New Horizons and Orion

On their own, I'm not sure either of these stories are worth a post, so I'll go ahead and combine them.

The New Horizons space probe woke up from a long hibernation this weekend. It's on it's way to Pluto, and will fly by on July 14, 2015. It will be, of course, the first spacecraft to visit Pluto, and the first to obtain any sort of detailed image. Even the most advanced telescopes on Earth or in orbit can barely make out any detail. That's definitely something to look forward to this summer.

In a follow-up to my last post, the Orion spacecraft, NASA's new manned crew capsule, underwent a successful first test launch a couple of days ago. I have to confess, given how many rockets have exploded during launch recently, I was a little worried about Orion. I'm not sure the manned space program could take a setback like that. Orion needs to work, and it needs to work well. At least it's gotten through it's first test just fine.

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Orion Test Launch Coming Soon

The first space flight of the new Orion crew capsule is scheduled for this week. It's about time we got this thing going, we've been without manned space capability for too long. And while the space shuttle was cool and all, we haven't had any sort of capability beyond low Earth orbit since Apollo, and that was 40 years ago. Space flight is no cheaper, we have just as many space stations orbiting the planet, and we are about as close to traveling to other planets now as we were then. Hopefully this doesn't get cancelled, like every other time NASA has tried to move the manned space program along with any kind of ambition. We can only hope. This flight will be unmanned, but if all goes well, astronauts should soon be on their way beyond Earth and out into the solar system.

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The Case of the Missing Stars

It seems that globular clusters in the Fornax galaxy cluster are missing some stars. The population of these globular clusters is split equally between old stars and new stars. This does not fit in with current theories on the formation of those objects. Until now, scientists assumed that the stars in globular clusters all formed at the same time, and that most, if not all the stars would be old. Any new stars would form from ejected star material, but theories predicted that old stars should outnumber new stars considerably. Observationally, that isn't the case for Fornax.

It's actually not the case for the Milky Way's globular clusters, either. They have a similar star make-up, but scientists assumed that something caused the clusters to lose older stars. They can't make the same assumption for Fornax, because there's nowhere the stars could have gone where we couldn't detect them. They're just not there. So, it may take some serious rethinking to figure out how these globular clusters actually formed.

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More Snow Does Not Equal a Cooler Climate

Lake-effect snow in action.

In fact, it basically means the opposite of that. The massive snowstorms that have hit the Great Lakes region have been well-publicized, and for good reason. Buffalo, New York under several feet of snow, in November? They get a lot of snow, but not that much, not this early anyway. It's also been very cold basically all over the country, and no, it's not because of the "polar vortex."

It's complicated, because weather always is; but a typhoon that was in the Pacific maintained cohesion much further north than it should be able to, because ocean waters are warmer than they should be. The jet stream is weaker than normal because the Arctic is warmer than it should be, and when the typhoon remnants smacked into it, the jet stream dipped south, bringing cold air with it. That's why it was so cold everywhere. Lake-effect snow occurs when cold air moves over an unfrozen lake, and the Great Lakes were very unfrozen. Water temperatures were about 50 degrees Fahrenheit above air temperatures, and that is a lot. This is a bad time for lake-effect snow anyway, but that temperature differential equates to prodigious snowfall totals for Buffalo. If the lakes were a bit cooler, like they should be in mid-November, the snow would not have been so bad. Still a lot, but not 7 feet.

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Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel Review

NOTE: There's not much point in me doing a non-spoiler review at this point, the game's been out for a month now, and there are plenty of reviews already out there. So, if you care about the story at all and don't want to know what happens until you play the game, this may not be the place for you. I don't go into that much detail, but there's enough.

I haven't even started the game and I already like it.

Of course pirate ships can be Vault Hunters!

As you may have gathered from the picture, I chose to play as Claptrap, the hilarious/annoying mascot of the Borderlands series, finally a playable character. I really didn't have a choice in the matter, I liked his character in Borderlands 2, and you know, the fact that not the same thing happens whenever I hit the action skill button was entertaining. Of course, Pirate Ship mode is by far the best of all the potential option, and yes, it is annoying to get melee mode while fighting a flying boss. But hey, I knew what I was signing up for. I think it's amusing that Claptrap has skills basically built around him losing all his health. He's great at getting Second Winds (if you lose all your health but kill an enemy in the next few seconds, you get back up), and I like how good he is with explosives. Unfortunately, I feel like Claptrap is really set up for multiplayer, whenever I have played with friends, he seems to get even better than in single player, and he's pretty good in single player.

This big giant space station.

Compared to Borderlands 2, this game starts off really fast. Basically, you're thrown right into the action as evil Dahl soldiers take over Helios, the big giant Hyperion space station hovering over Elpis, Pandora's moon. Your ship gets hit with a rocket and you crash into the station, presumably giving your character a nasty concussion, since you immediately forget your action skill, which you had just used on the ship. That's just how the game works, I know, but still. Anyway, over the course of the first mission, you save Jack, your employee and future Borderlands 2 antagonist, fight a whole bunch of soldiers, confront the leader of the Lost Legion (the soldiers you're fighting) and her alien friend, fight a boss, all culminating with you getting shot out of a cannon at the moon below. In Borderlands 2, your first mission was: walk 100 feet, watch Claptrap (he got downgraded) get his eyeball ripped out, pick up gun.

Elpis, Pandora, and the sun.

It's funny, while the game gets going with gusto, the first half of the game is really fairly slow. There's a lot of moon exploration, and while the moon does look fantastic, it is a barren and basically lifeless hunk of rock. There's nothing organic about it, and environments look broadly similar. It's either ice, or lava. So yes, exploring similar looking areas is a bit monotonous, but it's not realistic in any way for Elpis to have forests, or oceans, or things like that. The methane rivers in the later part of the games are pushing believability, and they're clearly not natural. I think it's also important to note at this point that despite the game's claim to the contrary, Elpis must have some sort of atmosphere. Not a big deal, but every time I hear "VACUUM DETECTED", I can't help but think, "No it isn't." Ah well.

The big laser. From Helios, the moon is below.

