UFO #3

 Here goes another chapter.

Exactly what is an "object"?  Is it a bunch of matter?  What is matter?  What is light?  What percent of light can us humans actually see?  Looks a little complicated doesn't it?  One thing that I like to do is to first check the batting average of a person before I consider their opinion on some subject.  If they don't know very much, I don't give much weight to their opinions.  Here are a few simple questions.

(1) What is the causes of a rainbow?  Don't know?  How about that treasure of Gold at the end of the rainbow? Why is it that no one has ever been to the end of a rainbow?

(2)  How about lightning?  What is the cause of lightning.  How much voltage is in lightning?  Is there any lightning in outer space?  How about the moon?  Why not?

(3)  How does an X-ray work?  How can that light pass thru your body and normal light can't?

(3)  Here s one. Some plastic can not be printed on until it is exposed to special high energy light for a few seconds and then it has to be printed within a few seconds.  Why is that?

The point that I am trying to make is that atmosphere and light energy can be very complex and we think that seeing things starts from our eyes, but our eyes are actually very limited in what light 
reflections we can see.  

(4) Why is the sky black when the light energy from the Sun is streaming out into the sky?  Why is the shy blue when we look up from here on Earth?

(5)  How does an interferometer work?  They use light to measure distances with.  Did you ever see a laser system being used by a surveyor?  How about your GPS?

(6)  How about polarized light or polarized glasses?  How do they work and why can you see better at night with polarized glasses?

Is this starting to get too complicated for you?  Given all of this, how can you have any confidence in seeing what you think are UFO's

(7)  Did you know that gravity can actually bend light?  It is possible to actually see light coming from behind a large star, so how do you really know where the object is that your eyes are seeing?

(8)  How about the lens in a telescope or the mirror which does almost the same thing?  How do they make things look closer or farther away?  How about a glass prism that is in most binoculars?  How do they work?

Are you starting to dought what you think you are seeing?  If you understand the science behind all of the points that I have made above and you have seen what you think are UFO's, I would be interested in you comments!

Where Is Big Data?

 With all of the problems with crime, you would think that "Big Data" would be showing us more details about the problem.  This blog will explore how "Big Data" could contribute to the solution.

For those not familiar with Big Data, it is this new age of easy access to a wide range of data and advanced computers that can automatically analyze massive amounts of data.  I think that most of us know that the first step in solving a problem is to clearly define it.  That is where Big Data comes in.  We should be able to identify the location and cause of crime to the point that resources could be deployed on a pin point basis to get crime under control. Why has it not happened?  That is the point of this blog.  

Us poor humans can only analyze small amounts of data compared to modern computers, but with the little that we have, it seems clear that the crime problem is mostly in the urban Black community.  If that is the case, why don't we all just admit it?  If we did that we could deploy our law enforcement to those locations and leave most of the rest of the place alone.

If you look at the crimes, they are mostly Black on Black.  If that is the case, here again, we should be able to figure out how to deal with it better than now.  If you look at the looting that has gone on, you can easily see that it is mostly Blacks who are doing the looting.  Why can't we admit that and then do some thing about it?  It is starting to look like Big Data might have little to add to what most of us already know.

Why don't we have more data on criminals who have no fathers?  If it is the lack of fathers, our society could start trying to do something about it.  How about graduation from high school?  Do kids who do not graduate from high school tend to commit more crimes than those who graduate from high school?  I think that most of you with your eyes open know the answer to that question.

For some reason the current generation seems to want the police to spend equal amounts of effort in all segments of society rather than in areas where there is more crime?  It is like the war on guns.  We have laws now that convicted criminals can not have guns, but they still do.  If we make it more difficult for non-criminals to get guns, do you think that will reduce gun crimes?  How about our system of bail bonds where many states have zero bond requirement?  Do people out on zero bail bond commit more crimes than people who have not yet committed a crime?  How about people who commit multiple crimes, should they be dealt with differently than for a person's first crime?  How about "three strikes and you are out"?

