2014 retrospective - Blog #323

The past 12 months have been pretty good for TPP personally. Things have gone very well although not without some aggravating episodes, e.g., getting you retirement money out of Lincolnland's clutches. The F1 had a good year, new job, higher salary, engagement, and nothing makes parents happier than to see good things happen to their offspring. The Phactors had a good year; anytime you can spend a month in Tuscany, you've had a good year. And how did our gardens grow? Pretty well actually, and a good start was made on refurbishing the front garden after having all its failing trees removed. Professionally things went very well as they do when you finally get your book published.  Yea!  Although older for certain, our health remained good in comparison to that of many other people. Always best to have health insurance and not need it. And while Affordable Care provided some relief from worry for many, circumstances and bone-headed states still keep many people left to play the health lottery. It wasn't a good year in politics, international events, diseases, human relations, and the environment. It was good to see the failed, cold-war foreign policy toward Cuba finally gave way to common sense (Hey, Marco, the 1960s called and they want their foreign policy back.) and reality. It took regular doses of margaritas (negronis during August), the Daily Show (and John Oliver), and blogging to retain one's sanity. Yes, this is a form of therapy, blowing off steam, and generally connecting with others in a rather one-sided sort of way; TPP blogs, 323 of them to be exact (as soon as he hits the publish key) - and around 250,000 page reads with few comments. And this is not much different from teaching college students, where you wonder how many in your class were really there, but there will be no exams.  The new year offers a lot of potential change too; TPP will be working on some new projects and community activities to keep himself out of trouble and amused. Surely there will be some bloggable material arising from that. Best wishes for the new year to all.

Great Blog Galaxy - Almost big enough to be seen!

This galaxy of blogs is the result of asking over 600 science bloggers what science blogs they read and then construct it as a network of bloggers reading blogs. The more people who read  your blog, the bigger your dot and name. And right there in the right middle is The Phytophactor, almost big enough to be seen!  If you drop straight down from the C in American of Scientific American, there's TPP.  Wow, does this ever give your ego a boost. And the funny thing is that TPP usually doesn't read that blog. Yikes, my dot just disappeared!  Just kidding!

Monday morning brain boggling - optical illusions

Here's a video of a pretty powerful optical illusion of a checkerboard. Non-random placement of the white dots creates the illusion of a bulge. When the dots are removed, the illusion disappears. Several other similar optical illusions can be accessed via this video and they all are pretty troubling in that you can't make you brain see what is actually there. Why does TPP look at such things on a Monday morning before the second cup of coffee, as if that would matter? In other instances of optical illusions, TPP has noticed that he often has a strong reaction to such illusions and wonders if that is in some way related to all his years of looking through microscopes?  HT to Mano Singham's blog; he's a physicist.

Holiday flowering

It's been a good holiday season for flowering. As a consequence of spending summers and early fall outside, almost all of our tropical houseplants regularly flower. This was a particularly good year because so many plants came into flower at one time, but some were sort of over whelmed by the holiday decorations. Nonetheless several visitors did notice and appreciate several of them. So here's the list: forced paper white narcissas, the queen's tears (a bromeliad), a mistletoe cactus, the big blue bromeliad, an azalea (which itself gets decorated), an Aeschynanthus (a gesner), an orchid (an unknown hybrid). On the whole a pretty cheerful display. Although all have their charm, the queen's tears is a favorite because of the unusual combination of colors, which is good because otherwise the plant is not particularly attractive. Most of these have been featured in this blog before, thus the links.

Over packaging

Holiday gift giving provides lots of data points for observing packaging. Is there anything with more wasteful packaging than men's shirts?  Let's see if the packaging can be listed: an adhesive size sticker, a cardboard tag attached by a nylon anchor rope, a plastic ring around the collar, a plastic piece over the neck button, a cardboard collar insert, two pieces of tissue paper inside, a piece of cardboard inside, and three metal paper clip sort of things to keep the shirt folded. You end up having to start your own recycling center just to try on the shirt. Not all shirts came that way. A heavy-duty, out-of-doors sort of shirt from a place up in Maine, was folded nicely inside a plastic bag, and there was only one other cardboard tag attached by a piece of twine! In a women's store all the merch was neatly folded or on hangers, and without all the extras. So what is it with men's shirts? Are they supposed to look like they are starched and just back from the laundry. In the day's before stay-press fabrics, it cost 50 cents to have a shirt laundered and just have the cuffs and collar pressed. Pull over sweaters completed the subterfuge. Not everyone was unhappy about the packaging; the kitty-girls found the ribbons, tissue papers, and boxes lots of fun, especially when a new catnip, furry mouse is added. Gift beverages now almost universally come in specially made, and rather durable, gift bags, which can be saved and reused. We have probably gotten, and given, at least one of these on several occasions, and on the gift bag travels. While rather festive, it's too bad so much material gets either discarded or recycled. It was also interesting to see the surprised look on some retailers faces when you produced your own shopping bag. Grocery stores have become used to them, but not so most others places. Clearly the majority of people got and wanted those big bags provided by the retailers. The kitty-girls also like those, but some of the handles pose a choking danger and have to be cut, thereby rendering the bag rather useless from our perspective.

Long, long ago, far, far away

This is a pretty amazing photograph of NGC 1398, the barred galaxy. There is something strangely compelling about images like this of things so huge and so far away. Their camera must have a mighty fine zoom lens. Think about how many stars are in such a galaxy. Then think about all those other little lights in the background that are also galaxies (all of them), and just in this one little bit of space. Some intellect out there is probably pointing their see-far thingy at the Milky Way, and saying, let me write a blog about how amazing this is.

