Shadow Flutter

Winchester mansion was built by Sara Winchester of Winchester Rifle fame.  Legend has it that after the death of her husband and infant daughter, Sara Winchester came to believe her family was haunted by ghosts, possibly the ghosts of those killed by Winchester rifles.  So she built this mansion in San Jose, California, and had construction ongoing everyday of her life to ward off the ghosts.  The reality is that she did have construction going on her entire life, but she also dismissed the builders for periods of time.  Maybe she needed peace and quiet.  The results include: --  160 rooms (some hidden) --  40 bedrooms --  2 ballrooms --  40 stairways (some hidden) --  One stairway goes nowhere ending at the ceiling. --  47 fireplaces --  10,000+ panes of glass --  17 chimneys --  Some chimneys stop floors short of roof. --  Small rooms built inside larger rooms. --  Balconies built inside ma...

I'm taking an online calculus course from Coursera, and the instructor, Professor Jim Fowler from Ohio State University, is something to behold.  It's pleasant to meet someone who loves what he does, and Fowler is someone who loves math and teaching math.  Energetic, effervescent, and animated -- he jumps around a lot --you can't take your eyes off him.  If calculus is the subject, Fowler is the show, and maybe after watching his videos you will like math too.  I encourage you to bop over to coursera and watch a video or two of his.  Most are short, between 5 and 10 minutes, so it won't take long.  The course name is "Calculus One" with the subheading "The Ohio State University."  I believe you will have to sign up with Coursera and enroll in the course, but it's free (as long as you don't check the certificate box), and you can drop the course immediately after viewing the videos without penalty.  But I'm wagering many of you will want t...

New York City has an extensive online photo archive .  The archive includes photos from the NYC Police Department's Alien Squad, its Subversive Surveillance Unit.  They've included photos of Communist Party conventions at Madison Square Garden and photos of the German American Bund at Siegfried Camp in Yaphank, Long Island late 1930's. You can search by category. Examples Alien Squad American German Bund Brooklyn Bridge Brooklyn Navy Yard Grand Central Station Madison Square Garden Times Square Trinity Church Wall Street Have a look and enjoy.

I am walking down a street in a neighborhood, happy with the smells of early summer and the sounds of children playing, dogs barking, and birds chirping.  One of life’s many simple pleasures for the healthy and ambulatory.  Up ahead I see four people in conversation. There is a young man and woman of the same age attended by an elderly woman standing slightly behind and to the side of them.  They are facing a second man.  As I move closer I can tell the man and woman are having a disagreement with the other man.  Let’s suppose the young couple are the elderly woman’s grandson son and daughter-in-law, and let’s observe how they ignore her. The conversation continues until the man not related to her asks the elderly woman for her opinion.  There is a pause, and then like a bicyclist maneuvering over a gravelly and treacherous path, her words come forth tentatively and with effort, as much an indicator of her age as are the crevices and age spots etched i...

Field biologists discuss what really grosses them out. https://tinyurl.com/y7cnzw7s

Update:  My cat remains intrigued by the body-length mirror I placed at the top of the stairway.  Now when I'm going downstairs he races past me to stand in front of the mirror and watch me descend the stairs.  He's no longer freaked by my being in two places at the same time; he takes it as a given.  I've also caught him looking at it from different angles.  He looks like he's figuring out how much territory he can peruse by changing his angle of view.  I'm waiting for the day I catch him cleaning himself by looking in the mirror.

So how smart are cats? I put a body-length mirror at the top of the stairwell yesterday, and my cat, Romulus, is fascinated by it.  First time he saw it he stood starting into it; I think he realizes he's looking at himself and is fascinated by the idea of it.  Enthralled, his tail flips left and right in strong strokes of inquiry.  But what really got him going was when I walked up the stairs.  First my head appeared in the mirror, then my shoulders, then slowly the rest of my body as I reached the top stair.  Now I'm in front of him and behind him at the same time, and he freaks.  I never saw him display such frenetic energy as he displayed while trying to figure out what was going on.  How could I be behind him and in front of him at the same time?  Looks to me like he recognized both of us.  He would probably have quite a time of it if I took him to a hall of mirrors.  Imagine a cat looking at its reflection in a convex or concave ...

You can read The History of Television — Part I directly below this post. Fast forward to the 1980’s. They say cable television was invented in 1948 or 1950, but I think they are lying.  I think that Wikipedia entry in the History of Television has been put there to test us, to see if we are paying attention, to see if we are exercising our critical analysis skills, because if cable existed in the early ‘80s I never saw it.  They must have been hiding it in some lab.  But the technology had improved in many areas. We now had color TV — black and white had been consigned to the museum — Good Riddance — you could see the picture at night, there was no crackle in the audio, I almost never had to jiggle the antenna wire, and I no longer had to watch potato farming and Gumby on Sunday mornings. But entropy was conserved with the preachers.  Gone were the small town preachers, replaced by televangelists who were everywhere. In addition to being on TV all Sunday morning, t...

1950’s When I was a young shaver, we didn't have TV until my aunt gave us hers. It had a six inch screen with vacuum tubes. The electronics sat in a tray and took up more space than the cathode ray tube. (Which is saying something given the size of cathode ray tubes at the time, even one with a six inch screen).  You'd turn it on and wait and wait and wait while the vacuum tubes “warmed up,” what ever that means. If today's standards applied then, you would be on the phone with the cable company before the picture displayed.  The TV sat inside this massive piece of furniture that looked a lot like a cabinet but was wider than it was tall, yet stood as tall as I did, an eight-year-old boy. The thing weighed a ton and took 4 guys to carry into the house.  I’m convinced with the slightest assistance it would have plowed through the floors to the basement. The six-inch screen looked ridiculous overwhelmed as it was by the size of the cabinet.  All that for this...

This is an old photo of Devil's Slide taken in 1873 or 1874.  Pretty neat, huh? Take a close look at the train. Right behind the engine is what looks like a coal bin and may be part of the engine platform. That makes sense because you would have to keep shoveling coal to keep producing steam. Following the coal car is what looks like the train personnel's living quarters. It has windows. Wish the caboose was in frame. Imagine living and working on a train as it traveled across mountains and valleys.  A very different life.  I wish I could do this just once. That trough-like (for lack of a better word) object descending and scarring the mountainside looks manmade. But it might be the Slide referred to. If so, does that mean its nature's creation? To me it looks manmade, and if so, it's probably a conduit for water and ugly contaminants that would otherwise flood mine shafts and miners. Wouldn't go in the water.  Ugly, and the water is probably unhealthy, even t...