Sunday, January 28, 2018

Linux - Digitizing all the family prints


1990


I used the Epson 400, auto-detect size, 600 dot per inch.  Also, I used 'utsushi' to scan separate jpegs that are numbered sequentially.  Up to this point, almost no work.

Then I uploaded to Google Photos.  With each picture, I usually had to rotate, and use their 'auto fix'.  I shared the album with the relatives.

ps.  That's an ES-400

Saturday, January 27, 2018

Young Peregrine Falcon misses the squirrel

The big Momma falcon would have got it.  We also have redtail hawks with a 6 foot wingspan.  They would have got it, as well.  Squirrels are down in the neighbourhood.




Friday, January 26, 2018

Linux - Programming the Mindstorms NXT in Python

We bought the Lego Mindstorms NXT 2.0 many years ago as a gag gift for the boys.  They put it together ran it and left.  We dug it out yesterday, when the grand-nephews came to visit.  He's 6 and already programming robots.  I'm going to teach him to be A Real Man and program in Python (I just saw the crown).

So, I'm going to start a series of podcasts "Letters to My Nephew".  It should be fun.

Wednesday, January 24, 2018

The Shape of Water

Yeah Ontario!  Get those Oscars!  I don't think I would watch it, seems too scary for me.  Anyway this about the shape of the Earth's water.



So, my faithful 10 readers know that our oceans are the main engine that has kept life alive for a couple of billion years.  Same mechanism, but plate tectonics keeps screwing it up.  If this mechanism is 1000 times more energetic than other things (say no more), then the 10 people who follow physics would make a brutal conclusion.  Thank goodness we have social physics!

So, we know that we are going into the cold side of a full 40 year temperature wave.  Although El Nino is noted for 7 year cycles, the real EN cycle is 20 years of lovely heat, and warm lake water at the cottage.

So, the North Pacific Current retreats, cooling the Arctic ocean and busting the Beaufort Gyre.  This sends a torrent of cold water over the North Pole and coming crashing down on the Gulf Stream.  Poor old Eurotown!

A mini ice age is part of a full 600 year cycle.  300 warm and 300 cold.  Each one of these could launch an ice advance.  This cycle is caused by the equatorial ocean currents moving down a notch.  Lucky for us we have isostatic rebound, which forces a 10,000 year cycle on ice advances.

If the land rebounds high enough, a deep mini ice age can leave snow all year round.  This is a true feedback cycle, since permanent snow is a big temperature downer.  And lucky for us, the oscillation has a counter force of sinking the land.

But what happens to the Southern Hemisphere during our cold cycles?  We have no geological history for the last few million years.  Lots of geology up north, with all the ice ages.  But a hint has come to me with the latest Cape Town drought.  I checked up temperature and rain since the 60's.  Cape Town has the same temp, but zooms up in rain, during the 70's and 80's.  So, an ice advance in the north, would sogify the south.  That's a lot of heat energy eventually radiating from Antarctica.  Probably tons of ice build-up.

ps. not infra-red radiation from the Deep South, but convection.  Sorry.

Tuesday, January 23, 2018

Earthquake - M8 Gulf of Alaska




Not really that big for this area.  I left the 200 km scale on, which is probably the size of this earthquake.  The expected M9 is ten times bigger.  This size of earthquake should not get the big soil basin of Anchorage going, but there will be some damage.  You really can't expect a significant tsunami.

You can see it is such a nice smooth section of the subduction zone, very sharp.  But this section has shot its load, there are many such sections not yet blown recently.  You can expect an M9 'cleaner' earthquake on these things every 500 to 800 years.

ps. Just for comparison, here is the Cascadia zone, the muckiest subduction zone on the planet.  You really can't think that this is 'cleaned' with M9's more than once in a couple of thousand years.  And yet all that hype....


pps. The big Cascades threat is social physics.  But that's good for the FB crowd.

Monday, January 22, 2018

The Boring Tale of Nuna



This is also called Nuna, about 1.5 billion years ago.  There's news today about people finding a slice of it in Autstralia.  That's why I have called it "Happy Nuna Day'.  You can go out and celebrate.

However, the interesting chart is this Supercontinental Cycle.


Derived from zircons.  This is also a global temperature cycle.  When the continents get together, it is very hot, but it doesn't kill life.  If you are into Social Physics, please ignore this.


