The River of Doubt by Candice Millard

The Amazon River Basin as observed by ERS-1 Radar Altimeter, including so-called 'wet' radar echoes from rivers, lakes and swamps. Credit: ESA

The book is about Teddy Roosevelt's South American Expedition. The way it was framed made the title sound like a philosophical journey, but it turns out there really was a 'River of Doubt'. It's about a quarter of inch long in the middle of the above map. It was renamed Roosevelt River.
    The book is full of interesting stuff about the early 20th Century. I've only just started and already my world view is being altered. The story of Teddy and the Panama canal is a little unsettling for someone who thinks we shouldn't be jerking around poor little third world countries.
    Meanwhile, I'm looking for a map of this river and I found this image, which I think is pretty cool. The Amazon River does not come anywhere Rio de Janeiro. The Amazon is that white, vein like structure spreading over the central blue (low altitude) area. It empties in the Atlantic right at the equator. How did I not know that? Rio is too far South to even show up on this map.

Buy the book from Amazon.

Sound Suppression System

Launchpad Water Sound Suppression System Tested for Ares
You know all that water they dump on the launch platform when a rocket takes off? Seems it reduces the amount of noise from the rocket engines reflected back at the rocket, specifically the space shuttle. The shuttle engines made so much noise it actually inflicted some damage on the SRB-s (Solid Rocket Boosters). Minor damage, but still, not something you want to happen. NASA has a page about it.
     The water also helps reduce the amount of damage that the rocket blast inflicts on the launch platform. Stack Exchange explains why the Russians launch their missiles over a pit:

"Russians for the Soyuz boosters have an interesting approach that does not use water suppression, since Baikanour is often experiencing winter when they wish to launch, when flowing water won't work so well (and snow is not as effective as water for this task). They basically suspend the booster over the edge of a cliff, so that the exhaust goes down, and then out a vent, such that there is not much infrastructure directly below it to be damaged."

I had never heard of the 'Sound Suppression' angle before. I thought it was all about ameliorating blast damage. Huh. Learn something new every day. Previous posts about Baikonur.

Iranian Satellite Launch February 2, 2015

Iran. February 2, 2015. Iran’s Safir rocket lifts off Monday with the country’s fourth satellite. Credit: Iranian Defense Ministry

Iran claims to have launched a satellite into orbit. Iran makes many claims about their technical prowess. Not all of them are what you would call factually accurate. So I go poking around on the web to see what I can find and everything I find points back to Iran as the source. However, I did come across this statement on the SPACEFLIGHT NOW website:

"Tracking data from the U.S. Air Force’s Space Surveillance Network indicated an object associated with the launch in an orbit with a perigee, or low point, of about 139 miles and an apogee, or high point, of about 285 miles. The Fajr satellite is flying in an orbit tilted at 55.5 degrees to the equator."

More poking around on the web leads me to REAL TIME SATELLITE TRACKING AND PREDICTIONS which points to a NASA satellite locator page, which reports "There were no spacecraft returned."
So now I am wondering if Iran's satellite launch even happened.

Miracle on I-84 Eastbound

Pickup truck got caught between two semi-trailers in a massive pileup on Interstate 84 Eastbound near Baker City in eastern Oregon. Driver walked away with a blackeye and a couple of scratches. He was the only occupant of this vehicle. 12 other people were injured in the 26 vehicle pileup. Most of the other vehicles appeared to be semi-trucks. Kevin, the driver here, was only going 30 MPH. Black Ice has been named as the culprit.

This picture was on the front page of the Sunday newspaper, the paper version. I thought it was such a good picture I wanted to steal it for me blog, so I went looking through the on-line version. It wasn't there. With the subscription, you also get a digital facsimile of the paper edition, so I was able to swipe this picture there.

I still get the paper edition of the newspaper, though I keep threatening to cancel it. It only comes 4 days a week, it's tabloid sized, and all the sections are nested one inside the other and for some reason they are the very devil to separate.

Personal Problem

My latest suspect for the cause of all my troubles is my arhythmitic heart. I don't have any overt symptoms, unless you count dying from lack of oxygen due to climbing four flights of stairs. That's figuratively dying, of course, otherwise you wouldn't be reading this. But I have trouble getting things done. That's not new, but it's been slowly getting worse, and that makes it a problem. I'm only putting this together because of the month I spent in Argentina. While I was there I made an effort to go for a walk of a couple, three or four miles every day, and I managed to do so. This has been on my agenda for years, but at home I have only been intermittently successful. So what was the difference? Well, I didn't have any chores to do. If that's all it was that would be kind of weird because I don't have a lot of chores. And that's what makes this problem so insidious: because the reduction in my miniscule chore load was all that it took to get me walking.
    I go to the doctor and he asks me how I feel, and I say 'fine', which is pretty much true, except for all my little aches and pains, but they aren't a big problem. And he asks if I have any trouble walking and the answer is no, and do I ever get out of breath? Sure, if I exert myself, but I soon recover. He tells me I need to get more exercise and I agree and he sends me home.
    But I don't have any energy, and so motivating myself to do anything requires more effort than actually doing it. Kind of a weird paradox, that.
    So back to the doc for more tests. Maybe he'll have a new pill that will fix me up.

Bodhisattva

The Best / Bodhisattiv
Tam put up a post with this title, and I said (to myself) that name sounds familiar. Where did I hear that? And boom, Steely Dan pops into my head, which leads to the above video, and wait a minute, those are real people on stage. If I recall correctly, back in the day Steely Dan was kind of secretive, never appearing in public, not even releasing any photographs, and now, here they are, out in public where everyone can see them. Just checked with Wikipedia. Sometimes they gave concerts and some years they didn't. I can see how a change like that could give rise to rumors, which people just love to share.

Update March 2017 replaced missing video. Didn't find any videos of Steely Dan that I liked, so now we have The Best, whoever they are.

Serious in Syria

Kobane, Syria. January 30, 2015. Musa, a 25-year-old Kurdish marksman, stands atop a building as he looks at the destroyed town known as Ain al-Arab. Kurdish forces recaptured the town on the Turkish frontier on January 26.  BULENT KILIC/AFP/Getty Images.