Shooting yourself in the foot

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

An article by Will Feuer at CNBC on October 30, 2020 is titled Donald Trump Jr. dismisses Covid deaths as ‘almost nothing’ even as U.S. averages 800 deaths per day. On a Fox News interview with Laura Ingraham  yesterday evening he made that clueless claim (which is metaphorically shooting yourself in the foot). You might think that while his father was loudly proclaiming that Joe Biden’s son Hunter was corrupt Don Jr. might be careful what he said about our pandemic crisis – but you’d be wrong. His nonsense also was mentioned by Joshua Bote at USA Today in another article titled Donald Trump Jr. says recent COVID-19 deaths are ‘almost nothing.’ More than 20K people died this month.

 

There is yet another article by Aaron Blake at The Washington Post on October 30, 2020 titled Explaining Donald Trump Jr.’s embarrassing claim about the coronavirus death toll. It explains that the CDC data he used are incomplete and lag by weeks. He says:

"Even in the days since Trump Jr. posted this chart, the number of deaths has risen substantially. His chart shows 149 deaths for the week ending Oct. 24, which would be fantastic if it were only true. Alas, that number is now 1,119 and will undoubtedly rise by several factors in the weeks to come, given that we’re still seeing nearly 1,000 deaths per day. His chart also shows 1,477 deaths for the week prior; that number is now 2,841, just a couple of days later."

The image was adapted from those of a foot and a pistol from Pearson Scott Foresman at Wikimedia Commons.

 

A dog ate my homework

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

During this election campaign I have heard all sorts of stories. But the most ludicrous recently is a variation on a lame excuse that our dog ate my homework. It was told in an article by Yael Halon at Fox News on October 28, 2020 titled ‘Damning’ Hunter Biden documents mysteriously vanish in transit to Los Angeles, Tucker says. The accompanying two-minute YouTube video is titled Tucker: Hunter Biden documents suddenly vanish.

 

Fox News claimed that an envelope they shipped overnight on Monday from New York to Los Angeles via a brand-name national carrier had been opened and arrived empty. Perhaps the carrier really was the Untied Parcel Service, Folderol Express, or even Partial Post. A story by Darragh Roche at Newsweek on October 29, 2020 titled Tucker Carlson’s claim of missing Hunter Biden documents sparks flurry of jokes at Fox News host included mention of a tweet by comedienne Lizz Winstead that “The Dog Ate My Conspiracy Theory.” Later UPS said they found those documents.

The image of dogs is from Wikimedia Commons.  

 

The Amazing Randi died last week

Last week we lost a great communicator. An obituary by Paul W. Valentine at the Washington Post on October 21, 2020 is titled James Randi, magician and stage artist devoted to debunking the paranormal, dies at 92. It noted that he had overcome a stammer and fear of public speaking. Another obituary by Joe Schwarcz at the McGill Office for Science and Society on October 22, 2020 is titled Bending Spoons and Bending Minds.

 

You can watch James Randi’s 2007 TED Talk titled Homeopathy, quackery, and fraud. There are lots of other videos of Mr. Randi. Two examples from James Randi Speaks on YouTube are on Problems with Miscommunication and The Compass Trick.   

 

An election campaign rain of lies

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lately the U.S. presidential election campaign seems like standing under a rain of lies. Fortunately there are fact-checking web sites to help us sort out what is what. An article by Brian Charles Clark in the Spring 2018 issue of Washington State Magazine titled Fact or Fiction? Using the web to quickly fact-check social media links to eleven of them. (I previously blogged about Mr. Clark on May 4, 2020 in a post titled Sifting through misinformation). Daniel Dale and the crew at CNN Politics do a good job, like after the second debate on October 23, 2020 in an article titled Fact check: toned-down Trump continues his onslaught of falsehoods.

