S. Evan Townsend's Blog, page 15

Kids These Days

I recently visited my smart, cute, amazing grandson who is three years old. And I marveled at how he knows how to use a tablet computer and to ask his father to play the "soundtrack" from a movie (because he likes the songs but the movie itself scares him). His father can pull up lots of kid-friendly videos on YouTube on his television, too (apparently there's a kids' YouTube; who knew?). 

And I thought about when I was three years old. Now, I don't specifically remember much from when I was three years old (except the John F. Kennedy funeral that I came across one day on television and thought it was a boring parade). But I do know that my electronic entertainment options were two black and white television channels. I lived in a rural area of Idaho and there were, literally, only two channels. (This was long before cable television.) I think we had an antenna on the roof, not rabbit ears.

And I, as the youngest, was the remote.

We did, occasionally, get to go see a movie at the theater. Disney movies, mainly. I didn't know what a "soundtrack" was until I bought the soundtrack (on two vinyl records) for Star Wars.

We had two channels until early 1970s when we got a PBS station. Then in 1976, we got a third commercial station. Cable television came at about the same time. I remember my parents being unhappy that HBO was going to show R-rated movies. My thought was, "Don't get HBO, it's an extra cost anyway."

My parents didn't get a color television until about 1968. Computers? Tablets? Smart phones? All many decades away. 

Kids today are growing up in a completely different environment than I did. They have access to all sorts of thing both good and bad. Parents need to keep an eye on what their kids are doing.

Did you grow up under different circumstances? Which did you think was better, then or now? Let me know in the comments below.

Robots Writing Blog Posts

I've been seeing the ad to the left on Facebook a lot. Blog posts written by robots! That's interesting.

I try to write a blog post once a week. Sometimes I get ahead of myself and have a few lined up. 

I can't imagine what a blog post written by AI would look like (probably less spelling errors). And I wonder what it costs (I'm sure it's not free). On their website (jasper.ai), They claim to have 3,000+ 5-star reviews. And they say, "Artificial intelligence makes it fast & easy to create content for your blog, social media, website, and more!"

There's an offer for 10,000 free words. But then they get into plans, the cheapest of which is $40 a month. But they try to upsell you to "Boss" level with is $82/month.

I'd almost like to try it, but I don't want to spend the money. 

Interestingly, an AI expert says that 90% of online content could be produced by A.I. by 2025. Which isn't far away.

And then there's ChatGPT, an AI chat bot. It's supposed to do amazing things. I just went there and was told it was "over capacity."

What do you think about blog posts written by AI or ChatGPT? Is this the future? Let me know in the comments below.

Charging More for Good Seats

When people wait in line for something, that's an inefficiency in the economy. It's a cost the consumer pays that the seller doesn't profit from. 

One example is waiting in line for movies to try to get good seats. I remember waiting in line for two hours to see Lord of the Rings: Return of the King in Seattle. I still got lousy seats because, apparently, I didn't start waiting in line early enough. 

My idea to reduce this inefficiency was have movie theaters charge more for opening days and then have the price of tickets reduced as the film was out more. That would mean people who really wanted to see it early would pay more to do so, and not have to wait in line as much if at all. 

Now, AMC Theaters is trying another idea: charge more for good seats.

This has met with universal derision on the news programs I've watched. Nobody seems to like this idea.

But I do. I'd gladly pay more for a good seat so I didn't have to wait in line for two or more hours. (Full: disclosure: the last time I waiting in line for a movie was Return of the King.) This would eliminate an inefficiency in the economy. To me it's a win-win. You don't want to pay more for a good seat,  you can sit in a not-so-good seat.

I would change this a bit, though. I would stop this pricing once the movie has been out for a while and there are no longer lines. When I show up for a movie and there's almost no one else there, I wouldn't want to pay more for a good seat.

What do you think of this idea? Good idea or bad? Let me know in the comments below.

(I put this under "science" because economics is called "the dismal science.")

