Category: General

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The 5YO had an interesting idea tonight: “Devices should have slots that you can put real-world money into.” I explained that it wouldn’t be practical because someone would have to go around collecting it, and meanwhile your phone or tablet would get weighed down by all those quarters or bills. Then I brought up Square and similar card readers that you can hook up to your phone. I’m sure he’s seen us use them, even if he didn’t make the connection at the time he was thinking about the coin slot idea.

Thinking about it, though, why not use something like Square to power online purchases as well as point of sale transactions? Instead of setting up an account and entering a password to buy something, swipe your card. Or swipe a debit card to authorize adding value to it. Katie suggested taking it even further: directly add value to a cash card!

Mobile payments are mainly looking for ways to eliminate the physical card. Card readers are mostly being used to allow sellers to accept physical cards on the new infrastructure, but the technology could easily be adapted to give online buyers another payment – or banking -option.

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epi-pen

A great visual explanation of how to administer an epi-pen to someone experiencing severe anaphylaxis as a result of a food allergy, bee sting, etc. Plus commentary from Tumblr.

I’ll add: Absolutely don’t be squeamish if someone needs you to do this for them. Once I accidentally bounced the epi-pen off my leg when I jabbed myself with it during a severe reaction. You need to jab and hold it. Basically none of the medicine actually went in. Fortunately I carry a two-pack and was able to use the second injector, and I’m still around to tell the story.

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I haven’t been to Comikaze Expo since their first year. It’s always been close to Long Beach Comic-Con, and I’d choose Long Beach every time. This year, though, LBCC was in mid-September, and Comikaze was Halloween weekend. And since we missed out on San Diego, it seemed like a good plan for a family comic-con.

Alas, the best laid schemes…

The kiddo and I have both been dealing with a cold all week, and last night’s attempt at trick-or-treating made it clear that going into LA and spending the day at a huge convention wasn’t going to work out too well. With or without cosplay.

But we tossed up a few Halloween decorations, and I managed to spookify one of my shots from our marsh hike a few weeks back, and J. had a chance to wear the Mixed Emotions costume (all the emotions from Inside Out) we’ve been piecing together all month.

Halloween Costume: Mixed Emotions (Inside Out)

Incidentally…yeah, that’s a Christmas display behind him. On Halloween.

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Researchers simulated a 70-year mega-drought and came up with ways that California could survive without the economy collapsing, emptying out the state, or even abandoning agriculture. We’d have to change the way we store and distribute water, recycle more wastewater, do groundwater replenishment, prioritize different (and less thirsty) crops, and of course cut down on our water use. It would hurt, and smaller, rural towns would be worse hit than cities (which is already happening — there are places out in Tulare county, for instance, where wells are drying up and homes no longer have running water). But the simulation suggests it could be done — and it’s a good idea to plan for this, just in case, rather than relying on the drought to end in a year or two. Geologic evidence suggests that decades-long droughts used to be the norm, and of course who knows what “normal” is going to be over the next century.

Another article details how Southern Californians have been changing water use this summer: letting lawns die, using more reclaimed water, draining fountains and converting commercial landscaping. The average Los Angeles resident has cut back to 89 gallons per day.

I can’t say I’ve seen much change in my area since I started noticing the occasional lawn replaced with native plants back at the start of the year. Maybe a few more native gardens or scraggly lawns, but not a sea change. Katie does a lot more walking, though, and she’s noticed that a lot of houses just have dirt. Apartments mostly still have lawns, but at least that’s more people per square foot of grass. Unfortunately nobody wants to wash the smears of dog poop off of the sidewalk.

Swimming Pool Under Construction.Meanwhile, the office building to hotel conversion next door to my workplace has embarked on what they’re replacing that giant lawn with: a swimming pool. A sign out front proclaims an early 2015 opening. Someone’s optimistic about water for next year.

On a related note, the Irvine Company is planning to donate what’s left of the Irvine Ranch to the county as open space. Good!

I’ve lamented the loss of both open space and local farmland over the past twenty years or so as more and more of Orange County has been paved over with houses and shopping malls. Since moving to the South Bay, I’ve seen the potential endgame. “Open space” out here consists of the occasional empty block that’s been set aside, or a hillside that’s too steep to build on conveniently. Palos Verdes has a bit more, but it’s filling in. At least the Portuguese Bend area is likely to stay clear, since the ground isn’t stable enough to build on.

