hot mug of tea. The quandary is: why the hell does my tea kettle have the "Max Fill" line on the outside? It's utterly useless to me there, as the kettle is opaque. I used to have a tea kettle where that line was an actual dimple in the metal, so you could, if you looked at it from the right angle, see it on the inside and then stop the faucet when the water reached that line. That tea kettle burned (NOT MY FAULT) and it became part of America's waste disposal problem a few years ago. But even then, could I ever be sure that, as I held the thing under the faucet, it was level enough so that the water surface at the line was correct? Even a slight tilt could result in more or less water than the desired maximum volume. Point is, I can't even address this inequity, let alone the larger one concerning waste disposal. So I'll just leave you with the video that came with this prompt. Maybe you can think of something where I didn't. |
| Stop liking what I don't like! FROM THE LOFTY perch of old age, and after a lifetime of thrift, I declare that I am qualified to comment on how not to waste money. OK Boomer. We’ve all heard the reports: Most Americans live paycheck to paycheck, a large number can’t come up with $400 for an emergency, and there’s no money to save for retirement and other goals. "Most" isn't very helpful. It could mean anything between 51 and 99%. Turns out the current number is about 64% as of last January. But I don't know what the basis of that statistic is. Does it only include wage-earning employees? Contractors (such as Uber drivers)? Whatever; I'll grant it's a lot of people. Also the link provided later in this article is from 2017 and quotes something like 78%, which seems high.Most of that data comes from surveys where people are, in effect, saying they don’t have enough income. My curmudgeonly reaction: Stores, fitness centers and entertainment venues are packed with shoppers, many of them buying unnecessary goods and services. Well? They don't have enough income. Also, how do you know that "stores, fitness centers and entertainment venues are packed with shoppers" unless you go there yourself? It’s a funny thing: I have yet to see Warren or Bill in one of the many local spas. Oh, do you live in Omaha or Seattle? Warren Buffet is known to live a relatively modest lifestyle for all his wealth, but I don't know (or care) much about what Gates is up to. I do know that when you're that kind of rich, you can have your own spa installed in your supervillain lair. Most Americans live like no other people on earth. We have more and bigger stuff: Larger houses, bigger vehicles, more shoes. And, in my not so humble opinion, we can’t tell the difference between needs and wants, between necessities and desires—and we sure can’t defer gratification. Who's this "we" shit? As for deferring gratification, in my opinion, if you keep doing that, you'll die unfulfilled. All this leads me to one conclusion: We’re unable to control our spending or manage our money. This is by design. Even if you don't take into account the systemic problems with employment right now, advertising, which is ubiquitous, ensures that we're always feeling unsatisfied, no matter how much junk we have. Sure, you can lay the blame on the people on the receiving end of that, but that's like blaming someone for being fat when the only food available to them is ultra-processed high-calorie junk food. Here are 16 things that this 75-year-old considers big money wasters: And of course this is what the article's all about. I'll skip some in the interest of not writing a thesis here. 1. Tattoos. They’re an admitted obsession of mine. What will they look like when you’re my age? From what I’ve heard, a good tattoo artist charges $200 an hour. No young person ever considers what they'll look like at 75. Hell, the way things are going, they won't make it that far anyway. I don't have tattoos either, but I don't tell other people what to do with their skin. 2. Vacations. Hey, everyone needs a break. But you don’t need to go into tuition-level debt to have a good time. Your kids will survive if they never visit the Magic Kingdom. Disney World is undeniably expensive, but calling it "tuition-level debt" is hyperbole beyond even my usual levels. 4. Restaurants. Eating out, or buying $4 designer coffee, is expensive and—wait for it—it’s also a luxury. Skip that daily $4 coffee and after 30 years you’ll have more than $121,000, assuming a 0.5% monthly return. What you don't seem to understand is that some people work two or three jobs just to make ends meet, which leaves absolutely no time or energy for grocery shopping or cooking for yourself or even making your own coffee. Also, a 0.5% monthly return (which is 6% a year) is a hell of an assumption; it does track with the long-term average post-inflation gains of the stock market, but there are no low-risk investments that can provide that sort of return. 7. Credit cards. When people say they live paycheck to paycheck, does that include purchases put on credit cards that aren’t paid off that month? In that case, they’re spending more than their paycheck—and what they buy will cost them the purchase price, plus a hefty interest rate. I gotta agree on this one. But credit cards aren't the problem. 8. Lottery. The lowest-income groups spend the most on lottery tickets, wasting hundreds of dollars a year—about the same as that $400 emergency fund they don’t have. We've discussed this here before. Yes, the math shows that it's not worthwhile. But life is about more than math; the lottery is the only thing that gives some people hope. Sure, some folks have a gambling problem, but let's address that instead of being like "oooh gambling ooga booga." 