I feel like I should get something off my chest regarding the COVID-19, called "the coronavirus," and all of the reverberations it's had through American life as well as around the world.
I don't really know much of what's going on yet. And from what I can tell, the only thing that separates me from a lot of the people writing about it and talking on news channels about it is word count.
Wednesday, March 18, 2020
Tuesday, March 17, 2020
Cats and Dominos, Living Together
It's not quite the mass hysteria you'd think it would be, as this video found on Neatorama indicates.
Monday, March 16, 2020
Housewrong
David Housewright is one of several Minnesota-based authors writing in the detective/crime fiction arena, with the most famous being "Prey" series author John Sandford. He works with two lead characters -- his original series followed private investigator Holland Taylor for a handful of books before he introduced and ran with Rushmore McKenzie for several years. In 2018 he returned to Taylor and has since brought the total of that series to five books. The 17th McKenzie book is due in May. Housewright has a good ear for dialogue and a way with a smart-aleck quip that sometimes matches up with the legendary Robert B. Parker. His usual work is a solid three-to-four star effort and when he's really on, like with the McKenzie mystery Dead Boyfriends, he produces some of the detective genre's top modern work. But when he stinks...
At the urging of his parents, Holland Taylor has taken the case of their elderly neighbor scammed out of her life savings, but the only problem is if he tries the usual ways of getting it back the chances he'll do so in time to do the victim any good are small. The con man has covered himself quite well. So Holland decides to try some shadier means, enlisting the help of a computer genius friend to play with the con-man's life and force him to return the money in 1998's Practice to Deceive.
The genius's abilities, though, mean Taylor has access to more than simple ring-the-doorbell-and-run pranks. He is able to make the grifter's wife, who didn't know about his activities, think her husband was having an affair. The con-man's real-world job in the financial sector is targeted too, with Taylor and his friend electronically trashing his reputation and reliability. He eventually gives in, but before he can get the money to Taylor he's killed -- it turns out that he was doing financial work with some rough folks as well. And before Taylor can find out who killed him, he becomes the target of the same kind of harassment he'd been dishing out.
Practice is only the second Holland Taylor book, and although Housewright smoothed out some of his first-novel wrinkles he makes the narratively fatal decision to have his lead character be an adolescent jerk. The professional tarring he and his computer friend lay on the shady financier is understandable, but when they give him the appearance of infidelity they bring harm to his innocent family. Taylor notes this in passing but it seems to have zero impact on his schemes. The solution to the mystery of who killed the con-man comes into the story like a shanked drive from another fairway and puts an end to what was already a pretty lousy outing for Holland Taylor and his cast.
Rushmore McKenzie -- don't use his first name, please -- got very wealthy when he quit the police force, because he apprehended an embezzler and as a newly-minted private citizen he was able to keep the full reward from the insurance company. But he can't get away from helping people out now and again, especially when they need it and few others can provide it, as in 2008's Madman on a Drum.
Although his longtime friends Shelby and Bobby Dunston have the FBI on their side when their oldest daughter Victoria is kidnapped they also need McKenzie, because the kidnappers want money and the Dunstons are a law enforcement family of modest means. McKenzie has the money and agrees to deliver the ransom, but before the funds are assembled he does some digging to try to figure out who the kidnappers are. Some initial leads uncover some of the mystery but not all, so McKenzie must risk delivery of the ransom to get the little girl back.
For most of its length Drum ticks along fairly well as a gumshoe procedural as McKenzie and a parole officer try to track down an ex-con involved in the abduction. It begins to drag, though, as Housewright uses his story to preach a sermon about how hard prison time sometimes creates re-offenders rather than curbing them. It's not that the idea is untrue or that it couldn't be a good hanger for a detective story plot, it's that Housewright decides to shoehorn it in as lectures from different characters for paragraphs at a time, and then hit the reader over the head with it through the story resolution.
The finale manages to do two seemingly opposite things at once: Come out of nowhere yet be utterly unsurprising. Housewright generally tries to make his stories more mysteries than straight procedurals, with clues to a final denouement scattered through the story. But the preachy tone and clumsy endgame make this madman's Drum a bummer.