 

 

PolitiFact is a very useful site that classifies claims into six different categories: True, Mostly True, Half True, Mostly False, False, and Pants on Fire. I looked up both Donald Trump and Joe Biden at Politifact as was astounded by how different their profiles are. For an overview I added up the sums for both the three true and three false categories.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As shown above via a bar chart, Donald Trump tells the truth less than 27% of the time and lies more than 73% of the time – almost 3/ 4 ths. What he says is True only 4% of the time, Mostly True 9.5% of the time, and Half True 13.4% of the time. But what he says is Mostly False 20.6% of the time, False 36.4% of the time, and Pants on Fire the last 16.2% of the time. Before he speaks at rallies they really should play the Knickerbockers 1965 song Lies.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As shown above via another bar chart, Joe Biden tells the truth roughly 60% of the time and lies the other 40%. What he says is True 12.9% of the time, Mostly True another 23.5% of the time, and just Half True another 23.5% of the time. But what he says is Mostly False 18.8% of the time, False 17.6% of the time, and Pants on Fire just 3.5% of the time.   

 

The man with an umbrella was adapted from this image by George Lansbury at Wikimedia Commons.

 

 

What does this sculpture mean?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It looks rather abstract – a 6” wide by 8” high bronze-colored metal plate rising from a 1-1/4 inch high wooden base. There also is a black object sticking up above it. A side view shows the 1/ 4” thick plate is curved and is held in a groove cut into the wooden base.  

 

The ‘sculpture’ was an accident. It was made in Ann Arbor, Michigan at the Climax Molybdenum Company research laboratory in the early 1980s.  Our blacksmith was putting a 6” wide piece of red-hot steel plate into the rolling mill for one of my projects. He was holding the back end with a pair of tongs. The tongs touched the feed table. They got pulled out of his glove-covered hands and went through the rolls along with the plate. That curved black object is what remains from half of his tongs. I have that ‘sculpture’ sitting on the window sill in my office as a reminder that in research you will encounter new things – both desirable and undesirable.

 

Over a century ago at General Electric William F. Coolidge figured out how to manufacture lamp filaments from tungsten power, as described earlier this year in an article by Ainissa Ramirez at

American Scientist titled Tungsten’s brilliant hidden history. He and his coworkers eventually figured out how to make filaments that lasted for a long time.

 

 

 

 

 

The crystals in some filaments grew until they filled the entire diameter of a wire, which resembles a bamboo rod, as shown above.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Under their own weight those large crystals can slide past each other (creep) like a stack of playing cards (as shown above) to produce rapid failure by ‘offsetting.’

 

 

 

 

 

 

The crystals in other filaments did not grow nearly that large, and they maintained an interlocking structure which prevented offsetting. Careful chemical analysis revealed that ‘doping’ the tungsten with a combination of very small amounts of aluminum, potassium, and silicon could produce the desired structure. This is known as AKS doped non-sag tungsten. In the 1960s electron microscopy revealed that tiny bubbles of potassium were responsible for producing the non-sag behavior.

 

Two great public speakers were not just born that way

 

 

 

Both John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr. only got a C+ when they took a public speaking course in school. They had to learn in order to improve from being just mediocre (C+).

 

At Forbes on October 16, 2020 there is an article by Carmine Gallo titled JFK got a ‘C’ in public speaking. A new book traces his transformation into a captivating leader. At Failure The Book on November 4, 2013 there is a second article by Alyssa Shea titled Martin Luther King Jr. barely passed public speaking. A third article at Mental Floss by Jake Rossen on January 15, 2019 titled 12 historic facts about Martin Luther King Jr. says that another time he got a C in Public Speaking.  

 

Most commonly searched fears in U.S. states and D.C. for 2020.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Halloween is just two weeks away. It is time to talk about the most commonly searched fears for 2020 in U.S. states and the District of Columbia. At Your Local Security on October 12, 2020 there is an article mistitled Your state’s most-searched phobia 2020.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As is shown above in a bar chart, 11 states feared people, 7 feared flying, and 4 each feared failure and the dark. 3 each feared being alone, blood, and holes. Only Nebraska feared public speaking.   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Another bar chart shows the wildly different results from 2019, where 11 states feared holes, and 5 each feared needles, public speaking, and water.

 

Right now my wife and I definitely fear people. This year we going to skip our usual Halloween activity of handing out candy bars to about two dozen trick-or-treaters.