Recent Comments

1. almost 7 years ago on Over the Hedge

   Humor is based on incongruity, which can be simultaneously scary and refreshing, and that’s very real. Some of us can process incongruity more than others. and the trick is to balance needs to nudge introspection with civility and collegiality.

   People complain about political correctness all the time, but almost never explicitly about logical, ethical, and moral correctness. Why is that so?

2. almost 7 years ago on Over the Hedge

   For more on the earth-sun-moon system, see: How The Earth Moveshttp://sidespace.net/how-the-earth-moves/The moon’s orbit is off of the ecliptic by 5 degrees, which is the more or less vertical chord orientation. That’s necessary, because we would observe eclipses more frequently as the angle approached 0 degrees. The illustration is of the moon, with reflected light. That means the crescent moon must be positioned at least a few hours on the dark side of the earth, near to sunrise or sunset. The moon is higher in the horizon than the sun, so more light is reflected from its bottom than its top. Ryan is correct.

3. almost 7 years ago on Over the Hedge

   Can’t be an eclipse, because the sky would not be so dark with that much of a crescent.

   Crescent’s tilted: the chord defined by the tips of the crescent should be mostly vertical. The orbits of sun-earth and earth-moon are pretty much coplanar. At near 0 and 180 degrees, when eclipses are observed, trigonometric values amplify geometric imperfections, causing weird eclipse paths and other effects. Trying to explain astronomical phenomena was one of the driving forces for the development of trigonometry.

   Aand that’s enough nit picking from me.

4. about 7 years ago on Endtown

   The wolves are hedonistic and fatalistic children, precious about their situation, as in “better to be shot as sheep than as lambs” and “better to rule in Hell than submit to Heaven”. They have no idea what Hell really is, and will have a very short joyride.

   As flawed and self-centered as he is, Jacob still has valuable strengths and assets that are vital. He needs to talk with police chief Grout and Doc badger about all the different species tooth marks on the retrieved remains.

   Too bad no one trusts other sides to confer on what is really going on, then start to search for the puppet masters.

5. about 7 years ago on Endtown

   Not from a turnip, but from a sugar beet:

   Silicon Valley’s Bloody Plant Burger Smells, Tastes And Sizzles Like Meat

   http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2016/06/21/482322571/silicon-valley-s-bloody-plant-burger-smells-tastes-and-sizzles-like-meat

6. about 7 years ago on Over the Hedge

   So much for the suspension of disbelief.

7. about 7 years ago on Dick Tracy

   I’m sure Tracy has questions about how the Nitrates were sprung. Both prisoner transports were intercepted by sophisticated, well-armed crews that the Nitrates themselves would not have likely been able to hire. Locking up PD will buy time for Tracy to suss details out, while hopefully preventing competition for intercepting the Nitrates.

   BTW, the old colloquial name for silver nitrate is lunar caustic. That name has quite a Gouldian ring
8. about 7 years ago on Dick Tracy

   It’s real. The service is sited in southern British Columbia, just north of the border with the USA, and in the interior, not that close to Vancouver.

9. about 7 years ago on Over the Hedge

   Does your community have a decreasing tax base, and who sets the priorities for spending municipal funds? This sounds like an issue for your next election. In the presence of designing short cuts and absence of predictive models, an epidemiological approach is the best way to react, especially with tight budgets.

   Where I live, railroads were forced to put in or upgrade controlled gates where accidents tended to occur, especially with low-slung school buses. Where I grew up, the state made funds available to upgrade intersections where roads met at sharp angles to meeting at 90 degree angles. They used school buses as an example to drive the point home.

10. about 7 years ago on Over the Hedge

    I keep hearing echoes of this cyclical dialogue running along the arrow of time:

    “You kids think you’re going to live forever!”

    “Don’t trust anyone over thirty!”

    Chicken or egg. Ya gotta start somewhere. Does that indicate bias?