So, you're running around the moon doing Vault Hunter things, and that's when the space station above does its best Death Star impression and fires a very large laser at the moon. It even has lasers coming together into a point and combining into an even larger beam, which totally doesn't work, but whatever. This adds some urgency to your quest to retake Helios, except it really doesn't. It never does. Big giant laser bombarding the moon? Time running out? Better do some side-quests.

So, over the course of the game, the player watches Jack fall from a character with heroic, if slightly misguided, intentions to the character we met in Borderlands 2, who is not at all heroic and wants to see everyone on Pandora die quite painfully. It's an interesting story, and I think probably the most reliable. The thing with Borderlands games is that they're frame stories. We're playing a game, but the game is a story being told by someone in the future. In Borderlands 2, the story is told by someone who was on the winning side, and may or may not be entirely reliable. In that case, the Vault Hunters you play in that game, and the Vault Hunters from the original Borderlands (which I have not played), are made out to be heroes. In this game, this isn't the case. This is a very grey universe, and there are no real heroes. Heroes wouldn't last long on a world where communication happens through the end of a gun, and where a supposed "hero" has a kill count in the thousands. That did bother me a bit about Borderlands 2, and I'm glad that this game addressed it somewhat.

The game's final boss, guardian of the Vault.

Long story short, you retake Helios, but you are betrayed by people who we, as the player, have trusted through both previous Borderlands games. Undaunted by all this, you set off for the Vault on Elpis, because after all, that is what you were after all along. You are a Vault Hunter, you hunt Vaults. Vaults are areas created by an alien race known as Eridians, they contain large monsters which defend them, and killing said monster grants you vast treasures (guns, Borderlands advertises itself on having lots and lots of guns). So after fighting through even more soldiers, and a whole host of Eridians, you make it to the Vault and face the Sentinel. I can't compare it to the Destroyer, final boss of the first Borderlands, but I can compare it to the Warrior, final boss of Borderlands 2. I'll keep it simple, this one was better. I was always at a higher level than the Warrior was, he went down quick, there was lava all around the arena that you could easily get knocked into, which was an instant game over, and he was kind of boring.

Above: Phase 2

This guy felt like an actual threat. You fight him, take down his ridiculously powerful shield, and kill him. But something isn't right. He didn't drop nearly enough loot, and it doesn't feel like it's over. And it isn't. Now it's time for phase 2. He's big, he's mean, and he was really fun to fight. I especially liked the arena, it was just a flat circle. No tricks of elevation, no instant death pits, it's just you and him. And all the little guys he summons to give you Second Winds. Hey, he's a generous monster. You beat this guy, he dies for good, you get your lootsplosion (it's a term), and Jack, your employer, comes in to examine his reward. He touches it, though I'm not entirely sure what it is, perhaps the actual "Vault", anyway, and his future is revealed to him. He sees himself waking the Warrior and ruling Pandora and its vast treasures. That's when he gets punched in the face (long story), the Vault symbol is burned onto his skin, and he goes, to put it simply, absolutely insane. And that's game over. In a few years, Borderlands 2 goes down, Jack does wake the Warrior, but the Vault Hunters in that game kill him and it. Hooray.

And now, what did I think of the game? I enjoyed it a lot. In the last game, there were several locations which I dreaded going through. I hated entire areas of the game. I didn't get that in the Pre-Sequel. I didn't feel like an area was annoying, or too hard, or anything. So, I'd say I actually like it a little more than Borderlands 2. I'll give it a 9 out of 10. That's honestly higher than most other reviews I've seen. Boy, this has been going on for a while, and I didn't even get to low gravity, or laser and ice weapons. Those were all good. The portion of the game where you have to hop through an unfinished section of the space station with nothing but space below you was really cool. I think that's everything I wanted to talk about. It was a good game, and I would recommend it.

I hope you realize getting these pictures meant standing still in front of a very powerful enemy. Totally worth it though.

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Philae and the Comet Landing

From ESA

Philae landed on Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko today. Probably. Maybe even twice. Considering two of the three device designed to keep the probe down, a small rocket and the harpoons, didn't even work right, I'd say it was a pretty good day's work for the little lander. We'll have to wait until tomorrow to get more information, as Rosetta, the main craft, is out of communications range. I guess this must happen often, if not, this doesn't seem like the greatest time to drop the lander, a couple hours before all communication is lost. Ah well, I'm not on the project, what do I know?

I have to admit, I was a bit worried about it today. This hasn't been a great time for space flight, with 2 rockets experiencing what can modestly be called catastrophic failure. It looks like Philae has survived the slowest fall in the solar system (okay, not literally, but come on, the comet's pretty small.) and will transmit some useful information.

On a side note, it seems like people were really impressed with what Philae did today, and yes, it is a remarkable achievement. But it wasn't that hard. Basically, all they did was point the thing in the right direction and give it a little nudge. The rocket on Philae is not designed to slow the descent, but to keep the probe anchored to the moon. Same with the harpoons. Unless it's landed on a cliff or on top of a boulder, Philae should be just fine. The real achievement was getting Rosetta in orbit around the comet in the first place. Come on, after ten years, perfectly intercepting a tiny rock hundreds of millions of miles away? That's some serious math skill right there.

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It Was Bound to Happen Eventually...My First Top 5 List

The internet loves lists. Seriously, they're everywhere. I don't recall doing a list before, not because I'm philosophically opposed to them, I just haven't done one before. UNTIL TODAY. TODAY MARKS A GREAT DAY IN HISTORY AS I COUNT DOWN MY FIVE FAVORITE...

WAIT FOR IT...

WAIT FOR IT...

EPISODES OF SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS!!!!

5. "Wet Painters"

Spongebob and Patrick paint Mr. Krabs' house, but accidently get paint on his first dollar. Their attempts to remove said paint do not end well. Umm, I'm not entirely sure what else needs to be said about these, if you haven't watched them, you definitely should go do that. I mean, obviously, I really like these episodes, that's why they're here. I guess I'll throw in the best quote and a memorable scene.
Best Quote:
"YOU MESSED UP MY DOLLAR...RAMA!!"

4. "Krusty Krab Training Video"

It's a very literal title for this episode, it's the official Krusty Krab training video, which all new employees must watch. It's quite a bit different from...well, everything, seeing as there really isn't a plot, or story. That's an interesting maneuver, a plotless show, yet it manages to work extremely well. It's worth noting that this episode is paired with "Wet Painters", which probably makes the best half-hour of Spongebob out there.
Best Quote:
"The ceiling is right, Squidward, you're not a very good employee."

