April showers brought these May flowers:
This transplant from Port Angeles brings me joy each spring.
Nootka rose blooms
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Category Archives: Uncategorized
The symmetry of life
Raising kids as you and your parents grow old & older illustrates vividly the surprising number of similar experiences humans have when they are very young and very old. Today Shel Silverstein reminded me of that with this poem: “The little boy and the old man.”
Said the little boy, “Sometimes I drop my spoon.”
Said the little old man, “I do that too.”
The little boy whispered, “I wet my pants.”
“I do that too,” laughed the little old man.
Said the little boy, “I often cry.”
The old man nodded, “So do I.”
“But worst of all,” said the boy, “it seems
Grown-ups don’t pay attention to me.”
And he felt the warmth of a wrinkled old hand.
“I know what you mean,” said the little old man.
Starving sea pandas at the Festschrift of Russ McDuff
My PhD advisor Russ, celebrated his career by inviting all his students to give ignite talks in Oregon for the Festschrift of Russ McDuff. This is my 5-minute presentation in his honor with 20 slides advancing every 15 seconds as required:
We might be able to get this to display better using some sort of modal that can “pop-up” the WP post content, or part of it, with appropriate dimensions (1080 pixel height)… This WP Post Modal plugin might help.
MLK on our mutuality
“We are all caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied into a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.”
— Martin Luther King Jr.
What if by “we” he meant all sentient beings?
2017 increased refrigerator and in-wall oven efficiency
Replacement fridge
Old fridge
Fridge set to 3 (5 oC); freezer set to A (-14 oC)
Power demand after reaching target temperatures:
33W closed
98W right and left open
73 left (freezer) closed; right (fridge) open
57 left open; right closed
R+L = 65; R=~40; L=~24 (probably mostly the wattage of the light bulbs)
Power demand with compressor at work:
Watts
330 Compressor starts
300 >30s
298 >60s
292 >180s
290-95 >10min (steady state while working to reach target temperatures)
Watt-up measurements of old fridge:
10.54 kWhr for 60:27 hr
= 174 W
Watt-up measurements of new fridge:
Fridge set to 3 oC; deli drawer set to 3 oC; freezer set to -19 oC (changed to -15 oC on 11/16/17)
5.62 kWhr for 80:15 hr
= 70 W
~ 40% of old load
New oven
I am a left egalitarian, social Democrat (like Bernie)
I’ve had an evening of political realization, thanks to Benjamin Studebaker, an American PhD candidate in Politics and International Studies at Cambridge. This post helped me understand that Bernie is my candidate and this next one convinced me that it is strategic to fight now for his vision: “a future to believe in.” That sounds vacuous, but it’s not because for too long I’ve believed in egalitarianism — without having a name for it — but not seen so clearly how to realize it in a future, more equitable society in the U.S.
Will we defend the now-decrepit monster [neoliberalism] they [the 1%] gave us until they inflict a new and more terrible monster upon us, or will we stick up for our own ideology and put up a real fight against Trump and Cruz [the right nationalists]?
In taking on this fight, it seems advantageous to use the term “egalitarian” to emphasize that we value a more equitable society. This value underlies some recent phenomena like the WTO protests and Occupy movement. And it might also be accurate and savvy to call ourselves Social Democrats, rather than Democratic Socialists.
$2M for WA algae industry
State algae industry gets a boost from U.S. Senator Patty Murray
Murray recently helped secure $2 million for the Washington State Algae Alliance, a consortium made up of Seattle area companies Targeted Growth and Inventure Chemical as well as Washington State University. But not every U.S. politician is on board with the $2 million, with U.S. Senator John McCain calling out the algae research project in a Tweet back in October as more “pork barrel” politics.
The algae-ethanol question
This makes me wonder what wild marine phytoplankton might have sufficient sugars to warrant ethanol production, or actually produce ethanol. This article seems to imply that Algenol’s algae are pumping ethanol into water somewhere, but it’s unclear if that is the medium or just water in the cell.
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Venter on super-algae
It will be interesting to see whether his team is using genes from fresh or salt-water organisms, macro-algae or phytoplankton… Perhaps in a closed system with no competition, a pure culture of genetically-modified cells really could simple excrete the lipids. It certainly would be nice to simply skim the lipids off the water surface without damaging the productive cells instead of struggling to extract the lipids from the cells as grazers like copepods must do…
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New incentive for the blue revolution
Unclear when this prize will actually be available, but it’s surely a good thing for pushing R&D forward. Will the rules preclude experiments in the wild (e.g. ocean fertilization)?
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