Such An Honor For Dyer Lytle!

College friend Dyer is receiving a rare honor. Dyer reports:

I got my asteroid yesterday. 28581-Dyerlytle is 1-2 km in diameter with an eccentricity of 0.120. My thanks to Lowell Observatory.

So, What Are Tween Girls Watching These Days?

Apparently this.

@downloader.world Wednesday Addams Dance Scene #wednesdayaddams #fyp #movieclips #fypシ #viral #tiktok #greenscreen #weddingtiktok ♬ original sound - Downloader.world

'Aningaaq' (Gravity)

I rewatched one of my favorite movies, 2013's "Gravity," directed by Alfonso Cuaron and starring Sandra Bullock and George Clooney. I didn't realize this short film was included on the DVD. One of the most hallucinatory moments of the film comes when desperate Mission Specialist Ryan Stone (Sandra Bullock) manages to enter the still-functional Chinese spacecraft and tries to use its radio to reach Houston Mission Control, but reaches someone else instead. That someone is Aningaaq:

Aningaaq presents the other side of that conversation, introducing Orto Ignatiussen as the title character, an Inuit fisherman on a remote fjord in Greenland, where the short was shot on location. The connection to Gravity is seamless, as Bullock's dialogue is included in full here and Aningaaq's side is heard in the film. The short reinforces the impact of the scene in Gravity, going far beyond a tie-in gimmick and adding to the artistry of the movie in a unique way.

Kmart In-Store Music: Christmas 1974

The algorithm at YouTube decided I needed to listen to this, and of course, the algorithm is right.

 

A Normal Rainy Season So Far

For the last decade, the California rainy season (as experienced in Sacramento) has been like dystopian sci-fi. This rainy season, however, seems normal. In general, rainy seasons start about November 1st. This year, the rainy season started - on November 1st. The storm that just passed through was strong, but it didn't produce as much rain as I had hoped. Still, Sacramento is about 10% above normal for the season. We'll fall behind again next week as dry weather rules, but there are more opportunities on the horizon for rain on the 21st and the 26th. So, let's have more rain, and more snow in the mountains with cold weather, so there isn't an early snowmelt, so the fish can have more than dust to breathe next summer.

Maybe They've Crossed The Frontier For Fusion?

So tantalizing close for so many decades. Are we setting up an energy revolution?:

Physicists have since the 1950s sought to harness the fusion reaction that powers the sun, but no group had been able to produce more energy from the reaction than it consumes — a milestone known as net energy gain or target gain, which would help prove the process could provide a reliable, abundant alternative to fossil fuels and conventional nuclear energy.

The federal Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, which uses a process called inertial confinement fusion that involves bombarding a tiny pellet of hydrogen plasma with the world’s biggest laser, had achieved net energy gain in a fusion experiment in the past two weeks, the people said. 

Although many scientists believe fusion power stations are still decades away, the technology’s potential is hard to ignore. Fusion reactions emit no carbon, produce no long-lived radioactive waste and a small cup of the hydrogen fuel could theoretically power a house for hundreds of years.

Ukraine Targeted the Wagner Group

I hope the news is accurate!:

"They had a little pop there, just where Wagner headquarters was located. "A huge number of those who were there died."

...Gaidai did not give casualty figures, but he said those surviving faced inadequate medical services to treat them. 

"I am sure that at least 50% of those who managed to survive will die before they get medical care," he said. "This is because even in our Luhansk region, they have stolen equipment."

Funkanometry Dances

Kate sends this clip from Funkanometry!:

Wowza!! I just saw this incredible interpretation of SWEET DREAMS…
Gentlemen..You’re AMAZING!!!
Thanks for choosing our song!
ps.. Who ARE you???? pic.twitter.com/uQFLUYZ5iI

— Annie Lennox (@AnnieLennox) December 10, 2022

Pyramid Scheme

It sounded irresistible, so I bit. 

I listened to a hour-long webinar about how to get rich quick by making audiobooks for Audible.com. They need so many audiobooks! Content is so-o-o lacking in today's fast-paced economy. 

Except you don't really make the audiobooks yourself. You hire a mystery company ghostwriter, because you are probably illiterate. And you don't do the voiceover work yourself, because you probably sound like a frog, so you hire someone from their voiceover team. And you market your audiobook using their team of specialists, turning your audiobook into e-books and print books, and scatter them on multiple platforms across the Internet, and get multiple income streams going, and retire to Vail or Palm Springs, or wherever suits your fancy. 

Which begs the question, of course, that if they are doing all the work, why do they need you? Why not cut you out of the loop altogether and make the mystery ghostwriter rich instead? More efficient that way. But if you act today, you can enroll in their audiobook academy for only $2K and learn the process from the pros. 

I didn't really understand this audiobook pyramid scheme. Is content all that hard to come by? Fake authors peddling fake content to people on exercise bikes, who barely pay any attention anyway because ambient Hi-NRG music overwhelms their earbuds? 

With today's rain, Jasper the Dog had been cooped up all day, so I took him for a brief walk around the block. It was still too rainy, and it looks like we are about to get hit by the low pressure center tonight, so the rain will only increase. 

Then Jasper noticed the mysterious construction on the doorstep of the local art gallery. Was it? Yes, it was! It was a pyramid - a pyramid of donuts! Rich, chocolatey donuts too. So many sprinkles! Why was this pyramid of donuts here? 

I didn't understand the pyramid of donuts any better than the pyramid of audiobooks, but I do understand chocolate. So, I waved Jasper away from the pyramid, and took a donut for myself. 

I just hope the donut is pure, and doesn't have anything like strychnine in it. No use in spending $2K down at the Emergency Room. They get you coming and going these days. But maybe if I start an academy of doctors and nurses down at the ER I don't really have to know anything about medicine at all, but can live off the income stream, and can retire to Maui or the Gold Coast.