Banishing the darkness on the winter solstice

Did you notice that the days are getting longer? Yes, the world will not be consumed by darkness as the days continued to shorten. But rather than have fires, or feasts, or religious events to banish the darkness, TPP knows what really does it. On this solstice our premier symbol of rebirth and spring arrived just as we had hoped to banish the darkness and let the sun begin its trek back higher in the sky (Yes, it's axial tilt, but hey.). The first seed and plant catalog came by mail, and just like that things seemed a bit more like spring. Actually it was not all psychological, the high temperature here abouts was around 50 F today and lots of spring sprouts can be seen appearing as things have already had several weeks of quite cold weather in November. If the temps don't get back to a more seasonal range some plants are in for quite a surprise. As it is witchhazels are in flower and so was a dandelion in a protected south-facing location. Either that or they'll be bun-bun nibbles.

Holiday recipe for you - Liquore di zabaglione

This recipe showed up in last Sunday's ChiTown Trib just in time to be used for part of an Italian dinner for friends and family. In August TPP made zabaglione, an liquor flavored egg custard & whipped cream combo for a topping on fresh mixed berries, and we had it for breakfast no less!  Pure decadence. So this is basically a hooched up version of the same complements of Italian cookbook author Domenica Marchetti. 
Part 1: 1 cup whole milk, 1 cup heavy cream, 1 cup sugar, 1 tsp vanilla extract (or use 1/2 of a vanilla bean slit open and scrape the seeds out and cut into several pieces).
Stir together the milk, cream, and sugar in a sauce pan over medium heat. Add the vanilla and stir until the sugar has dissolved. Keep stirring until the milk just begins to simmer. Do not let it boil. Remove from heat.
Part 2: 4 large egg yolks, 1 cup sugar, 1/2 cup dry Marsala, 1/2 cup vodka, 1/4 cup brandy (a dark aged rum or bourbon could be substituted).
Whisk together the egg yolks and sugar until thick and lighter in color. Add a dribble of the milk/cream mixture and whisk vigorously to keep the yolks from curdling. Continue adding the milk/cream mixture little at a time and whisking thoroughly until it is all incorporated. Whisk in the 3 liquors.  If you used the vanilla bean remove the pieces.  Pour into a stoppered bottle and chill thoroughly. This will last up to 4 weeks in the refrigerator. Shake before serving especially if you used the vanilla bean.
This is one seriously sweet, egg-noggy, high octane concoction. 

Open house etiquette

It was a busy weekend socially and the internet connection was flaky, even more than usual so no blogs. Since the Martha Stewart fairy dusted our home with decorations, some one volunteered to host a church open house. This can present several questions of etiquette. Do you serve a jar of home canned sweet pickles that were dated 1999?  OK, that's pretty easy. No, and they weren't that good even when young. Do you serve a bottle of wine that you don't like to get rid of it? Rieslings are just too sweet, but yes, you can serve it because some of you guests may like that type of wine and it wasn't 15 years old like the pickles. Is is ethical to serve a smoked salmon dip that you adore even though most of the guests might be vegetarian? As a note, all of the other snacks and dishes to share were non-meat. Well, of course it's OK, and all the more for yourself! People have to keep an open mind. Do you serve the pickled Brussel's sprouts just because your boss made them? Heck yes, but not because of the boss, but because otherwise they might be left for you. Do you have to worry about wishing people Happy Holidays vs. Merry Christmas? No, they're Unitarians and very accepting of holidays in general. Our dinner group is trickier because of a large contingent from the Temple not to mention Buddism, Hinduism, and Pastafarianism. Growing up in NY you kept your options open and took off all the religious holidays. Do you discuss politics or current events, or steer conversations to the football playoffs? Around here people take their football seriously so you are better off sticking to current events and politics. The concensus is that SONY was foolish to make even a stupid movie about a real head of state. Did anyone doubt who Charlie Chaplin was mocking in the Great Dictator? It would seem there were no major faux pas or other breaches of etiquette or protocol. The offending wine was consumed and enjoyed. Pickled Brussel's sprouts by comparison made the ancient pickles sound good. Actually, they were edible, but not actually in the good category, but if enough people come, they each only need make the mistake once to accomplish our goal of consuming them. Many people enjoyed the salmon, and TPP still had some left over for himself. All in all a fine open house.

Hard to know what to say about the torture report so leave it to Tom Tomorrow

The release of the summary of the torture report more or less tells us something most people already knew, so it's hard to know how to respond or comment. Only a real Pollyanna would think the USA doesn't have numerous secret closets filled with dirty-dealing skeletons. The only real surprise was that this report acknowledges as much of the dirty dealings as it does. Even still it won't make a big impression on the "USA is number 1" crowd; us cynics weren't disappointed, again. Everyone pretty much already knows that torture as a interrogation technique doesn't work, and this just reinforces that view. Everyone pretty much knows that the CIA and other spooky sets of initials lie, all the time, they can't help it, they're spooks. And if anyone had any doubt that Darth Cheney is the worst person on Earth, his responses certainly have cleared that up. Mostly TPP felt a great sadness that so many people in this country and in our government operate and promote politics and policies of fear, and that they have been so effective in messing with our national psyche. Tom Tomorrow nails it, and provides us with a grin in the process. Strange when your primary source of hope is cartoonists.