10. Shoes. Surveys suggest the average American woman owns more than 25 pairs of shoes, which they admit they don’t need. So why buy so many pairs? It seems shopping and wearing trendy stuff makes us feel good. "So I want to ensure that you don't feel good." 14. Holidays. Somehow, every December, financial caution goes out the window and we pay for it the following year. But my pet peeve are those inflatable characters on lawns that cost hundreds of dollars. Talk about blowing money. They annoy me, too, but not in terms of how much money people spend on them. And yet, I understand that they make some people deliriously happy, and who am I to argue with that? 16. Haircuts. The average haircut reportedly costs $28.30 in a barber shop. Many men pay a lot more. Nowadays, nearly a third prefer a “salon.” Admittedly, I got off that hamster wheel. Long-haired hippie freak for the win. I kind of agree with some of what he's saying, but here's the issue I have: Pretty sure I've said this before, but whatever. I once saw a video on YouTube (so it may or may not be true, but that doesn't matter for my point) where a guy talked about spending $22,000 on Superb Owl tickets one year. Now, that's tuition-level spending, unlike Disney World. It's not something I'd want to do. I wouldn't spend $22K on any entertainment, not even Springsteen tickets. But, so what? It's what he wanted. Presumably, it was his dream, his life goal. You know what I would spend $22K on? A beer tour of Europe. Lots of people would think that's a massive waste of money, but it's my dream and one of my life goals, assuming WWIII ends in my lifetime. The point being that we all have things that we want, over and above needs. Some of them involve spending money, because despite what you're told by people with a vested interest in keeping you poor (companies, churches, etc.), money can buy happiness, at least briefly (all happiness is brief). I won't agree with all your choices; you won't agree with all of mine. Then there was the time I've also talked about when, driving through Nevada from Reno to Vegas (one of my all-time favorite drives), I made a pit stop in Beattie. I'm in this little shop waiting for the guy to get off the phone so I can pay him for something I'm buying that I don't really need. Looking around, behind the counter, I see a cat carrier. So of course I'm hoping to see a cat. But this little hand comes out and grips one of the carrier door bars. Guy gets off the phone. I'm like, "Is that a monkey?" "Yup. Wanna see?" He proceeds to take out the monkey, a young capuchin named Hannah, who then starts climbing all over the counter, then me, then him, all the while making cute little monkey noises. Meanwhile, he's asking me about what I'm doing in Beattie. "Oh, I'm on the way to Vegas." "Not to gamble, I hope. Might as well take a lighter to your cash." As I was, indeed, on my way to Vegas to gamble, I didn't say anything. But I did note, to myself, that he was dissing me for how I spend my entertainment budget while he had a literal monkey on his back. Not to mention happily taking my money for a T-shirt (which I still have and occasionally wear) and some ghost pepper sauce (which was delicious). Gambling is, for me, an entertainment expense, like the guy who spent half a year's salary on the Superb Owl. Only not even close to that level. The guy in Beattie blew his money on an exotic pet (legal in Nevada from what I understand). It's easy to rag on someone for spending money on things you consider frivolous; it's also easy to justify spending your own money on something other people consider frivolous. So I ended up writing a dissertation anyway, I guess. But I can't let this go without noting my own list of things that I, somewhat younger than the self-described curmudgeon above, consider big money wasters. 1. Kids. Utter wastes of money. 2. Sports. By which I mean going to live sporting events, paying for cable, subscribing to ESPN, etc. 3. A boat. Or any other leisure vehicle. 4. Art. Sure, it's nice, but that's what museums are for. 5. Cable TV. Never did have it. I'd be paying $200 a month for something I'd rarely use, and still have to suffer through commercials when I did. No thanks. Or how about some things that I do spend money on that other people would consider frivolous? Well, no, this has gone on long enough already. If you've been following along, you already know most of it. Point is, though, sure, people could manage their money better. Or employers could stop being so damn stingy. But when budgeting, it's always important to reserve some discretionary funds, if you can, for things that could bring you joy, or at least relief from the crushing boot of endgame capitalism. Even if those things are items or experiences that some old guy considers a waste. |
| Every time I think I've heard of everything in some category, like clothing or games or food, something comes along to prove me wrong. This is a good thing. Entry #4 for "Journalistic Intentions" [18+]Southern Classic: Daube Glacé Daube glacé is a labor-intensive dish, best reserved for special occasions Labor-intensive? Well, that leaves me out. I have a simple rule: if it takes longer to prepare than it does to eat, it's not worth it. While country ham and salami are hardly foreign to New Orleans these days, they were rarities in the along the Gulf Coast two centuries ago. “We can’t hang meats outside here. They rot,” says Isaac Toups, who runs the kitchen at Toups’ Meatery. In the years before the advent of refrigeration, locals had to find other ways to keep the pantry stocked. My father was born in New Orleans before refrigeration was common. Probably explained why he refused to put air conditioning in the house. Doesn't explain why he didn't know any New Orleans recipes. This no-refrigeration thing plagued brewers, too. They