Leonids

So I checked out the Leonids, and with a clear sky in the middle of nowhere, I managed to get a few shots, which I posted below... really, really nothing bad shots though, mind you.

The Leonids are a prolific meteor shower associated with the comet Tempel-Tuttle. The Leonids get their name from the location of their radiant in the constellation Leo: the meteors appear to radiate from that point in the sky.

Earth moves through the meteoroid stream of particles left from the passages of a comet. The stream comprises solid particles, known as meteoroids, ejected by the comet as its frozen gases evaporate under the heat of the Sun when it is close enough – typically closer than Jupiter's orbit.

--

So, last night there was a Clerkship informational session with Justice Gilles, and beyond that it was really interesting (and something I'm thinking of trying for), the idea of SPACE LAW came up. Yeah, there is such a thing, and it is sounds awesome. "Yeah, I work at the The United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs." I also love their first side-bar link, casually (and incorrectly, I guess...) "Whats new".

Space law encompasses national and international law governing activities in outer space. International lawyers have been unable to agree on a uniform definition of the term "outer space," although most lawyers agree that outer space generally begins at the lowest altitude above sea level at which objects can orbit the Earth, approximately 100 km. The inception of the field of space law began with the launch of the world's first artificial satellite by the Soviet Union in October 1957, named Sputnik 1.

--

Ok, then I started reading a bunch of articles on the moon (one thing lead to another) and I got onto helium 3.

Scientists estimate there are about 1 million tons of helium 3 on the moon, enough to power the world for thousands of years.

As reported in an Artemis Project paper, about 25 tonnes of helium-3 -- or a fully-loaded Space Shuttle cargo bay's worth -- could power the United States for a year. This means that helium 3 has a potential economic value in the order of $3bn a tonne -- making it the only thing remotely economically viable to consider mining from the Moon given current and likely-near-future space travel technologies and capabilities.

There's a pretty great and highly recommended 5 minute video here which will make you an expert on helium 3 mining on the moon.




In 2006 Nikolai Sevastyanov, head of the Russian space corporation Energia, was reported to have said that Russia is planning to mine lunar helium-3, with a permanent Moon base to be established by 2015 and industrial-scale helium-3 production to commence by 2020. The Americans also have plans, with NASA having announced its intention to establish a permanent base on one of the Moon's poles by 2024, and with helium-3 signalled as one of the reasons behind this mission.

A few weeks ago China launch a moon orbiter that has already sent back pictures. As reported by China View (because I obviously read China View), China is also in the race, and plans to put a man Moon by 2017. One of the goals of the mission will be to measure the thickness of the lunar soil and the amount of helium-3 on the Moon. There have also been reports that India, Japan and Germany are taking an interest in lunar exploration linked to helium-3 as a potential future nuclear fuel.

--

Anyway, apparently I'm already too late to the party; however, there is an actually fantastic Discovery Channel videogame -- that I blew about 2 hours playing last night waiting for the moon to fully set to watch those Leonids -- about rival nations mining Helium 3 on the moon.

\Ok, on with the Leonid pictures!

 Out to see the stars!

 Originally I thought I'd be able to see them from McBurney Park just down the street, but didn't realize it was so lit up.

Walked down by the water to Douglas Fluhrer (yup, that's how you spell it) Park... much more remote and darker, but as you'll see, probably not quite dark enough.

 Ok, so in this test shot (down by the lake), you should be able to make out the big dipper.

 Alright, the circled area above is the bottom end of Leo, where all the action happens. Compare the above and below images in that area...

See the difference? There's an meteor in there!

Here's a closer look.

Ok, so, maybe I had my camera settings off, maybe the "shower" was a bit/quite underwhelming, and just maybe it was too bright to take any decent photos. But, that's a meteor!

I ended up seeing maybe 15-20 shooting stars: 6-7 bright ones, 6-7 medium, 4-5 faint/non-existant/floaters. Basically a few less than what you would see on a summer cottage night. 

 pUniverse's augmented reality blows me away everytime. Basically, you point it at the sky and it tells you exactly what you're looking it, you name it. As long as you name stars, constellations, and the odd planet.

