I love the current well feeling I have right now. After the weekend intervention that helped me decide to leave the MS site, every day moving forward has felt better and clearer to me. I did not realize how I was being dragged down in an endless spiral I was in. My nature and how I trained myself to care for others against my adoptive family’s childhood training. Maybe that was why I never fit in with them, they sought and took advantage of everyone, I try to help or establish a bond with everyone. Is it genetic or learned behavior, I guess I won’t ever know.
Today started as I like it. I got up at a bit late for me, and after taking care of the cats and stuff, I reached out to an online friend. I wish I had more online friends that want to voice chat like my new friend does. See I always and still do have contact with all my online friends except on via email or blog comments. When this friend suggested voice talk I was not at ease with it. But once I got use to it I find I enjoy it. I was worried it would trigger my intense fear of talking on the phone. But like on Skype I found it doesn’t trigger me. I would like to find others to do that with but that is a topic for another day.
So after that I moved on to other things on the computers, videos and news, gathering memes for my Friday meme post. But soon I went back to bed for an hour before we get up to walk. But after a vivid dream, I woke up well after sun up. I woke Ron and asked him if he wanted to walk, he said not today. So I went back to sleep for a bit. I woke up, got up, medicated and fed cats, then settled in to blog.
The point of my post is I am feeling good for once in days, and when Ron got up we spent more time together. We worked on projects together and talked about other things.
This is a question I have for the IT people that come here, my XPS has 2133 MHz ram. It can be increased from the 16 I have to 64 which is with in my budget. The faster / the newest computer is Inspiron with 2400 memory but is topped out at 16 GB ram which it has. It normally runs over 50% ram usage to 65% usage. Ron wants me to boost the XPS to 64 GB of ram and switch to using it to blog on. I simply don’t know how to move forward with the upgrades, but even though the memory is not expensive I don’t want to sink money into computers that might be aging out.
The whole post is about how I am feeling good for the first time in a long time. I was doing dishes while Ron was out and my back was giving out, I was bent so low over the sink when he came in he thought I was going to nose dive into the sink. My back had given out but I was struggling to finish. But when he came in, he took over right away. He finished the dishes while I went to the bedroom to fold the laundry. See it is the standing in one place I can not do, my back gives out when I try. It is why I hate going grocery shopping with Ron as he stops and compares everything. So then he came down and helped me finish the laundry. Then he made me a grand salad and after I eat I am going to bed. I had a wonderful, fulfilling day. Hugs, Scottie
(One of the teachers with whom I worked had a beautiful tattoo of this painting on her inner wrist. She said it gave her strength. I need to send this to her, as she tutors STEAM aside from classroom work, and this is her top favorite painting.)
Starry Night, by Vincent van Gogh. The painting is currently held in the Museum of Modern Art in New York, USA.
Scientists have peered at Vincent van Gogh’s The Starry Night painting and discovered it displays a startling resemblance to real atmospheric turbulence.
To see stars, one needs clear skies. But just because we can’t see it, doesn’t mean there aren’t intricate patterns of air movement above us on a clear night.
A paper published in Physics of Fluids, suggests that van Gogh had an “intuitive” understanding of this while making his famous painting in 1889.
A Chinese and French team analysed the brush strokes in The Starry Night, aiming to see how similar they were to real atmospheric movements.
The masterpiece has been the subject of several atmospheric studies before, with contradictory conclusions, but the researchers say they’re the first to look at all of the painting’s whirls and eddies.
They looked at the 14 main swirls in the painting, and compared these with theories on energy and turbulent flows in the atmosphere.
“The scale of the paint strokes played a crucial role,” says author Associate Professor Yongxiang Huang, a researcher in fluid dynamics at Xiamen University, China.
“With a high-resolution digital picture, we were able to measure precisely the typical size of the brushstrokes and compare these to the scales expected from turbulence theories.”
The authors measured the whirling brush strokes in van Gogh’s “The Starry Night,” along with variances in brightness of the paint colours, to see how closely they reflected real atmospheric physics. There were several matches between the painting and fluid dynamics, suggesting van Gogh had an “intuitive” understanding of these concepts. Credit: Yinxiang Ma
As well as brush stroke size, the researchers also examined the “relative luminance” of paint colours used in the painting’s swirls.