The next time you watch the news and they cover crime, watch to see if they give you any data on the big picture?  Watch to see if they give you numbers on who and where most of the crimes are committed?  I know they give you the big numbers, but not down to the level where the police could really start doing something about them. Where is "Big Data"?  I am still looking.

PS--Every time they interview a person on the News who claims that they are a "single parent", why don't they ask how they became a "single parent".  If we knew why they became a "single parent", we then might know how to prevent the problem of being a "single parent" in the first place!  The same goes for not finishing high school.  Are we all just blind to the problem and the solution?

Seaside Building Collapse

 We have all been asking, "Why did the building collapse?"  Here is my opinion.

According to early reports, the building has been sinking over the past 40 years at a rate between 1 and 3 millimeters per year. Now, most people have no idea what a millimeter is, so they have no idea if this is a little or a lot?  Here are some numbers.  A meter is about 39.2 inchers and a millimeter is 1/1000 of that or 0.0392 inchers.  If you multiply that by 40 years and 1 to 3 per year, you get a range of 1.568 to 4.704 inches since the building was built.  That is a lot and here is why.

The building was made out of steel reinforced concrete.  That is good in most cases.  As it turns out concrete has very little tensile strength.  It is good in compression where it is just used to hold something up, but not if the load is from the side.  It is also brittle which means that it can not flex to handle even a small side load.  The steel is strong in both tension and compression and is much more elastic than concrete. The steel operates like a spring inside the concrete and does not take any load until it is stretched or compressed a little.  Do you follow that?  By the time the steel has stretched enough to start carrying some of the load, the concrete has already started to crack because it is so brittle.  That is why the concrete girders on highway bridges are made from "pre-stressed" concrete.  I am sure that this building was not built with "pre-stressed" concrete members.

In a steel or wood structure if the loads change over time, these materials can accommodate some of that change by flexing, creeping and load sharing.  In poured in place reinforced concrete construction, this is not possible.  Nothing can move or shift and this is exactly what happened with the building in Seaside.

The bottom line is that the shifting of the foundation of this building over the past 40 years is the reason that it collapsed, pure and simple.  Steel rod reinforced buildings like this are fine if they do not shift or are impacted by something like an earth quake.  Actually, steel rod reinforced concrete is a little like "cheating".  It can get the job done at a lower cost but only under special conditions.  It has little reserve when comes to changed conditions and that is what happened here.

PS--When there was an earth quake in the San Francisco Bay area a few years ago, the pre-stressed concrete beans on the elevated Embarcadero were fine, but the poured in place supports failed and the whole thing had to be taken down.  The World Trade Center in New York City was made from steel and failed when it got hot from the burning fuel from the airplane and lost both its tensile and compression strength. 

PS--Here is another observation about the collapse.  I think that most steel re-enforced concrete uses to too large of rods and too few.  If you look at the remaining part of the building, you will see many steel rods still attached to the building.  That means the rod connection to the concrete in the collapsed building failed.  They pulled out of the concrete and thus did not provide the force needed to hold the collapsed part of the building to the part that survived.  The steel rods, thus did not do their job.  

In ferrocement boats, they use much smaller rods, but many more and these boats last over a hundred years.  They also add "fines" to the concrete and we know that most concrete is deficient in "fines" that is needed to assure the concrete is both dense and strong and is "water proof".

Crime Crisis

 I think that we can all agree that the USA has a "crime crisis". but who knows what it will take to get crime back under control.  This blog will reveal some new details.

To really understand what has happened and what it will take to get crime back under control, you will need to look at the current situation honestly.  To do that, I am going to use some simple analogies to develop my point.  What has happened?  From the view point of a farmer, "The cows are out and he has to get them back in.  Can you picture that situation?  

How did the cows get out in the first place?  The farmer and his oldest son have been maintaining the fences for years and the cows have never gotten out before.  The both of them were able to keep the fences in good repair and not a single cow was able to get out so they did not even try.  It just happened that the farmer's son has gone off to college and now the farmer has to maintain the fences all by himself.  He had been doing a good job, but the fences were getting old and were more difficult to maintain.  One day when that first cow got out and the other cows saw her eating some fresh green grass and they had to eat old dry hay.  You know what happened next.  The other cows joined that first cow so they too could eat that fresh green grass. Now all the cows were out.

