Good evening, Kibitzers!
Less than two weeks until Daylight Time! Less than three weeks until spring! And because Easter is in less than a month, I should be seeing my local farm market opening for the season sooner than that! I’m not in the market for any Easter lilies, but if they’re open, they’ll have local eggs and butter, fresh bread, hothouse tomatoes, and maybe even some early greens and scallions. (The early-spring local vegetable selection isn’t that exciting in this part of the country, but by the end of winter, all fresh produce seems miraculous.)
I was looking through stuff I’d bookmarked for KTK, and I found… dominoes. It was a “physics of falling dominoes” video that I’d saved, but when I looked around for more demonstrations, I found all sorts of goings-on with dominoes, so let’s look. (I promise this has nothing to do with Harry Truman or Southeast Asia.)
Here’s the video I started with. He demonstrates the fact that each domino can knock over one 1½ times as large as itself, and then talks a little about how that works. [2:33]
This guy’s taking it BIG. It doesn’t say where this is happening, but the text below the video is in English and Portuguese. [0:37]
But, moving away from actual dominoes for a minute, people do this chain reaction trick with other stuff. Bricks, pavers, books, yes, but also: glasses and ping-pong balls and other glasses... [3:46]
Mattresses (with people!)… [1:55]
And, for the pyromaniacs (you know who you are), glued-together matches. [3:16]
Let’s go back to dominoes, though. I have to admit I am spatially challenged, and really can’t imagine planning out elaborate patterns in which dominoes are to fall. Here are 25,000 dominoes falling, set up by four guys over three days. Some of the designs are lovely, and all are oddly satisfying to watch. These brightly-colored dominoes seem to be the standard for use in this activity. [3:19]
This young woman is apparently a star in the world of competitive domino-knocking-over — she calls herself a “professional domino artist”, and goes by the handle Hevesh5. This her YT channel, and its ‘About’ page.
Here, she presents a 32,000-domino layout she personally has set up. She creates some remarkable effects here — I particularly like the thing at about 1:27 with the red and blue interlaced walls of lattice, and also the big star in the middle around 2:56. [5:33]
This is the most elaborate domino setup yet, with 35,000 dominoes. It was done in 2019 at the Ann Arbor Hands-On Museum, by nine people working for a week. In addition to some pretty domino designs, they’ve made some clever Rube-Goldberg-style devices here and there, especially at the beginning and end. [7:42]
To close out on the Rube Goldberg theme, here’s OK Go’s music video for their song This Too Shall Pass. It’s not only ingenious, but quite impressive in its scale. [3:53]
Now we just need some music. [4:38]
[1:43]
[4:09]
Today’s Political and Other Short Subjects:
The Meidas Touch has a few this week: this takedown of Ted Cruz...
...and one of Josh Hawley...
..and, a snarky “ad” for CPAC and their host, the Hyatt.
The Parody Project has two new songs.
But enough about these awful people. Here’s a minute about why Welsh people wear leeks on St. David’s Day (which was yesterday, March 1).
Dr. Brian May, of Queen, wanted to get in on the Nathan Evans sea shanty thing, but all he had was this electric guitar.
I have nothing to add to that, except perhaps a baby panda taking a ride on a door.
Stay safe! 💙💙💙💙💙
🌟 Democracy Docket 🌟
The Democracy Docket website, founded by formidable our-side attorney Marc Elias, carries breaking news about current election law, more in-depth articles, and, always, information plus all available legal documents (as PDFs) about every active election law case.
Marc Elias and Democracy Docket on Twitter are good sources of current news about election law, including all the voter-suppression crap coming up. You can subscribe to the Democracy Docket email newsletter here to get the latest updates. Democracy Docket also has a YouTube channel.
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We have come to the point where Chef José Andrés’ worldwide relief organization is so ubiquitous that I’m just giving it its own box here. I can’t even link all the places they’re working. They’re feeding people who need meals wherever they find them, for whatever reason and by whatever means, including supporting local restaurants by contracting with them for meals. Pretty much every tab at that website will tell you something amazing.
You can always donate or volunteer at their website, but it may not be up on the very latest news. For that, check Twitter for Chef Andrés and for World Central Kitchen.
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🚰 TEXAS 💡
Well, so now we need a box about Texas. I’ve been grabbing these as I see them, but these boxes are always a work in progress, so if you have suggestions, please suggest them! I’m listing resources people can call upon as well as organizations the luckier of us can donate to.
❄️ As they’ve been doing recently, Daily Kos has an Act Blue page where you can distribute donations among seven organizations they’ve vetted: Front Steps, Feeding Texas, United Way of Greater Houston, Austin Area Urban League, Austin Street Center, Austin Pets Alive!, and the SPCA of Texas. You can read a brief description of each at the link.
❄️ Feeding Texas: if you need a foodbank, you can enter your zipcode at the link and find the nearest one. If you’d like to donate, there’s a button on that page too.
❄️ Mutual Aid: Here are links for the Houston, Austin, and Dallas organizations. They variously have GoFundMe and Venmo links available for donations (they are small organizations), and they warn that there are many scammers using very similar names, so everyone should use caution in donating.
❄️ This KHOU page lists places that food and water are being distributed in the Houston area.
❄️ World Central Kitchen is currently operating in Houston, Austin, San Antonio, Fort Worth, and Dallas using their restaurant partners and volunteers. See their Texas page to donate, and their Twitter feeds in their box above.
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It has been 1,259 DAYS SINCE HURRICANE MARIA MADE LANDFALL IN PUERTO RICO ON SEPTEMBER 20, 2017.
Full power has never been restored there, and many homes still have blue tarps for roofs. The island has been hit by two more hurricanes this year, and has dealt with ongoing earthquakes, coronavirus, and a severe drought, but they have still not seen anything like the relief money Congress voted for them.