Saturday, January 20, 2018

Every Day is Coming Up Icicles

So, although carbon is very important somewhere, the poor, pitiful physics approach makes the miserable conclusion that our climate has been controlled by ocean currents from the beginning, and the exact same mechanism has been running since then.


This is the Atlantic equatorial current.  It is now hitting the nose of South America.  A little splinter of warm water heads to the south.  This is very unstable.  Should the current move down a little, then all the hot water goes south.

What I just realized is the the Pacific is just as unstable.


Who would have thought that plate tectonics has such a sense of humour, as to put two big noses in the prow for the current.  A little push and we really are in a mini-ice age.

ps.  the big test of the miserable hypothesis is the next 2 months.  Physics is going for cold.

Friday, January 19, 2018

USGS - The Wonderful Early Warning Thing

Reference


Ok, this is really serious.  I've got to get back in with The Consenus, or they will kill me.  I absolutely love their work on this press release.  It is so happy.  It makes early warning systems look so good.  These people felt the shaking before the warning.  However, the sirens sharpened their mind on what they should do.  It probably saved thousands of lives.  Well done!  And God Speed on getting lots of money from the politicians.

ps.  All that good work, and they are suddenly laid off.  I always wonder if they get back-pay for these times, and this will be a long one.

Thursday, January 18, 2018

Toronto Housing Follows Bits-Coins


I'm not using any physics here.  The physics predicted this over a year ago, and now there is no more physics.  Total money is sales times average price, and that is very sad.  All the listings around our place have withdrawn and everybody is doing minor renovations on distressed houses.  I did miscalculate the timing for a major crash.  People and banks are holding on far longer than I thought.  I had assumed that distress housing would have flooded the market by now, with all those people holding two houses.

If I did do physics any more, then these houses will come up in the Spring.  However, human nature is beyond physics.  :)

Tuesday, January 16, 2018

An Inconvenient Ice Age

I've decided to give up on pushing basic physics.  It's too dangerous, and everybody wants blood these days.  Look at Ms. Atwood, who just wants due process.  Instead, I will just chart the coming ice age, and make extrapolations based on the direction of the chart, and my very thin line.

For the appearance of physics, instead of calling on something done in the 1800's, I will invoke the modern observation that carbon dioxide radiates heat in the upper stratosphere.  Thus, CO2 is both heating the planet and triggering the next ice age.

For evidence, I show my latest video, titled Inconvenient Ice.



You can see the positive feedback here.  Ice kills trees, which increases co2.  The world will become Baked Alaska, both hot and cold at the same time.

Everybody says a 13 month moving average is too short, and that temperature chart shows a sudden plunge.


Perhaps they are right.  I propose a chart of temperatures over the last 50 million years, with a 10,000 year moving average.  The chart shows temperatures going down the sewer.  However, we are warm in the summer, for a few weeks, at least.  Thus, this chart (which is too much work to do) shows both warm and cold.

Thus, the Ice Age dawns.  All due to carbon dioxide, which can be reduced by using rare earths which are horribly poisonous to mine.  You will experience heat stroke, and bad acne, as you look at the mile-high ice wall bearing down on you.

ps.  I am reminded of the old Westerns with a lynch mob and the lone sheriff.  Zucky's the guy selling signs with cute slogans, such as "Lynch Him", and "97% Consensus".  Googs is handing out flyers from rope sellers, and Bezzie's selling rocks.

Wednesday, January 10, 2018

Geofish shuts down again

The corporations and the warmies win.  I shall just follow physics on my own. 

Corporations smash free speech, oh, and big earthquake in the Carribean

Since Amazon has wiped me from their world, probably for comments on this blog or the Guardian, I shall restrict my comments to earthquakes.  Everybody knows they are freezing anyway.  No use kicking warmies when they are down.

However, Mr. Goog hasn't kicked my off his blog machine yet, so I can write up the earthquake.  M7.6 strike-slip in the middle of nowhere.



It is on the border of the Caribbean Plate that sticks out into the Atlantic like a sore thumb. 


The only thing interesting about this earthquake is that it might bring on other quakes along the fault.

Tuesday, January 9, 2018

Giant earthquake in Japan any minute now.

Reference




They are always wrong.  This is what they do to justify a huge bureaucracy.  It's a good thing that old predictions are tomorrow's sushi wrap. 

