Superior to Superior

Posted on 27 February 2016 by Larry Russwurm

[Most of this post’s ideas are from Wikipedia’s stats about the largest lakes in the world. I was unaware of many of these comparisons until the last decade so I bring them here to you as many more people might be unaware.]

When European people got to Lake Superior, they gave it its obnoxious name because they “knew” it was the largest lake in the world. These Europeans and proto Americans and proto Canadians breathed a collective sigh of relief when Lake Victoria in Africa was found to be slightly smaller than Lake Superior.

But the problem with obnoxious names is that they are usually found out to be wrong, largely because of some overzealous person or group with an attachment to one possibility. Indeed, the only reason the Caspian Sea was ever called a sea was because it is full of salt water. In truth it is one giant salt lake bigger in area than all of the great lakes combined. Sea is definitely a misnomer here as it is totally inland. So henceforth it shall be known as the Caspian Lake. So Superior is only the second largest lake in the world. Or is it?

Lake Superior isn’t even the biggest lake of the Great Lakes. Now I’m not sure who made the mistake of separating Lake Huron and Lake Michigan but they are attached by a narrow channel and not a river. That is both lakes are at the same elevation which is the definition of being one lake. By area, Lake Huron-Michigan is the second biggest lake in the world.

Which puts Lake Superior in third place for the largest lakes in the world by area.

But some of you might know that Lake Superior is deeper than any of the Great Lakes so it may contain more water than Lake Huron-Michigan. You would be right in assuming so. By volume of water, Lake Superior is bigger than Lake Huron-Michigan. But what about the Caspian Lake?

The Caspian Lake is deeper than Lake Superior and thus has a much greater volume of water. So is Lake Superior the second biggest lake by volume? No.

Lake Baikal in Asia is way deeper than Lake Superior. It has more fresh water than all the Great Lakes combined.

Then there is Lake Tanganyika in Africa. It, too, is much deeper than Lake Superior and thus also contains more water.

So Lake Superior is the fourth biggest lake by volume of water. It is hardly superior. So why the name?

Well I’m thinking it has to do with its relation to the other Great Lakes. Lake Superior’s drainage basin doesn’t have a large area to draw from. In other words, Lake Superior is downstream of only a precious few rivers and lakes. But all the other Great Lakes are downstream of lake Superior. All the other Great Lakes take Lake Superior’s waste. And that can make Lake Superior feel a bit superior.

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Lucky Charms

Posted on 20 February 2016 by Larry Russwurm

Be honest. Most people play with their food just a little. Whether it is a little bit of plowing the fields with your fork before applying gravy to mashed potatoes or it’s making a foam design on your coffee, others play with their food, too.

But some think I take it to extremes. I like bran flakes and raisins just not both together. So as a child when Raisin Bran was bought for the household, it meant that I would take five minutes longer to eat my cereal, painstakingly eating all the flakes before beginning on the raisins. This was good practice for what I am about to discuss.

Eating all the cereal part of Lucky Charms is necessary so you can find out just how many “charms” or marshmallow shapes are left. Over the last year I have painstakingly separated my cereal to find out what might have been guessed. The most common charm is Lucky’s hat which contains the most easily thought of lucky charm – the four leaf clover. Lucky is of course the leprechaun mascot of this cereal. The least common lucky charm appears to be the blue moon. Which is as it should be. Blue moons are supposed to be rare.

Still some may say I’m an odd bird for separating my cereal and it does permeate its way to my other eating habits. With multi course meals it has been pointed out by various people that I very oddly eat each course separately.

This specific oddness led to being a common question to the now gone advice columnist Ann Landers. She would tell parents to let their children eat how they like, because this sorting and organizing trait led some of the children to become engineers and get these and other good paying jobs. While I didn’t become an engineer, I did take university level physics (which is closely related – engineering can be thought of as applied physics) so there is some truth behind this advice.

So you can laugh at me for my my-way-or-the-highway eating habits, but I can just say that they are a sign of a well organized mind.

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Many More Ways for the Same Old Lists to be Everywhere on the Internet

Posted on 13 February 2016 by Larry Russwurm

If you are like me you are annoyed that every list or ranking of things gets linked to by just about every site on the Internet. You don’t see just one link bait for the same list article but at least 5 link baits. I thought that this on its own was annoying enough.

But here I’ve found an article about a list that only discusses the bottom ten entries in the list. It does link to the full list but the article is only about “The Worst Cities to Try to Find a Job in Canada”. It has probably opened the floodgates if they hadn’t been opened before. I firmly believe that there is an article about “The Best Cities to Try to Find a Job in Canada”. I haven’t seen it yet but I am familiar with the goings on of the Internet. It exists.