We’re hopeful, but we’re not out of the woods yet.
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🦠 COVID-19 🧫
Missing some past entry? My past diaries list, where the older purple boxes still live.
NEW: this tweet by Joseph Allen links to a NY Times visual presentation about how we can change the airflow in classrooms to make it safer. There’s also a link from there to an Instagram “augmented reality” classroom visit.
NEW: Scientific American has a video explaining the new virus variants.
The Ohio Department of Health has a good PSA about limiting your risk, with a Jenga visual metaphor.
The Washington Post is maintaining this page that tracks vaccine arrival and distribution state by state. Note this is NOT paywalled.
In the latest SciShow video, host Hank Green discusses why your second shot of Covid vaccine might have greater side effects than the first. See also their playlist of Covid updates on what we’re learning.
NEW: The Atlantic has listed their ongoing virus coverage here, and none is behind a paywall. They add new articles often, including these two that are of interest: The Most Likely Timeline for Life to Return to Normal, and A Simple Rule of Thumb for Knowing When the Pandemic Is Over.
This tool from the Brown University School of Public Health, on their public website, helps you figure out how risky an activity is and how you can reduce your risk. (h/t Greg Dworkin)
Georgia Tech “Event Risk Assessment” map. Use the slider on the left to pick an event size, and it shows you, for every US county, the current % risk of having at least one Covid-positive person show up. Still being updated.
This virus spread tracking site also has an excellent “wiki” page on virus information/misinformation, proper mask use, symptoms, etc. h/t eeff!
This excellent video explains clearly how viruses are killed by washing with soap. h/t Sara R!
A doctor shows how to quickly alter a disposable mask to get a safer fit.
CDC chart showing how to remove gloves properly to avoid contamination.
The lung exercises in this diary are still good for anyone, sick or not.
If you’d like some attractive handmade facemasks, see Sara’s latest diary here, or the website here, to order a set made by Sara R and WInglion from various cotton quilt fabrics: $40 + $7.75 Priority Mail shipping for a set of 5 (or other quantities at $8 each). It’s $1 more per mask to add in-seam aluminum nosebars that fit the mask more tightly against your face. You can contact Sara R to discuss your special needs or preference in fabrics.
WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—A furious Josh Hawley announced on Monday that he would attempt to overturn the results of last weekend’s CPAC straw poll, which showed him to be the choice of only three per cent of attendees. [snip]
“If CPAC does not immediately halt the certification of its straw-poll results, people will lose faith in CPAC as one of our nation’s sacred institutions,” the Missouri senator said.
Asked to provide evidence of straw-poll fraud, Hawley said, “There was a really cool photo of me pumping my fist in the air that everybody saw. That should be worth way more than three per cent.” ...
— The Borowitz Report, at The New Yorker
This Week in Boredom:
- NASA News: NASA formally names their Washington DC headquarters building after Mary W. Jackson, the first African-American female engineer at the agency. Details of her career are discussed, and photos of the ceremony are linked.
- Astronomy Picture of the Day: A NASA artist’s conception of Ginny the Mars helicopter, flying near her rover friend, Percy. ✨ Also very cool: a great picture of Venus from less than 8,000 miles away, taken by the Parker Solar Probe. And, if you haven’t had enough Mars, this single photo looking down from the Orbiter clearly shows Perseverance and all the detritus from its landing that got strewn around on the surface.
- Live cam: The manatee cam at Homosassa Springs Wildlife State Park in Florida shows highlight reels at night when the manatees can’t be seen.
- Smithsonian Transcription Project: Help transcribe letters and records from the Freedmen’s Bureau, a Reconstruction-era government agency concerned with the affairs of formerly enslaved people. Digitizing these records so they are searchable online makes them available to the descendants of such people seeking information about their heritage.
- Smithsonian Online Exhibition: Objects, art, and images connected with Duke Ellington, from the collections of various Smithsonian museums.
- Tasting History: Join Max Miller as he explores the history of food, including some ancient recipes. Today, he makes a bread such as that used in the Middle Ages for trenchers, to serve food on, and talks about the history of trencher use.
- Individual coffee-mug cake stand-in: We’ve finally gotten ahead of Em’s Kitchen’s large collection of individual mug cakes, but we still have pandemic left. As a substitute while she thinks up some more, here are easy, three-ingredient Brazilian truffles 2 ways (chocolate and coconut). You’ll need to consult the recipe printed under the video for more complete instructions, but they’re pretty darn simple.
- Time machine: Elvis performs Suspicious Minds in Las Vegas, 1970. Few performers could make six minutes out of that song, but I have to say, he was quite a showman.
- Obama White House video: In March of 2016, President Obama’s Supreme Court nominee, Merrick Garland, tells a little about himself.
- Ukulele Duet: Honoka Katayama tears it up on the Jackson 5’s Blame It On the Boogie.
- The Frick Collection’s “Cocktails with a Curator”: Discussion of Jacques-Louis David’s Comtesse Daru. This week’s complementary cocktail, an Orange Blossom, is chosen because the Comtesse is wearing an orange-blossom tiara in the portrait. (New videos in this series post at 5 pm ET on Fridays, with the week’s cocktail recipe posted in advance. They run around 15-20 minutes.)
- The Metropolitan Opera is still streaming free operas daily. YOU CAN ALSO attend special 75-minute livestream concerts for which you must buy a $20 ticket. The livestream occurs at a certain time, but is available for ticketholders to view (and re-view) at any time in the ensuing two weeks. The current concert is soprano Sonya Yoncheva in Germany, available through March 12. There’s further information at the link about how it works. The Met does not plan to re-open physically until September 2021. The entire 2020-21 season, through June, is very wisely canceled.
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