For the farmer to get the cows back in, he had to get all of his neighbors over to help and it took a very long time to get the job done.  The farmer still had the old fences so he had to go to the bank and borrow money to purchase new fences.  Also, he had to hire a helper to replace his son so that the fences could be properly maintained.

Now, how does this story relate to the current "crime crisis"?  The police departments and the courts had been holding the line against crime like the farmer and his son were maintaining the fences on the farm, but the liberal social activist started changing the regulations on the police and the courts started giving criminals less prison time. Like the cows getting out when the police and courts relaxed for just a moment crime took off.  Like the cows being out, just turning the clock back to before the crime crisis started will not be enough.  It will take calling on all the neighbors or adding a lot more police to get the crime rate back down to the old levels.  During this period, the penalties will need to be significantly more severe.   The question for all of us is, "do we really understand what it will take to get crime back to normal/".  

I could have used many other examples to show how difficult it is to correct a problem that could have been more easily prevented in the first place.  I could have used dog training or even children who did not have a father and the story would still be the same.

Look at penalties.  Isn't it clear that the penalty has to be "greater" than the violation so that the criminal clearly understands that his criminal behavior was "not worth it".  Fear of punishment is the basis of our legal system and we may have to remind ourselves of this simple fact.  Further, the certainty of getting caught has to be very high.  If looters have no fear of getting caught or that the punishment will be equal only to what they took, you can bet that they will continue looting.  When DA's plea bargain the actual crime down to much less or zero, you can also bet that crime will continue.

Isn't it clear that our government is still doing things that encourage the cows getting out?  It will not be enough for our government to just return to the old practices.  We will have to spend more and hit crime harder before we can expect to get the cows back in.  Are you ready to do what it will take?  I am not so sure!

Sadistic

 Being "Sadistic" is one of the worst human attributes a person can have as I will explain in this blog.

I think that we have all encountered someone who has acted "sadistically" in some way.  It is often found in young children who are too young to understand what they are actually doing.  As a parent, when we see this, we act immediately to eliminate the problem and guide our children in the proper direction.  It has even happened on a national scale in the case of Germany during WWII and more recently in North Korea and China.  No mater where "sadistic" behavior occurs, it is bad for society and needs to be stamped out.

I recently encountered a situation where I acted "sadistically", but it was totally justified.  How can that be you might ask given the paragraph above?  Well, there are situations where being "sadistic" may not be all that bad and I will share one with you.

I was out pulling weeds from my garden and when I came in for a drink, I noticed a wood tick on the back of my hand.  He apparently got onto the sleeve of my shirt while I was pulling weeds and crawled down my arm to the back of my hand.  He was not yet attached, but was looking for just the right place.  I have dealt with wood ticks before and normally get them off onto a hard surface and kill them with my knife.  This time I was in an even more "sadistic" mood, so I went to my desk and pulled off a short piece of Scotch Tape.  I quickly stuck the tape onto the crawling wood tick and he was then stuck firmly under the tape on my hand.  I watched him for a while and it was clear that he did not know what had just hit him.  I then pulled off the tape alone with the wood tick and quickly folded the Scotch Tape back over the tick, thus sealing him into his final resting place.  I know that it was "sadistic" what I had just done to that poor wood tick, but in this special case, I felt totally justified.

I think that you can see that there are places and situations where "sadistic" actions are clearly justified.  I slept well that night knowing that I had done the right thing and that wood tick would not harm anyone ever again

Crude Oil Price Under Biden

 What has happened to crude oil prices during Biden's Presidency?  The blog will explain the impact.

