Six Sentence Sunday

Following on from last week, here are sentences 7-12 from the rewritten first chapter of Rescue Operation.

“Roi,” [Keishala] said, “it can’t be that bad. You’ve only been gone for a month. And Zhaim’s competent enough, even if you don’t like him.”

Emeraude, twenty years younger than Keishala, unwound her bitter-chocolate body from the exercise bars and pulled loose the scarf that had held her beige hair. “What happened?” she asked.

“Zhaim ‘solved’ the problem of Horizon’s not paying its dues by authorizing one of the big slaving companies to collect them—in people.”

I’d really appreciate comments on this.

Stop by and enjoy the rest of the snippets on Six Sentence Sunday.

Snow Festoons

Snow does funny things sometimes.

I’m not talking about the wet snow you can build snowmen from, or the cold snow on warm ground that produces depth hoar. I’m talking about plain, dry, snow that has built up over a period of weeks or months on surfaces exposed to the air, like a picnic table or a fence rail. Fresh-fallen, it’s like powder – but it doesn’t stay that way.

Every snowflake has parts that stick out, and other parts that are concave. While the snowflake is falling through supersaturated air, the points that stick out attract the most moisture, and grow fastest. Not so once it has settled to the ground. Then the points tend to evaporate, and the moisture collects in the concave areas. Where two flakes touch, an ice bridge will form between them. But undisturbed snow is still mostly air, with a three-dimensional, lacy structure.

This year's festoon. You can see the hanging part through the lattice, but the base is still attached to the top rail. (Yes. the window needs cleaning, but from the outside.)

Sometimes that lacy structure is even flexible. I have a lattice with 2x4s on top. We don’t have much wind, and every winter the snow slowly builds up on the 2x4s. 4” wide and 18” high is not unusual by early spring. As the air warms and the sun comes back, it begins to sag a little, and once it starts to sag sideways gravity takes over. The lacy structure continues to hold together, and if the snow is held to the top rail only by its weight, part of it may even slip off the top rail, while remaining held up by the rest.

This morning, Feb 18 2012

I don’t think it will hang as far this winter. It’s started to bend over, but we had a thaw at the very beginning of the winter, and the base of the snow is glued to the top rail by ice. Late yesterday a tear developed between the base, which is still stuck to the top rail, and the top, which now hangs at the bottom of the festoon. I took a photo this morning. Anyone want to make a guess on how long it will hold together until the whole thing tears awat?

Jarn’s Journal: Year 2, Day 122

Year 2, day 122: Day 736 since my arrival

Last night I dreamed of flying.

It’s not something I’m very good at. I’m afraid once I decided to become an engineer and design starships I didn’t pay much attention to my esper lessons. But I’ve been forced to do a lot of esper over the last two years. Teleporting, perceiving, and telekinesis, mostly, but I’m dong all three much better than I ever did at home. So why not try levitation?

Not flying, exactly. But one of the things I’ve found I can do is teleport to a distinctive landmark. The higher I am, the better my chances of spotting a distant landmark I can use as a destination. So why not levitate to gain that height?

It does take just as much energy as I would need to climb to the same height. There is a way of getting around that, by using the energy of falling water or a landslide, but I’m going to have to learn how all over again. Even using my own energy, though, I managed to rise far enough into the air to see a distinctive tree and teleport to a spot above it. With practice, I could explore in much larger steps. And it wouldn’t wear out my sandals.

I think I will see what the computer library holds on levitation.

Much later in the day

Why didn’t my esper instructor tell me that all of that counterweighting and similar jargon simply referred to the conservation laws of physics? No wonder teleporting to a place at a higher altitude exhausts me; I’m using my own energy instead of swapping energy and momentum with my surroundings! I tried teleporting to the top of a butte while moving a similar mass of dirt and rock down, and it took almost no energy. The same with levitating to butte height. Water would work even better as an exchange medium, but for that I’ll need to find a waterfall.

So, my first priority is to practice exchanging energy and momentum with my surroundings, which should make teleporting much easier, and the second is to find a convenient waterfall. I wonder if I could locate that gather?

Author’s note: Jarn has finally worked out a calendar. He’s decided to start each year with the northward equinox, and to count the year he arrived as year 0. His Journal to date is on my Author Site.

Horse Color Genetics Index

Color genetics is a long-time hobby of mine, and I’ve written a number of posts about the genes that determine color and pattern in horses. These posts are being reissued with new photographs, so the later dates are generally more complete. I also have an extensive website on genetics and coat color in dogs.

Horse Color Genetics Index

The Basic Colors of Horses 10/31/10; reblogged 9/22/12

The Agouti and Extension Loci in Horses 11/27/10; 10/6/12

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Classes of modifying genes 10/13/12

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Palomino (Cream)  Genetics 11/06/10; 10/20/12

Pearl: a Palomino Complication 11/14/10; 10/27/12

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Dun: a Wild-Type Dilution Gene in Horses 11/21/10; 11/4/12

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Champagne: Another Dilution Gene in Horses 12/5/10; 11/10/12

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Silver Dapple – Another Dilution Gene in Horses 12/12/10, 11/17/12

Two Rare Dilutions and a Summary of Dilution Genes in Horses 12/19/10 11/25/12

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The Genetics of White on Horses 12/27/10, 12/1/12

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The Grey Gene in Horses 1/3/11, 12/8/12

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The Roan Gene in Horses 1/9/11, 12/15/12

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Other Patterns of White Hair in Horses
1/17/11, 12/22/12

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White Body Markings on Horses 1/24/11, 12/29/12

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The Tobiano Gene in Horses 1/31/11, 1/5/13

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Sabino Spotting in Horses 2/6/11, 1/12/13

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The Frame Gene in Horses 2/14/11, 1/19/13

The Splashed White Gene in Horses 2/28/11, 1/26/13

Horse Colors: Manchado and Brindle 3/7/11, 2/2/13

White Horses 3/20/11, 2/9/13

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The Leopard Gene in Horses 3/29/11, 2/16/13

The Leopard Gene in Horses (Continued) 4/2/11, 2/23/13

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The Leopard Gene in Horses Part 3 4/10/11, 3/9/13

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The Leopard Gene in Horses 4 4/17/11 3/16/13

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Horse Color Genetics: Darkening Genes 4/24/11, 4/23/13

Horse Color Summary 1 5/1/11,  3/30/13

Horse Color Genetics, Final Summary 5/8/11, 4/6/13

Other Posts to do with Horses

The Horses of Homecoming 4/17/10
Obstacle Racing (Homecoming Glossary) 6/26/10
A Circus Horse with no Circus 7/11/10
Tourist Trap: What’s It About? 8/16/11

Quotes from Mercedes Lackey

All of today’s quotes but the last are from Storm Breaking, by Mercedes Lackey.

“When the enemy is “dead” to the world one inhabits, he might as well be dead in totality.” Melles, reluctantly giving up on Tremane’s death.

“History is in the small items as much as the large ones.” Lyam is almost overcome by finding a brush that Urtho himself handled. Modern historians, trying to recreate the life of the past, would probably agree with him.

“One should always begin with friendship, rather than a more ardent emotion.” Sejanes, advising Karal about love.

“Most people don’t believe that a disaster can come, or that it can affect them.” The exact quote, which was a little long for Twitter, was “Most people don’t believe that a disaster is coming, or that it can affect them, even when they’re told repeatedly.” Karal’s side note, as he is talking via teleson with the Council in Haven shortly before the final Storm.

“Keep in mind that a nation is made up of people.” Part of Altra’s response to Karal’s suggestion that all gods should be prayed to for help for all people, even those of the Empire, against the final storm. The full quote is “You manage to keep in mind that a nation is made up of people, most of whom have little or no control over what their leaders do.”

“Life is attention to both the large and the small.” Part of Altra’s lecture to Karal on keeping balance in his life as a priest.

“Part of the fun was to guess who had given each gift.” Sue Ann Bowling, Homecoming. Birthday celebrations on Central involved gifts to the person with a birthday, but the giver’s name had to be guessed.

Oceanography (Great Courses) DVD Review

Oceanography: Exploring Earth’s Final Wilderness

It’s been almost 50 years since I took an oceanography course, so I ordered this course as a refresher. It was a refresher all right, and not just of what I remembered of oceanography — this course covers everything from the history of the Earth to modern-day pollution. As one of my old colleagues at the Geophysical Institute says, “It’s not Planet Earth, it’s planet Cloud-Ocean.”  And this course was a marvelous refresher of the whole of geophysics, core to tropopause, and some biology with the whole thing straightforward enough to be understandable to almost anyone.

It started out conventionally enough, with an overview of the history of oceanic exploration. But many of the observations of the ocean basins demanded explanation. Why did the mid-Atlantic ridge exist, for instance? The Challenger Deep? For that matter, why were island arcs so often paralleled by trenches and home to volcanoes and earthquakes? What were the magnetic stripes discovered during World War II? How was it that the sea floor, which should have been receiving sediments from the continents throughout geologic history, had astonishingly young bedrock when drills began to penetrate those sediments? Some of these questions were touched on 50 years ago, some were hastily swept under the rug, and some (such as the puzzlingly young age of the seafloor bedrock) had not even been discovered yet.

These questions eventually led to the theory of plate tectonics, and several lectures on these DVDs are devoted to explaining this theory and how it came about. But that’s a small part of the first two discs in this set of six.

The physics and chemistry of water take up several lectures. Waves, rogue waves, tsunamis, and tides are covered, along with some of the physics of water. For something so familiar (oxygen and hydrogen are two of the most common reactive elements in the universe) water has some astonishing properties. Not only does it have an extraordinarily high heat capacity and is it very nearly the universal solvent, it is one of the few compounds in which the solid phase is less dense than the liquid. In other words, ice floats! We’re so used to this we don’t even think about it, but the world would be very different if ice sank, as most solids do in their own melts.

Life in the seas is interesting in itself and also critical to feeding our global population. Food webs, plankton, jellyfish, fish, marine mammals and birds and whales all get their moments of exposure, along with fish farming.

Then the course moves on to coasts: estuaries, deltas, beaches and sea cliffs. Life is here, too, from sea grasses and mangroves to coral reefs.

The lectures then cover storms, the deep ocean circulation, and the effects of climate change and pollution.

As a meteorologist I would of course like to have seen more on the role of the oceans in influencing weather. Not only are the oceans the great flywheel of climate, and their slow response one of the problems in climate modeling, they provide much of the water vapor that transports energy around the globe. Still, 36 half hour lectures can’t cover everything. Professor Tobin certainly tried, though, and for a single course succeeded brilliantly.

North Pole Weather 2/13/12

The sun will rise this morning at 8:57, and set at 5:14 for 8 hr 16 min with the sun above the horizon — 6 min 49 seconds more than yesterday. The daily increase is almost constant now, as is the gain in noon altitude — .3° a day. The sun will be almost 12°, 24 times the solar diameter, above the horizon today.

It’s warmed up almost too fast, and there’s been a little dripping water. We don’t need that this time of year! Water just freezes into ice, and a thaw produces roads like glass. Warm weather is fine once it’s late enough in the season it will stay warm, but right now it’s more of a nuisance. Not that I mind the +20’s forecast for next week; I just don’t want it getting any warmer until March.

It’s staying light long enough I can attend afternoon seminars and drive home in daylight. That means I don’t have as much time for writing, and I’ll have even less when OLLI (adult learning) classes start at the end of the month. But right now I’m just enjoying the freedom to get out of the house without counting every precious minute of daylight.

Indoors, the Christmas cactus is blooming, and most of the citrus plants have put out new leaves. Haven’t started anything for the garden yet, but it’s time I begin getting my orders in to those luscious seed catalogs. Rocdor and Gina beans from Park’s definitely — this year the raised beds will be ready and I think I’ll go back to starting the beans indoors.

Six Sentence Sunday

For quite a while I’ve been blogging Chapter 2 from a WIP, tentatively titled Rescue Operation. That Chapter is now complete. I skipped Chapter 1 on the grounds that it was an unholy mess, but I think I finally have it straightened out. So for the next few weeks I’ll be giving six sentence segments from Chapter 1, starting with the beginning of the chapter, the book, and the trilogy. Please leave comments, letting me know how this works as an initial hook.

Roi Laian jerked upright on the interface lounge. “Oh, no,” he gasped aloud. “He can’t be that stupid. The Council can’t be. Is he trying to start a revolution?”

Lelani, the oldest of his three wives, hardly lifted her wrinkled face from the wire and beads that would become a new hair ornament, but Keishala turned toward him, lowering the musical score she had been studying.

Don’t forget to visit the other Six Sentence Sunday writers – lots of interesting bits and pieces. And I’d appreciate it if you could find time to visit the interview I had at Christine’s Words.

Platform Building Campaign

Well, I did it. I signed up for the platform-building campaign, hoping to get a little more exposure. You’re invited to visit the site and sign up if you want to push your own blog.

Fog, Fog and Fog

Freezing fog. That term has been used by the local radio station lately to refer to ice fog. (At least, that’s what I think they mean.) There are at least three different kinds of fog made of oxygen dihydride (water.) None of them are well described by the term freezing fog.

The first and commonest, which I will refer to as warm fog, is certainly not freezing fog. It is composed of very small drops of liquid water, with the temperature above freezing. This kind of fog is what is  stable: the droplets do not collide, grow and fall out, and seeding is useless. Many low-level clouds are exactly like this kind of fog, and they very rarely initiate rain. The only situation in which this type of fog could produce anything that might possibly be called freezing fog is if it is carried over a surface – road, wire, or tree branch – which is well below freezing. This might happen in Alaska if we have had a week at 40 below and we suddenly get a warm fog, but it is certainly not common.

The second kind of fog, which produces ice storms and can be dissipated by seeding, is supercooled fog. This is a fog made up of liquid droplets which are below freezing temperature. It is very common in clouds well above the ground, where it is responsible for aircraft icing.

Liquid water? Below freezing?

Ice melts at the freezing point, but water does not automatically freeze. Ice has an ordered crystal structure, and you can think of liquid water at temperatures below freezing as needing a little shove to get the molecules into the right order. Something that helps produce that order is known as a freezing nucleus. The best nucleus as actually a splinter of ice, but there are many other possibilities. A reasonably large volume of water usually has some impurities that will act as ice nuclei at temperatures only a little below freezing. Also, if a tiny droplet hits almost anything it will freeze. But that same droplet, floating in the air, may remain unfrozen at temperatures quite a bit below freezing.

The colder it is the more things are available to act as nuclei, and in clouds, the most dangerous temperatures for icing are generally above 0°F. So fogs of temperatures below freezing but above 0°F are very likely to be supercooled fogs. They can be dissipated by seeding, but they can also be responsible for ice buildup on streets, wires and branches. (Ice storms can also be caused by rain falling through sub-freezing air, but supercooled fog alone is enough.)

Fogs at temperatures between 0°F and -20°F are actually quite rare in nature. Below -20°F, and especially at temperature approaching and below -40°F, a third type of fog may appear: ice fog.

Ice fog is made up of tiny spherical droplets, and looks just like any other fog. The difference is that the droplets are ice. You could call ice fog frozen fog, though not freezing fog. In nature, ice fog is pretty well confined to temperatures below -40°F, as water droplets freeze without needing a nucleus at around that temperature. A source of water is needed, so natural ice fog tends to occur around herds of caribou or warm springs. (Yellowstone was actually used for some early ice fog research.)

In built-up areas, combustion produces not only water vapor, but some ice nuclei. Consequently some water droplets freeze and some do not, and the ones that freeze are able to grow a bit by vapor growth from the evaporation of those that don’t freeze. Some ice fogs at relatively warm temperatures may even grow into well-formed ice crystals, and produce some of the optical effects often associated with ice crystals.

You are very unlikely to see ice fog unless you live in an area where 40 below temperatures are common, but fog at temperatures below freezing is likely supercooled fog. Supercooling, by the way, is very important in the formation of most raindrops — but I’ll talk about that some other time.