3. "Pizza Delivery"

Back to Season 1 (like seasons matter for a show like this) for the show's first really great episode. Spongebob and Squidward deliver the first Krabby Patty pizza. Things don't go well. That could be the summary for every episode. Spongebob and somebody do something. Things don't go well. Ah well, nobody ever said a kid's cartoon would have exciting and original plots. Anyway, this episode is great, and maybe the most quotable out of the episodes on my list here.
Best Quote:
"It's not just a boulder...it's a rock!"

2. "SB-129"

Spongebob goes science-fiction in this episode. Squidward runs away to the Krusty Krab to avoid Spongebob and Patrick, gets frozen, awakes 2,000 years later, time travels back to the past, then travels to Asparagus Land. Unfortunately, I couldn't find a clip from my favorite moment on Youtube, so I'll just have to settle for the classic bit of the episode. Oh well.
Best Quote:
"Rrready to go?"
"No I'm not rrready to go!"

1. "Band Geeks"

Please, like it was ever going to be anything else. I used to have this episode completely memorized, something I managed to do without even trying. After watching it a hundred times, I just sort of absorbed it. Squidward starts a band, it doesn't go well, but when everyone goes to play, it works. It's just such a good episode, it is far and away my favorite. The others are great, but they don't really come close.
Best Quote:
"Whoever's the owner of the white sedan, you left your lights on..."
And of course: 

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All Space Flight is Important

This past week has not been a good one for space exploration's public image. Two rockets down, with one man dead. Frankly, considering the vehicle, I can't believe the second man on that ship lived. I'm sure it's caused a lot of people to question the validity and the entire point of space travel. To the regular person, it doesn't seem worth it. I know I've talked about this plenty before, and I'm sure I'll talk about it again. SpaceShipTwo was a space tourism vessel, and in terms of importance, well, there are more important things. However, I don't want people associating that with all space flight.

This is an article about how in a few years, NASA will be bringing most of its planetary space probe missions to an end. After that, we'll be left with very little in the way of new and exciting information about the planets. I've noticed a picture of Titan's lakes circulating through the internet today, in a few years, spectacular images like this will be no more. Manned space flight is important, but so is unmanned. Space probes go where we cannot, they can go further, longer, and they can do it for far less money. Landing a man on Mars may get all the press, but sending a probe to sail on Ligeia Mare, or to drill through Europa's icy crust to the ocean beneath would be just as epic a milestone, and would probably return even more spectacular results.

In an unrelated bit of news, I've got a couple of longer, more involved posts in the works, and hopefully I can get them out this week. They'll be different from my normal fare, so...yes. That will be happening, I guess.

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New Species of Frog Discovered

This is just a regular old leopard frog.

This doesn't sound like a big deal at first. I mean, it'll just be another random little tropical frog that no one will ever see, right? Well, no. It's nothing special either, it doesn't spit acid from its eyeballs or hunt birds or something spectacular, it's just another frog. So, why write about it? Well, this new species of frog is called the Atlantic Coast leopard frog, and it resides in one of the biggest cities on Earth: New York City. It is remarkable how even in the most dense urban areas, we can still manage to discover new species. Again, this isn't a new bacteria, or some simple animal like a nematode or worm, it's a frog. You can see them, you can hear them, it's an animal you could go out and find. Living right in New York. I just think that's amazing.

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Waynesboro Municipal Grand Reopening

A full parking lot for once.

Every golfer has a home course. It may not be the best course, or their favorite course, but it is still home. For me, that course is Waynesboro Municipal, a little 9 hole course which had fallen on difficult times. A combination of mismanagement, a lack of money, and harsh summers had rendered the course, rough around the edges in the best of times, borderline unplayable. For more than a year, barely anyone played, and there were only about 30 or so memberships. It was in danger of closing, but luckily, the course was bought up, and things are starting to look up again.

On October 26th, the course had a "grand reopening" where golf was free. I can't remember the last time I'd seen the parking lot so full, but it's been years. The course is still in lackluster shape, but it is fall, and the improvements only started a few weeks ago. There was a closest to the hole contest and a long drive contest, which I am happy to report that I won, much to my brother's irritation. Hey, gotta hit the fairway to win those things. Won a free sleeve of Pro V1's, which I'll probably hold onto for years because I won't play at a good enough course to warrant using those golf balls in the foreseeable future. Also, Golfzilla was there, and well, umm, Golfzilla. Not sure what else to say about that.

Even though I can't imagine I'll be in Waynesboro for that much longer, it makes me happy to know that the Muni will keep going, hopefully better than ever. I played my first round of golf here, for nearly 15 years now, this course has been home to me. I hope now that it can inspire people to take up the game, just like I did. Wow, that's cheesy. Anyway, it was a fun day, sunny, warm, and the golf was...well, not good, but not terrible. Adequate, that's a good word for it. It's golf, can't ask for much more than all that.

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Close Comet Encounter with Mars

Getting up close to a comet is hard. Getting up close to a pristine comet fresh from the Oort Cloud is even harder. Getting close to a pristine comet while orbiting another planet and in fact, on an entirely separate mission is...well, those are some long odds. And as you might have guessed, that is exactly what happened this past weekend when Comet Siding Spring came within 100,000 miles of Mars. That is very, very close.  Normally, we wouldn't have an opportunity to get a real good look at a comet from the Oort Cloud, because there just isn't enough warning. But wouldn't you know it, we've got spacecraft orbiting Mars. So, they diverted their attention for a while and hopefully we'll get some great images, and useful information. This is hopefully just the prequel post to a more substantial post with actual images of the comet. It takes time for things to process.

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Italy Putting Science on Trial

The earthquake in question.

I'm not sure what to say about this. Italy convicted scientist, actual scientists, for manslaughter, because they didn't science well enough to predict an earthquake that killed about 300 people in a town in central Italy. Now, the scientists are appealing, but their prospects don't look good. Looking at this story and another story going into more detail about the incident, it's clear that these people did communicate that earthquakes were unlikely, and that they didn't do a great job of stressing that earthquakes are not predictable, giving people the wrong idea so that the town was not as prepared as it could have been. But that's not the issue here, not really. The issue is that these scientists are being held accountable for getting their geophysics wrong.