had to get creative to find ways to cool the wort and keep the final product from getting too warm. But that's for another entry. As Toups tells it, one of the best-known snacks of old New Orleans owes its existence to just those circumstances. “As any chef knows, when you reduce a stock down to a glace, it lasts longer,” he says. Oh. Yep. Sure. I knew that. Okay, no I didn't. Daube is a nourishing beef and vegetable stew with French roots. Quelle surprise. When Creole cooks simmered the leftovers into a sliceable, shelf-stable concentrate, they inadvertently created daube glacé, a meaty aspic most often consumed on crackers and mayonnaise-slicked po’boys. "Inadvertenty?" Nowadays, many cooks in New Orleans make daube glacé using reliable store-bought gelatin, rather than the gelatins already present in beef stock and in pigs’ feet—an extra ingredient in some vintage recipes. As an aside, I always feel an unreasonable sense of amusement whenever some vegetarian who didn't know where gelatin comes from finds out where gelatin comes from. Daube glacé is a labor-intensive dish, best reserved for special occasions. If you’re in New Orleans, you don’t have to make it yourself: Langenstein’s grocery store offers a fine version. If there's something that takes a long time to do, someone will find a way to commercialize it. Look up the history of ramen sometime. Or maybe I'll do a thing on that at some point. The rest of the article is the actual recipe. I don't know what it is about online recipes; they always have to write a PhD dissertation before getting to the how-to part. No. Stop that. Post the recipe first and then do the notes. Or at least keep the intro short and to the point. I hate reading a whole book only to find that, as in this case, the recipe is Way Too Much Work to bother with (in this case, though, they did say so up front). I just have one more thing to say, though: it's fashionable now to make fun of the gelatin mold creations from the middle of the last century. And, to be fair, some of them were absolutely disgusting. But as is often the case, it comes from a place of privilege. Aspics, like the one in the linked article, preserved food in a time before cheap and easy refrigeration. Hell, even the way we make gelatin now is way, way easier. And that's okay. I like easy. Easy is good; work is bad. My father would probably smack me for saying that, but whatever. I'm still salty that I didn't get to try any Cajun dishes until I left home. |
| As it gets colder here, sometimes I have to be reminded that, objectively, 60F isn't really all that cold. What’s the Temperature in Space? The Weirdly Nihilistic Reason Why It’s So Cold Because it's all a bunch of nothing, baby. When I was in college, with access to the proto-internet, I was able to look up temperatures in cities around the world. Whenever it got really cold around here, I used to make myself feel better by looking up the temperature in Nome, Alaska, a town (if you can call it that) barely south of the Arctic Circle. That stopped when, one day, by some climatic fluke, Nome was actually warmer than Charlottesville. Even looking up the temperature on Mars didn't always help. Sometimes it gets warm enough there to go out in shorts and a t-shirt. If, you know, it had about 100 times more air pressure and any oxygen. But of course, some places are even colder. The South Pole in winter, for example. Or most of outer space. Far outside our solar system and out past the distant reachers of our galaxy—in the vast nothingness of space—the distance between gas and dust particles grows, limiting their ability to transfer heat. Temperatures in these vacuous regions can plummet to about -455 degrees Fahrenheit (2.7 kelvin). Are you shivering yet? Nope. I'm sitting on my deck on a mid-fifties (F) night, with the infrared heater on, and feeling better about things because at least it's not as cold as intergalactic space. But understanding how cold is space, and why the vacuum of space is this cold, is complicated. Because of course it is. Vacuum doesn't technically have a temperature. There's nothing to have temperature. Vacuum is a remarkably good insulator, which is the science behind advanced Thermos technology. Of course, outer space isn't really a complete vacuum, just close enough for most practical purposes. For physicists, knowing what the temperature in space is is all about velocity and motion. “When we talk about the temperature in a room, that’s not the way a scientist would talk about it,” Jim Sowell, an astronomer at the Georgia Institute of Technology, tells Popular Mechanics. “We would use the expression ‘heat’ to define the speeds of all the particles in a given volume.” Yeah, that's a bit misleading. It's more like the average speed of all the particles. Some are zipping right along, while others are in the slow lane getting in other particles' way. Coincidentally, the lowest temperature ever recorded in our solar system was clocked much closer to home. In 2009, scientists measured the depths of a dark crater on the surface of our moon and found that temperatures dropped to about 33 kelvin, according to New Scientist. Just a bit colder than Nome in winter. Well, that’s where things get tricky. Within near and distant galaxies, the mesh of dust and clouds that weaves between the stars has been observed at temperatures between between 10 and 20 kelvin. The sparse pockets of space that contain little but cosmic background radiation, leftover energy from the formation of the universe, hover in at around 2.7 kelvin. That's where the 2.7K comes from, incidentally: it's the leftover radiation from the Horrendous Space Kablooie. These temperatures dip perilously close to an elusive measurement: absolute zero. At absolute zero, which to -459.67 degrees Fahrenheit—no motion or heat is transferred between particles, even on the quantum level. Now, I don't claim to be a quantum mechanic. Hell, I can't even change the oil in a neutron. But that wasn't my understanding; even at absolute zero, some quantum fluctuations occur. From Wikipedia: "Absolute zero is the lowest limit of the thermodynamic temperature scale, a state at which the enthalpy and entropy of a cooled ideal gas reach their minimum value, taken as zero kelvin. The fundamental particles of nature have minimum vibrational motion, retaining only quantum mechanical, zero-point energy-induced particle motion." "Minimum" isn't the same as "none." Back here on Earth, we have it easy. “You can have high-speed particles zipping by us outside the Earth’s atmosphere, but if you took off your space suit, you would feel cold because there aren't that many particles hitting you,” says Sowell. "Cold" wouldn't be the only thing to worry about in that situation. Were you to weave between galaxies in the vacuum of space without a spacesuit, the heat from your body—about 100 watts, according to Space.com—would start to radiate away from you because conduction and convection don't work in space. This would be a slow, frigid way to go, and, eventually, you'd freeze to death. But ... it's likely you'd asphyxiate first. You know, I'm usually the first one to get annoyed at unscientific scenes in SF movies and shows. Like when a spaceship zooms by and you hear it; you wouldn't, really, because there aren't enough particles to transfer the sound. Or when they portray zero-g doinking; that wouldn't be nearly as much fun, or as easy, as you might think. But one thing they usually get close to right: you can, hypothetically, survive limited exposure to vacuum. I've heard "thirty seconds" bandied about, though I don't think anyone's had the balls to test that. But you can probably hold your breath for more than 30 seconds, so it's not the lack of air. Nor do you get cold enough fast enough for a 30 second exposure to vacuum to kill you. You won't enjoy the experience, sure, but those shows where someone leaps out an airlock and makes it to the next ship over in a few seconds? Sure, probably. The biggest thing you'd have to worry about, I think, is the pressure differential; if you take a deep breath first, your lungs can explode. And the jury's still out on whether your eyeballs would freeze before they exploded, or vice-versa. That's why the common method of execution on a fictional starship is inhumane. You throw someone out an airlock, and they get to flail around in near-total vacuum for maybe up to a minute before they pass out and/or explode and/or freeze and/or boil (at low pressures, you can freeze and boil at the same time, fun fact). Hell, even beheading is more humane than that; the severed head might stay conscious for "only" up to about ten seconds. No, if I were running the judicial system on a starship, and we had the death penalty, I'd take advantage of there being airtight compartments on the thing, and pump in some knockout gas before evacuating the chamber. Painless, quick, not cold. Why am I thinking about these things? Well, science fiction writers have to. I may not write much fiction these days, but when I do, I want to get the science (mostly) right. |
| Entry #3 for "Journalistic Intentions" [18+]. Blind quote, no link: "Sure, when teenage girls write self-insert characters that hang out with their faves it's 'cringey' and 'bad fanfiction', but when Dante does it it's a 'literary classic' and 'redefines the way we view Catholicism'." Uh huh. In 700 years, we'll see how much of today's fanfiction is taught as "the classics." Look, teenage writing is generally cringey. Mine certainly was, and I wasn't a girl. You know what Dante wrote before his masterpiece? Love poems. LOVE POEMS. Starting when he was in his teens. I wrote love poems back then, too. Well, not in Dante's day, but almost. I'm glad they've been lost to the mists of time; Dante had no such luck. One line I specifically remember is "Now my broken heart has mended / But the scars won't let it beat."  You know what else is almost always cringey? Self-insert characters. One of the most successful writers of our time is Stephen King, and you know what it was when he did it, well past his teenage years? Cringey. Like he was writing Stephen King fanfiction. Oh sure, occasionally you'll get a young writer who's very talented and their early works are things of beauty. Shelley wrote Frankenstein when she was 20, while all of her dudes were stuck in the "love poem" rut (to be fair, those are considered classics too). But not everyone can both create a lasting work of literature and invent a new genre, especially not at that age. No, most of us write cringe in the beginning. And then, if we stick with it, if we really learn our craft well, then maybe—maybe—we write something that stands the test of time. Well, not "me" "we." The general authors' "we." That said, my advice (for whatever it's worth) to young authors? Do it anyway. Some great authors have built careers starting with fanfiction. Greg Bear comes to mind; he wrote Star Trek novels. So did Diane Duane. Okay, you've probably never heard of either of them, but they both went on to write more than passable SF and/or fantasy. Doesn't mean I'm going to read it. But just like worldbuilding for a fantasy novel, you're setting up a foundation for the possibility of later greatness. Speaking of Star Trek, probably the second most famous work of fanfiction (after 50 Shades) in modern history is the story (a work of parody) that coined the term "Mary Sue." I've ranted about that in here in the past, probably for another JI prompt. The canonical "Mary Sue" (insofar as I can use the