Nerd Dad

Nerd Dad

Image originally from this reddit post.

Minnewaukan Shore at Sunset

 North Shore of Minnewaukan

This photo was taken at sunset by my 15-year-old son, Alec Howard. 

Pretty cool.

My Favorite Banned Book

When I was 10-11 years old, my Uncle Merlin and Aunt Laureen gave me a chemistry book.

It was the Golden Book of Chemistry Experiments.

I thought the book was wonderful. I did a lot of the experiments. 

However, it appears the book was a cesspool of forbidden knowledge!

As it began to show up at libraries and bookstores, people who read through the book thought a lot of the experiments were not child-approved. And this was the 1960's!

What alarmed them so much? Here's one page from the book, page 89:

See how on one page you learn how to make:
1. Methyl alcohol from wood shavings.
2. Methyl salicylate: oil of wintergreen.
3. Hooch (ethyl alcohol) from Karo and yeast. Look at the amount of booze in the glass!
4. Iodoform ?
5. ethyl acetate
6. CHLOROFORM!: Yes, it's a crude formula but here it is, the anesthetic, chloroform. As every die-hard mystery reader knows, a chloroform-soaked rag is a time-honored way of rendering your victim unconscious so that you may carry out your nefarious plans uninterrupted.


Apparently, a massive recall of the book was made, and it was removed from most libraries.  You can download your own (legal) copy here.

I've heard it was inspiration for David Hahn,  the Radioactive Boyscout.

Thrush maestros

First, the veery thrush.

Here's what he looks like:

And here is its song. 

Veery by jh955

Sounds like a typical bird call, doesn't it?  But the metabolism of birds, especially songbirds, are higher than humans. Listen to the veery again, slowed to 1/10 speed:

Once again, the veery (for the slower species):

Veery slowed down by jh955

Next up - the wood thrush.

Wood Thrush

Here's his song. It's about two minutes long. Listening for 20-30 seconds is probably good enough.

Woodthrush -full speed by jh955

Songbirds like the wood thrush have two voice boxes (syrinxes), one for each lung that they can utilize at the same time.

In the audio file that follows, the wood thrush's song is not only slowed down, it's split apart. 

First, you will hear the song being generated by the left syrinx, which typically handles lower pitches. This will be followed immediately by the song generated by the right syrinx. Finally, you will hear them synced together, which is how the wood thrush sings his song. 

Woodthrush-1 10 speed -left -right -synced by jh955


These little guys can sing!

Astro 'Noc's

My new Celestron SkyMaster Giant 15x70 Binoculars with Tripod Adapter binoculars

Happy Birthday, Garrette!

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Photos Taken At Grahams Island

Following are some photos I took today while driving around Grahams Island.

Click on a photo once to show it alone, then again to view it at full size.

Christianson's Barn - Photo 1

Christianson's Barn - Photo 2

Sunset Over a Portion of Grahams Island Road

"Heart" Trees

Grahams Island Road, Facing Roughly SE

Family of Mallards

Renata and Simba

Photo tech: Camera was Fuji Finepix S700, set on "Nature" setting (flash: forced off; image stabilization: off.) Flowers  photo taken with flash, the Renata & Simba photo used fill-flash (check out the dog's eyes).  All photos resampled to 1/2 original size in Irfanview, some photos were cropped, and the mallards photo was sharpened. Otherwise photos were not retouched with a photo editor.