They found that the picture aligned with a theory of turbulence called Kolmogorov’s Law, which predicts atmospheric movement based on measured inertia.
The changes in brightness reflect a process called Batchelor’s scaling, which describes how fluids diffuse at smaller scales.
“It reveals a deep and intuitive understanding of natural phenomena,” says Huang.
“Van Gogh’s precise representation of turbulence might be from studying the movement of clouds and the atmosphere or an innate sense of how to capture the dynamism of the sky.”
Springfield, Ohio's city hall was evacuated this morning due to a bomb threat.
This comes two days after former President Donald Trump boosted the baseless rumor that Haitian immigrants there were “eating the pets of the people that live there.” pic.twitter.com/VnCwYE5Zpy
Springfield Police confirmed to me that "multiple facilities" including at least city hall and Fulton Elementary have been evacuated due to a bomb threat received around 8:20 this morning https://t.co/MyOVu2bgze
Wittenberg University is currently taking precautions following a possible threat to campus tomorrow, Sunday, Sept. 15, 2024. All events and activities tomorrow are canceled. See alert website at https://t.co/q8SBqL88p1 for more information, safety tips, and resources. pic.twitter.com/w7GcwjIlWC
Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine defends Haitian immigrants, telling @MarthaRaddatz that while there are “legitimate” problems at the border, “What’s going on in Springfield is just fundamentally different.”
A day after a Springfield school and other public buildings were evacuated and closed due to bomb threats, and the same day that two other Springfield elementary schools were evacuated and one middle school closed due to a new, separate bomb threat, Husted posted a photo of two geese on X Friday morning with the comment, “Most Americans agree that these migrants should be deported.”Husted’s spox has refused to comment. He first appeared here in 2012 when as Ohio secretary of state he eliminated extended hours for early voting.
NEW: Fraudulent petition signatures cited by the DeSantis administration to justify its probe of Amendment 4 had already been rejected by a local supervisor of elections.
They were never counted toward the total that got the initiative on the ballot. https://t.co/f0sXetVwUW
Ron DeSantis has mobilized the Florida state government to spend taxpayer resources on the political process. He's now waging a multi-front war against Amendment 4, which would restore abortion rights pic.twitter.com/QreyQAi7Kn
This kind of propaganda issued by the state, using taxpayer money and operating outside of the political process sets a dangerous precedent.https://t.co/dJbVj8A6kK
After sending police to knock on doors of voters who signed petitions to get the FL abortion rights amendment on the ballot, now Ron Desantis is using taxpayer funds to illegally have a state agency & website campaign against the amendment. Story.https://t.co/2ywnO6kALR
BREAKING: In a 2022 tirade against reproductive health care, Mark Robinson repeatedly waves his hand by his groin, says young women just need to “get this under control." #NCGovpic.twitter.com/QXuUtZuBAL
“When people ask me…What’s gonna happen if the Flip – Flopping, Laughing Hyena Wins?? I say…write down all the addresses of the people who had her signs in their yards! Sooo…when the Illegal human ‘Locust’ (which she supports!) Need places to live…We’ll already have the addresses of the their New families…who supported their arrival!” Zuchowski wrote.
Read the full article. Replies to his post are turned off. Zuchowski made news several years ago for a rant about the name change for the Cleveland Indians, which he claimed was “erasing our heritage.”
Ryan Routh voted for Trump in 16’, then supported Gabbard, and then moved on to Hailey. He’s no liberal. He’s a Republican who is disillusioned with Trump’s foreign policy and Putin-phelia. pic.twitter.com/PaEkWoPcqX
Suspect Ryan Wesley Routh is a Democrat. He was allegedly hiding in the bushes with an AK-47 with a scope, two backpacks, and a GoPro and was spotted by the Secret Service before he could take action on President Trump #shootingpic.twitter.com/3xkbB7EU19
Elon/X has allowed someone to create a fake account under the alleged shooter’s name (Ryan Wesley Routh), and it’s now being used to spread vile anti-Semitic content including quotes from a Hitler account that X is also allowing on the platform. pic.twitter.com/reqGUcmynS
“I’ve seen the guns myself and all, and, yeah, they had a lot of guns and stuff over there, and, yeah, a lot of people were afraid of him back in the day,” she said.