We can't predict earthquakes, not with any accuracy. All we can say is that an earthquake is likely on a particular fault line in 10, 20, 50 years. If we had a way to know if San Francisco was going to have a major earthquake on December 15, 2014, it would be big news. But we don't. It probably isn't possible to predict earthquakes with that level of accuracy, and it certainly isn't possible today. These scientists are being held accountable for failing to predict the unpredictable, and it isn't right.

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Expanding Ice in a Warming World

The planet is getting warmer. This is a fact, backed by data. This year is looking to be the warmest on record, even if the year doesn't end all that warm. However, it is important to note that despite this fact, the world has not gotten warmer overall, and that some regions may not behave how you might expect.

This year, Antarctic sea ice covered 7.72 million square miles, the biggest area since the 1970's, when accurate measurements began. It's theorized that changing wind conditions from global warming have caused cold air to move across the Ross Sea, allowing for large scale ice expansion, since there's no land to stop anything. Warm air has instead started moving across the Antarctic Peninsula, and it's worth noting that ice coverage in that area has shrunk from past years.

Another area that is not behaving as expected is half a world away, in the Himalayas. Glaciers in the Karakorum region are not shrinking like other glaciers in the area, and if anything, are expanding. As the planet warms, the Himalayas receive more moisture, and for most mountains, this moisture comes in the summer, as rain. Because of geography, the Karakorum receives most of its moisture in the winter, so it falls as snow, feeding the glaciers in the area.  So again, even though the area is warming, not everywhere behaves the same way. It is important to note that while some glaciers are expanding, many are not, and that some inconsistency does not mean global warming is not an issue. It would be more remarkable if every place on the planet was warming in the same way.

Exoplanet Mapping

It's not the easiest task in the world, and the result is less than spectacular, but Hubble has taken the best weather map of an exoplanet to date.  The planet is WASP-43B, a hot Jupiter with twice Jupiter's mass that takes only 19 hours to orbit its star.  In the sun, temperatures reach 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit, while the night half is only a third of that, at 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit.  That's almost cold right there.

Hubble was also able to find water vapor in the planet's atmosphere, which doesn't do the planet much good, seeing as it's hot enough to melt quite a lot of metals, let alone water, but it does mean that we can detect water vapor in the atmospheres of exoplanets, which will come in handy whenever we start peering at smaller, cooler worlds.  You know, ones that might have life.

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"Impossible" Lunar Eclipse Happening Tonight

Lunar eclipses happen quite often.  There was one in April, and there are two more occurring in the near future.  There's one happening early Wednesday morning, October 8th.  This one is going to be different, and strictly speaking, impossible.  For a brief period of time along the eastern U.S., it will be possible to view both the lunar eclipse and the sun rising at the same time.  Since a lunar eclipse occurs when the Earth is directly in between the moon and the sun, this shouldn't happen, and if there was no atmosphere, it wouldn't.  But thanks to refraction from the atmosphere as the sun rises and the moon sets, the light from both objects will be visible for several minutes while both in the sky.  The light from the moon will be hanging around after it has set, and light from the sun will appear before it has actually risen.

It promises to be a unique astronomical experience, and I'm actually going to be awake for it.  Unfortunately, it's probably going to be cloudy, so I won't be able to see it.  Which is annoying.  Thanks a lot, weather.

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Positive Evolutionary Mutations Not Entirely Random

These beaks may not have evolved through random chance.

If anybody remembers their high school biology (and let's be honest, you probably don't, I barely do), you might remember learning about how evolution is random.  A species lives or dies on how lucky it gets.  If it gets a favorable mutation, it allows the species to survive and reproduce in changing conditions while other species, or even members of the same species, die off.  It's all about passing on random advantageous mutations to offspring.

A new study seems to disagree with that tried and true approach to evolution.  It found that most of the time, mutations occur not at random, but at so called "mutational hot spots".  These are places where DNA mis-pairing often occurs, but at crucial junctures within the sequence; so that during protein formation, instead of the mutation being repeated out, it remains in between sequences of normal DNA in order to preserve the function of the protein.  This combination of factors, DNA mis-pairing during replication and the need to preserve protein function, is probably what allows evolution to occur so rapidly during times of great upheaval in the environment, and more importantly, it just seems a bit more elegant.  Random chance happens, of course, but scientists aren't big fans of random, and the random nature of natural selection just didn't feel right.

Earth's Ocean Mapped in Greatest Detail Yet

When talking about the ocean, you often hear that we know the surface of Mars better than we know our own oceans. A new map changes that a bit. It's twice as accurate overall and more than four times more accurate in some areas. It adds a lot of information to our admittedly sketchy knowledge of the ocean floor.

About 15,000 new seamounts have been identified, and while most of them run in chains, there are plenty that are more isolated, and studying these may help scientists just what cause volcanoes to form away from fault lines. Mantle plumes are a topic of debate in the geologic community, apparently. Hey, I don't know, I'm not much a geologist.

What I find more interesting is the mapping of abyssal hills. I, just like pretty much everybody else in the world, have probably never heard of these before, and yet, they're the most common surface feature on Earth. These hills aren't a new discovery, but they've never been mapped before, and they must be everywhere. It really is surprising to learn how little we know about our own oceans, every new bit of research brings back so much information, and raises so many more questions.

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Cedar Ridge Golf Club Review

Yes, another golf course review.  Hey, been playing some new ones, and it is very exciting.  Today, the course in question is Cedar Ridge in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.  It's actually right next door to Meadow Brook, which I played a couple of months ago.  Couldn't see one from the other, but they're less than a mile apart, I think.  They're fairly similar courses too, neither are very long, both are on fairly small properties, though Cedar Ridge is comfortably bigger than Meadow Brook.  Not big, by any means, but they didn't run out of room and stick in some kind of wacky holes.  Too bad, because given the choice between the two, I'd definitely take Meadow Brook.