 

This isn't the augmented reality part, but it will still move the image as you move around the phone... really, really great.  

Remember this building Changer?

Alright, well, that's it for now, but look for posts on John Mighton, 4'33", and hummus making this weekend. Or not... you never know.

Sheezer - El Scorcho

ah Weezer.



I'll bring home the turkey if you bring home the bacon.

The pierogi incident

Hey!

Long time no talk eh?.. why, I've been busy, reading, making cuff links, writing blog posts and never finishing them or posting them, you know, the ush... well, actually, a couple days ago I made pierogies, from scratch!

So, a bit of backstory, I emailed my mom asking her for my aunt's recipe... it went pretty much like this:


Can you send me out a good recipe for pierogies (maybe cocia's? (ed: aunt's)). And what kind of sauerkraut and mushrooms she uses? I want to try to make them!

Thanks!

P**

M** P** to

Hi PETER!

i JUST finished talking w Ciocia,she wants to know when u coming?she will make for u to take .We both agreed that is time consuming plus needs practice,may be one day we will make them all of us together?


WHAT.EVS!!!

Geez, that email makes me feel like the biggest momma's boy loser ever. Maybe one day, Mom??!! I just want to make pierogies!

Also, I love how they both agreed (read: decided) that I should wait for them.... lol!

Just kidding mom, I love you. Actually, re-reading that email, it's kinda sweet, but if you're going to play a new character in this blog you're going to have to roll with the obnoxiousness. Just hold your head high and look where it got Spenny.

Anyway, so I pretty much took this as a personal challenge. I mean, I have this potluck on tuesday and I volunteered to bring some food (I suppose that's what one does for a potluck), and I didn't just want to bring something like a bag of chips and vodka (all the girls are used to that already). So, I narrowed it down to my vegetarian lasagna or ... I pretty much got nothing else. I searched the internet for a bit, and thought, meh, pierogies.

I'm not about to buy pierogies from No Frills. I mean, really? Also, being the only Polish person within 200 kilometers limited my options. So, after getting some huge help from home (I'm kidding! :), I ventured onto this thing called the internet and found this recipe:

http://allrecipes.com//Recipe/pierogi-polish-dumplings/Detail.aspx

Ok, it go good reviews, and looks legit. I'm not about to make potato pierogies. I don't like them and they can go fuck themselves.

I also made a few amendments to the sauerkraut mix. I doubled the onions in the filling and added 1/3 cup diced mushrooms. I ended up making one spicy batch and one garlic batch. The spicy batch actually weren't originally supposed to be spicy... I got a few peppers from Derek and Lisa's garden during a visit down to T.O. and decided to throw a few in... and man were they HOT!.. like, I like spicy food, and yeah, these were hot.

Kneading. Kneading is possibly the worst cooking experience in the world. You mix eggs, sour cream and flour, and you actually have to fight with your new creation for 20 minutes. Almost literally. It sticks to everything. I can't believe people still do this by hand. I have a new found respect for kneading machines. I now realize why they exist. Kneading totally sucks.

HAHA!.. my first dough roll! Four!... four pierogi! This was not going well. After about 20-30 minutes of preparing the dough, I got an output of four dough holes. ok. hmmm... what you want to do, those doing this for the first time, is try to get the dough thinner.

Here are those four pierogi.

This is all trial and error. They turned out fine.. well, perhaps not really. Perhaps they were a bit on the doughy side, and perhaps they were a tad waterlogged. Make sure you close up your damn pierogies, otherwise water gets in and they taste like garbage.

Ok, test number two... starting to slowly get the hang of things..

If that's not a thing of beauty, you are not a person of God.

Second batch!

These were keepers. Things I could feed to other people and not feel bad about. That above is 25 pierogi. I figured I needed to get to 75 to make a decent potluck meal... time to double my efforts. It's cool though.. the first two batches only took 5 hours.