word "canon" for anything related to fanfiction) is an author self-insert, usually but not always penned by a teenage girl, who's unbearably competent and has no real flaws, and who's universally loved and accepted. Not fun to read, usually. It's a clear case of wish fulfillment. But in the end, isn't all fiction wish fulfillment? The difference, at least in my mind, between good characters and bad is that the good characters have both external and internal battles to overcome. We're far more satisfied reading about someone who has trouble solving all the puzzles and gets into tough situations—and the Mary Sues or Marty Stus of the writing world are already at the top of their game. It would be like John Wick having the invulnerability, strength, and laser vision of Superman: the stakes would be nonexistent, and the story would be boring. But the Superman character itself started out as... wish fulfillment. Writing a super-powered character takes some skill; in a compelling story, they have to face challenges that their powers aren't useful for. Like the latest TV incarnation of Superman, who has to deal with having teenage sons, something that, as far as I know, no superhero has ever been able to handle with powers alone. So, yeah, I don't like teenage fanfiction, and I don't have to or want to read it. But I'm not going to tell them not to write it. You gotta start somewhere. Artists—by which I mean people who make drawings or paintings—often get their start by copying others; they thereby learn the techniques and only later come into their own style. Or so I heard; I can't draw to save my life. Musicians start out by learning others' chord progressions. And so on. It should be no different with writers. As a final note, "fanfiction" has somehow acquired the connotation of being sexual in nature, expressing the writer's desire to doink some character someone else created. While it can be erotic (again, 50 Shades), that's not the essential feature of fanfiction. I'm using the term in its broader sense here. That said, I did once write a scene featuring a liaison between Snape and McGonagall. "Oh! Yes! Ten points to Slytherin! Twenty points to Slytherin! YES! FIFTY POINTS TO SLYTHERIN!" ...no, I will not be sharing the rest of it. You're welcome. |
| Even as a kid, I had issues with this. How the Pledge of Allegiance Went From PR Gimmick to Patriotic Vow Francis Bellamy had no idea how famous, and controversial, his quick ditty would become My biggest issue was expecting second-graders to know what words like "allegiance" meant. On the morning of October 21, 1892, children at schools across the country rose to their feet, faced a newly installed American flag and, for the first time, recited 23 words written by a man that few people today can name. “I pledge allegiance to my Flag and to the Republic for which it stands—one nation indivisible—with liberty and justice for all.” While this article (actually an ad for a book but it still contains interesting information) is from 2015, I note that this month marks the 130th anniversary of that day. That's a bit more than half of the country's existence. Francis Bellamy reportedly wrote the Pledge of Allegiance in two hours... What did he do, laboriously engrave it into granite? Hopefully it was American granite. In a marketing gimmick, the Companion offered U.S. flags to readers who sold subscriptions, and now, with the looming 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus’ arrival in the New World, the magazine planned to raise the Stars and Stripes “over every Public School from the Atlantic to the Pacific” and salute it with an oath. "A marketing gimmick." I mean, really, can you think of anything more quintessentially American than that? Okay, anything that doesn't involve firearms? Bellamy, a former Baptist preacher, had irritated his Boston Brahmin flock with his socialist ideas. I just want to leave this part here for contemplation. In a series of speeches and editorials that were equal parts marketing, political theory and racism, he argued that Gilded Age capitalism, along with “every alien immigrant of inferior race,” eroded traditional values, and that pledging allegiance would ensure “that the distinctive principles of true Americanism will not perish as long as free, public education endures.” Okay, maybe rampant capitalism, anti-immigrant sentiment, racism, and jingoism are right up there with marketing gimmicks as true American values. We're trying to destroy free public education, though, so there's that. In 1954, as the cold war intensified, Congress added the words “under God” to distinguish the United States from “godless Communism.” Because clearly that's the only difference. It's rare that I'm in a position to endure the Pledge these days, but when I do, I omit that part on general principle. That it was a preacher who wrote the thing, and didn't include any references to any deity in it, should be cause for thought. But again, this is America; thought is for commies and pussies. The snappy oath first printed in a 5-cent children’s magazine is better known than any venerable text committed to parchment in Philadelphia. Oh, I don't know. The Schoolhouse Rock rendition of the Preamble to the Constitution is an earworm that's firmly etched in my memory. Yet the pledge continues to have its critics, with some pointing out the irony of requiring citizens to swear fealty to a nation that prizes freedom of thought and speech. On paper. The historian Richard J. Ellis, author of the 2005 book To the Flag: The Unlikely History of the Pledge of Allegiance, acknowledges that the oath is “paradoxical and puzzling,” but he also admires the aspirational quality of its spare poetry. “The appeal of Bellamy’s pledge is the statement of universal