-----
The genius's abilities, though, mean Taylor has access to more than simple ring-the-doorbell-and-run pranks. He is able to make the grifter's wife, who didn't know about his activities, think her husband was having an affair. The con-man's real-world job in the financial sector is targeted too, with Taylor and his friend electronically trashing his reputation and reliability. He eventually gives in, but before he can get the money to Taylor he's killed -- it turns out that he was doing financial work with some rough folks as well. And before Taylor can find out who killed him, he becomes the target of the same kind of harassment he'd been dishing out.
Practice is only the second Holland Taylor book, and although Housewright smoothed out some of his first-novel wrinkles he makes the narratively fatal decision to have his lead character be an adolescent jerk. The professional tarring he and his computer friend lay on the shady financier is understandable, but when they give him the appearance of infidelity they bring harm to his innocent family. Taylor notes this in passing but it seems to have zero impact on his schemes. The solution to the mystery of who killed the con-man comes into the story like a shanked drive from another fairway and puts an end to what was already a pretty lousy outing for Holland Taylor and his cast.
-----
Although his longtime friends Shelby and Bobby Dunston have the FBI on their side when their oldest daughter Victoria is kidnapped they also need McKenzie, because the kidnappers want money and the Dunstons are a law enforcement family of modest means. McKenzie has the money and agrees to deliver the ransom, but before the funds are assembled he does some digging to try to figure out who the kidnappers are. Some initial leads uncover some of the mystery but not all, so McKenzie must risk delivery of the ransom to get the little girl back.
For most of its length Drum ticks along fairly well as a gumshoe procedural as McKenzie and a parole officer try to track down an ex-con involved in the abduction. It begins to drag, though, as Housewright uses his story to preach a sermon about how hard prison time sometimes creates re-offenders rather than curbing them. It's not that the idea is untrue or that it couldn't be a good hanger for a detective story plot, it's that Housewright decides to shoehorn it in as lectures from different characters for paragraphs at a time, and then hit the reader over the head with it through the story resolution.
The finale manages to do two seemingly opposite things at once: Come out of nowhere yet be utterly unsurprising. Housewright generally tries to make his stories more mysteries than straight procedurals, with clues to a final denouement scattered through the story. But the preachy tone and clumsy endgame make this madman's Drum a bummer.
Sunday, March 15, 2020
Time Passages
At an interesting website called you.regettingold.com, you can enter your birthdate and compare, among other things, how distant things are in the past compared to how old you are now.
Turns out that my birthday is closer in time to the first powered flight crossing of the English Channel in 1909 than it is to today. The upside is that almost 90% of the people born on my birthday are still living, but almost the same percentage of site visitors are younger than me.
I suppose it'll be interesting to see what historical events my age approaches -- or is it distances? -- as I hang around the planet.
Turns out that my birthday is closer in time to the first powered flight crossing of the English Channel in 1909 than it is to today. The upside is that almost 90% of the people born on my birthday are still living, but almost the same percentage of site visitors are younger than me.
I suppose it'll be interesting to see what historical events my age approaches -- or is it distances? -- as I hang around the planet.
Friday, March 13, 2020
Activate Nap Mode!
Over at Bored Panda, Liucija Adomalte and Li Nefas collect 40 pictures of cats sleeping in odd places. At least, they seem odd to us, since to cats they all amount to sleeping in the same place: "Wherever I damn well please, primate."
My favorite is #3, in which we see Whiskers taking her ease inside a birdcage while said cage's occupant sits on top with a decided "WTH?" air about him.
My favorite is #3, in which we see Whiskers taking her ease inside a birdcage while said cage's occupant sits on top with a decided "WTH?" air about him.
Thursday, March 12, 2020
I Ain't Afraid of No Hyperspectral Terahertz Ghost Imaging
One of the fun things about scientists is the way that they are excited by stuff that makes everyone else go, "huh?" The above technique, described in this article by Belle Dumé, is probably a good example. I imagine that more than 9 in 10 people frown at the phrase "Hyperspectral Terahertz Ghost Imaging" and say to the people who are celebrating it, "Hey, good for you!" and hope very strongly they don't explain it.
But I'll give it a shot. As the article notes, "Terahertz" (THz) describes an electromagnetic wavelength -- in other words, radiation. It passes through substances that block visible light but it's less energetic than Xrays so much less likely to damage living tissue. And it has another advantage in that it shows the electromagnetic spectrum of the substance being imaged -- which earns it the label "hypespectral." That's cool for scientists because spectral analysis tells them what something is made of. Imagine a selfie that could show what chemicals and molecules made up someone's skin, for example.