The State Attorney for Palm Beach County is an elected Democrat, so Desantis is doing what Desantis does.
Maybe Desantis should investigate himself for making it so easy to acquire and walk around with an assault rifle in FL even with an extensive criminal history. pic.twitter.com/DwAWAE928L
“These are people that want to destroy our country. It is called the enemy from within. They are the real threat. They do it with a combination of rhetoric and lawsuits they wrap me up in.
An asteroid is approaching, but it won’t crash into Earth. Instead, it’ll be our planet’s little companion for 2 months before continuing on its merry way.
In a study published in the journal Research Notes of the AAS, a pair of asteroid dynamics researchers calculated the asteroid’s size, speed and path. The researchers determined the asteroid would complete a single orbit around Earth over 53 days before being flung back into outer space.
The asteroid will start its orbit of Earth on 29 September. The bus-sized “mini moon” is scheduled to depart on 25 November.
Many asteroids follow a similar journey, falling into partial or full elliptical orbits around our planet as they pass by. One such “quasi-moon” is an asteroid discovered last year which astronomers believe has been orbiting Earth for more than 2,000 years.
Other quasi-moons make much briefer visits, like the 5m 2006 RH120 which orbited Earth for about a year and 2020 CD3 which was a mini companion of our planet for several years before leaving us in May 2020.
The researchers also believe they know from where 2024 PT5 is joining us based on its trajectory.
“Such orbital elements are consistent with those of the Arjunas, a sparsely resonant population of small NEOs [near-Earth objects] in a secondary asteroid belt found surrounding the path followed by the Earth–Moon system,” they write.
Germany Laughs at Trump With the Rest of The World
Germany is denying an assertion made by former President Donald Trump during the presidential debate Tuesday about the country’s renewable energy industry.
“You believe in things like we’re not going to frack, we’re not going to take fossil fuel, we’re not going to do things that are going to be strong, whether you like it or not,” Trump said in his debate against Vice President Kamala Harris. “Germany tried that, and within one year, they were back to building normal energy plants.”
But on Wednesday, Germany’s Federal Foreign Office decided to issue a rebuttal, echoing the former president’s language.
“Like it or not: Germany’s energy system is fully operational, with more than 50% renewables,” the Federal Foreign Office shared on X. “And we are shutting down – not building – coal & nuclear plants. Coal will be off the grid by 2038 at the latest.”
The German Foreign Office also poked at Trump for another comment he made during the debate.
The presidential election has turned into a contest between a capable, smart woman who emphasizes what Americans can achieve when they work together for the common good, and a sundowning old racist creep who would be pathetic if he weren’t so dangerously close to returning to power.
In case you’re wondering what the difference looks like, compare the hate and division the old racist creep is spreading with some recent announcements from President Joe Biden’s administration, nearly all of them about programs funded by one or another of Biden’s big legislative packages. Just a little reminder of why elections matter, and of the legacy that Kamala Harris is committed to building on. For, y’know, the people.
Every one of these plants is now under the protection of #LordLaser and #LadyLaser
I got pissed off today.
I know it’s a supposed to be a joyous day because Kamala Harris feasted on the flesh of Donald Trump last night and all that. And it is.
But I drove by the Polonne Sunflower Garden on my way into work today, and I discovered that the last of my hidden cameras, which I had planted only yesterday, had vanished. I had planted this one because the previous one had also lasted less than 24 hours. Clearly, someone is now monitoring the terrain carefully and had me made on the whole planting hidden cameras thing. Took them long enough.
Hidden cameras are not all that cheap, and while I have money to burn on #SpecialMilitaryOperations, I don’t want to spend $60 per day on cameras that are never going to yield footage—at least not to me. So it’s time for a change of course in protecting the sunflowers and the Nikita Titov posters that hang down the street.
I had a talk with #LordLaser and his bride #LadyLaser about a new strategy to protect the sunflowers and the posters. And after reading up on Cold War deterrence theory, we collectively decided, of course, to escalate by way of deescalating.
