a weblog of whereabouts & interests, since 2010
Here is a boerboel*, a ‘new’ breed that debuted at the 2016 Westminster Dog Show held over the weekend in Madison Square Garden in New York City. The picture is from the CBS News website. (‘New’ because we had neighbors in South Africa with such a dog, and this was several decades ago!).
*Boerboel is the South African name for the breed, and it is pronounced boo-r-bull in Afrikaans. A simple translation is ‘farmer’s bull dog’. A more accurate translation might be a ‘Boer’s bull dog’.
Well ! It has been an eventful Presidents’ Day weekend. The country learned on Saturday that one of the nine Supreme Court of the United States had died (Antonin Scalia, of an apparent heart attack, at the age of 79). On Saturday night, there was a raucous debate among the six (down from 17) Republican candidates for the 2016 Presidential nomination. Donald Trump slaughtered a sacred Republican cow by accusing former Pres. George W. Bush of lying about weapons of mass destruction, and of not keeping the country safe – since 9/11 happened on his watch. (The word lying or lie was used so many times in the debate that it must be some kind of record). And then to top it all off, former Pres. George W. Bush made his first big appearance in public since leaving office, to campaign for his younger brother’s sinking Presidential campaign in South Carolina. Once deemed the inevitable candidate against the presumable Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton, the campaign of Jeb Bush now seems to be completely doomed. The Bushes are very well regarded in South Carolina, a state with air force bases, army bases, marine core bases and navy bases (!) .. but all of that still appears not to be good enough to make a difference for the Jeb Bush campaign. Forecasters give Trump a 73% chance of winning the SC primary and Bush all the way down in 4th or 5th place with a 1% moonshot.
It was a rainy weekend and Valentine’s 
Day in Seattle. The temperatures here were really mild, though, compared to what was going on across the continent in the northeast (see the graphic from CBS News). A friend from Portland, Oregon was visiting, and we played some tennis on the indoor courts at the Amy Yee Tennis Center. Hey, I could still hit the ball. It was the first time I had played tennis in a long time.
Here is a picture I took today of Amazon’s biospheres in downtown Seattle. Nobody seems quite sure what to make of these unusual structures .. are they ridiculous or something special and futuristic? ‘The goal of the new spherical space is to create an environment where employees can work and socialize in a more natural, park-like setting’ according to the design document for the spheres .. and ‘The generative idea is that a plant-rich environment has many positive qualities that are not often found in a typical office setting’. Well, one thing is for sure : this is not a typical office setting !
It takes a fine instrument to detect gravitational waves : the the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory or LIGO. Check out this report in the Science section of the New York Times, of the first confirmed reading of gravitational waves (in Sept 2015). Einstein predicted that gravitational waves could come about during some cataclysmic events in the universe, such as two black holes that collide.
I see Meryl Streep’s remark ‘We are all Africans’ (she was responding to diversity questions at the Berlin Film Festival, and questions as to why, for the second year in a row, the Oscar nominations failed to recognize any minority actors), was panned .. the criticism being that it is a non-answer. That’s like saying ‘We are all humans’, which is true. Check out this fascinating picture that shows how modern humans migrated all over the continents, starting out in Africa. A bigger version of the picture is here.
The New Hampshire US Presidential Primary results are in, and it’s Trump and Sanders by wide margins .. somewhat expected in both cases (cannot trust those polls until the results actually do come in), and somewhat shocking as well. (That Trump could win. Time for some of those Republicans that split the 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th places, drop out?).
Election results and maps are from the New York Times.
Here it is : the Year of the Monkey starts today in the twelve-year cycle of the Chinese zodiac. People born in the Year of the Monkey are characterized as lively, quick-witted, curious, innovative and mischievous – but it is also believed to be one of the most unlucky years in the Chinese calendar !
So there it is : the Denver Broncos surprising the pundits, and the North Carolina Panthers, with a 24-10 win. For me, the half-time show with Coldplay (and Beyonce and Bruno Mars) was definitely a highlight. And the Jeep commercial made me cry.
P.S. The Denver Broncos are from the old American Football League. So if the Superbowl Indicator is to be believed, we are likely in for a declining stock market for the coming year! .. but fortunately, as Investopedia points out, correlation does not mean causation.
The next stop in the 2016 US Presidential race is the New Hampshire Primary, also known as the first-in-the-nation primary. (The Iowa primary was a caucus and technically not a primary election where people cast a vote).
To that end, there was another Republican presidential debate :’a bit like the final act of a horror film’, says this BBC reporter Anthony Zurcher. ‘The monster had already eaten half the teens at the summer camp, and those left were wondering who was next to go. Some of the candidates seemed like they were ready to fight. Some of them looked like they wanted to hide or run. And Ben Carson acted like he didn’t care whether the monster got him or not’.
There was a time when the only jeans I wore were Levi’s 505 Regular Fit Jeans, but nowadays I prefer jeans with a little stretch in. Anyway : Levi’s Stadium is the high-tech stadium in the city of Santa Clara in Silicon Valley where Sunday’s Superbowl 50 game will take place. Check out the countdown to the big event here.
With ticket prices reportedly averaging $5,000 (whoah), the sponsors are pulling out all the stops to make for a good ‘fan experience’. An estimated 75,000 beers, 50,000 hot chocolates & coffees, and 75,000 chicken tenders will be scarfed up by the fans during game time. Oracle built an app for ordering food that can be delivered to your seat. There is also an instant replay function available on the app. That is going to take some serious connectivity and bandwidth hardware to beam video out to those thousands of iPads and iPhones out there!
It was a short trip to California this week, but I was still glad when it was time to jump into my little Prius compact car and drive south to Sacramento airport. Man! but there was so little air traffic at the airport : all of three planes in sight at the twenty or so gates at Terminal B. One from Southwest Airlines, and two from Alaska Airlines.
The El Rey theater was built in 1905 and served as a vaudeville theater in Chico’s early days. (Vaudeville theater was popular in the early 20th century, featuring a mixture of specialty acts such as burlesque comedy and song and dance). The El Rey served as a first-run movie theater until 2005, but was then closed for awhile. It now serves as a venue for showing cult and classic films, and for live music. The ‘Keep Chico Weird’ event advertised on the board was a local talent show.
I traveled to Sacramento airport on Tuesday, and drove out to Chico, an hour and forty minutes to its north.
Our project is winding down. We are bringing our last group of users into the system that we had built for them. We’re also steering clear of the Bay Area this week. Air fare and hotel prices are through the roof with the upcoming Superbowl 50 that is hosted by Santa Clara.at the south end of the Bay.
P.S. Hillary Clinton won the Democratic caucus in Iowa with a razor-thin 49.9% share of the votes, over 49.6% for Bernie Sanders.
Alright .. the Iowa Republican race’s results are in, and it’s Ted Cruz over Donald Trump, by a margin of 4%. The Democratic race is too close to call, and the final results will likely not come in before morning. And so it’s off to bed with me, since I have to travel out to Sacramento on Tuesday morning.
‘Please 
understand that our emotional unavailability is an expression of love’, says Sean Nelson in this week’s ‘Welcome to Seattle’ issue of The Stranger (our ‘alternative’ newspaper, alternative from proper, establishment newspapers). He is referring to the famous Seattle Freeze, and tries to explain what it is and why it exists (and has trouble doing it, as do we all). Still, he says, in the end Seattle is like any other place in the world : a newcomer’s to navigate, to discover, and to ruin or to improve by the exact measure of the self that the person adds to it. And we love Seattle and choose to live here ‘despite the fact that the weather is garbage, our rents have skyrocketed, our jobs have disappeared, our favorite bars have been shuttered, and our friends won’t return our texts.
I love newspapers, and even though I get the digital New York Times and two magazine subscriptions on-line, I still buy a paper paper from time to time. Here are some very cool pictures and articles from this weekend’s Wall Street Journal.
The world learned this week of the sad ending to Antarctic explorer Henry Worsley’s attempt to cross the continent on foot (he died in a hospital in Chile after being airlifted there). That also made me recall a stamp issued in South Africa, commemorating the 1961 Antarctic Treaty (my mom took me to the post office so that I could buy the special first day of issue envelope as well). The Antarctic is a fascinating continent : the only one with no native human population. So what does the treaty say? Here are the articles [Source : Wikipedia].
Article 1 – The area is to be used for peaceful purposes only; military activity, such as weapons testing, is prohibited but military personnel and equipment may be used for scientific research or any other peaceful purpose;
Article 2 – Freedom of scientific investigations and cooperation shall continue;
Article 3 – Free exchange of information and personnel in cooperation with the United Nations and other international agencies;
Article 4 – The treaty does not recognize, dispute, nor establish territorial sovereignty claims; no new claims shall be asserted while the treaty is in force;
Article 5 – The treaty prohibits nuclear explosions or disposal of radioactive wastes;
Article 6 – Includes under the treaty all land and ice shelves but not the surrounding waters south of 60 degrees 00 minutes south;
Article 7 – Treaty-state observers have free access, including aerial observation, to any area and may inspect all stations, installations, and equipment; advance notice of all activities and of the introduction of military personnel must be given;
Article 8 – Allows for good jurisdiction over observers and scientists by their own states;
Article 9 – Frequent consultative meetings take place among member nations;
Article 10 – All treaty states will discourage activities by any country in Antarctica that are contrary to the treaty;
Article 11 – All disputes to be settled peacefully by the parties concerned or, ultimately, by the International Court of Justice;
Articles 12, 13, 14 – Deal with upholding, interpreting, and amending the treaty among involved nations.
There was yet another Republican Presidential candidate debate, this one in Des Moines, Iowa on Thu night. Mr Donald Trump was AWOL, the result of a tiff between him and the Fox News TV Channel. The pundits say it’s between Trump and the Texan senator Ted Cruz (that was born in Canada, as Trump reminds voters every day now). The Iowa caucuses are on Monday, officially kicking off the 2016 USA Presidential election.
The problem with Iowa’s way of voting is that you have to physically show up at the caucus events. As the Des Moines Register (local newspaper points out), the caucus process takes two hours and inadvertently disqualifies a lot of voters. ‘When you go to the caucus, if you go, on Monday night, look to your left and your right and imagine the people who are not there, the ones not participating in this so-called great example of “participatory democracy.” You will not see the voter who has too many health issues, the shift worker, the emergency services worker, the voter with social anxiety, the voter who got sick the last time they caucused, the voter who wants to vote in private, the abused woman who is still in hiding, the snow bird who is gone every winter, the voter on a business trip, the person in the hospital and the voter without child care’.
One would think that what happened in Flint, Michigan, the last 18 months or so, is surely out of the question, and just not possible in the United States of America. But check out this recent article in the The Flint Journal that chronicles the series of bad decisions, bad governing and utter lack of care for the well-being of people, that resulted in the lead poisoning of the residents of Flint – and particularly its most vulnerable ones : young children.