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Final pieces of Irvine Ranch complete ‘open-space puzzle’ in O.C. – LA Times

This spot in eastern Orange is now part of a proposed 2,500-acre gift from the Irvine Co. to Orange County — 1,400 acres here and an additional 1,100 in Anaheim Hills.

Well, good. I’ve lamented the loss of both open space and local farmland as more and more of Orange County has been paved over with houses and shopping malls. Since moving to the South Bay area, I’ve seen the potential endgame. “Open space” out here consists of the occasional empty block that’s been set aside, or hillside that’s too steep to build on conveniently. Palos Verdes has a bit more, but it’s filling in. At least the Portuguese Bend area is likely to stay clear, since the ground isn’t stable enough to build on.

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Southern California at night from space (via NASA).

Last night, I saw more stars than I’d seen from home in years.

I’d just gotten back from a midnight grocery run (on which I’d had the disorienting experience of watching a three-quarter moon rise — talk about a “grin without a cat”), and the combination of recent rain, fewer house lights at that hour, and my own dark-adapted eyes made the night sky look more like what I remember from home in the suburbs when I was younger.

It was still depressingly few stars compared to those times I’ve been out camping in the desert, or even the time we went to San Simeon and I drove out of town a few miles to try to spot a comet (it didn’t work)…and nothing on the time we stopped in the middle of the Ka‘u lava fields on Hawai‘i. But it was enough that I could make out part of Orion’s arm and club, which is a lot more than I usually see here in the southwest of Los Angeles. If the moon hasn’t risen, Juipter would have dominated the view, and it seemed as bright as Venus had been just after sunset, though I now know that’s an illusion of memory. Even the Hyades were clear.

Of course, that was only in part of the sky: straight up, to the south, and to the west. North and east faded into the general haze of light from greater Los Angeles. Even the Pleiades, sadly, used to be easy to spot, but I could barely pick them out.

Earlier in the evening, I’d tried to point out Orion and Cassiopeia to my almost-three-year-old son, but he’d been completely uninterested. I wonder: Have I missed the window to show him how awesome the night sky can be?

On my flights up to San Francisco and back a few weeks ago, I noticed that the Los Angeles area at night, rather than being mostly dark with islands of light, is mostly light with islands of dark: the mountain ranges and hills. Today I stumbled on a photo from space that really demonstrates it: Artificial Light, taken by, well, it doesn’t actually identify the astronaut, but since it’s credited to NASA and dated July 21, 2013, it’s probably Karen Nyberg.

In this image, south is up and north is down. San Diego is at the top of the frame. The lower half is Orange County, the Los Angeles basin, and the San Gabriel Valley. The Santa Ana Mountains form an empty gap in the middle, bordered by the communities along the I-15 to the left. A narrower gap, Chino Hills and connected hills, extends downward to the right, ending at a bright spot that marks Downtown Los Angeles. The San Fernando Valley is covered by clouds, though you can see a glow from beneath. I had no idea Hemet had grown so big.

I grew up next to that empty area in the middle, and at the time it was even bigger. A lot of farmland and open space has filled in over the last 25 years. And all those street lights leak light upward into the sky, where it scatters and hides more and more stars.

We don’t need all that light leaking into the sky. It doesn’t help visibility down on the ground, it’s a waste of energy…and it hides what used to be a basic source of wonder that anyone could experience.

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There’s an old children’s joke that goes like this:

“Did you know the word gullible isn’t in the dictionary?”

Then when the other child goes to look it up, you laugh at them for believing you.

On the face of it, it’s a lesson in not believing everything you hear.

But when it comes down to it, the child who goes to look it up isn’t necessarily being gullible; he or she is doing research to confirm their expectations. Yes, gullible should be in there, but let’s make sure. Once you’ve seen a number of dictionaries that all have gullible in them, you can safely ignore the next person who claims that it’s missing, and insist that they put up their evidence.

That’s science.

The child who says, “Really?” and then goes around repeating it? He’s the one who needs a lesson in skepticism.

So the next time someone sends along a bizarre “fact,” especially one intended to spur you to action…dig a little deeper. Sometimes all it takes is two minutes of fact checking to save your credibility. You don’t want to get known as the guy who really did think gullible wasn’t in the dictionary…over and over and over again.