So now we’re going to find articles about both the bottom ten rankings and the top ten rankings of any list. But why stop there?

Perhaps you could have an article about “The Mediocre Cities in Canada to Find a Job. Such a heading might not encourage people to read it and be good link bait. But link bait is rarely honest. You could have an article called Finding Jobs in Canadian Cities in the Teens. This article could be about finding jobs in Canadian cities during this decade. But it would really be about those cities that ranked 10 to 19 on that original list. This link bait might actually work.

You know, in the heady early days of the Internet I thought there were going to be many more news stories. Or at least different points of view. But that is not the case at any of the big sites. They race to cover or link to the same things. I guess I should traipse through more blogs to uncover different perspectives and perhaps a different kind of news.

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Felix the Cat “Rewarded” in Britain

Posted on 6 February 2016 by Larry Russwurm

Felix has kept the Huddersfield train station in West Yorkshire mouse and rat free since 2011. So the staff at said station has now “promoted” Felix to Senior Pest Controller. To go with the promotion, she was given a name badge and a high vis jacket.

I must congratulate the mice and rats on raising enough money to pay for the high vis suit. And the idea to call it high vis instead of high visibility, to let it get over the heads of all the humans that work at the station, was pure genius. Now all the mice and rats will be able to see Felix long before she’s close enough to catch them.

I have heard of mice elsewhere who came up with the genius plan to bell a cat so they could hear it long before it was near. Now all they have to do is send it as a package in the mail to the human owners of the cat with a nice note saying that the cat is so great it deserves the bell and all the attention it will get because of the noise.

Mice everywhere are thinking about what might be a real revolution. Noisy and highly visible cats are just around the corner.

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Symbol Dysmorphia and Scotsmen

Posted on 30 January 2016 by Larry Russwurm

Imagine you are a Scotsman, fresh from eating haggis, drinking large quantities of beer, and competing in the caber toss at the local Highland Games, and you have to go to the washroom something fierce.

In an effort not to soil your kilt, you run to the washrooms and they have those supposedly universal symbols of simple human figure and a human figure in a kilt. Ever the patriotic Scotsman, you decide to go in the washroom marked with a human figure in a kilt.

I know what some of you are going to say – the human figure is in a high waisted dress so it must be a woman and not a Scotsman in a kilt. Well what’s to stop designers from making high waisted kilts? As well, the vast majority of women wear low waisted skirts or low waisted dresses and the high waisted dress is supposed to represent all of them.

I know that even more of you might complain because a man shouldn’t be let into a woman’s washroom. But more and more women are allowing transgendered people into their washrooms. And no I am not saying that a man is the same as a transgendered person. I think they are equal in this case because of what they might do in the women’s washroom.

A Scotsman who really has to pee is going to go straight to the first empty stall. Now habit is habit and he might pee standing up.

I have looked at and memorized pronouns for the trangendered from this page on the web. Pronouns for the transgendered are under debate. I refuse to use the “They” pronouns of English because all of these are, of course, plural. I chose the highest ranked set of pronouns on this page because this was the only site I found that rated some of them rationally.

The transgendered person is also going to go for the first empty stall. Habit is habit and ne might pee standing up. Nir male genitals might still be there so hopefully no mess is made.

I think the main complaint of the washroom police is what the Scotsman might do after his business is done. A quick peek under the stall or standing on the toilet and leaning over might give him an all too personal view of a woman in a neighbouring stall. After all he is probably a heterosexual and many heterosexuals like to view the opposite sex’s privates.

The transgendered person who prefers a woman’s washroom wants to be like a female. Ne doesn’t have to prefer men as a sex partner. Ne might also want to see a strange woman’s genitals. And if Ne is pre-operation, Ne might wish to view as many woman’s privates to select what is best for nemself.

Another fear that women may have about the Scotsman is that he may overpower them for his own selfish wants. Usually men are stronger than women.

For the transgendered story, let’s look at Caitlyn Jenner. Ne was once an Olympic caliber athlete as a man. Odds are ne is stronger than the average man. Hir selfish wants could be imposed on a woman just as easily as the Scotsman could.

Since the Scotsman might suffer from symbol dysmorphia as the woman’s symbol seems to represent him in a better way to the world, his psychological reasons for using the women’s washroom might be as strong as the transgendered person.

But one thing could change the fight for equal rights for Scotsmen in kilts. Some Scotsmen could bring in a set of bagpipes and begin playing them. This is inhumane treatment of others and now you can see why I as a male don’t want Scotsmen using my washroom. I think that there must be a third option. Scotsmen in kilts should have their very own washrooms, especially if they wish to bring bagpipes inside. Women in skirts and low waisted dresses might think the washroom is for them, but hearing bagpipes at such close quarters will discourage them from ever in their lives going to a Scotsman’s washroom.

And that is why we need three sets of washrooms everywhere but most especially near Highland Games events.

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Is Heaven Prepared for Good Atheists

Posted on 23 January 2016 by Larry Russwurm

In celebration (or is it indifference?) that Pope Francis has said good atheists can go to heaven, I have written a story.

Is Heaven Prepared for Good Atheists?

On the way up to heaven a Christian noticed another’s lack of Christian bling. “Are you being humble and stashing your flashy cross inside your outfit?”

“Why no, I’m an atheist and didn’t expect the end of life to turn into some surreal fantasy.”

“You, good sir, are dead and approaching heaven. You must be one of those good atheists I keep hearing about. Were you good because you feared our good Christian laws?”

“You don’t have to be scared to be good.”

“But was that the reason?”

The good atheist refused to be prodded on the subject anymore. After moments of being propelled up and up, the duo come to what the Christian knows has to be heaven.

“This has got to be heaven! Here are all my loved ones to the left. That crowd on the right must be your loved ones who preceded you in death.”

“Look, Mr. Christian, I have been trying not to poopoo what for you must be a religious experience. Even though I am seeing my loved ones as much as you, I know this is some some incredibly high tech simulation.”

“You can’t deny your loved ones and friends. And no technology on earth is anywhere near as good as this. Didn’t you notice all your loved ones were at their peak of development. Why almost each one looks like they are 25.”

“I didn’t say some earth technology. It’s quite within the realm of highly advanced aliens that they can produce this.”

“But it is so earthly.”

“Let’s say the universe is 14 billion years old, like the scientists say. Most of the near stars are suns that are billions of years old. Let’s say that intelligent life could have occurred on any of these in the last two billion years. Then the odds are that the closest intelligent race to earth is a billion years older and a billion years more advanced. It is quite within the realm of possibility that they can easily create a heaven for us upon our deaths.”

“But wouldn’t the alien need your soul?”

“They could make do with a perfect copy of me upon death.”

“Alright,” said the Christian unused to his beliefs being challenged. He turned to his loved ones and shouted, “I’ll be back in a bit for catching up, it’s just that I need to school this good atheist! For proof, where is God so I can show this unbeliever?!”

Half of the Christian’s welcoming party yelled “In your heart,” but the rest simply pointed straight up.

“C’mon unbeliever I am going to show you my God in person.”

They both flew straight up using their newfound wings. After what seemed like only five minutes of flight they saw a glowing light. They got closer and closer and the feeling the light gave them made them both feel happy. Somehow they knew when they were close enough and both stopped.

“You can’t deny that good feeling,” said the Christian.

“I can do anything, yes anything that you can think of unbeliever,” telepathed the light to its audience.

“That’s not what I don’t believe,” said the good atheist.

“What could I possibly be then,” asked the light and then had the answer and said, “Oh.”

For the Christian’s sake, the good atheist said aloud, “In science fiction, energy beasts are capable of anything at all. Any mass can be made out of energy so I bet they are grand creators, too. Just not my creator.

“Enough of this,” said the unbeliever, and tucked in his wings so he made a shape closer to an arrow and plummeted back down toward his welcoming party.

The Christian realized that the conversation was over and snapped his fingers to teleport instantly to his own welcoming party. Maybe the unbeliever could hold his ground in a heaven filled with believers. But the unbeliever had thought so little about heaven that he could use a few tips.

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The Dark Side of Astronomy: Would Be Namers

Posted on 19 January 2016 by Larry Russwurm

We’ve all heard the story, pay a small price and you can name a star that will be filed by a company. The only problem with this is that professional astronomers do not accept these files. Paying a few bucks does not give you naming rights. Don’t forget, if we ever make it to the stars, each of these is a mighty sun that might be more rightfully named by the 7 billion people who will live under its light. Shouldn’t they get to say what their sun will be called?

So it borders on insanity to give a rock star a whole constellation. That’s right, you can read right here that a new constellation has been outlined. It’s in the shape of a lightning bolt but nowhere in this article do they say what the constellation will be called, only that it is a tribute to David Bowie.

Now most people only rarely look up in the night sky. So they can be forgiven for not knowing that Spica is in the constellation Virgo, Sigma Librae is in Libra, Zeta Centauri is in Centaurus, Beta Triangulum Australe is in Triangulum Australe, and Delta Octantis is in Octans. The two SAO stars I’m not sure which constellation they’re in.

The article butchers mention Alpha Virginis which is really Spica and butcher the names of Beta Triangulum, Delta Octantis and misses one of the SAO stars while butchering the name of the other one. I’m only assuming that the featured map is correct.

Anyhow, you can guess that they are taking stars willy nilly from officially recognized constellations. There is an agreed upon 88 official constellations agreed to in 1922 and a few years later every patch of sky was said to be in one of these 88 constellations.

There is no room for more constellations. The sky is filled. Someone just picked out any old stars that might happen to look like a lightning bolt. That is commonly done by people as for say, the Big Dipper. But this is not a constellation (it’s part of the huge constellation Ursa Major), so we call it an asterism.

So there is an unnamed asterism, dedicated to David Bowie somehow.

This article also contains the meaningless, “[the asterism] sits in the vicinity of Mars.” You may be able to find it today, given this description, but Mars moves quickly over constellations and soon will be nowhere near this constellation.

Then there is the BS about the asterism being registered exactly at the time of Bowie’s death. Did the astronomers know that Bowie was dying although it was hidden from his fans? Were they in touch with him on his deathbed so they could know exactly when to register? Or did they lie about it and back date the registration?

Because of all the glaring problems with the article, I expect it is a hoax. But the Guardian still has it up with comments touching on some of the things I have. Bonnie Malkin is supposed to be responsible for this article. What a lousy standard of journalism she has set. I’m surprised the Guardian is so sloppy as to remind one of a gossip magazine.

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Annoying Americans (Geographically)

Posted on 16 January 2016 by Larry Russwurm

Generally the atlases sold in Canadian bookstores are either of British or American origin. The American ones are easy to spot. They use a cartographical method that makes the United States appear larger than Canada. Canada is of course the larger country.

I want revenge for this. And no, producing a Canadian atlas that makes Canada appear larger is not revenge. That is only the truth. No, I think we are going to have to mock American geographical icons.

Since I want an easy target, let’s look at the “continental divide” of the Mississippi River. Firstly to divide a continent it should properly go from one end of the continent to another. Like most river systems it of course only goes about half way. More properly the mighty Mississippi is the “United States divide”.

But that nearly straight, north-south divide is suspicious. It’s almost as if the original explorers wanted a “United States divide”. We’ve all seen those longest-rivers-in-the-world lists and the Mississippi-Missouri-Jefferson is considered the fourth longest river in the world. Shouldn’t the Mississippi more properly go along the longest possible length? So I was originally going to say that the Mississippi-Missouri-Jefferson should be renamed the Mississippi. The rest of the present day trek of the Mississippi should be called the Missouri. Now I know this redivision will annoy Americans. But it’s not all that annoying – the state of Missouri can stay where it is, for instance.

But in my studies I have found a way to make Americans more annoyed and disturbed by cartographical changes. Shouldn’t the river that retains the name where it empties out into the sea have the most flow? Now, coming up the Mississippi from the Gulf of Mexico, we will continue up what is now known as the Ohio-Allegheny. You see the Ohio-Allegheny has more flow than the combined Mississippi-Missouri-Jefferson. So Pittsburgh and the state of Ohio, would then become part of the mighty Mississippi. Which means we’ll have to find a new name for the state of Ohio. Instead of naming Ohio after it’s southern boundary, we can now name it after the great lake it borders to the north. Welcome to the renamed state of Erie. Sorry, Erie, Pennsylvania.

Continuing up what was formerly the Mississippi, we decide to call it the Ohio river, since that was the most powerful of the two biggest tributaries. But once we reach what was once the confluence of the Mississippi and Missouri-Jefferson we must decide which way the Ohio continues. The Ohio was known for it’s huge flow of water. Since the Missouri-Jefferson has the largest flow of both rivers, we will continue up that way saying it is all the Ohio River.

This leads to the question of what to call the state of Missouri which now borders just the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers. Well there is no longer a state called Ohio so that name is up for grabs. After all, the former state of Missouri now has it’s longest border defined by the Ohio.

Going up the former Missouri, now the Ohio, it’s longest extension takes us into the Jefferson River. The only thing we can do is rename it the Allegheny to keep the Ohio-Allegheny together. We can also call the extension of the new Mississippi (that used to be the Allegheny) the Jefferson River. This way Mount Jefferson, which used to start the Jefferson river, can now be called Mount Allegheny. And out east, the new Jefferson river can now be flowing out of the Jefferson Mountains.

Perhaps you feel it is too much of a demotion to go from being the name of a mountain range to the name of one mountain. But let me tell you that this new Mount Allegheny is 10 203 feet high. Whereas the highest peak in the Jefferson Mountains is 4 682 feet.

So of course the old upper Mississippi will be called the Missouri. This way the “United States divide” will become the Mississippi-Ohio-Missouri.

Aren’t you glad that I have made United States geography rational?

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Star Wars, Now in Black and White

Posted on 9 January 2016 by Larry Russwurm

I bet your kids or other youths lit up when they read Star Wars in the title. But as positive a phrase that Star Wars may be, there is a negative phrase that outranks it for youth. You guessed it. It is the ‘black and white’ part of the title. I included the phrase in the title to ensure that youths do not read the rest of this post.

Now we can be sad that the youth of the world ignores everything that uses black and white. Just look at the band Bleachers’ three videos released from their album on Youtube. They are I Wanna Get Better, Roller Coaster, and Like a River Runs. The first two videos are in colour and get millions of hits. Like a River Runs is in black and white and since the summer only has tens of thousands of hits. Generally, new bands are listened to by youth and almost to a person, youth will not watch the full video.

I’ve seen adults saddened by the fact that they cannot get their kids to watch classic black and white movies, solely on the basis they are filmed in black and white. The only black and white they will consume is that of still pictures. I bet most youths only spend a few seconds on these in a rush to get to the good colour pictures.

We adults must not be saddened by this. We have been given lemons so now we must make lemonade.

Adults have always tried to keep some things from their kids. My parents both knew how to speak German but kept that language from us kids. Instead, when they needed to communicate to each other but wished the kids couldn’t hear, they simply spoke in German.

Adult society could communicate things to each other but keep these things from their kids. I have already offered up one method of doing this in Cursive Code which could be for local communications. For regional, provincial, national or international communications, I suggest we use the power of television. We could have one all black and white station on the dial.

We could simply act normally in these black and white shows. The black and white will keep 99 % of youth unwilling to watch. But for the secrets we strongly wish to keep, we must dress up in 1950’s outfits and communicate with other adults that way. The combination of black and white and history will keep all youth from even attempting to watch.

In those black and white shows with fifties outfits, we can for instance repeatedly interpret teenage slang and symbols. After all this is the texting age. And we can go over psychological tactics that might get kids to do what we want. As well, new fads could be interpreted for adults in extreme detail.

The Many Rants of Larry Russwurm: keeping youth in the dark since 2014.

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Boxing Week Post Held Over

Posted on 2 January 2016 by Larry Russwurm

Alright, alright, the truth is that I forgot to do my end of the year Boxing Week post last week. This is the post where in my first blogging year I relied on stats programs to pick the favourites.

The stats programs I had got wonky after a few years – the daily stats weren’t matching the top overall stats for the year, so through a labourious process of gleaning info from all my stats and more than a little bias on what I think makes a good post, it is time to pick the favourites of 2015.

My first pick from January and February is Let’s Chuck the Royal Family. Usually I don’t pick cartoons in the best ofs, because they are just one liners. But this time I had lots more to write to go with the cartoon and joke. The British royal family are indeed my inspiration.

March and April’s pick is Female Song Names. It makes sense that songwriters would talk in code when mentioning a specific name. Because, really the whole world and the million that bought the record don’t have to know your love life. Only your loved ones need to know. And of course all spy agencies world wide.

It was hard to choose amongst the posts in May and June. So I’ll go with Are ‘Twenty One Pilots’ ‘Green Day’ Fan Boys? Because the name still comes up in the stats. I suspect it is because Twenty One Pilots have a lot of fame now, since their last two albums were solid efforts.

I’m picking The Case for Fat Chords as my favourite post from July and August. It’s a funny post because the argument is true. I realized after posting it that I had omitted the strongest argument of all – lead guitar solos and intros over skinny chords makes fast changing fat chords. As well, I think that after my good friend, Stephen Huss’ death in early August, I feel I wasn’t very funny for about a month after.

The end of October saw the post Marrying Smart Machines. With all the spies on this earth it is nice to have even the possibility of a defence.

I feel I was on a roll in the last two months. Probably the post that got the most attention was short and sweet. It was: I Want to Be a British Billionaire.

A good new year to you, my readers, and I hope I will be able to write some funny posts in 2016.

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