Cirrus

Posted on 2013-10-09 by arjaybe

Photo credit: AGrinberg/Foter/CC BY-NC-ND

Photo credit: AGrinberg/Foter/CC BY-NC-ND

Cloud of the Day – Cirrus

Photo credit - © Andrew Kirk

Photo credit – © Andrew Kirk

Moving into the high etage, over 20,000 feet, we come to the cirrus clouds. As with the two lower levels, there are a few basic cloud types that exemplify the upper etage. Today we’ll look at the one that is most representative of the type: basic cirrus. Cirrus form the mares’ tails in the old weather adage, “Mares’ tails and mackerel scales make lofty ships carry low sails.” This bit of weather lore is based on the fact that, while these high altitude clouds don’t bring any severe weather themselves, they often presage it. Since the winds are higher up there, the high level clouds precede the body of the weather system.

Photo credit - © Stephen J Gledhill

Photo credit – © Stephen J Gledhill

Cirrus clouds get their name from the Latin, “cirrus,” meaning a curling lock of hair. You can see why, with their wispy appearance. Resembling an artist’s brush strokes, cirrus clouds form from either super-cooled water droplets freezing into ice crystals, or super-cooled water vapor turning directly to ice, bypassing the liquid phase. Almost all cirrus is made of ice crystals, with a few instances of super-cooled water droplets that haven’t yet frozen. The ice crystals’ refractive properties interact with sunlight and moonlight in interesting ways. We’ll cover that in a future post.

Photo credit: NicholasT/Foter/CC BY

Photo credit: NicholasT/Foter/CC BY

Some of the prettiest skies are made by cirrus clouds.

rjb

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Copyright Education

Posted on 2013-10-02 by arjaybe

Photo Credit - opensource.com

Photo Credit – opensource.com

In California, USA, they’re letting the copyright industry draft educational policy. An article on Wired and another on opensource.com will give you all the details, so I’ll just do a summary here.

Copyright education is how the industry looks at it. To them it makes perfect sense that the school curriculum should be tailored to protect their income. They seem to have some allies in government who feel the same way, and a long and determined propaganda campaign has much of the public indoctrinated with their message. And if it was only a message to inform people of their responsibilities and their rights when dealing with copyrighted material, that would be all right. Unfortunately, the message is more often that copying is stealing, and that anyone who doesn’t pay for the privilege is evil.

copyright-fair-useThe copyright education envisaged by the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America,) the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) and some other acronyms focuses entirely on what they will lose if they can’t stop people from sharing. As the Wired article puts it, “Downloading is Mean!” This copyright education will be fine tuned to the comprehension level of children from kindergarten through grade six. It is the childrens’ comprehension level that forces them to not complicate the material with concepts like fair use. Instead, they want to be sure that the children understand that any use of copyrighted material without permission is stealing.

Creative Commons

Creative Commons

Meanwhile, the article on opensource.com thinks the message to children should be about what they can do, rather than what they can’t do. They can learn all the stuff about copyright and fair use later, when their brains are more sophisticated. In addition to that, they point out that there is no mention of the commons, the public domain or open licenses. The children aren’t being told that there is material out there that is free to share, or that they are actively encouraged to share by its creator. No Musopen. No Green Comet. That must be something else that they’re not ready to understand. Opensource.com counters this self-serving deception by offering links to many better sources for copyright curriculum.

If the government allows corporate propaganda in the classroom, then they’re betraying the children they’re meant to nurture.

rjb

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Green Comet – ePub

Posted on 2013-09-29 by arjaybe

LibreOffice Logo

LibreOffice Logo

I have replaced the ePub versions of Green Comet with files that I hope, with good reason, are better formatted.

When I wrote Green Comet I would write out a chapter by hand, and then transcribe it with LibreOffice Writer, the free word processor. Not being very deeply knowledgable about word processors, I did all the formatting by eye and hand, rather than applying styles and other handy shortcuts. I ended up with something that looked okay and I was quite pleased with myself.

Writer2ePub Logo

Writer2ePub Logo

When it was time to publish the story, I followed the same path. Since LibreOffice can export directly to PDF, that was straightforward. A little trial-and-error resulted in what I thought was a presentable file. The same was not true for ePub. There was no button to export to ePub, so I had to find another way. Luckily, I discovered a plugin for LibreOffice called Writer2ePub, which would do the trick.

Once again by trial-and-error, hacking and whacking, doing it over and over, I eventually got something that I thought looked good enough. I was good to go.

It was quite a shock to be told by people who know what they’re talking about that, under its presentable facade, Green Comet – ePub showed many signs of my crude bumbling. Fortunately Luca Calcinai, the creator of Writer2ePub, took pity on me and sent me a corrected version of the word processor file which he said would produce a proper ePub when run through his plugin. It did, and that’s what is now available for download.

Thanks, Luke.

rjb

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