What is that you ask? Why that's just two large bowls of soaking sauerkraut. You haven't seen that before?.. get outta town.

I wanted to get that caustic, stingy taste off them, and as recommended by the web, thoroughly soaking and rinsing a few times does the trick.

Also, on a side note, you'll be happy to know that the Brazilian nut effect also applies to sauerkraut in a liquid. As usual, Sixty Symbols also has a great video about this, err, not specific to sauerkraut however. 

Chopped up sauerkraut. No one like stringy pierogies.

This is one pierogi that didn't make it... it got waterlogged. But, as I was eating it, I got an idea, I never really thought of it before, and not sure if it's standard practice, but why do those burnt up caramelized crisps of onion need to be only the topping to a pierogi. I mean, why can't I just cook them right into the thing?.. And so I did.

Now we're cooking!

So, I went through my entire batch of second filling. 82 pierogi. As I got better economizing my dough and filling the pastries with more substance, I actually went though it quite quickly. I ended up having a load of dough left over, so I decided to take some frozen blueberries out of the freezer...

... doused them with sugar, and add a banana! Exclamation mark!

One thing that was a bit different about these was that they are a lot harder to fold. When you're folding the dough overtop of the filling, it is crucial not to allow any filling to escape through any cracks. Because the liquid sugar does not allow the dough to congeal (something to do with activating the gluten), any liquid that escaped formed a permanent hole in the fold. YOU WON'T BE ABLE TO CLOSE THAT HOLE. opps, caps lock. Yeah, you won't be able to close that hole; the dough won't congeal there. I had to be extra careful with these. There was certainly a higher attrition rate, but some delicious and unexpected desserts were born.

So, in the end, 82 sauerkraut pierogy, 25 of which are extra spicy, plus 26 blueberry and banana pierogi. I'm probably being biased here, but these things are unbelievable. Like, close to the best I've ever had. The sour cream in the dough really made them creamy, very unlike most I've had, and the carmelized onions inside just make the taste jump out. They're great on their own without toppings. Probably not that good for you (I may have added a bit of extra butter), but so delicious. I'll try to save a few for my next weekend visitors. Also, the blueberry banana pierogi are a bit sweet, but out of this world. Like, such an expected but pleasant flavour combination.

Helpful tips:

preamble: Obviously the hard part isn't the filling... it's so easy and so delicious. Just chop everything up real fine, pre-caramelize/crisp the onions, soak and rinse your sauerkraut, cook everything (mushrooms too) in a bit of butter for 15-20 minutes, and you're flying. No, the hard part is of course dealing with the dough. Fear the kneading.

1. Sticky dough? I wish someone told me to use a ton of flour. When kneading it, when rolling it, and especially when forming the pierogi. It really blows when you have shaped a great one only to find that you can't lift it off the counter. Don't use so much as to alter the recipe significantly (so the internet says), but be prepared and willing to coat all surfaces with flour.

2. Dough not spreading right for you? Stick it back in the fridge/freezer for a bit.

3. Make sure your perogies are closed before putting them into the boiling water! Waterlogged pierogies taste like garbage. To close them properly, moisten your fingers before you fold the delicious morcel, and pay special attention to where the flaps join! Yeah, that's right.

4. It is extremely time consuming. It took a good 7-8 hours for 100+ pierogies. This is obviously due to a first time thing, and a general lack of experience working with dough. My second, third and four batches already started to show improvement.

5. Don't eat the nice ones... they'll be plenty of deformed, drowned children for you to eat.

--
 
Also, as a bonus, here are two pictures from TEDxQueensU over the weekend. Sara, Jowi and Peter came up on Sunday to present...

Afterward we all went out with a bunch of friends to Curry Original, which, if you find yourself in Kingston for some 'reason', although nice, it is not as good Indian as Cafe India, which incidently is owned and run by Mitali's brother... ahhh, small world indeed.

