Did She Or Didn't She? Only Her Hair Dresser, Her Divorce Lawyer, Her Accountant, ....

... her banker, her favorite restaurant owner, her car dealer, her real estate agent, and her "tell-all" book editor know for sure whether she cashed that check or not.

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 We're Not In Cabo Any More

The best ten minutes of your day: reading "We're Not In Cabo Any More." It's a fast read and lots of pictures. Well done. My favorite pictures: those of North Dakota. Seriously.

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A Resurgence In Vinyl Records

Some time ago I started noticing vinyl records being sold in Barnes and Noble. Then I vaguely remembered some stories on the resurgence of vinyl records. This is one such story but does not explain the reason for resurgence (at least to my satisfaction).

I have a few old vinyl records; unfortunately my wife gave our entire collection away when we were stationed in Turkey. She had a much better collection than I did, no doubt. But with the few old vinyl records I have and the new ones being sold, I played with the idea of getting a new turntable, and then remembered all the other stuff one would need: the amplifier and the speakers. 

Break, break. Tonight I was curious to see how the new UE Boom sounded in our little apartment. Again, I was amazed how easy it was to use. I turned it on, and then opened iTunes on my computer from across the room. And there it was: Lana Del Ray, Summertime Sadness. Wow. 

At the time I bought the UE Boom at the Apple store I recall another wireless speaker that the Apple person said was the absolute best -- it was much larger and thus had great bass. 

I was curious. What was Marshall all about? And there it was: the explanation for the resurgence of vinyl. From the linked site:

Compact yet packing plenty of audio punch, the Marshall Stanmore speaker wirelessly powers the music on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch with Marshall's heritage of big stage performance.

Stanmore's classic design is a throwback to the golden days of rock and roll, featuring analog interaction knobs that give you custom control of your music.

Its vintage-looking front fret, brass details, and iconic script logo make the Stanmore right at home with the rest of your Marshall collection.

Connect it wirelessly via Bluetooth, use the RCA input to plug in your record player, or simply connect your iOS device to the 3.5 mm auxiliary port using the included coil cord. Stanmore is even compatible with Apple TV and other devices that have an optical output.

Wow. Marshall Stanmore, here I come.

On another note, using UE Boom with iTunes on MacBook Pro, I understand exactly what Steve Jobs was looking for in an Apple Television. My hunch he was 90% there when he died. He probably had much more than anyone needed or expected, but he was not happy with what he had and was still looking for 110% when he died. Unless Tim Cook has some of Steve's DNA (or more likely, RNA) we may not see Steve's vision for an Apple television. 

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 A Note Lost In The Mail?

This well was spud in 1983:

• 10086, 76, Petro-Hunt, CMSU B-227X, Charlson, a Madison well; t6/83; cum 136K;

The last date for any activity regarding this well was December, 2008.

It was last on line for one day, February, 2004, and produced one bbl of water.

Prior to that it was on line for 30 days, April, 2003, and produced one bbl of oil.

Prior to that it was on line for 31 days, August, 1997, and produced 190 bbls of oil.

All zeroes from September, 1997, to December, 2008, except for one bbl of water and one bbl of oil, and nothing even recorded after 2008.

Today, in the daily activity report, the well was listed as "Temporarily Abandoned." An individual from the company noted that the well will be plugged within the year.

The sundry form to temporarily abandon the well was dated December 31, 2014, after the company received a letter dated August 29, 2014, from the NDIC stating, "that our records indicate that the above referenced well has not produced in over two years, and ....North Dakota Administrative Code says in part that the failure to produce a well for a period of one year constitutes abandonment of the well...and must be plugged and the site reclaimed."

Better late than never, I suppose.

I assume someone's dog ate the original letter. 

Maybe the slump in oil prices will be good for the Bakken to allow some folks to get caught up, and for work for others. My hunch is there is a lot of work to be done with plugging a lot of "temporarily abandoned" holes -- holes that were temporarily abandoned ten years ago.

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A Note for the Granddaughters

More On Spineless

Continuing from an earlier entry regarding a new book, Spineless, by Susan Middleton. 

Susan Middleton notes that there are 34 phyla in the animal kingdom.  She notes that "considering the seemingly endless variety of bizarre forms animals can achieve, it may be surprising that there are only three basic styles of symmetry in animal design: spherical, radial, and bilateral."

Spherical: rare in terms of what we are familiar with; generally adult single-cell protozoan organisms.

Radial: common, but not around us -- anemones, jellyfish, corals, sea stars, sea urchins, sand dollars.

Bilateral: everything else.

More than half of the 34 phyla have "wormish shapes."

Middleton discusses at some length, characteristics of eight of the 34 phyla: Porifera, Cnidaria, Platyhelminthes, Arthropods, Mollusca, Echinodermata, Annelida and Chordata.

It was "neat" to see her short discussion on Porifera (sponges) because I first became acquainted with them in Richard Dawkins' The Ancestor's Tale. I did not care for the book the first time I read it, but I thoroughly enjoyed it the second time, and would recommend it for summer reading for a high school senior looking forward to majoring in biology in college.

It's agreed that sponges belong in the animal kingdom; if so, they predate all other animal phyla that emerged during the "Cambrian explosion."

Cnidaria -- the "c" is silent, and the "cni" is like "kni" in knife. In other words, "knife-daria --> knidaria --> cnidaria. These are the things that cut you like a knife; they sting, the anemones, the jelly fish, the coral. They have radial symmetry and were the first animals to have nerves with electronic impulses. Having toxins, they were also the first predators on the planet.

A new body plan, the flatworms (platyhelminthes) appeared about 565 million years ago. For the first time, an animal had a head. It had a front, and and end. Flatworms were the first animals with a central nervous system; they were also the first active predators.

And then this which I always find surprising: more than 80% of all described living animal species -- including crabs, lobsters, shrimp, copepods, barnacles, insects, and spiders -- belong to the phylum Arthropoda. The jointed legs are key for  may of them. There are more arthropods in the ocean than any other group.

The Mollusca -- snails, slugs, clams, oysters, octopuses, and squids -- are the most malleable in the animal kingdom. Their distinguishing feature: some kind of foot for mobility, a rasping tongue called a radula, and a mantle that secretes body armor.

Echinodermata: sea stars, sea cucumbers, brittle stars, sand dollars -- bizarre and seemingly alien creatures in the animal kingdom.

Annelida: as noted earlier, more than half of the 34 phyla have "wormish" shapes.

Chordata: 97% of them are vertebrates, which were not part of the book and so she did not spend much time on them. She did note however that humans share this phylum with some unlikely invertebrate relatives: tunicates, sometimes called sea squirts (broadbase tunicates) and lancelets, nearly transparent flattened spear-shaped animals. These latter animals have the chordata distinguishing features only during early developmental stages which disappear when they are adults.