But it turns out that a lot of the details scientists want to study are smaller than the THz wavelength, which means that they don't show up on an THz images. The THz waves kind of skip right over them. When scientists would try to focus the waves to get these small details in their images, then the increased energy would change them -- sort of like how an object may look different depending on what color of light is shined on it. In the same way that a viewer couldn't see the real color of that object, the scientists doing THz imaging wouldn't see what their subjects really looked like. They might get the image, but they would destroy the electromagnetic spectrum that showed them what the object was made of.
This is where "ghost imaging" comes in. If I read Dumé's article correctly, then the project team led by photonics professor Marco Peccianti uses a combination of lasers and THz wavelengths and via computer algorithm sort of swaps one for the other so the image produced has extremely fine detail and the full electromagnetic spectrum. It's similar to ultrasound imaging, where a computer translates the results of high frequency sounds aimed at a target object into an image even though no electromagnetic radiation ever passes through the target.
When perfected, the technique could allow a medical team to electromagnetically biopsy a tumor without any surgery, or chemically analyze samples without altering them. Which would be pretty cool and is probably a good reason to be excited if you work in photonics, even if no one around you knows why you're so giddy.
But I'll give it a shot. As the article notes, "Terahertz" (THz) describes an electromagnetic wavelength -- in other words, radiation. It passes through substances that block visible light but it's less energetic than Xrays so much less likely to damage living tissue. And it has another advantage in that it shows the electromagnetic spectrum of the substance being imaged -- which earns it the label "hypespectral." That's cool for scientists because spectral analysis tells them what something is made of. Imagine a selfie that could show what chemicals and molecules made up someone's skin, for example.
But it turns out that a lot of the details scientists want to study are smaller than the THz wavelength, which means that they don't show up on an THz images. The THz waves kind of skip right over them. When scientists would try to focus the waves to get these small details in their images, then the increased energy would change them -- sort of like how an object may look different depending on what color of light is shined on it. In the same way that a viewer couldn't see the real color of that object, the scientists doing THz imaging wouldn't see what their subjects really looked like. They might get the image, but they would destroy the electromagnetic spectrum that showed them what the object was made of.
This is where "ghost imaging" comes in. If I read Dumé's article correctly, then the project team led by photonics professor Marco Peccianti uses a combination of lasers and THz wavelengths and via computer algorithm sort of swaps one for the other so the image produced has extremely fine detail and the full electromagnetic spectrum. It's similar to ultrasound imaging, where a computer translates the results of high frequency sounds aimed at a target object into an image even though no electromagnetic radiation ever passes through the target.
When perfected, the technique could allow a medical team to electromagnetically biopsy a tumor without any surgery, or chemically analyze samples without altering them. Which would be pretty cool and is probably a good reason to be excited if you work in photonics, even if no one around you knows why you're so giddy.
Wednesday, March 11, 2020
Now We're Ready for Easter!
It didn't really feel like Lent yet, in the same way that for many people it doesn't feel like Christmas if there's no snow on the ground (these people all live in the Northern Hemisphere, by the way). But comes now Candida Moss writing for The Daily Beast, who having perused at least one biblical studies journal brings forth in deathless prose our annual assurance that Easter is on its way with her March 9 article "Everyone's Favorite Gospel Is a Forgery." Because you see, we just can't have Easter without some clueless uncovering of the kind of research nearly every seminary or religious studies student has seen just under a million times about how Everything You Ever Believed About the Bible Is Wrong, You Credulous Uneducated Simpletons.
Dr. Moss reports on a March 2020 Journal of New Testament Studies article by Dr. Hugo Mendez, an assistant professor of religious studies at the University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill. In it, Dr. Mendez suggests that a long-held belief of New Testament scholars -- that the gospel of John and the three letters that bear the Apostle's name come from a community of believers perhaps originally founded by the Apostle himself -- is untrue.