Anyway, then I come back to this.

Just like home, eh Ma?!

Christmas plans...

With Halloween over, time for some other directives.

I just received the cufflink backs I ordered off the net (10 for under $4, shipping included). Christmas presents for dudes? Custom cufflinks.

stock here: ebay

ideas here.

TEDxToronto - Dave Meslin "Redefining Apathy"

Barriers to public change.

Bridges

So, about 10 years ago I started having this reoccurring dream that went on for about 7 years (up until about 3 years ago.. give or take). Yeah, a long time. There was a bridge, and I was driving... this was in Toronto. It reminded my of the Lakeshore bridge at the base of South Kingsway where it goes over the Queensway and meets the Gardiner. Anyway, the bridge was out. Like, there was a giant hole where the bridge used to be. Like the middle part was missing. The beginning and the end were there, but no middle.

But the cars in front of me were all jumping it and getting on the highway like it was standard practice! Flows of cars, not just one or two, but all the cars were doing this. I pulled over to the side of the road before the bridge, feeling and knowing I couldn't jump it. I just couldn't jump it, and I sat on the side of the road for a bit and watched other cars pass and jump the bridge, continuing on their way.

It finally came up in conversation with my dad one night, and he interpreted it for me. He said that it was pretty clear to him that I was approaching a major challenge in life, and that I saw all the others around me succeeding with that challenge, moving forward within their desired direction, crossing that bridge. There are no instructions, no road or path on how to cross that bridge. You obviously feel you need to cross it, you just don't know how, and you see all the others around you doing it. I was stuck at the side of the road, unsure of how to go about jumping that bridge.

So, I haven't had this dream in a while, until last night when I had another similar dream, but about a very different bridge.

I was out with my family, we went to some restaurant downtown in some unknown, relatively large city. After dinner we had tickets for a play across town and decided to walk there. When we got there I realized that I had forgotten something very important at the restaurant... my camera, I think. I had to go back for it. Trying to make it back before the play started I blitzed out the door and started running back toward the restaurant. I remember trying to figure out a few shortcuts, but there really were none. I started running in straight lines directly toward the city bridge. This bridge was a bit different than the bridge that was out in the first cycle of dreams. This one was a honest to goodness drawbridge. It had before it a few red and green flashing lights, and a countdown, the kind of countdown you see at pedestrian crossing signals.

So yeah, it was starting to countdown. All the red lights around started flashing to stop. If I was going to get my camera in time to get back to the play on time, I had to make it.

I started sprinting faster, and started crossing the bridge. I made it to the middle just as the countdown hit zero. At the middle of the drawbridge there was a room, not unlike a control room, but for passengers. It reminded me sort of like a ferry, with vinyl bench seating organized row by row on either side like in a church, and with a separate room up front for the control captain. The door was open and he turned and said, "You barely made it!".

I said, "Yeah, but I wanted to get across the bridge before the countdown, to get to the other side!"

He said, "Well, that's not where you're going."

Ok.

So, I'm in this ferry like room on the middle of the bridge, perhaps a handful of strangers around me all sitting comfortably in the seats around me. I'm still standing in the aisle, a bit out of breath, but strangely comfortable and feeling secure despite knowing what came next; obviously the drawbridge had to go up.

The benches were like this, except arranged row by row with no table and not facing eachother. Big windows were there.

So, as I was standing the entire room obviously starts elevating. First, as you'd expect, the front of the room started going up. I didn't really stat to feel off balance or anything; counter-intuitively. Then something weird started happening. The room started to tilt and rotate to the left, while still front elevating, up to a 90 degree angle*.

*Take your left forearm and put it flat on the table infront of you. Slowly start elevating from the elbow, and as you're elevating slowly rotate your wrist so that your pinky finger moves downward toward the table.