Biden is now meeting with Putin tomorrow and the price of crude oil is the biggest factor that no one is talking about.it.  Here are the numbers.  On the date that Biden was elected the price of crude oil was $38 per barrel and now it is $72 a barrel.  That is almost double!  Did you ever think about how that impacts different countries?  I did not think so.  Who are the counties who have the greatest amount of crude oil reserves?  Further, how much do they have on a per capita basis?  Russia has a lot more crude oil per capita than does the USA.  For Russia, one of their biggest sources of trade income is the exportation of crude oil and natural gas.  When Biden canceled the Key Stone pipe line, the impact was to make Russia twice as rich as it was.  Think about how much trouble can Russia release on the world with all that new wealth?

Canada has one of the largest crude oil reserves in the world and they are right next door to the USA, so why did Biden cancel the Key Stone pipe line?  It hurt  both Canada and the USA.  What was the logic in that?  How could it be any better for the USA to get cheap energy in the form of crude oil by pipe line from our neighbor?  If we want a better quality of life, it would seem to me that one of the main drivers of that would be cheap energy.  Notice that most of the poor countries around the world are countries that do not have crude oil reserves.  

For those who feel that global warming is going to destroy the human race here on Earth need to wake up.  Canceling the Key Stone pipe line actually causes more Carbon Dioxide to be put into the air than without it.  We will still get some of the crude oil from Canada, but it will have to come by rail tank car that cost more and are more prone to spills.  Does anyone understand this simple fact?

I should have also pointed out that the USA has some of the largest crude oil reserves too and that crude oil is worth more, but it can not be exploited because Biden has prevent the drilling for it on public lands.  Natural gas is also more difficult and more expensive to produce because Biden has prevented "fracking" on public land too.  Remember that natural gas is what heat our homes and is on of the cleanest ways to produce electricity for all these electric cars!

Does the word "suicide" sound appropriate at this time?  That seems to me that what Biden has done is to have committed suicide for the economy of the USA while helping the economy of our one of our biggest enemies, Russia.  You are not dead yet, but over the next few years, you quality of life will start going down and there will be nothing that you or Biden can do about it.  We have fallen off a cliff and do not feel a thing yet, because we have not hit bottom yet.  The fact that you now are paying more for gas for your car is the least of our problems that you will soon see!

Covid-19 Logic

 With all the people and experts talking about the origin of the Covid-19, I thought a little logic might me in order.

When the Covid-19 was first reported in China, it sounded like a normal, but serious type of the flu.  It was not until the first death was reported in the USA at a nursing home in Washington state that we started taking it seriously.  The reports were that the flu progressed much faster than other types of flu and it was a much older person who died. China and the World Health organization quickly reported that their data showed that it started in the "Wet Market" and was a type of known Bat virus.  At this time we knew a lot more than most people think, so where did it originate from?

Day one, what were the possibilities?  In my list there are three.

Source                        Probability

Wet Market                   90%

Lab                                 2%

Some other place            8%

At this point there was a lot of trust within the medical community so that considerable weight as you can see from my chart above, most people accepted that the Wet Market was the source.  Note also that no one ever made a chart like the above so that the public could see the facts.

Next, the medical community started trying to verify the source of  Covid-19 and looking for the Bat or some other animal that was sold in the Wet Market that carried the virus.  There was no luck finding the animal, but historically, after searching, the medical community had been able to find the animal that was the vector from the Bat to humans,  In this case they had come up empty so far.  Further, they found out that the Lab was working with Bat viruses only a few miles from the Wet Market.  By this time they also had more deaths that were different than other flu epidemics,  Now, the odds on the source must change with this new information.

Source                         Probability

Wet Market                  70%

Lab                               20%

Some other place          10%

The next data that came in was that the Chinese government had lock down the Lab and were not allowing any observers into the Lab.  It was starting to look like a cover up.  Many more deaths were starting to be reported from around the world and the symptoms were very different from past epidemics.  Further the location of the Bat caves were a thousand miles from the first Covid-19 case and still no vector could be found.  The Chinese were helpful in providing detailed data on the genetic make up of the Covid-19 virus.  This was a great help for starting work on a vaccine. but how did the Chinese government come up with this information so fast?  With the above additional data, the probabilities changed again.