principles,” he says, “which transcends the particular biases or agendas of the people who created it.” What universal principles? That a flag exists? "Republic," "indivisible," "liberty and justice" are all abstract concepts and hardly universal. So is "nation," for that matter. Bellamy did some transcending of his own. The onetime committed socialist went on to enjoy a lucrative career as a New York City advertising man, penning odes to Westinghouse and Allied Chemical and a book called Effective Magazine Advertising. Ah, yes, the sure cure for socialism: money. But his favorite bit of copy remained the pledge—“this little formula,” he wrote in 1923, with an ad man’s faith in sloganeering, which “has been pounding away on the impressionable minds of children for a generation." Sure, he didn't invent indoctrination. But he nationalized it. Despite my issues with making impressionable kids recite a loyalty oath, though, I can't fault the ideals of "liberty and justice for all." But I think we have to acknowledge that those ideals are something to work towards, not reflective of the current state of affairs. Especially knowing that the guy who wrote the words wasn't interested in the "for all" part, going by his statements on "inferior races." (Just to be clear, no, I'm not trying to "cancel" him. Sucks that I have to issue this disclaimer, but these days that's what some people will infer.) I vaguely remember saying a while back that the Coca-Cola Santa Claus was the most successful marketing campaign of all time. I'm big enough to admit that I was wrong: the Pledge holds that title. |
| Entry #2 for "Journalistic Intentions" [18+] today. Having never heard of Justin Sutherland, I was relieved to discover he's not the illegitimate love child of Justin Bieber and Kiefer Sutherland. My relief was short-lived, however, as it became clear that the above linked "article" is a barely-disguised ad. Fortunately, it's mostly an ad for a book, which I've repeatedly stated isn't going to stop me from linking it on a writing site. Anyway, it turns out that Sutherland is a chef, though someone I'd never heard of. Not that surprising, as I don't follow celebrity chefs and I don't live in Minnesota. Sutherland was boating with friends on the St. Croix River on July 3 when his hat blew off, causing him to reach for it. At the same moment, the boat hit a wave, sending him into the water near the propeller, which "did a number on his head and left arm," Sounds like he was more than "near" the propeller. I guess you could say he got screwed. Look, I'll never pass up an opportunity for a pun, no matter how tragic the incident that prompts one. I'm not making fun of the accident; it sounds like no fun at all, one of those shitty things that occasionally happens to people. Here's a snippet of Sutherland's interview. You can watch his full appearance on The Jason Show in the player above. No. Jason: What do you remember about that day? Sutherland: I mean, honestly, I remember everything. It was a beautiful, perfect, you know, day. I remember everything from hitting the water, to getting slammed back to the boat, and to getting to the ambulance. The key word being "was." One wonders how much booze was involved, though a large amount wouldn't work with remembering "everything." Jason: I know this seems very simple, but you don't remember any of the pain? Sutherland: No. Not a single piece. I ain't no doctor, but that sounds like shock to me. Jason: You look fantastic! Sutherland: Regions was amazing … I still haven't eaten solid food in nine weeks now. I have five metal plates in my face. And this is all brand new (pointing to his face), I can't put any pressure on my teeth. I've lost about 14 pounds, trying to drink protein shakes. That sucks and all, but at least he's a chef: those protein shakes were probably amazing. For protein shakes. Jason: Let's talk about the positive … the positive is the support. Wow. … What did that feel like? Sutherland: Incredible. … Nothing but just gratitude. We touch a lot of people in our lives … but sometimes you don't realize the people you cross paths with and the lives that you impacted. The people that came together – still, eternally grateful. You know, this is kind of refreshing. So much so that I'm willing to overlook the whole "positivity" thing. Why? Because he wasn't all "God healed me." No, he acknowledges the very human, very skilled people involved in his recovery. I don't see a lot of that in the news. I see a lot of "That tornado ripped through and slammed me against a trailer and I couldn't walk for a week, but God healed me," ignoring the neurosurgeon that fixed the walking thing. Or, "I was driving drunk and slammed into a tree, but after a month I could see again, thanks to God," without mentioning the doctors who fixed your unworthy drunk-driving-ass face. Never mind that God did those things to you in the first place. I mean, if he's in control, then didn't he both send the tornado *and* heal you afterward? If not, then he's not all-powerful, is he? And if he does, why only praise him? It's like, occasionally you'll get a firefighter who lights shit on fire and then swoops in to play the hero. We call them "arsonists" and they generally get arrested for it. Or maybe the initial incident was some combination of your fault and the random workings of the universe; the medical attention you get afterward, though, that's deliberate. No need to resort to supernatural causes. Don't get me wrong; I'm not condemning people who have faith that they think helps them get through a tough situation. Whatever brings you comfort. But all the work done to fix your broken ass? That was people. Humans. Sure, some of us suck, but we can also be quite clever, competent, and helpful. Well, not me. But doctors and EMTs and such. Not to mention any of your friends and family who help you through it all. Point being, it sounds like this guy acknowledges that. Well, the rest of the article is the ad for his book and his restaurants, and you can look at that part if you want. As for me, next time I'm in the area, maybe I'll remember this and check out one of those restaurants. After all, that's one of the reasons I travel in the first place. I just hope they're serving solid food. |