Still feeling fairly comfortable on my feet (the others in the benches showed no sign of distress) but sort of like, wtf is happening? It was like I was slowly being transported. through the large cabin windows I saw our elevation above the water. In the distance there was a green park. It was not unlike the movie ending of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate factory, where Wonka, Charlie and Grandpa Joe go up the elevator that starts floating in the ski. No doubt i was feeling some apprehension, but also with the feeling that nothing was going wrong; i.e. everything going as planned/as it should.

The captain, seeming noticing my stumped face said with a smile, "Don't worry. Trust in the process."

--

So, what does this all mean? Clearly this was a miracle. Sounds pretty hokey eh? Yeah, I hate listening to other people's dreams too, unless they involve me. Ok, that's not totally true. Anyway...

Rock on Jack White

Ok, that's enough public reading for tonight.. afterall it is Friday!



Here's the official video (embedded disabled) from the possibly unrated Icky Thump:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YLmIlVJYEtw&ob=av2e

My first Toronto visitor!

Shawn!

The man, the myth... up in Kingston for a Rugby Hall of Fame induction -- his eligibility hasn't come in yet -- he came by for a good old fashioned chat tonight. Pretty sweet.

Happy Birthday Mama!

I'd like to take this opportunity to wish my mom a happy birthday!

Although I couldn't be there, this was the next best thing. Great to see everyone, and I hope to be down soon to celebrate with some left-over cake, Seinfeld style.

Happy Birthday and I Love You lots! :)

Peter

I want to ride my bicycle...

Well, they're on Macdonell St, so that's a plus! West end definitely needs bike infrastructure..

However, again with the sharrows?.. Is this now the standard go-to?

First of all, bike lanes with clear demarcation, legislative backing and police enforcement work. The focus, I feel, should be to expand, enhance, and champion this avenue. Stick with those and stop confusing the cycling situation with sharrows which I feel are a problem in that they negatively meddle/influence the mind of a (especially suburban) driver. When a driver is allowed to legally drive and legally park over an image of a cyclist I feel that's generally not a good precedent to set. It will, I feel pretty obviously, creep into and confuse the official bike lane rules of no motor vehicle entry and stopping. Furthermore, sharrows are really  just a city cop-out. What the hell are sharrows anyway? What purpose do they serve if there is no legislative power behind them? To make drivers aware that they are supposed to share the road with cyclists? Really?? So yeah, ok, we're supposed to have sharrows on all city roads then?..

And now this; two-way sharrows? I can't speak for what the "Urban Repair Squad folks" have in mind with this, but I think it additionally compounds the above issues for all involved. First of all, on the technical side, I'm not even sure what that symbol means. Personally, it looks like the cyclist is << vibrating >>, and no directional indicator is implied. Why not just write "TWO WAY"? Or maybe something more like these symbols?:

(by the by, looking up "two-way" images isn't as great as you'd think)

 Now, to be clear, of course I would love the double two-way official bike lane, but realistically that is not an option on every street. Moreover, I think people/cycling advocates should start picking their battles and not expect something even remotely like this on every street, especially very major and/or very minor ones... but anyway, I don't want to wade into those waters at the moment...

If there is going to be a push for legal two-way traffic for cyclists on one-way vehicular streets (which I feel there should be in some cases), this is, in my opinion, not the way to go about achieving that. This is an arrogant, self-defeating, passive aggressive, and an almost to the point of childish prank. I'm just not sure what positive effect this has for cyclists and their safety in general. The idea is to try to get new people to feel safe on bikes and not to have them feel intimidated like they're joining some cult while doing that ("Ha! You're one of us now!.. another convert!" type thing that I've heard said way too many times... ), while also allowing them to feel safe and secure within the infrastructural support system provided.

We don't need more cyclists -- we need more people to feel comfortable riding bikes in the city. A guerrilla style attack is not going to achieve that goal. Nor will official city sharrows for that matter. (Further on that note, have the survey results of the College Street come in?)