All my Amazon reviews wiped out

Wow, and they don't know what happened.

ps.  even a hacker or myself could not wipe out my entire review history.  Must be Meltdown.

pps.  looking at things, I think their whole review database was buggered.  Must not put that much money into it.

final:  Now I got Amazon mad at me as well as Google.  No idea why.  Good thing they finally told me.

review-appeals to me
Show more
12:28 AM
Hello,

We determined that you have violated our Customer Review Creation Guidelines. As a result, we have suppressed all of your reviews, and you will no longer be able to post reviews on Amazon.ca.

We made this decision after carefully considering your reviewing account. This decision is final.

We cannot share any further information about our decision, and we may not reply to further emails about this issue.

Sincerely,

Review Moderator www.amazon.ca

a bit more:  They must have read my posts when I was mad at them.  Rude of them to make me phone forever to find out what happened.  I suppose if I say the Bezzie is the new hittler of the world, they'll totally throw me out.  :)  I never did well with corporations.

Monday, January 8, 2018

Beaufort Gyre Collapses, Arctic Current Intensifies

Yeah, this headline is major tabloid material.  The Beaufort Gyre (bg) is a major Arctic Ocean feature.  It is activated during the warm cycle, and typically lasts the normal 7 year El Nino cycle.  It is driven by the strong Pacific wet air plumes, generated by the North Pacific current.  Nobody really knows this because there is no physics.

Since the warmies killed all the physics, they can claim these things don't exist.  However, if it did exist, then it has collapsed.  The bg stores a huge amount of 'fresher' water from the melting ice that got all the polar bears upset.  The melt has stopped now, and the dam has busted.


There is only one place where the dam can spill, and you see it here.  This is intensifying rapidly with my feeble observations by my feeble eyes.  It is decimating the Gulf Stream, and there is no reason why it has to hug Greenland.  I expect it to break away soon and come straight down.

This beautiful current is both cause and effect of the cold cycle.  This an alert of an ice advance.  Should it be a real Ice Age, then run to Australia.  However, my physics tells me not to worry.  :)



The sea temperature chart shows that the phallic protrusion of the Gulf Stream is retreating rapidly, under the assault of the Arctic water (shrinkage).  Soon, that whole zone will be cold, and unable to give the UK its much-need warm whoopee.  They'll all be cold and alone in their beds.  :)

ps.  30 years ago, I remember the last physics guy uttering from his academic death bed "It's all ocean currents".  I carry on his spirit.

Sunday, January 7, 2018

Arctic ice finally seals up



No more open water.  The temperatures around the open bits had been staying around -20C.  Now they are going well below -30 where they belong.  We are going to break through the median ice extent.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, I just read that the Beaufort Sea Gyre has a 7 year cycle, and should be breaking up soon.  It probably hasn't felt that El Nino stopped.  Things are slow up there.  It has apparently trapped a lot of fresher water from ice melt, and when it pops, it sends a wave of cold water to poor Eurotrance.  No sign of that yet.


Saturday, January 6, 2018

Linux - Patch your kernel and slow things down - Spectre and Meltdown

I didn't notice a slowdown when I upgraded, but it says here that things slow down.

Linux kernel issues

Since Javascript can blast right through everything, I also secured Chrome.

Chrome Site isolation

I also have an AMD system, and they say that they are secure, but these Linux people didn't think so.

ps.  with more reading, I find this is a very difficult exploit but Javascript can go right through Linux.  Keep up the patches, and most of us will have to rely on Google's continuous check of malicious sites.  In the end, I don't think this will be big for Linux because of the tremendous variation that a trojan has to contend with.  More of an issue with standard mswin and Intel.

Lake Erie almost frozen over



The ice ridges will start soon.  The Pickering Nuke plant will close because of frazil ice.  20 years ago I started my breakdowns when they ordered an ice dam for the intake.  I said that it won't do a thing for frazil ice, but this was an order to do stupid things, so my boss did it.

Every since then, the ice dam was faithfully put up and they never had an ice problem.  It worked!

Frazil ice is formed of super-cooled packets of water.  When it hits something like the bottom, or an intake screen, it instantly forms into needles of ice.  This blocks the water and they have to shut down.  The production apes hate that, so they needed a solution.  Like I said, it worked and they were happy.


Arctic Ice is Happy

This is a battle of long vs. short term.  If people want to defend the status quo, then they go long.  If there is good physics (forces) behind things, then the short term is valid.  For earthquakes, the short term always dominates, during a big one.



The ice volume 'crossed lanes' during our miserable summer.  It's in the freezing slot now, and chugging along merrily with 'history'.