So this evening, I penned the following letter to Ambassador Antonov, which I have published on Facebook:
An Open Letter to Anatoly Antonov, Ambassador of the Russian Federation:
Dear Mr. Ambassador:
We have never met, and I do not propose to change that. But I am the guy who periodically projects Ukrainian flags and other symbols and slogans on your embassy. Contrary to your false representations, I am not a radical Ukrainian emigre, as you once called me. I am a native born American citizen of a moderate political persuasion. I am not of Ukrainian extraction, to my knowledge.
I am writing to issue you an ultimatum: Stop killing my sunflowers.
You and I both know that your staff is behind the repeated destruction of the posters I hung by Ukrainian artist Нікіта Тітов. You and I also both know that your staff is behind the repeated destruction of the sunflowers whose planting I have organized on numerous occasions across Wisconsin Avenue from the #GatesOfHell which separate your compound from the civilized part of Washington DC. And you and I also both know that I have pissed you off, that you have repeatedly complained to the U.S. Department of State about my activities and have tried on repeated occasions to have me arrested.
Unlike you, however, I live in a democratic country that respects my rights of non-violent free expression. Consequently, I remain a free man–free to plant sunflowers on public land and to invite my friends to join me and free as well to project light in a non-threatening fashion at buildings when I choose to express my horror at a government’s ongoing war of aggression against a sovereign democratic country or at the ongoing atrocities by said government against civilians there.
I’m writing because, to put the matter bluntly, I am fucking sick of your efforts to regulate my First Amendment protected activities on the sovereign soil of my homeland. When I hang posters objecting to your government’s war, I expect them to be left alone. When I plant sunflowers with Ukrainian friends, up to and including Amb. Oksana Markarova, I expect them to be left in peace.
I am done playing the game of cat and mouse with your staff in which I plant sunflowers and they destroy them and I try to catch them at it.
With this letter, I am shifting to a strategy of deterrence with respect to your attempts to regulate free speech outside your compound, deterrence being, as always, the most appropriate manner for the wise to deal with the government of the Russian Federation.
So here is my new doctrine: For every sunflower plant which you disturb, I will come to your embassy some evening of my choosing and project a sunflower on your walls for one hour. For every poster that gets tampered with, I will come to your embassy and project a Нікіта Тітов image for an hour.
There are currently 78 sunflower plants in the Polonne Sunflower Garden and 20 or so posters. Each of them is worth a one-hour-long projection operation. I have consulted with both #LordLaser and #LadyLaser and both inform me that they are willing to spend up to 100 evenings over the next few months protecting sunflowers and posters. They have asked me to convey to you that all of the beautifications on the civilized side of Boris Nemtsov Plaza are, from this day forward, under their protection.
I have every confidence, moreover, that there are plenty of people in the DC metropolitan area who would volunteer to project to maximize the up-time of both lasers. What’s more, I can promise you most sincerely that the local, Ukrainian, and international press corps would find a near-daily projection of sunflowers on your walls a most compelling story.
Put simply, Mr. Ambassador, you might consider praying for the health and safety of each of the sunflowers and posters across the road from your forbidding gates.
They mean a lot to me. They represent the engagement of a large number of people in this community on behalf of Ukraine, in support of the people there, in encouragement of American aid to a country your government is endeavoring to destroy. I cannot protect Ukraine or Ukrainians from your government. I can, however, protect these symbols of them.
To be clear, I most emphatically do not promise to cease my #SpecialMilitaryOperations against your diplomatic presence here if you leave the sunflowers and posters alone. Those operations will continue at least as long as your war continues. I do, however, promise a dramatic escalation of projection operations if the sunflowers and posters continue to be molested.
Consider yourself warned.
Slava Ukraini, God Bless America, and don’t fuck with me on this.
I tried to tag the very unestimable ambassadir in the Facebook post, but I was unable to do so, I suspect because the cretin may have blocked me. So I guess I will hand deliver a copy of the letter tomorrow.
In the meantime, here is a video scan of the garden. Each of these plants is now protected by the threat of one hour of projection. (Video on the page)
Let’s find out if that threat is more effective than hidden cameras.
UPDATE: Facebook has removed the letter with the suggestion that it is misleading spam.
Scottie's Playtime 