I feel the cycling community has had the opportunity to attract (and has attracted) a lot of attention in the press this summer with the opportunity to reach new ears and break new ground, and I feel that because of rogue campaigns and public image problems they seem to have damaged their chances to capitalize on that. Again, that may neither be here nor there...

To conclude this diatribe, I'm still not sure what the problem is with official bike lanes, and why adopting and accepting sharrows is everyone's m.o. these days. There should be no compromise here, especially when there is a good reason for there to be one.

It's about time

Just a short post about two different types of clocks, inspired by a RadioLab podcast:



http://www.radiolab.org/2007/may/29/

Flower Clock

Many plants have a biological clock, which regulates the time of day that their flowers open and close. For example, the flowers of catmint (Nepeta cataria) - also known as catnip - open between 6am and 7am; orange hawkweed follows between 7am and 8am; field marigolds open at 9am and varieties of Helichrysum1 wake up for 10am. Other varieties follow, with Convolvulus opening at noon.

By making observations of the times when flowers open and close during the day, Carolus Linnaeus (the 18th-Century Swedish botanist, recognised as the father of taxonomy), conceived the idea of arranging certain plants in an order of flowering, so that they constituted a kind of floral clock. This was described in Linnaeus's Philosophia Botanica (1751) in which he referred to it as an horologium florae (floral clock). Apparently, Linnaeus was able to use his clock to determine the time accurately to within half an hour.

In Philosophia Botanica Linnaeus described three groups of flowers:

  * Meteorici - flowers which change their opening and closing times according to the weather conditions.
  * Tropici - flowers which change their times for opening and closing according to the length of the day.
  * Aequinoctales - flowers which have fixed times for opening and closing. (Note that these are unaffected by the weather conditions.)

Only Aequinoctales are suitable for use in a flower clock.

Approx time Flower
0200 Night blooming cereus closes
0500 Morning glories, wild roses
0600 Spotted cat's ear, catmint
0700 African marigold, orange hawkweed, dandelions
0800 Mouse-ear hawkweed, African daisies
0900 Field marigold, gentians, prickly sowthistle closes
1000 Helichrysum, Californium poppy, common nipplewort closes
1100 Star of Bethlehem
1200 Passion flower, goatsbeard, morning glory closes
1300 Chiding pink closes
1400 Scarlet pimpernel closes
1500 Hawkbit closes
1600 'Four o'clock' plant2 opens, small bindweed closes, Californian poppy closes
1700 White waterlily closes
1800 Evening primrose, moonflower
1900
2000 Daylilies and dandelions close
2100 Flowering tobacco
2200 Night blooming cereus

http://scienceblogs.com/clock/2009/07/linaeus_floral_clock_on_the_is.php

...and another thing

A floral clock features in the fictional city of Quirm, in Soul Music, one of the books in Terry Pratchett's Discworld series.

To read more about Linnaeus' observations see this PDF.

Spice Clock

The spice clock, invented in the late seventeenth century by M. de Villayer. Intended to allow the user to tell the time in the absence of light, it guides the user to a different spice for each hour so that time may be told by taste (Boorstin, 1985). A quite interesting way to deal with this problem, the spice clock was made obsolete by illuminated clocks (source).

This kind of thing would actually be pretty easy to build actually... with a little electricity. Cinnamon for 1, coffee for 2..

Also, just ordered this book from Amazon as it seems pretty recommended. Time is obviously a really, really cool concept. Sometimes it goes fast, sometimes slow, sometimes subjectively, sometimes objectively. Since it's a dimension, of course you compare it to the other ones, and yeah, even our two and three dimensional worlds can be subjectively influenced over distance and balance, at the very least... Nevermind how a ruler changes shape over time and large distances!

... but, more on optical illusions later.. I swear I''ve been working on that post for half a year now.

Oh yeah, and more about time later too... just a sniff!



 Sources if not mentioned directly:
Flower clock
http://solarclockgarden.truman.edu/garden.htm
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A5170024
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linnaeus%27_flower_clock
http://ces.iisc.ernet.in/hpg/envis/doc28.html