| Today's article is from over five years ago, but it should still be relevant. Why is it relevant? Well, maybe you want to sell something. Maybe that something is a story, to a publisher or to the general public as a self-publisher. Or maybe, like me, you just want to know what tricks they're using so you can protect yourself. Sadly, the "four-letter code" turns out not to be one starting with F. Several decades before he became the father of industrial design, Raymond Loewy boarded the SS France in 1919 to sail across the Atlantic from his devastated continent to the United States. The influenza pandemic had taken his mother and father, and his service in the French army was over. At the age of 25, Loewy was looking to start fresh in New York, perhaps, he thought, as an electrical engineer. When he reached Manhattan, his older brother Maximilian picked him up in a taxi. They drove straight to 120 Broadway, one of New York City’s largest neoclassical skyscrapers, with two connected towers that ascended from a shared base like a giant tuning fork. Loewy rode the elevator to the observatory platform, 40 stories up, and looked out across the island. Appropriately, the lede comes from the New Yorker School Of Not Getting To The Fucking Point. That building still exists, by the way. It is, itself, a pretty amazing design; it's no wonder that it apparently influenced a designer. In France, he had imagined an elegant, stylish place, filled with slender and simple shapes. The city that now unfurled beneath him, however, was a grungy product of the machine age—“bulky, noisy, and complicated. It was a disappointment.” That's okay. We Americans feel something similar when we first visit Paris. The world below would soon match his dreamy vision. Loewy would do more than almost any person in the 20th century to shape the aesthetic of American culture. His firm designed mid-century icons like the Exxon logo, the Lucky Strike pack, and the Greyhound bus. Great. Two industries that deliberately contributed to our impending doom, and a bus. To sell more stuff, American industrialists needed to work hand in hand with artists to make new products beautiful—even “cool.” It is true that one of the only practical uses for art (for certain values of "practical") is in marketing. Loewy had an uncanny sense of how to make things fashionable. He believed that consumers are torn between two opposing forces: neophilia, a curiosity about new things; and neophobia, a fear of anything too new. As a result, they gravitate to products that are bold, but instantly comprehensible. I once got into an argument with a published author at a convention. She claimed that people wanted new things. I countered with evidence that they just want old things, repackaged—this was at the height of the "vampire" craze in the noughties, and everyone was talking about Twilight. I also noted that Harry Potter wasn't anything new; it just merged the classic British "boarding school" genre with high fantasy. I lost the argument on the basis of, well, she was published and I'm not, but I still don't think I was wrong. And we may have actually been saying the same thing: what Loewy's saying here, that stories need a touch of the familiar and a touch of the novel (pun intended, as usual). So yeah, this was the bit that made me want to link this here, because it's just as relevant to selling a story as it is to selling a pack of chewing gum. Loewy called his grand theory “Most Advanced Yet Acceptable”—MAYA. He said to sell something surprising, make it familiar; and to sell something familiar, make it surprising. Sounds easier said than done, but it does ring true for me. And I'm just glad it's not a stupid acronym like ABC - Always Be Closing. Why do people like what they like? It is one of the oldest questions of philosophy and aesthetics. Ancient thinkers inclined to mysticism proposed that a “golden ratio”—about 1.62 to 1, as in, for instance, the dimensions of a rectangle—could explain the visual perfection of objects like sunflowers and Greek temples. There's still discussion about the Golden Ratio, but as far as I can tell, it may not be "the most beautiful," but it certainly doesn't suck. And it's nice to know the GR, anyway. If only to remember that it's a quick and easy approximate conversion from km to miles and vice versa. Other thinkers were deeply skeptical: David Hume, the 18th-century philosopher, considered the search for formulas to be absurd, because the perception of beauty was purely subjective, residing in individuals, not in the fabric of the universe. “To seek the real beauty, or real deformity,” he said, “is as fruitless an enquiry, as to pretend to ascertain the real sweet or real bitter.” Hume obviously lived before there was really good beer. In the 1960s, the psychologist Robert Zajonc conducted a series of experiments where he showed subjects nonsense words, random shapes, and Chinese-like characters and asked them which they preferred. In study after study, people reliably gravitated toward the words and shapes they’d seen the most. Their preference was for familiarity. I'm sure that, as with most studies of that sort, they completely ignored the minority preference for novelty. The evolutionary explanation for the mere-exposure effect would be simple: If