The longer term, since the cold cycle of the 70-80's has shown decreasing ice volumes.  However, the Inuit say the polar bears are now doing fine, and I believe them.

My hypothesis, then, is that the 'current' line will cross more lanes (more ice volume) during the miserable summer coming up.  If we have a nice, hot summer, then I lose with my hypothesis, but I win with beer on the sunny cottage dock.  If my hypothesis holds, then I can console myself with beer on the dock, and good fishing.  :)


Friday, January 5, 2018

Skiing or Boarding at 30 below

My son is going boarding this weekend, and everybody is scared about the intense cold.  This was my world when I was skiing in the 70's.  And we are going back to this cycle, and perhaps colder.

First, pick a sunny day.  I found you could last longer on the sunny side of the slope.  The north side is to be avoided.  Have lots of mini-rests.  Get a zippo hand warmer.  You really get cold going up the lifts.

Have sock liners.  These are thin socks that wick moisture to your main socks.  Avoid cotton.

Lots of face protection, such as a face mask.  No loose scarfs on the lifts or you'll end up hanging in an uncomfortable manner.

**hand warmers -- electric ones are useless.  The energy density of fuel-based warmer is 10 to 100 times more.  The higher quality ones use a carbon felt and platinum catalyst.  There is no danger from these.  I used one for years, and now they are much better.  To light, you need a cheap lighter with a jet flame.  Run the flame over the shoulders first, to vapourize fuel, and then pass over the catalyst for a few seconds until you see little embers.  Close up and double check that it has caught.  On ammie, the Chinese copy at $15 is as good as the zippo at $25, but the zippo one is much "cooler', in a macho way.

The chemical ones don't last that long, and you are creating garbage.

Thursday, January 4, 2018

Global temperatures are not dropping like a stone


Darn, I was expecting this plot to be a big cliff.  However, it dropped a bit and is holding steady.  Since Toronto temperature has matched this directly, I'm a bit worried.  Only that little drop has caused us to freeze?  The papers say Europe is warm and this cold spell is just 'weather'.  I guess we have to wait a bit longer.  It takes a while for ocean currents to drain out. 

I'm waiting for the Arctic ice volume.  I suspect it will stay in the groove and not cut the old lines.  Like I've said, there is probably a maximum rate here, and -20 or -40 doesn't make any diff.


NASA and the destruction of physics

Reference

If we eventually look back and wonder why we got into all this carbon mess, the villain has to be NASA (n).  N had the best atmospheric physics in the whole, probably the only.  They did all sorts of great things right until about 1980.

Then n went all pansy, and decided that philosophising was real neat.  This article shows what they consider 'proof' of correlation.  The ozone hole went down, and chlorine went down as well.  They cite a huge number of chemistry equations that never have done under those conditions.  Well, they actually have been done, but that's buried in obscure papers, and I have no intention of exposing them to the sun.

They only measure hydrochloric acid and they assume a whole chain before that.  I am amazed.

Bombs Away!

The 'bomb' comes in the incredible speed to develop.  I don't think it makes it any worse.


The centre tracks right over the hot trench.  Can't wait to see what happens when the hot water current peters out.


Go for Open Source

Reference


Obscure binary escalation exploits have been around forever.  And it will only happen to you when you download obscure binary code, which is all of mswin.  Perhaps some games have been using this forever, just to make things faster.

If you care about security, then go Linux and Open Source.  Although obscure bugs can be found in the Linux codes, it's laid out for everybody to see.  And nobody can really sneak it through in application code.  It remains to be seen if somebody can run it as a user in a multi-user system.  This is easily swatted by compilers.

Any big system that runs mswin has been compromised, but they just don't know it.  They only know it when newspapers can buy the entire retina database of India for a buck.


Wednesday, January 3, 2018

Physics of the Great Bomb Cyclone


The hot wet air is starting to curl at Florida.  This is the start of the bomb cyclone.


You have to look closely on the east coast, but you see a trench of warm water.  The storm is forced to follow this (barring strong deflection forces).  As it sucks up this heat, it will go into an intense pressure drop.  God knows what happens it runs out of warm water.  Feeding bears is fine, until you stop.

These intense vortex-vacuums can probably suck up heat energy at ten times the normal rate.  Too bad there's no physics on this.  I can imagine the forces as it goes up the track.  The Gulf Stream should recover, but it will be colder for poor Britain.


ps.  This shows the winds nicely, and you can why it is called a nor-easter, right now it's just an 'easter'. 