"Disposing" of Metallic Sodium

Metallic SodiumThere's a video on YouTube of Army engineers "disposing" of metallic sodium by dropping it in a lake in Eastern Washington after World War II. There's no mention of why the military had so much metallic sodium. I wonder if it had to do with the nuclear reactors built at the Hanford Site in south-central Washington. Liquid sodium metal is used as a coolant in more modern nuclear reactors.

The lake was Lake Lenore which is just off Highway 17 south of Grand Coulee and north of the town of Soap Lake. 

Watch the video, it's interesting.

When the sodium hits the water, it reacts violently as the metal gives up an electron easily (it has only one in its outer valence) to the water (which is normally not a very reactive substance).

The sodium and water reaction makes sodium hydroxide and hydrogen gas. Because the reaction is very exothermic, the hydrogen gas can ignite to react with the oxygen in the air to make more water. Here is the balanced formula of the sodium reaction (I can't do subscripts):

2Na(s) + 2H2O → 2NaOH(aq) + H2(g)

The (s) means "solid," the (aq) means "aqueous," and the (g) means "gas."

The hydrogen plus oxygen reaction looks like this:

2H2(g) + O2(g) → 2H2O

Interestingly, chlorine has only seven electrons in its outer valence. It wants eight to be stable. This is why chlorine is very reactive, too. When you combine it with sodium, it gains an electron from the sodium and they are both stable. This makes sodium chloride or table salt.

These days, Lake Lenore is stocked with fish and is a popular recreational spot. 

What do you think of the Army's method of disposal of metallic sodium. Let me know in the comments below.

Evolution Messed Up!

Evolution messed up! At least with vertebrates.

Let me explain. There are two most vulnerable parts of the body: the heart and the brain. Now the heard is buried inside the chest and protected somewhat by the ribcage. But the brain... the brain is protected by a shell of bone (the skull) but it sticks out on top on the end of an appendage (the neck). And the neck, to be honest, isn't that tough. 

And, because the brain needs a lot of blood, and it is farther from the heart in the head, critical veins and arteries run through the neck. Not to mention nerves. 

Now, maybe evolution thought our eyes should be high up to see threats better. And, for some reason, wanted a short run of the optic nerves. (Actually, I read somewhere that the optic nerves and the retina are extensions of the brain.) So it put the brain high as possible. And, apparently this is helps with survival more than protecting the brain like the heart.

So maybe evolution didn't mess up. 

What do you think? Let me know in the comments below.

Best Picture

The Oscar Nominations came out Tuesday. 

This year is unusual for me because I've seen three of the ten Best Picture nominees. Usually I'm lucky to have seen one of them.

The nominees are (see what I did there?) and my opinion of them are (ones I've seen are bold):

All Quiet on the Western Front (I assume a remake of the WWI movie. Never heard about it until today. It's on Netflix and I don't have that service anymore because I wasn't watching it.)

Avatar: The Way of Water (Ratings bait to get people to watch the ceremony. Haven't seen it.)

The Banshees of Inisherin (Never heard of it)

Elvis (Good movie. Was mostly centered on Col. Tom Parker)

Everything Everywhere All at Once (Good movie but hard to follow)

The Fabelmans (In my DVD.com queue. Suppose to get it in February)

Tár (Haven't seen it)

Top Gun: Maverick (Also ratings bait. Good, fun movie but not Oscar material.)

Triangle of Sadness (Never heard of it.)

Women Talking (Ditto.)

 I remember when the Academy increased the best picture nominees to ten to, once again, get more people to watch. 

I might watch a little of the ceremony. But I doubt it. I just don't care. Now if Will Smith can slap someone, that might be interesting.

How do you feel about the Oscar nominations? Let me know in the comments below.

Brilliant Design

My car has a problem in winter. Not that it doesn't handle snow well. It does. Put on a set of traction tires and it's a mountain goat in the snow.

No, the problem is the backup camera gets dirty and therefore almost useless. Here's what it looks like:

That's because the camera is on the exterior of the vehicle:

So I have to clean it regularly. When it's clean, it looks like this:

Which doesn't last long in wet/snowy conditions.

