I saw Andromeda this morning. Like most of us, I live in a place with too much city light to do much astronomy. But I’ve wanted to see our nearest neighbor galaxy for a long time. On a visit to Ajijic, I didn’t have binoculars and wasn’t sure where to look. Later, in Izmir, I was pretty sure I was looking in the right direction with 10× pocket binoculars, but there was a nearly full moon nearby and I didn’t see anything. On this visit to Arizona, I was unable to spot Orion one night and an app revealed that it, and Cassiopeia and therefore M31, the Andromeda galaxy, were below the horizon, so I would have to observe in the early morning. The monsoon season has begun, with risk of storms and cloud cover, and last night the sky was cloudy. But I woke up early and the weather app said it was clear, so I went out with a good set of binoculars. I covered one eye, walked to an open field away from parking lot lights, and located Cassiopeia. Soon after starting to pan around with the binoculars I saw a faint smudge which I thought was probably the target, unimpressive as it appeared. I made a sketch (annotated afterward) which matched up well with the view in Stellarium This is the only galaxy visible without assistance, but there was no way I could spot it without magnification. Satellites were much easier to see. There’s a paradox that the night sky is not as bright as the sun, which I thought was explained by interstellar dust, but apparently it’s more complicated than that. It does appear that the background of the magnified view is not uniformly black, but finely textured with fainter light sources. As the sky brightened, Mt. Lemmon appeared, from which I recently saw the boneyard 20 miles distant. Today’s plan includes a visit to the Titan Missile Museum. In 1980, a similar missile silo in Arkansas blew up because a guy dropped a socket.
Went fishing in the Potomac for artifacts. Got a fence post and no rusty guns or money boxes. At the boat house they told us there were dozens of cell phones 40 feet down, but I only found fasteners. And a mystery object.
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Happy New Year! We are home-bound but midnight is catching up. The captain announced a fog delay of up to two hours and half the passengers groaned. Then they announced the delay in Portuguese and the other half groaned. Now we are delayed in JFK with mechanical problems but should be home by 2020.
"Weekend in New York" has been a break in routine since the days when we could find a clean hotel on Priceline for under $100, usually in the quiet financial district. Our cap is now closer to $200, but even that was enough to get us into the W Downtown last year, where we climbed the stairs and discovered a hidden billiard room with a view of the Statue of Liberty. The goal last weekend was to see Giancarlo Stanton at Yankee Stadium. The kid wore his Marlins jersey and brought his catcher's mitt, but no foul balls reached the grandstand level. Manhattan is different with each visit. In the old days, young people would show off their risk tolerance by standing between the subway cars to smoke. Now they take Juul drags while sitting among other passengers. Another pencil tower seems to sprout up each time I look around. We called this the "Minecraft Tower." 56 Leonard Street is actually nicknamed the "Jenga Tower," since there's nothing awkward about alluding to skyscrapers toppling over. Apparently they are not yet sold out, so act now.
Bad wreck on the bike trail this morning. A jogger waved a warning as I approached the scene of a half-dozen EMTs loading someone onto a stretcher. I chose to exercise the bystander effect and talked with the jogger some distance from the site. He hadn't seen the incident, but said the guy "screamed pretty loud" when they moved him. It's a tricky and tight blind corner at the bottom of downslopes in two directions, where the trail turns under I-66. Yesterday afternoon I saw a close call at another bad spot, a sharp corner at the bottom of a hill where I have previously seen the aftermath of a collision. This time, a guy passed me on the downslope with an electric assist bike. You would think e-bikers would be happy to brake since they have the motor to help them get back up to speed, but in my experience they seem very protective of their momentum. He cut the corner pretty sharp, probably crossing the center line, and his shoulder came within an inch or two of the shoulder of a pedestrian walking the other way. The walker, engrossed in a smartphone world, never knew what didn't hit him. Would have been good for the highlight reel but I had earlier stopped the camera when trying to make sure it was on. Be safe out there.
Hubski plays Diplomacy! Game 3 is open for anyone to join using the code "hubski", all are welcome and no experience is required. There is space for five more players. Gameplay is easy to learn and requires a few minutes to submit orders once a day.
When I see the word "prediction," I think of something like this: I don't see many clear, measurable, falsifiable predictions here. Some of the predictions are already true. How will we know if we had any understanding of current events if we can't check our hypotheses later? Saying "it's going to be a disaster" and claiming validation every time something bad happens is too easy. Bryan Caplan has recorded a number of bets, some concerning Trump. Scott Alexander has published a list of predictions for 2017 and keeps a scorecard. He also made ten specific predictions about Trump. Some paraphrased examples: The U.S. Muslim population will increase throughout Trump’s presidency. The Trump cabinet will be at least 10% minority. No large demographic group will be forced to sign up for a “registry.” Other sources make some predictions, but the ones I saw were often fuzzy and unclear, like talk of "impeachment" without specifying whether Trump would be removed from office. Here are my guesses. In brief, I predict more of the same. The Wall There are now "more than 580 miles (930 km) of barriers in place" along the 1,954-mile (3,145 km) long Mexico-U.S. border. I predict that the wall will be improved, but will remain less than half the length of the border. I predict that Trump will not force Mexico to pay construction costs (talk perhaps, but not actions like garnishing money transfers or withholding aid). Aid obligations in 2015 were $586 million, mostly for drug enforcement. The number varies a lot by year, but I predict it will not drop below the 2012 reported value of $215 million during the next four years. Jobs There were 12,265,000 employees in U.S. manufacturing jobs in October 2016. The trend has been downward since the 1980s, though there has been some recovery since 2010. I predict that this number will be lower than 12,265,000 by the end of 2020. Other Twitter will still exist and annoy in 2020. Trump will remain president for a full four-year term. The number of abortions induced, as measured by the CDC, will continue to decline as it has for years, with no conspicuous change in the next four years. The U.S. will remain a signatory to the Paris Climate Agreement. The number of mosques in the U.S. not be less than the 2,106 counted in 2011 during the next four years. U.S. GDP growth will be positive for at least three of the four years from 2017 to 2020, and not lower than -2% in any year. Which of these do you think I got wrong? What are your concrete predictions?"It will be a very dramatic change in the sky, as anyone can see it. You won't need a telescope to tell me in 2023 whether I was wrong or I was right," Molnar said at the presentation
Total hate crimes incidents will be not more than 125% of their 2015 value at any year during a Trump presidency.
Are you saying that all that green stuff grew up after you cut the onions? That's proper farming, right there. I potted a grocery store basil plant and hung it near a sunny window, hoping for a sustainable source of basil. Then we went on vacation and I forgot to water it when we came back and now it's a short-term source of dried herbs.
Hard to believe today is the same day I got up at 3:30 and saw the headlines and it seemed like a new world. Thought of mk during a brief layover in Detroit, trying to read expressions of Red state residents watching airport TV. The gate agents asked if we would be coming back. Then we were in a real new world. And immediately felt the refreshing absence of East Coast uptightness. People walk around in a light rain and nod and greet strangers. The flight attendant announced that the local time is "Who cares." No one rushing since we got through customs. Now CNN is showing protest crowds around the White House, where flagamuffin and I passed during a meetup last Saturday. No photos so maybe not official, but we thought thenewgreen would want to know.