Condition-wise, there's no contest, Cedar Ridge is in much better shape.  It's not ready to host the professionals, but there is green grass in places other than the greens.  The conditions of the greens were about the same, but I preferred Meadow Brook to Cedar Ridge, the greens at Cedar Ridge just seemed a bit off to me.  The fairways were ridiculously narrow, I only hit one out of fourteen, which is one more than my younger brother, who shot a 73.  Sure, they may not have been important to hit, but it's nice to do so anyway.  So, in that regard, these two course are alike.

There is something that I have to address, something that is most definitely affecting my judgment of Cedar Ridge.  Trees.  I spent all day dealing with trees, and I was getting real sick of it.  I managed an 80, even with having to hit under/around/over/through/into trees on more than half of the holes.  I don't know if I could have managed 73, but I would have done better than 80.  The place doesn't even have that many trees, but I was managing to find all of them.  I believe there were only three holes where I didn't have tree trouble, not counting the par 3's, of course.  Then again, a tree did provide me with what my brothers and I all agreed was the luckiest shot they or I had ever witnessed.  On the 11th hole, a 95 yard par 3 over a pond, I hit a big pull into trees long and left, only for the golf ball to come bounding back onto the green and stopping about 7 feet away from the hole.  I missed the birdie (of course), but that shot was ridiculous.

The course started off with four par 4's in a row, none of them very long, with the third hole being just under 300 yards.  Nothing really interesting about them.  Really, none of the holes on the front nine are all that interesting, it's pretty standard parkland golf in southern Pennsylvania.  Not really very much in the way hazards, or interesting features, just golf.

The back nine is a little more interesting.  The tenth is a short par 4 where you can't drive it more than 220 yards, with ponds cutting the green off from the fairway.  I've already mentioned the tiny 11th hole, and after a mid-length par 5 and a par 4 flanked by trees, the 14th is probably the most difficult hole on the course.  It's 430 yards, the fairway isn't wide, and there's out-of-bounds left.  I hit a good drive, terrible second, and miraculously got up and down for par.  Seriously, that doesn't happen often.  The 15th is similar to the 10th, where a pond cuts the hole in two, but the hole is a bit longer, so the second is longer as well.  The 16th is an awkwardly narrow short par 5, and the 17th is a short par 3, which my youngest brother played in a most ingenious fashion.  He took out his cleek (the equivalent of a two iron, but a wood, gave it a little three-quarter swing, and stopped a few feet past the hole.  Got it way closer than my other brother or I did, and we used more traditional wedges.  The last hole was another short par 4, which I birdied with a good drive, a good pitch, and a six foot putt.


So, why did I prefer Meadow Brook over Cedar Ridge?  Well, other than the aforementioned trees, Meadow Brook was just more fun.  It was goofy, it was silly, it was more enjoyable.  Cedar Ridge tried to take itself seriously, but it's just not good enough for it.  Meadow Brook felt like it had a sense of humor, so for that reason, if you're considering an inexpensive round of golf in the Gettysburg area, I would recommend Meadow Brook.

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The Most Important Science News You've Heard in the Last Five Minutes

I could spend this post talking about how half of all Earth's wildlife has died since 1960, everybody else certainly is.  It's a big number, but honestly?  Not that surprising.  I guess it's good to have a number on just how much of nature we've killed off, but it didn't take a genius to know it was a lot.  No, today, I'm going to talk about something much more important in the world of science: gigantic solar flares.

When I say gigantic, I mean it.  These flares, coming from DG Canum Venaticorum, a red dwarf binary system 60 light years away, are the biggest ever recorded.  It was about 10,000 times more powerful than our sun's meager flares, reaching a temperature of 360 million degrees.  The stars are young, only about 30 million years old, but the key to the flare was the rotational period of the flare star.  It orbits in about a day, while the Sun takes about a month.  Fast rotation means more magnetic  activity, which leads to more powerful solar flares.  That's how a piddling little red dwarf produced the most powe
rful solar flare ever.

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Ryder Cup 2014: Ehhhhh

So, we lost.  Didn't bother watching after the first day.  It was over the moment we couldn't even get a full point from two Europeans who could barely hit a fairway, even after we were two up with two to play.  I've got better things to do than watch our players lose while being forced to listen to the commentators be neutral in their commentary.  I don't want to hear it. 

I don't even have anything to say about this, it was just so uninspiring and so predictable.  Maybe next time will be a little more interesting, especially seeing as Whistling Straits is almost certainly a better course then Gleneagles.  Maybe it'll at least be worth watching.

2014 Ryder Cup Prediction

Gleneagles Hotel...Listen, this was the only sort of related picture in the public domain I could find.

The Ryder Cup starts tomorrow up at Gleneagles in Scotland. Why they decided to have it there instead of one of the several links courses proven under championship conditions is beyond me, but there's not much use in complaining about it now. I guess it's the same reason they had the Ryder Cup at boring, inland courses in Ireland and in Wales...money.

Anyway, there's certainly been plenty of press about the Ryder Cup, maybe even more so than there's been in the past. Maybe it's just because I'm paying a little bit closer attention, but there seems to be stories about every little bit of news coming from the Ryder Cup.  Honestly, I think it might be for two reasons: first, and I hate saying it because Europe is stupid, but they're going to win, and second, it feels like there are very few people on either side playing well. Europe's got McIlroy and maybe Garcia playing decent, but that's about it in the past few months. And the American's who've been playing the best right now aren't in Scotland. Thanks a lot Chris Kirk and Billy Horschel for waiting until after the captain's picks to start playing well. Europe's dragging out a bunch of guys who haven't played well in months or even years just because they've done well in Ryder Cups in the past, and half of America's team got in because so many people have pulled out for whatever reason. Tiger and Jason Dufner have injuries, and Dustin Johnson was definitely not suspended for drug use. He is most definitely taking a voluntary break from golf. That is what is happening. So, neither side feels like it's putting its best foot forward.

I'm sure I'll do plenty of watching, and I'm sure I'll get extremely angry at our sides complete inability to do anything and Europe's uncanny ability to make every single putt they look at. Hmm, I've already said I think Europe's going to win, haven't I? Ignore that, it'll be 15-13 America, because I do not want to be happy on Sunday night after Europe wins 15.5-12.5. Go America, don't fumble it like last time. I believe Jim Furyk can remember how to play golf on a Sunday, that Phil won't 3 putt a five footer on the back nine like he loves to do, that Patrick Reed can manage to break 80 over the weekend, that those captain's picks will play better than they did over the Fed-Ex Cup. Seriously, what did any of them even do over the last three weeks, other than withdraw? Hmm, so much optimism here.