My wife drives a Volkswagen GTI and it has a brilliant design on its backup camera. It sits behind the rear logo where it stays clean:

And when she puts the car in reverse, the logo pops open to expose the camera:

I think this is amazing and a brilliant design. Why doesn't my car have something similar?

I love good design. And I'm mostly happy with my car, don't get me wrong. It just has this one flaw my wife's car doesn't.

QR Codes are Back!

For a while there, I thought QR codes were dead. But they are back. I'm seeing them in all sorts of places. Restaurants, TV commercials and shows, signs. And I blame the pandemic.
Restaurants, once there were allowed to open, needed a way to show you their menu without you touching their menus. So they used QR codes: (That was in a restaurant last September still.) And I think people suddenly were reminded of their usefulness. 
Here's one I saw on television during a football game:

I saw one on the desk in a hotel room. So I scanned it. It brought up the room service menu!
According to Wikipedia, QR stands for "quick response" and the QR codes were invented in 1994 by a Japanese automotive company (that I've never heard of) called Denso Wave. I didn't realize they'd been around that long. In 1994 I just learned the existence of email.
It's interesting how they pretty much died out and then made a comeback during the pandemic.
Have you seen the increased use of QR codes, or do you think I'm crazy. Let me know in the comments below.

Washington's Amazing Season is Over

(Happy New Year!)
The University of Washington Huskies (10-2 in the regular season) ended their 2022 season last week playing Texas (8-4) in the Alamo Bowl in San Antonio. Before the game, Washington was ranked #12 in the CFP and Texas was #20.

What's interesting about playing Texas is that their coach is Steve Sarkisian who, from 2009 to 2013, was the coach at Washington. He left to coach USC and the Huskies brought in Chris Petersen to lead the team. Petersen took the Huskies to the CFP!

Due to being in Texas, the Alamo Bowl was like playing on Texas' home field. San Antonio is only 79 miles from Austin by car (I'm amazed anything in Texas is that close). Attendance at the game was 62,730 (which is pretty good for a bowl game), almost all of it Texas fans. Crowd noise was definitely a factor.

Quarterback Michael Penix had trouble connecting on long passes. He completed none. Either he overshot or the Texas secondary stopped the catches. But he did well on shorter passes and managed to eclipse Cody Pickett's record for passing yards in a single season.

The officials didn't call an obvious pass interference penalty and reduced a roughing-the-kicker to running-into-the-kicker.

But still, the Huskies were never behind and won the game 20-27, finishing their season 11-2.

The final AP and CFP rankings will probably come out after the National Championship game on January 9th. I suspect we'll go up in both.

This has been an amazing year, especially after last year when they were 4-12. Coach  DeBoer turned the program around so fast. Maybe next year we'll be 11-1 in the regular season and go to the CFP like we did in 2016 under Coach Petersen. Who knows? I just know I'm looking forward to it.

The Pac-12 sent seven teams to bowl games this year. But they ended up 3-4 after losing both New Years Day games (which were actually played 1/2/23). Two of the losses were razor thin, one going into overtime. But Washington State and Utah both lost big. Utah was playing Penn State in the Rose Bowl.

I was hoping the Pac-12 would do better this year. Lately it seems the conference has trouble winning bowl games. Again, there's next year.

Death to the Emperor

My latest book, Death to the Emperor, has been released on Kindle and paperback. It's available on Amazon (Kindle and paperback) and Barnes and Noble (paperback).

For nearly twenty years, Titus Chumba has either worked for, or hidden from, the emperor of the Core Empire. Now he's become involved in a plot to assassinate the most powerful man in the galaxy. All Titus needs are rare and closely-guarded artifacts. Can he find what he needs and kill the emperor who has tormented him so much for decades? Or will the plot bring Titus to his own final demise?

I swear this is the last book I'm going to write about Titus Chumba! The other books dealing with Chumba are the Chumba of the Intelligence Corps and the Treasures of Space novels.

My next book, Annihilation from Above, will be coming out early next year from World Castle Publishing.