Beautifully Violent Atlantic Winds

The UK is being hammered and the nor-easter is developing on the US east coast.  I've never seen so much action.



The news in the US keeps mentioning a Polar Vortex, but there isn't any.  Just cold air.

Replacing the Nexus 5x screen - total failure

This was the worst yet.  The phones are becoming almost impossible to repair.  Such fiddly little parts, such bad instructions.  I ended up knocking off a solder pad for the wifi antenna, so the old 5x becomes parts.  Luckily, I know how to do it now, so if the remaining 5x needs a new battery or something, I'm there.  :)

Tuesday, January 2, 2018

A continuous drain of Pacific Heat -- also indicative of a cold decade

This is something new for me.  Don't forget that we've only had these great maps for the last few years.  Previous episodes remain mysterious.  Our minor 7 year El Nino cycles come from a build-up of heat energy (hot water) in the South Asia islands.  Then it breaks out.  I watched this whole cycle.

But what of the 20 year cycle?  I am predicting a cold 20 years, like the 70's and 80's, or even colder.  This picture is showing a continuous 'El Nino' leak.  The heat will never build up. 


This strong backwash was only visible during the last El Nino.  It never happened during the build-up.  In order to have a 20 year cold period, this will have to be constant. 

I also find amazing that the Pacific heat cycle affects the Atlantic Gulf Stream.  The cold Arctic is sending down a powerful current which is slicing up the GS.  Europe is warm now from Africa, but it won't last.

These are all new discoveries on my part.  I really wish some money was going into this, so we could get somebody smart with the courage to go against the warmies.  They are saying in the gard that globby warming means extreme cold as well.  :)  I'm waiting for my monthly charts.  The globbies can make up new stories for the next few years.  Trumpypants can gloat.  Everybody is happy.


Geotechnical 101 -- converting a tunnel

Reference



This is a great picture, you can click on it for more detail.  The article has two estimates to turn it into a bicycle tunnel:  3 or 30 million pounds.  I would go for the higher, since I think it is almost as much as to get old musky over and dig a new one.

The bricks are weathered and the tunnel leaks.  This is okay for an old steam train, but falling bricks make for a bad day, for cyclists.  This tunnel has to be relined with a waterproof liner, steel mesh and shotcrete.  Then steel linings for the ventilation shafts, fans, pumps etc.  Now that I think of it, even the high estimate is low, since we must have power and wifi.  :)


Monday, January 1, 2018

Replacing the Nexus 6P Battery

For some reason, every phone of this generation (2 years old) has had horrendous battery problems.  The replacement battery for the 6p is only $18 on ammie, shipping from Canada.  There's a reason for the cheap price.

Look at about 5 videos on how to do it.  Each one leaves something out.  Why do they do this?  Because they want to sell you stuff.  This is a difficult job because they use super glue in this phone.  Next year, the phones will be solid glue, and try changing that battery!  Applenose started this whole glue the battery thing, and I'm glad they are in big doo-doo with it.

I only had trouble with the glass thing at the top.  When they say, apply sufficient heat, they mean lots of heat.  I used a paint-scraper razor for separating things and that worked.  Expect to crack that glass and start from the unimportant end.  You can practice on that end.  They are really vague on separating the case, use the razor, and go deep in a vertical direction.  Keep your glass protector on.

And in other news, I was finally warm on my dog walk.  My brown fat has finally kicked in and that only happens by freezing a lot.


Storm for UK gathers strength

This is fine physics for those who don't believe in it.  While the rest of us are freezing, Europe is relatively warm in a back-eddy up from the Mediterranean.  However, a strong storm is gathering strength over the last warm spot in the Northern Atlantic.


This shows the surface winds.  Note that they are different from the plot showing moist winds, or winds with all the heat energy.  This storm is not enough to fully circle the moist winds.



A storm vortex is perfect for sucking out the last heat from the cut-off Gulf Stream.  I expect that the last remnant past the cold Arctic current will be gone soon. 






With the sea temperature plot, you can see the last protrusion of warmth sticking out in the yellow of colder water.  I'm watching the yellow and it is slowly sinking.  This is the mechanism of a cold decade.  In North America, we have lost the North Pacific current, and Europe will lose the Gulf Stream.  All those Alpine glaciers will come back.