Source                     Probability

Wet Market              40%

Lab                           55%

Some other place       5%

At this point President Trump stated that he thought the Covid-19 virus originated in the Chinese Lab.  Since this was one of the first times a flu virus originated in a Lab, many medical people who studied how viruses start looked at the history books that they had read in college and failed to take into account modern knowledge.  This was also combined with a hate of President Trump so that the minds of many, so called experts. was contaminated as was the news media.

As time has passed and the animal vector has not been found, it negates the possibility that the Covid-19 originated in the Wet Market.  Combined with the further analysis of the genetics of the virus, the chances of the source being the Wet Market has to be adjusted down significantly.  That means the odds on the other possibilities has to be raised significantly.

Source                  Probability

Wet Market               5%

Lab                          75%

Some other place     20%

I think that this is close to where we are now.  The question that we all need to answer is, "How sure do we have to be to say it was the Lab?  President Biden said in an interview while in Europe that, "Without the cooperation of China, we may never know for sure what the source of the virus was". That is total Bull Shit.  I think that with more time we will find that the source was not "Some other place" and with that knowledge the odd on the Lab will climb to over 90%.  Now, how sure do we need to be?

PS--- My wife was just at the Emergency Room with a migraine head ache that was about killing her.  The doctor did not ask if it was "Bad" or "Very Bad".  He asked that she use a scale of 1 to 10 and tell him the number.  If most doctors are smart enough to use this technique, why didn't our good friend Tony Fauci answer the question about the source of the virus this way?  

UFO #2

 Here is another chapter in the UFO story.

I would like to repeat that even the name "UFO" brings up a serious bias.  It is true that they are "unidentified", but the word "flying" is clearly biased as is "object".  I would like to remind all that what the human eye sees is "reflected" light and even this light is a very very narrow part of the spectrum.  Isn't is interesting that the images of the "sightings" are never very clear?  Further, there is no way that you can tell from the data how far away the sighting is.  Us humans estimate the distance to a sighting by first know how big it is and then how big the image is.  We can also judge distances because of the space between our eyes.  If we had picture of the same image from different angles, we could use geometry to determine the distance.  Note also that the Earth is round and an object that is far away may seem to disappear. by dropping beyond the visible horizon.

Did you ever notice that with all the telescopes around the world that zero have ever picked up a UFO?  It seems to me that all the sightings have been within the atmosphere of the Earth.  For them to be here, they must have had to ravel from someplace else.  Why don't we ever see them coming or going?  

In my last blog, I proposed that these sightings may actually be "shadows".  A shadow is not something, it is the absence of something.  Did you ever see a search light shining up into the sky?  What do you see?  It is gas in the atmosphere that reflected some of that light back to your eye.  What if that same search light was shining out in the vacuum of space?  It actually is and notice that you can not see that light from the Sun unless it hits your eye or is reflected off some object.

What happens if you cross some search lights?  What if you cross search light that are of different colors?  Did you know that light can be effected by gravity?  Light actually has "mass".  Isn't the definition of "object" is mass?  Notice that you can not see "nothing".  There has to be something and even light is something?  Is it starting to get confusing?  Notice also the speed of light.  It can move faster than any "object" that we are familiar with, but light is mass and thus and object.  Are there special situations where the mass of light can reflect other sources of light?  If you follow this logic, I think that you can start to see that these UFO's might have an explanation. 

I have to think about this a little more!

PS--How about "polarized" light?  How do they do that?  Like sound, it is possible to "cancel" a wave if you have another wave of the same type that is out of phase.  Is is then possible for on light to cancel out another light so that the result is a :shadow"?  Can you have shadows like this in our atmosphere?  It would not work in a vacuum.  You need some kind of back ground that you can see.  Interesting?

Homemade Bourbon Whiskey

 Remember when "craft beer" was the big thing?  Now it is "Bourbon Whiskey" and as the Brewmaster, I make Bourbon Whiskey too.