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Advanced Astrophysics is Kind of Difficult

A few months back, scientists announced they had found gravitational waves from the very beginning of the universe, lending credible evidence to the theory that the universe expanded at an enormous rate in the first few... what's the small prefix I can think of...picoseconds.  Anyway, in those first few instants, the universe expanded at much faster than the speed of light, or so the theory goes.

As I've mentioned before, science is hard, and this kind of science is really hard.  An extraordinary claim was made here, and you know what they say about those.  Of course, equally important is making sure you didn't make any silly mistakes, like not compensating for dust floating around the Milky Way.  Now, no one is saying the observation is wrong, or that the whole theory is wrong.  Unlike propulsion from nothing, this actually has a chance of working out.  I hope it does.

In an unrelated bit of news, I'm putting the link to my Twitter back on the bottom of each post.  I'm going to try and actually be an active Twitter user...er, even if I don't care for it.  Just don't expect too much.

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Conocodell Golf Club Review

Golf in a simple but entertaining form.

If there's one thing I have to say about golf in Franklin County, it's that there is an abundance of relatively cheap and accessible golf for everybody.  Conocodell, in Fayetteville, Pennsylvania, is one of several inexpensive 9 hole courses in the area, and after playing there this weekend, I'd say it was the best.

One of the best points of the course is that it is very flat.  No hills, no nothing, so it's a very easy walk.  I think they try to encourage walking, since the price for 2 people to walk 9 holes on a Saturday is $24, but to ride, it's $48.  So, there weren't very many carts around, which was nice.  I would highly recommend anyone who plays the course do the same.

Water running along the first hole.

The condition of the course was iffy for most people, but for me, they were perfectly acceptable. There was a definite delineation between fairway and rough, the grass was somewhere between brown and green, and the course was playing fast, which is definitely how I like it.  The greens were in very good condition, playing reasonably quick, but not too fast.  I don't mind fairways and rough being a bit questionable, but getting a decent roll from the greens is nice.

Now, let's get to the important part of the review, the golf course.  It's not a long course, with a couple of very short par 4's, but the one par 5 is pretty long, and there are some longer par 4's as well.  I don't know, it's not a particularly scenic place, but it just seemed to fit into the surroundings very well, so I found myself taking quite a few pictures.  Maybe it was the fact the fairway blended into the rough almost seamlessly, and then the rough blended into the native areas just as seamlessly.

A crossbunker on the fifth fairway.

The first hole is a shortish par 4 that doglegs right around a water hazard.  The more water you cut off from the tee, the shorter second you have.  I think the green might be just about reachable with a bold enough drive.  I haven't been driving it well, so I didn't go for it.  After a straightaway mid-length par 4 and a shortish par 3, there's a couple of reasonably difficult par 4's.  The fourth is pretty tight, but the fifth is a bit more interesting.  There's a couple of big bunkers cutting into the line of play, and the green is guarded by even more.  A stream on the right makes the hole even more interesting.  I wish that I could say I played the hole well, but I didn't.  Hooked my drive straight into a tree, had to make a 12 foot putt for bogey. 

A challenging pitch on the last hole.

The sixth is a very short par 4 which my younger brother drove with a three wood.  Got the drive to about ten feet, missed the eagle putt right on the edge.  Typical, he said.  After another mid-length par 3, the eighth is a mid-length par 5, playing straight to a wide open fairway.  Really get a chance to open up with the driver, which I attempted unsuccessfully and my brother (who is comfortably better than me) managed.  It's a fun drive, but there isn't much else to that hole.  The ninth is a little more interesting.  It's only about 300 yards, but it plays along the road to a small green guarded very closely by a pair of surprising intimidating bunkers.  I closed off a relatively lackluster round by curling in a 15 foot birdie putt, salvaging a 40 on the par 35.  Not brilliant, but not awful.

I can't legitimately give the place a particularly good grade, or recommend it to anybody who doesn't already live here.  There are better places to play golf in Franklin County.  That said, it's a fun little course that's very easy to walk and fits in well with the environment.  Nice way to spend a couple hours with the family.

It just...looks good.

Sometimes, Professional Golfers Just Lose It

There have been many occasions throughout golf's history where someone who was at the top of their game loses that magic. It happened to Ian Baker-Finch after he won the 1991 British Open, it happened to David Duval after he won the 2001 British Open, and it looks like it happened to Anthony Kim.  Sure, he wasn't a major winner, but he had won multiple times, and he was a big part of the American victory in the 2008 Ryder Cup.  His story might be even more complicated then we might have thought. It's an interesting read, and even if he hasn't lost his game, I can understand why he wouldn't want to come back.

Commercial Space Flight is Coming

As of 2011, the United States has no manned space vehicle. The only way we can send astronauts to the International Space Station is by hitching a ride on a Soyuz, and seeing that tensions with Russia are kind of high, this is not a brilliant situation.  NASA is focused right now on Orion and the Space Launch System, a big giant rocket meant to send astronauts past low Earth orbit. However, low Earth orbit operations are obviously not going to stop, and so, NASA has turned to commercial space flight and ships built by private companies.

There won't be just one, SpaceX and Boeing will each build, launch, and maintain their own spacecraft, operating out of Cape Kennedy Space Center. They will be reusable, and meant for travel to and from the ISS. While this won't be happening tomorrow, space flights should commence in 2017. This is fantastic news for manned space flight, getting more and more ships out there will bring the cost of space flight down, and it allows NASA to devote more money and resources into manned flight to the Moon, to asteroids, and to Mars.

More Dinosaurs: New Spinosaurus Skeleton

Credit: University of Chicago, Fossil Lab

Yes, back to dinosaurs. Hey, when there's big news, it's gotta be reported on. This is no obscure dinosaur either, it may not be T-Rex, but you've heard of Spinosaurus.  It's been featured in one of the Jurassic Park movies, though as it turns out, it was portrayed inaccurately.  Our knowledge of Spinosaurus comes from an incomplete skeleton found a century ago which was lost during the Second World War. Again with the lost dinosaur bones, but at least having bombs dropped on them is a valid excuse. We knew it was big, the biggest carnivorous dinosaur ever, and we envisioned it like every other big carnivorous dinosaur.

