(no subject)

Sunday September 15, 2013 Temperatures low enough that I wore a long-sleeved shirt. And for parts of the day, a sweater.

***Como Cookout at Van Cleve Park. Among the children's events was a quidditch match (not completely authentic.)

I didn't stay long. Headed for the Lake Harriet Bandshell, where the Minnesota Orchestra's musicians were giving a concert.

The musicians have been locked out for eleven months. Management thought it would be reasonable for them to take a 25 percent pay cut, and agree to a few other cost-saving measures.

The Orchestra spent a whole lot of money on its new auditorium, and ended up in poor financial shape.
A few years back, the Minneapolis library system replaced its central library with a new one -- and ended up broke. Hennepin County Libraries took them over. However, there isn't a Hennepin County Orchestra.

Music: Something by Weber, Tchaikovsky's Fifth Symphony.

There were five people I knew in the audience, and I'd recently met one member of the orchestra. There were also a number of dogs, one of whom joined in the applause at the end. I did not know any of the dogs.

(no subject)

Monday September 16, 2013 Hometown news. (Sort of; I grew up between Kerhonkson and Accord.) From the Kingston Daily Freeman (Kingston NY):

Kerhonkson Synagogue wins listing on historic registers
Published: Sunday, September 15, 2013
....
"The Kerhonkson Synagogue’s spiritual leader, Sally Shore-Wittenberg, known to the congregation as 'Reb Sally,' said there indeed is something special about the building.
.....
"The Kerhonkson Synagogue, which is not affiliated with a denomination, just marked the Jewish High Holy Days and drew about 60 people to the Rosh Hashana service alone."

When I was growing up in the 1950s, there wouldn't have been a female rabbi. And if I recall correctly, back then it was officially an Orthodox synagogue.

***"Afshordi and his colleagues [suggest that] our three-dimensional (3D) Universe is a membrane, or brane, that floats through a ‘bulk universe’ that has four spatial dimensions.

"Ashfordi's team realized that if the bulk universe contained its own four-dimensional (4D) stars, some of them could collapse, forming 4D black holes in the same way that massive stars in our Universe do: they explode as supernovae, violently ejecting their outer layers, while their inner layers collapse into a black hole."
http://io9.com/was-our-universe-created-by-a-four-dimensional-black-ho-1320660418

Where did the parent universe come from? Perhaps from a black hole in a universe with five spatial dimensions. Which might have come from.... "It's black holes all the way down."

***From Google Plus:
"What would a sane human being be like?"

Tyler Tork replied 9/15/13
If I meet one I'll let you know.

From Facebook:
Matthew B. Tepper replied
Fred Rogers?

***Via Twitter:

"By 2010 personal transportation devices will be all the rage and electric shoes with built-in roller-skates will be gaining much of the attention. After nine years of heavy media coverage, the Segway Human Transporter will begin to gain serious market share.

"By 2015 traditional gas-powered autos will start to decline with electric automobiles and hybrids taking up most of the slack.

"By 2020 we will see an industry being built up around self-illuminating highways – highways that glow in the dark. 'Glow Roads' will dramatically change the night-time aesthetics of major cities and will be shown to improve driving safety at night and reduce the need for streetlights.

"By 2025 a first attempt at launching the space elevator will fail, setting the industry back a decade."

"The flying car era will really begin around 2015 with flying drones."
http://www.futuristspeaker.com/2008/05/2050-and-the-future-of-transportation/

An older prediction: Over cities....the aerial sentry or policeman will be found. A thousand aeroplanes flying to the opera must be kept in line and each allowed to alight upon the roof of the auditorium in its proper turn. Waldemar Kaempfert (Managing Editor of Scientific American and author of The New Art of Flying), "Aircraft and the Future," Outlook, June 28, 1913. P. 240, Christopher Cerf & Victor Navasky, The Experts Speak.

***From Twitter:
Night Vale podcast ‏@NightValeRadio
If you weren't able to get tickets to the sold out Night Vale SF show, simply build a time machine out of parts around the home & try again.