First off, I remind you not to violate the law.  Making Bourbon Whiskey from corn and barley could get you in trouble with the law.  Watching Moonshine on TV is OK, but don't do it unless you are licensed by the government.  Here is how you can make Bourbon Whiskey at home legally.  Further, don't call it Bourbon either.  That name is taken and copy righted.  Just call it "home made whiskey".  

If you start with Vodka that you purchased at the store, you will be OK.  The next step is to turn it into Whiskey.  If you did not know it or not, the distilled moonshine that goes into the Oak barrels is "clear".  It gets its color from the charred Oak wood that the barrel is made from.  It also gets most of its flavor from that same barrel, not the moonshine that went into it.  Bourbon Whiskey makers normally start with moonshine that is about 140 or 150 proof.  That saves space in the barrels and the more concentrated alcohol extracts flavors from the Oak barrel better, but you can still get good results with Vodka.

Start with a two quart mason canning jar and add a 150ml bottle of cheap vodka.  To that you need to add some toasted Oak chunks of wood.  This can be done by putting small chips of "White Oak" wood on a cookie sheet and toasting it in your oven.  Make sure your wood is "White Oak", not common Red Oak.  Once you have some experience, you can try other types of wood, like the pellets that they sell for your backyard smoker.  Put your toasted wood chips into the mason jar and let it soak for a few weeks on one of your back shelves. What you will notice is that the vodka will start to take on a brown or amber color like Bourbon Whiskey has.

After a month or so, you can add a few drops of Vanilla to give it a little more flavor.  You should not actually be able to taste the Vanilla.  Next, add about a tea spoon of real Maple Syrup.  It also adds a little of that extra flavor.  Now the final thing.  Go to your pharmacy and get a small bottle of pure Glycerin.  That's right Glycerin.  The Glycerin is tasteless, but it smooths the Bourbon Whiskey by tieing up some of the bitter flavors so that you can not taste them.

Now, you can serve your friends your own homemade Bourbon Whiskey and see what they think.  You can do all this without being concerned about breaking the law too.  Note that your Bourbon will end up at the same proof of the Vodka that you used in the first place.  Most Bourbon Whiskey is 80 proof so yours will be the same.

PS--You could also try some liquid smoke too.  Be cautious and try different brands.

Golf

 Golf players will understand this blog.

I did not start playing golf until I graduated from college.  I was very lucky that one of the guys who worked for me was the best golfer in the company.  He was also a very good teacher.  I played golf with him at least three times a week, but never on week ends. As you might have expected, my golf game improved very significantly.  I was able to play golf at major courses around the USA and around the world.  As I look back on my experience today, there is a very important lesson that I learned from golf and what was that?  If you want to improve your golf game, you need to play with players who are better than you.  I think that most golfers already know this rule, but it applies to much more than golf.

We all know that the Black community in the USA has serious social problems.  Those problems are manifest in more than crime and poor economic performance.  Like many social problems, they can not be solved from the outside.  I point out the contrasting performance of Asians who are also a minority here in the USA.  The Asian community actually performs better than the base line White community.  Why is that?

Let's start with young men.  Like golf, if you want to improve your situation, you need to associate with those who are better models and that means that Black young men need to avoid hanging with others who are high school drop outs and who engage in the use of drugs.  It does not take a police department to get young Blacks to avoid poor social models.  It is up to the individual to make these kinds of judgements.  For most, this simple lesson is taught by the young person's father and that means that Black fathers need to start taking responsibility for their young male children.  It is like golf, these kids need to play with better players.

I was watching the News where a young Black kid about age 14 was out with much older Black men who had guns and apparently gave one to this young Black.  When the kid was confronted by the police, he ran away with the gun in his hand.  At a split second when the young Black turned with the gun still in his hand, the policeman shot him.  It might have been that the young Black was trying to throw away the gun, but at night and a split second, the policeman had no choice but to shoot.  You have to ask why that young Black person was out that late at night and why he was with a model who was so different from the model that he should have been associated with?

If a young person hangs around with older criminal elements you have to expect that they will be effected in a very negative way.  Blacks need to start "playing with better players", Black, White or Asian.