This assumption has turned out to be incorrect. Spinosaurus aegyptiacus was more crocodile than Tyrannosaurus, spending much of its time in the water, courtesy of a whole host of unique adaptations that have never been seen on dinosaurs. It's actually the first aquatic dinosaur ever, and it also happens to be one of the biggest. While it was capable of moving around on land, it likely lumbered about on all fours, and was much more comfortable in the water. Scientists still aren't sure what purpose the big giant sail served, but clearly, it wasn't meant for stealth. Big giant thing like that probably wasn't capable of stealth.

Plate Tectonics on Europa

We've seen traces of what could have been plate tectonics on all of the other inner planets, but Earth is the only one to still have an active and moving surface.  Plate tectonics are a big deal, scientists believe the recycling of materials is important for life.  Now, strong evidence suggests Europa also experiences plate tectonics.

Europa is certainly getting interesting, with the recent suspected discovery of plumes of water jetting out from the surface, similar to Enceladus.  While the plates, really large chunks of ice, probably don't go down all the way to the subsurface ocean, material probably gets down there somehow.  It doesn't guarantee life exists on Europa, but it makes sending a spacecraft there to find some answers even more important.  Seriously, when is that happening?

Really Big Dinosaur Discovered

Discovered in Argentina, Dreadnoughtus schrani weighs in at a very large 65 tons. This isn't the biggest dinosaur ever discovered, that honor goes to Amphicoelias fragillimus, which was nearly twice as big, and there are a few others who outweigh Dreadnoughtus, but this discovery is different, because the number of bones discovered is much higher than with other big dinosaur finds. The size estimate for Amphicoelias fragillimus is based off of only one incompelete vertabra, which has since been lost. How they managed to lose such a big fossil, who knows, but it happened.

This skeleton is much more complete, with 45% of the total skeleton found, and 70% of all the types of bones found. Before this, the most complete large sauropod find found 15% of the total skeleton, and 27% of the bones. The high level of completeness of the skeleton allows for a reasonably accurate estimation of its size and weight.  The scientists were even able to determine that the specimen they found wasn't fully grown yet, so Dreadnoughtus got even bigger. And at about 75 feet long, it was already pretty big. I imagine that this skeleton will definitely end up on display in some museum, after all, it would be quite a centerpiece to any dinosaur collection, and since the skeleton was so complete, not a lot of guesswork would need to be done in order to approximate what it looked like.

Opportunity's Still Going

It's been more than ten years since Opportunity landed on Mars, and the rover's still going at it, still sending back useful data, still trundling along at the incredibly rapid pace of a couple inches a second...at maximum speed.  Hey, over ten years, that adds up to, well, not that much.  A bit over 25 miles, which does surpass the record for most distance traveled on an off-world surface.

After so long on Mars, it's only natural that Opportunity has developed a few problems.  Frankly, it's amazing that none of those problems have stopped it, but they haven't.  In the past couple of months, the rover's been having computer trouble.  It's needed rebooting a dozen times, and the time has come for a drastic solution.  A complete memory wipe.  That will get rid of the glitches slowing Opportunity down, and allow it to get back to the mission.  According to NASA, this is a low-risk procedure, and Opportunity should be just fine.  It'll probably run better than it has in years.  So, hopefully nothing to worry about for the tough little rover.

NASA's New Rocket Coming Soon

Well, in three and a half years or so.  The Space Launch System is the first really heavy duty rocket we've had since the Saturns, and the SLS will have even more deep space capability.  At over 400 feet tall, the SLS will be able to send astronauts outside Earth's influence altogether, on to nearby asteroids or to Mars.  It's about time we regained the capability to send people beyond the International Space Station.  Sure, the shuttle was interesting, and the ISS is quite an achievement, but they're not very far away.  We've sent probes far afield, Rosetta is now in orbit around a comet, and New Horizons just passed Neptune's orbit, but they don't have quite the same impact that sending astronauts to those places would have.  So yes, this is good news.  A new, ambitious manned space program is a good thing.

Multiverse Theory Could Be Wrong

The universe might not recognize the size difference between this...

The field of particle physics is at a standstill.  The problem, in a nutshell, is this: the particles we all know are very light, but physicists predict that there are unknown particles associated with gravity that are much heavier.  About a billion billion times heavier.  This isn't right, especially in this field.  The Higgs Boson, the particle that is surmised to give all other particles mass, should be heavier because of these Planck mass particles, and should also drag the weight of standard particles up as well.  But this isn't the case. 

To get around this problem, scientists came up with supersymmetry, the idea being that every particle has a slightly heavier twin, and when a Higgs boson meets a pair, the masses cancel out, and the Higgs stays light.  Supersymmetry isn't working either, unfortunately.  Scientists have yet to find a partner particle, and it's been decades since they were first theorized.  Because supersymmetry seems to be a dead end, scientists have all but given up on it, which has given credence to the multiverse theory.  Why?  Because the observed properties of the Higgs are so improbable that the universe we observe must not be the only one.  There must be other universes with Higgs bosons with different properties, properties that don't give atoms the ability to form.  Not the multiverse idea most people have, but a bleak, empty multiverse that seems to elude understanding.  This isn't what scientists want to hear.

...and this.

There are new theories in the works, but they are still in the early stages.  Most of them focus around scale symmetry, which, if anything, is even weirder than everything I've just talked about.  The idea is that the universe fundamentally lacks scale, and that the universe doesn't know the concept of mass or length.  This article was a challenge to read, and this part is where it really gets tough to understand.  I guess all the average person needs to know is that it could fix the Higgs problem, and it gets rid of the multiverse theory.  We'll have to see where that takes us, but really, there doesn't seem to be any other direction for physicists to take.

Sometimes, The News is Hilarious

While on my way to work Monday morning, the radio was just full of talk about a highway in Centreville, Virginia and how the lanes were all over the place or flat out disappeared.  The highway guy could hardly contain his amusement, and I was curious about what exactly was going on.  There weren't any details.  Well, here's the details.  I'm sure the people stuck in the resulting traffic jams were not amused, but I sure was.

A Very Interesting Article

I was coming back from work one day last week when I saw a truck covered in anti-Obama and Tea Party banners.  Now, this would be no big deal at home, but this was in Montgomery County, which like most urban areas is very liberal.  It made me laugh, and it also reminded me of a very interesting article I had read a few years back about the differences between Red America and Blue America.  It's a very interesting read, but especially for me, since it focuses on the differences between Franklin County and Montgomery County.  I live in Waynesboro, Pennsylvania, which is in Franklin County, and I work in Rockville, Maryland, which is in Montgomery County.  So yes, I find what it has to say quite relevant.  It's a pretty long article, so I won't go into any detail, but I will say that even though the two counties are only about 50 or 60 miles apart, there is a world of difference between the two.

Tuberculosis, Seals, and the Americas

When the Europeans came to the Americas, they came with technology more advanced than the American Indians already here, but guns did not win the continent for Europe.  It was disease, strains of bacteria that were commonplace in Europe but unseen in the Americas.  The native population had no resistance, no antibodies, and as a result, diseases like tuberculosis wiped out 95% of the American population in less than 100 years.  That left the door wide open for European opportunism.

It was always assumed that the American Indians had no antibodies for these diseases, but a recent examination of three Peruvian skeletons dating back a thousand years calls that into question.  They found several signs on the bodies that undeniably point the cause of death to tuberculosis, a disease that wasn't supposed to be in the Americas at that time.  How'd it get there?  The answer, apparently, is seals.  Yeah, they thought it was stupid too, but they ran the data, and it fits.  Seals can carry tuberculosis, tuberculosis can and does easily jump from animals to humans, and most importantly, the type of tuberculosis seals carry match the type found in the Peruvian skeletons.  Turns out there's a lot of different types of the disease, and while the American Indians may have had antibodies for their version, the European version was much nastier.  Not a particularly groundbreaking piece of science, but I thought it was interesting.

Caledonia Golf Course Review

Pictured: an arboreal experience. 1st hole.

You may or may not remember that I started doing a tour of this course on my golf blog.  But since I stopped updating that, that one hole has been sort of sitting out there in limbo.  I'm not going to do a full tour of the place here, but I will share some of my thoughts on the course.  As I said there, it's an unusual golf course.  To quote myself, "Caledonia Golf Course is part of Caledonia State Park, and as such, it can be pretty minimal.  No nicely maintained fairways here.  It's only about 5,300 yards, but it is very hilly and there are some long walks.  It can be a hike, and I'm not sure it's worth it.  This course has some very weird holes, holes that I really don't like.  But it is pretty cheap."

I can't say that I can highly recommend the place.  Nothing about it fits my eye.  I hate trees, and in what must be the surprise of the century, the golf course in the middle of a state park located in the Appalachians of southern Pennsylvania... has a lot of trees.  So I tend to spend a lot of time getting the full arboreal experience, but not a fulfilling golf experience.

The long par 3 6th

The front nine isn't too bad.  The first hole's a bit wacky, the hole doglegs in a weird way and the lack of driving range discourages any sort of bold driver play, but it's not too hard.  I just get double bogey anyway.  The next few holes are fairly inoffensive, and the fifth hole, a 250 yard par 4, can be driven with just a 3 wood, or if you've got some length, a long iron.  The sixth hole, a 215 yard par 3, is not hittable.  It isn't, it can't be done.  It plays 50 feet uphill to a green that somehow manages to be elevated even above the hill it plays on.  Golf balls stop before the green if you try to run it up, and they skip right over if you land in on.  It cannot be done.  The next 3 holes are hilly, but again, nothing too extreme.

You've finished the front nine, and while it was hilly, it's only a par 32, so the walk (in this scenario, you're walking because that's how golf is meant to be played) wasn't too bad.  You take the short walk to the tenth tee, and you are confronted with what can only be described as a small mountain.  Yes, you have to play up that.  To make matters even worse, if you miss the fairway to the right at all, your golf ball will fall all the way down the hill.  I've been over there plenty, and the long iron up a 100 foot slope is not an easy shot.  The hole's only 450 yards or so, but it plays about 100 yards longer.

The 10th hole, draped over a mountainside.

The 15th green: evil incarnate

So, you've ascended to the summit, and now, on the very next hole... you go right back down.  The entire way back down.  The 11th isn't a bad hole, it's fun watching your ball fly forever, but did it really have to come like that?  Go all the way up just to go all the way back down?  The 13th hole kicks off a three hole stretch that I can only describe as being absolutely evil.  The 13th is only a 100 yards, but it plays up the hill to a tiny green that is nearly impossible to hold.  It was even worse back in my junior golf days, when they had it playing 65 yards, and even more uphill.  It was literally impossible to the green then, now it's just very difficult.  The 14th is a short par 5 that doglegs sharply to the right.  There's out of bounds left, and the hole turns at about 250 yards, so you can't really use a driver.  Fair enough, but you have to get the ball about 250 to have even a reasonable look at a layup, which means you're trying to hit almost onto the road.  If you go right, the trees are thick and basically impenetrable, so it'll take at least one pitch shot just to get back to the fairway.  I've seen multiple double digits on that hole.  But the final hole in this stretch is the most evil.  It's just a 170 yard par 3, but the green is sloped so much that any putt from above the hole is going to run all the way down to the front.  Unless you make it, which is possible, I guess, but not likely.  So it's a one putt or three putt situation.  Four putts or worse are a fact of life.

The view from the last hole.

The final hole concludes the round in fitting fashion.  There's a lot of trees, some of which in odd locations, the drive is blind if you go more than 150 yards, and golf balls disappear for no good reason.  I guess the second shot is okay.  I can't really say I recommend the place, there's far less frustrating places to play a round for cheap.  It's obvious the place was built to be as non-intrusive as possible, so if you like to be surrounded by nature while you play, it's not bad.  It might be worth the play just because it is a bit of an adventure, a really unrefined golf experience.  I doubt you'd find any country club types here.  So, Caledonia Golf Course, I really, really don't like it, but that doesn't mean everyone has too.