A Playground for the Demented
I hate to cut into the time anyone might waste reading some other site, but for this I make an exception. “The Diamond Invention” If you have the time it is a fascinating read. I am up to chapter 6 and it is all available for free on your local internet.
Take a look for the Tarzan and Jane photo in the introduction if for nothing else.
When reading Heinlein’s “Citizen of the Galaxy” I always wondered where the family name Rudbeck came from. Rudbeck was the name Thorby, adopted son of Baslim the Cripple, assumed towards the end of the novel. I found a reference, and because at the time I was reading Flint and Weber’s 1934 where it also tied in, I found myself compelled to follow it to this:
Olaus Rudbeck (also known as Olof Rudbeck the Elder, to distinguish him from his son, and occasionally with the surname Latinized as Olaus Rudbeckius) (September 13, 1630 Västerås – December 12, 1702) was a Swedish scientist and writer, professor of medicine at Uppsala University and for several periods rector magnificus of the same university. He was the son of Bishop Johannes Rudbeckius, who was personal chaplain to King Gustavus Adolphus, and the father of botanist Olof Rudbeck the Younger.
It was chasing down links of interest from that Wiki entry that led me to the answer to a question on the Science Quiz (part #1) post about the kind of tree one might find in a churchyard, the yew.
I always think from any Wiki entry you can find a post about radar in 5 or fewer links. So far I have not been proven wrong, Doing it right you can probably find a connection to most anything in 5 or fewer links.
At NRO Online Roger Clegg says:
We Need Only a Short National Dialogue on Race.
Charles Ogletree and Johanna Wald had an oped in the Washington Post yesterday, using the events of last week to call for, you guessed it, a national dialogue on race and blaming continued racial inequality on, you guessed it again, “structural racism and implicit bias.” They are wrong on both counts.
It’s never clear to me what’s supposed to be said in this national dialogue. The overwhelming majority of Americans believe that racial discrimination is wrong and that Dr. King was right that we should be judged by the content of our character, not the color of our skin. In all the controversy last week, nobody — not the NAACP, not the tea-partyers, not Shirley Sherrod, not the Justice Department, not Senator Webb — questioned that. This is happy news, and it shows that on the basic principle involved there is not much to talk about.
Now, I suppose that one might think that this conversation would, instead, focus on why we still have the various racial disparities that Ogletree and Wald identify. But I don’t think this is what they envision. I say that because by far the main reason for these disparities is that more than 7 out of 10 African Americans today are born out of wedlock. Yet how many words do Ogletree and Wald devote to this problem in their column? Yes, you guessed right once again: Zero.
Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on Movie Captioning and Video Description
The Department of Justice’s Consideration of Regulations Requiring Closed Captioning and Video Description for Movies Shown at Movie Theaters
Since the enactment of the ADA twenty years ago, technologies have been developed to include closed captions and video description in movies being shown at movie theaters. Movie studios have responded by producing and distributing movies with captioning and video description. However, these features are not generally made available at movie theaters. In 2008, the Department of Justice’s published a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) seeking comment on whether it should issue regulations requiring captioning and video description. The Department received many comments supporting such regulations. Also, recently a federal appellate court endorsed the position of the Department and determined that the ADA requires movie theaters to show movies with closed captioning and video description unless the theaters can show that it would be a fundamental alteration or undue burden to do so. In light of these developments, this advance notice presents for public review and comment a series of questions seeking additional and updated comments and suggestions regarding what a future rule on this issue should address.
Summary: The Department is providing advance notice that it is considering whether to propose revising the title III regulations to require movie theater owners and operators to show movies with closed captions and video description in their theaters at least fifty percent of the time. The purpose of the notice is to discuss how best to frame such a requirement and to determine the costs and benefits of any such requirement.
You might look at this as I had to in order to understand what was meant by “Video and Audio Description”. — “Audio description refers to an additional narration track for blind and visually impaired consumers of visual media (including television and film, dance, opera, and visual art). It consists of a narrator talking through the presentation, describing what is happening on the screen during the natural pauses in the audio, and sometimes during dialogue if deemed necessary.”
When I think of the blind being forced to sit behind posts and in otherwise visually obscured seats at sporting events, or in the first several rows at movie theaters and elsewhere, I am almost convinced such rules as these with the force of law are necessary. Then I wake up.
I was under the impression that the Earth had about another 4 or 5 billion years to go before the Sun went nova ending all life on the planet. In wandering around the Wikipedia I now learn — “About 2.1 billion years from now, the continual increase of the Sun’s radiation will cause the Earth’s oceans to vaporize . . .”
It looks like Robert Frost gets his wish sooner than I feared:
Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice