It's a hot one.

Blue Moon

"Once in a blue moon" is equal to roughly 2.7 years, in case you were wondering. And, the next one is tomorrow morning. What makes it "blue" is the fact that it will be the second full moon in July. The reason the blue moon occurs in the morning (for me) is because all full moons happen at the same time for everyone (not taking time zones into account) when the sun, Earth, and moon are aligned roughly every 29.5 days.

Tomorrow's full moon occurs at 6:43 EDT. (More here.)

I wonder what the odds are of a blue moon and a leap second occurring at the same time.

Astronomical.

U.S. Wrong Place To Avoid Work

" Analyzing employment habits in the world’s 10 largest economies per capita, CNN Money found that Americans clocked the most time on the job. . . . .

" Of the 10 countries surveyed, the Netherlands had the shortest workweek, with the Dutch putting in 26.6 hours weekly (approximately three-fourths the American average). "

Might be time to move.

Fox Business | Working Hard for Our Money: Who Clocks the Longest Days Around the Globe?

Underside

Good Plan

(Garment tag on sweatshirt.)

Summer Blockbuster

"Seattle Submerged"

Or maybe: "Sasquatch Can't Swim!"

Unfortunately, the horror following "a big one" in the Pacific Northwest would be only too real:

" By the time the shaking has ceased and the tsunami has receded, the region will be unrecognizable. Kenneth Murphy, who directs FEMA’s Region X, the division responsible for Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and Alaska, says, “Our operating assumption is that everything west of Interstate 5 will be toast.”

" The first sign that the Cascadia earthquake has begun will be a compressional wave, radiating outward from the fault line. Compressional waves are fast-moving, high-frequency waves, audible to dogs and certain other animals but experienced by humans only as a sudden jolt. They are not very harmful, but they are potentially very useful, since they travel fast enough to be detected by sensors thirty to ninety seconds ahead of other seismic waves. That is enough time for earthquake early-warning systems, such as those in use throughout Japan, to automatically perform a variety of lifesaving functions: shutting down railways and power plants, opening elevators and firehouse doors, alerting hospitals to halt surgeries, and triggering alarms so that the general public can take cover. The Pacific Northwest has no early-warning system. When the Cascadia earthquake begins, there will be, instead, a cacophony of barking dogs and a long, suspended, what-was-that moment before the surface waves arrive. Surface waves are slower, lower-frequency waves that move the ground both up and down and side to side: the shaking, starting in earnest.

" Depending on location, they will have between ten and thirty minutes to get out. That time line does not allow for finding a flashlight, tending to an earthquake injury, hesitating amid the ruins of a home, searching for loved ones, or being a Good Samaritan. “When that tsunami is coming, you run,” Jay Wilson, the chair of the Oregon Seismic Safety Policy Advisory Commission (OSSPAC), says. “You protect yourself, you don’t turn around, you don’t go back to save anybody. You run for your life.” "

The New Yorker |The Really Big One

Mountain Home, Idaho, doesn't look so bad now, does it?

it's been the ruin of many a poor girl

Just Say No

What else would they be?

5 Guys Named Moe

Went to Concerts for a Cause and listened to a band called 5 Guys Named Moe. One of the band member's kids came on stage to sing part of a song. He was pretty little - like, 5ish - but he totally nailed it.

Saw him in the parking lot afterwards and asked him for his autograph but neither of us had a pen. "Let that be a lesson to you," said his mother and lead singer. "Always carry a Sharpie."

Yeah, little dude, carry a Sharpie at all times. I have a feeling you're going to need it more and more.

Bulletin!

                                             Paris, 7 July 2015
                                                           

                                             Bulletin C 50
                                
                                             To authorities responsible
                                             for the measurement and 
                                             distribution of time             
                                                                                        


                          INFORMATION ON UTC - TAI
                      

 NO leap second will be introduced at the end of December 2015.
 The difference between Coordinated Universal Time UTC and the 
 International Atomic Time TAI is :                
                
     from 2015 July 1, 0h UTC, until further notice : UTC-TAI = -36 s

 Leap seconds can be introduced in UTC at the end of the months of December 
 or June,  depending on the evolution of UT1-TAI. Bulletin C is mailed every  
 six months, either to announce a time step in UTC, or to confirm that there 
 will be no time step at the next possible date.


                                            Daniel GAMBIS
                                            Director                        
                                            Earth Orientation Center of IERS
                                            Observatoire de Paris, France

Me, too, Siri.

The timer was for coffee. 

In Today's News

“The truth is out there: World UFO Day
Today is World UFO Day, celebrated each year since 2001 on the anniversary of the crash in 1947 of a supposed flying saucer near Roswell, New Mexico. Back in the days of film cameras, blurry snaps of UFOs were taken by some as evidence that aliens were already among us. In recent years, they seem to be visiting more often; more likely, strange lights in the sky are easier to capture on ubiquitous camera-equipped smartphones. Yet they seem to be choosy about when they come. According to data gathered by the National UFO Reporting Centre, an American non-profit organisation, UFO sightings occur mainly in summertime, in the evening, and especially on Fridays, which suggests aliens may be timing their visits to coincide with alcohol consumption. And those two bright lights close together above the western horizon tonight? Not UFOs, but Jupiter and Venus, which are in conjunction (astronomer-speak for a close encounter) this week.”



(Received via email, the original source is The Economist.)

In other news:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/07/02/jesus_lizard_found_in_wyoming/ - This is really an article about a lizard that walks on water (or used to.) But interesting fact: Wyoming was tropical 85 million years ago!

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2487154,00.asp - someone unplugged the internet!

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/11714471/Bubble-Wrap-to-lose-its-pop.html - bubble wrap no more!

http://mentalfloss.com/article/13092/bubble-wrap-was-originally-supposed-be-wallpaper - bubble wrap had first commercial success when used to ship IBM's new 1401 variable word length computer (1959)

http://www.columbia.edu/cu/computinghistory/1401.html - aforementioned computer

Good news day!

Seen on a bumper sticker:

" Alcohol and calculus don't mix. 

Never drink and derive. "