Beginning in the 19th century Biblical scholars began to seriously question whether any of the gospels were written by their named authors. The ancient world was not nearly as persnickety about actual authorship and accepted the practice that followers of a particular teacher might publish work under that teacher's name even if he didn't actually write it. Mark, it seemed, was written first. Matthew and Luke seemed to have drawn on Mark and an additional document, as well as their own sources. Since much of these studies were being done by German scholars, the letter Q came to be the shorthand name for this theorized shared source as the German world translated "source" is Quelle.
John, on the other hand, was clearly recognized as the product of an entirely different set of source material. Scholars skeptical of the claim that the author was the actual Apostle himself suggested that it may have come from a religious community he founded and which gathered up sayings and stories he had related about Jesus into the gospel and then the three "Johannine Letters." Dr. Mendez, though, thinks that this community didn't exist.
The actual journal article is behind a paywall. Though Dr. Moss is herself a New Testament professor (at the University of Birmingham in England), her work for The Daily Beast includes articles such as one linking modern Peloton use with the ancient practices of mortification of the body by Christian hermits and martyrs. So color me reluctant to lean heavily on the kind of analysis she produces for TDB. But my guess is that Dr. Mendez breaks no new ground and offers evidence that suggests his conclusion may be accurate, nothing more. At least, the little that I can glean from the article abstract at the JNTS site hints he's not saying anything I didn't hear more than once while at seminary myself.
In any event, Dr. Mendez is a piker when it comes to fiddling with the gospel of John. German theologian Rudolf Bultmann, beginning with his early 1941 monograph Das Evangelium des Johannes (published in English in 1971 as The Gospel of John) suggested that John contains a specific Signs Gospel within its accounts and he actually re-arranged large chunks of the book to better suit his interpretation.
Bultmann's radical transformation of the gospel was so extensive that few New Testament scholars are willing to accept it, even when they approve of other conclusions he made in this work and elsewhere. When a friend posted a link to the DB story on his Facebook page, I commented that Bultmann, reading this work, would have said simply, "Halten Sie mein Bier."
Dr. Moss reports on a March 2020 Journal of New Testament Studies article by Dr. Hugo Mendez, an assistant professor of religious studies at the University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill. In it, Dr. Mendez suggests that a long-held belief of New Testament scholars -- that the gospel of John and the three letters that bear the Apostle's name come from a community of believers perhaps originally founded by the Apostle himself -- is untrue.
Beginning in the 19th century Biblical scholars began to seriously question whether any of the gospels were written by their named authors. The ancient world was not nearly as persnickety about actual authorship and accepted the practice that followers of a particular teacher might publish work under that teacher's name even if he didn't actually write it. Mark, it seemed, was written first. Matthew and Luke seemed to have drawn on Mark and an additional document, as well as their own sources. Since much of these studies were being done by German scholars, the letter Q came to be the shorthand name for this theorized shared source as the German world translated "source" is Quelle.
John, on the other hand, was clearly recognized as the product of an entirely different set of source material. Scholars skeptical of the claim that the author was the actual Apostle himself suggested that it may have come from a religious community he founded and which gathered up sayings and stories he had related about Jesus into the gospel and then the three "Johannine Letters." Dr. Mendez, though, thinks that this community didn't exist.
The actual journal article is behind a paywall. Though Dr. Moss is herself a New Testament professor (at the University of Birmingham in England), her work for The Daily Beast includes articles such as one linking modern Peloton use with the ancient practices of mortification of the body by Christian hermits and martyrs. So color me reluctant to lean heavily on the kind of analysis she produces for TDB. But my guess is that Dr. Mendez breaks no new ground and offers evidence that suggests his conclusion may be accurate, nothing more. At least, the little that I can glean from the article abstract at the JNTS site hints he's not saying anything I didn't hear more than once while at seminary myself.
In any event, Dr. Mendez is a piker when it comes to fiddling with the gospel of John. German theologian Rudolf Bultmann, beginning with his early 1941 monograph Das Evangelium des Johannes (published in English in 1971 as The Gospel of John) suggested that John contains a specific Signs Gospel within its accounts and he actually re-arranged large chunks of the book to better suit his interpretation.
Bultmann's radical transformation of the gospel was so extensive that few New Testament scholars are willing to accept it, even when they approve of other conclusions he made in this work and elsewhere. When a friend posted a link to the DB story on his Facebook page, I commented that Bultmann, reading this work, would have said simply, "Halten Sie mein Bier."
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