you recognized an animal or plant, that meant it hadn’t killed you, at least not yet. Sigh. At the risk of repeating myself to exhaustion, evo-psych explanations are speculative at best. But the preference for familiarity has clear limits. People get tired of even their favorite songs and movies. They develop deep skepticism about overfamiliar buzzwords. In mere-exposure studies, the preference for familiar stimuli is attenuated or negated entirely when the participants realize they’re being repeatedly exposed to the same thing. For that reason, the power of familiarity seems to be strongest when a person isn’t expecting it. This, however, also makes sense. Several years ago, Paul Hekkert, a professor of industrial design and psychology at Delft University of Technology, in the Netherlands, received a grant to develop a theory of aesthetics and taste. On the one hand, Hekkert told me, humans seek familiarity, because it makes them feel safe. On the other hand, people are charged by the thrill of a challenge, powered by a pioneer lust. Meh. Challenges are exhausting. That's why I prefer being in a relationship to pursuing one. Raymond Loewy’s aesthetic was proudly populist. “One should design for the advantage of the largest mass of people,” he said. And once again, that leaves out outliers like me. Let me give you an example. I used to buy Oreos fairly often. Don't judge. But then Nabisco started putting out different flavor Oreos. Some of them were obvious trolls, like Candy Corn Oreos (abomination) and Swedish Fish Oreos (crime against nature). But they also made a Dark Chocolate Oreos. Those were delicious. So delicious, in fact, that when they pulled them because they weren't popular enough, I quit buying any kind of Oreos. So instead of reaching a wider audience, they lost one: me. Could Loewy’s MAYA theory double as cultural criticism? A common complaint about modern pop culture is that it has devolved into an orgy of familiarity. Sure, people complain about that. But then when a truly new movie (for example) comes out, no one goes to see it. So there's no incentive to try new stuff there. The hit-making formula in Hollywood today seems to be built on infinitely recurring, self-sustaining loops of familiarity, like the Marvel comic universe, which thrives by interweaving movie franchises and TV spin-offs. You shut your whore mouth. Those are (mostly) awesome. One of Loewy’s final assignments as an industrial designer was to add an element of familiarity to a truly novel invention: NASA’s first space station. Can't get more novel than the first space station, I suppose. But this led me to wonder who designed the iconic NASA logo. Huh. It was an artist working for NASA. See? There's hope for that liberal arts degree yet. |
| I'm participating in "Journalistic Intentions" [18+] again this month, so some of my entries will be prompts from that activity. This is one of them—as usual, selected at random. When I was in Minneapolis in the summer of 2021, I got to see some of these locks and dams up close. I wrote, briefly, about it at the time: "Dam It" So apparently, based on the link above, there's talk about removing some of them. Not the ones I toured, but downstream from there. You might think that, being a civil engineer whose whole thing was hydrology, I'd have an opinion on it. After all, I have opinions on plenty of things that I know far less about. But you'd be wrong. Well... I do actually have an opinion, which is "they should do what's expected to have the best overall outcome." Which is why we have people do studies for this sort of thing. If I thought about it long enough, I'd probably come to the conclusion that this should probably be my opinion on everything else, too. But no, then life would be no fun, and worse, I'd have nothing to blog about. Besides, rivers are complicated. They build dams for reasons: flood control, erosion prevention, power, recreational purposes; usually some combination of these things. There's always a trade-off too, like when the dam blocks fish spawning or whatever, or the resulting lake drowns a community. Left to its own devices, a river will shift over time. Not just geological time, but often in one human lifetime. You can see the effects if you look closely at a map of the rest of the Mississippi: horseshoe bends where the river once flowed, and down the center of which a state line was surveyed, have gotten cut off, leaving, for example, a bit of Tennessee on the Arkansas side of where the river is now. Several bits, actually. Some of that might have been due to Army Corps projects, but probably there was also some non-human-caused shifting over the years. If you wanna see, look up Memphis on Google Maps and then scroll north. And I'm not saying this is bad, or good; it just is. We modify rivers for our own purposes, and for a long time we didn't think much about the consequences. Now that they're modified, though, there are consequences to unmodifying them, as well. Even further downstream, in Louisiana, the primary Mississippi discharge has been trying to shift over to the Atchafalaya river (no, I can't pronounce it, either). If it weren't for levees and locks and whatnot—engineering projects—it probably would have switched channels by now. From what I understand, it used to switch back and forth every thousand or two years. As one channel silts up, water flows to the other, and vice-versa. This, of course, would leave New Orleans dry (if not high), so there are economic reasons not to allow it. But there are probably good solid ecological reasons to do so. But we're a part of the ecology, too, part of nature, and we have to make decisions based on incomplete information. I'm just glad it's not my job. |
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