Weather Lore

Posted on 2013-01-31 by arjaybe

Photo credit - Tim Ruske

Photo credit – Tim Ruske

“Red sky in the morning, sailor take warning. Red sky at night, sailor’s delight.” It’s a variation of an old proverb that seems to have a local version wherever you go. And it has a scientific explanation. It’s based on the fact that, in the regions where most of the old proverb makers lived, the general circulation of the atmosphere is from west to east. The high- and low-pressure systems that bring our alternating good and bad weather move eastward with the atmosphere.

Air sinks in a high pressure system; that’s why there’s more pressure. The sinking air traps dust. Air rises in a low pressure system, flushing the dust out of the lower atmosphere. The different amounts of dust cause more or less redness in sunrises and sunsets. A dust-reddened sunrise indicates that the higher air pressure is to the east, meaning it’s going away with the westerlies, taking the good weather with it. “Sailor take warning.” Red sunsets mean the good weather is to the west of us, coming closer with the prevailing winds. “Sailor’s delight.”

Photo credit - Roberto Giolitto

Photo credit – Roberto Giolitto

“Mackerel scales and mares’ tails make lofty ships carry low sails.” This is another adage that has an equally good explanation. Clouds in the form of mackerel scales and horses’ tails are the high forerunners of weather systems. The high clouds tend to arrive first because the winds are typically stronger at their altitude. They can indicate that soon we will see lower clouds and possibly bad weather. The kind where you don’t want all your sails in the wind.

There are many similar sayings for haloes around the Sun and Moon and other meteorological phenomena, all used by people trying to live with the weather. Today we use other methods of measurement, but they are largely looking at the same things that produced the effects described in the old proverbs. The impulse to understand the weather was always there, but today we apply a system of science and technology that goes beyond appearances.

On radio and television and in newspapers we get continual updates and revised forecasts many times a day. On the internet we have access to the same maps, charts and satellite images. Here are some sites for weather lore, cloud pictures and a satellite image.

Good sailing.

rjb

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Glee Cheats

Posted on 2013-01-27 by arjaybe

Jonathan Coulton

Jonathan Coulton

The television show “Glee” has apparently used an independent artist’s music in one of its episodes without paying him, or even giving him credit. Jonathan Coulton made a cover of a song called “Baby Got Back” by Sir Mix-a-Lot, paying for a statutory license to distribute his version. Fox, which owns Glee, claims to be within its legal rights to use their cover of his cover with no obligation to him. They did not offer to pay him, nor to credit him in any way, nor even to apologize, saying this is their standard operating procedure. They say he should be happy to get the exposure, even though they didn’t actually give him any. He has no copyright claim, but is investigating whether Glee used some of his actual audio in its cover, which is not allowed without at least putting his name in the credits.

In the meantime, Coulton has done a cover of Glee’s cover of his cover of Sir Mix-a-Lot’s song and put it on iTunes. The proceeds will go to charity.

I’ve never seen Glee but I hear it’s a good show, with themes about fairness and doing the right thing. That might be so, but the corporation behind it sure seems to be swinish.

rjb

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Querycount

Posted on 2013-01-25 by arjaybe

Querycount

Querycount

The Wordcount website, where “Elgin” was ranked as the 28,411th most-used word in British English, has a sister site called Querycount. This site also ranks the words, but instead of counting how many times they are used in the British National Corpus, Querycount monitors how the words are queried by the users of Wordcount itself.

From the website: “Each time someone searches a word on Wordcount, Querycount takes note. Every few hours, Querycount refreshes itself, rearranging its word rankings based on the number of times each word has been queried by Wordcount.” So, while Wordcount is an archive of English usage at one point late in the twentieth century, a static database, Querycount is a current picture, a dynamic, changing record of human curiosity about language.

Let’s try it out. Remember, “Elgin” ranked 28,411 in wordcount. In Querycount it comes in at 33,820, preceded by “plaice” and followed by “foiled.” A plaice is a large flatfish. “Frances” has moved up from its Wordcount spot at 9,860 to a Querycount position of 4,691. It’s preceded by “consumption” and followed by “irony.” Remember, these results are changing all the time as people query the Wordcount archive, so if you go to the website and try it yourself, don’t be surprised if you get different results. Now for this blog. “green,” previously 671 in Wordcount, is 204 now in Querycount. It’s now preceded by “please” and followed by “Jennifer.” “Comet” was 16,896 and jumps up to 6,911. It’s preceded by “fasten” and followed by “antichrist.”

The last word in Wordcount is “conquistador,” rank 86,800. In Querycount it is the 64th entry. A lot of people must be looking to see what the last word is. The second- to fifth-last words were “recrossed,” “workless,” “Carniola” and “tangency,” which now rank 3,791, 1,091, 4,832 and 3,111 respectively.

The last five words in the Querycount archive are, beginning at the end, “fart,” “crap,” “help,” “house” and “cool.” Naturally, if a word gets queried it is very likely to change its position, especially if it is near the end to begin with. For instance, querying “fart” moved it from last to 69th.

The original top ten words, such as “the” and “of,” etc, have largely been replaced by other words that people seem to find more interesting. With the exception of “the” and “a,” the top positions are held by much more colorful words, which won’t be quoted here.

rjb

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