Mondauk Common:
Michael-Patrick Harrington's Blog

The fingerprint…

From CNN.Com:

Scientists detect ‘fingerprint’ of first light ever in the universe

By Ben Westcott, CNN
Updated 9:55 AM ET, Thu March 1, 2018

(CNN) Scientists have detected traces of the earliest light in the universe thought to emanate from the first stars formed after the Big Bang, billions of years ago. The new report, published in Nature on February 28, said researchers found the “fingerprint” of the universe’s first light as background radiation left on hydrogen.

“This is the first time we’ve seen any signal from this early in the Universe, aside from the afterglow of the Big Bang,” Judd Bowman, an astronomer at Arizona State University who led the work, said in a statement.

Following the Big Bang, physicists believe there was only darkness in the universe for about 180 million years, a period known by scientists as Cosmic “Dark Ages.”

As the universe expanded, the soup of ionized plasma created by the Big Bang slowly began to cool and form neutral hydrogen atoms, say physicists. Eventually these were pulled together by gravity and ignited to form stars.

The new discovery is the closest scientists have ever come to observing that moment of “cosmic dawn.”

“It’s very exciting to see our baby stars being born,” Keith Bannister, astronomer at Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), told CNN.

“(Although) we can’t see the stars themselves, we’re seeing the effect they have on the gas around them.”

The discovery was made at a radio telescope in Western Australia, the Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory, operated by the CSIRO.

EDGES ground-based radio spectrometer, CSIRO’s Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory in Western Australia.

The telescope’s remote location in rural Australia, inside a legislated “radio quiet zone,” kept interference from other human-made devices to a minimum, CSIRO said in a statement.

In their statement, CSIRO said Bowman and his team have been working to detect the signals for 12 years.

Bannister said there would still need to be additional work done to confirm the findings of Bowman’s team but the discovery was still a milestone.

“This is the very beginning of a very long journey. There’s been a lot of work to prepare for this point and now its been confirmed, everyone gets excited and more work will happen,” Bannister said.

“There’s a whole bunch of different times in the universe which are still inaccessible to use with our current telescopes … there’s a lot more to explore.”

Creepy…

From TheHill.com:

Pennsylvania church holds AR-15 blessing ceremony

by Avery Anapol – 02/28/18 05:07 PM EST

A Pennsylvania church on Wednesday held a blessing ceremony for couples and their AR-15 rifles.

The World Peace and Unification Sanctuary hosted the event, at which couples wearing white dresses and dark suits renewed their vows and received blessings on their unloaded firearms, according to the Chicago Tribune.

The religious group, considered to be a “cult” by many, is led by the Rev. Sean Moon, who prayed at the ceremony for “a kingdom of peace police and peace militia where the citizens, through the right given to them by almighty God to keep and bear arms, will be able to protect one another and protect human flourishing.”

The group views AR-15s as religious symbols, and has previously held events featuring the rifles. An AR-15 is the weapon police say was used to kill 17 people and injure 14 others in the school shooting at a Florida high school.

A small group of protestors gathered outside the sanctuary, with one calling the attendees “an armed religious cult.”

One attendee of the ceremony told the Tribune that she and her husband own an AR-15 to protect themselves from “sickos and evil psychopaths.”

“People have the right to bear arms, and in God’s kingdom, you have to protect that,” she said. “You have to protect against evil.”

A nearby elementary school closed in preparation for the event, instead taking students to a school 15 miles away as a safety precaution.

In the wake of the Florida shooting, lawmakers have grappled with how to act on gun control legislation, with some proposing a ban on assault-style weapons like the AR-15.

President Trump on Wednesday pushed lawmakers during a bipartisan meeting at the White House to raise the minimum age for purchasing such rifles from 18 to 21.

 

Grammar Girl on the new words added to the OED…

New Words Added to the Oxford English Dictionary—Again!

The Oxford English Dictionary added new words again, and this update includes fun words such as “Tom Swifty.” Will “levidrome” be next?

By

Mignon Fogarty,

February 1, 2018

   

Episode #606

The cover of a Tom Swift book from which we get the Tom Swifty jokes

The headline for this article is something of a joke: New Words Added to the Oxford English Dictionary—Again! It’s a joke because I’m implying that it’s unusual for the dictionary to add new words, but the editors actually do it every quarter. But still I love reading the new words and thinking about them, and one of my all-time favorite Grammar Girl episodes is about how words get in the dictionary, so we’ll talk about them a bit today.

Why Do Dictionaries Add Words So Often?

Dictionaries add new words so often because people keep using new words. That’s the short version of how words get in the dictionary: if enough people use them, they get added. If you hear a word you don’t know or don’t understand, and you go to the dictionary to look it up, you want it to be there; so it makes sense for dictionaries to include words as they are used.

British Versus American Dictionaries

An interesting cultural difference that I learned about from Lynne Murphy, who has a great book coming out on the differences between American and British English called “The Prodigal Tongue,” is that Americans are much more likely than the British to view dictionaries as the authority on words, the language bible, so to speak, whereas British readers are more likely to view the dictionary as a book for word lovers.

Is ‘Levidrome’ the New ‘Fetch’?

Another recent news story also highlights how words get in the dictionary. A Canadian boy named Levi Budd came up with the word “levidrome” when he realized there wasn’t a name for a string of letters that spells one word forward and a different word backward, such as “god” and “dog” and “stressed” and “desserts.” They’re kind of like palindromes, but not exactly, so he tacked his name onto the front of the “drome” root and has been campaigning to get his new word listed in dictionaries. I think it’s a useful word, but the bottom line is that he has to get people to use it, and use it repeatedly over a significant period of time, like any other word before dictionaries will include it. As Regina in the movie “Mean Girls” proved, you can’t just make “fetch” happen.

I feel optimistic about “levidrome” though because it is so useful. When I was on vacation I played around with trying to make a game based on levidromes, but nothing I came up with seemed fun enough to actually make into a real game, but Levi’s father said in a news article that teachers are sending him pictures of students making levidrome lists the same way they might make palindrome or homophone lists. So that seems promising.

January 2018 New OED Words

So let’s get to some of the new words that just entered the OED. What words have people been using frequently enough and long enough to convince editors they should be in the dictionary?

“Mansplain” made the list. It’s a combination of the word “man” with the last part of “explain” and means “a man’s action of explaining something needlessly, overbearingly, or condescendingly, especially to women, in a manner thought to reveal a patronizing or chauvinistic attitude).” I see that a lot on Twitter. I think I’ve only started hearing people use “mansplain” in the last four or five years, but the Oxford English Dictionary pins its first use to a LiveJournal post from 2008.

“Hangry” is another new word that I’ve only heard in the last few years, but the OED dates back much farther, all the way back to 1956. It’s a combination of “hungry” and “angry” and to me it is at least as useful as “levidrome.” I mean, I get angry easily when I’m hungry. Who doesn’t?

“Ransomware” is the kind of new word we get because of new technology or, in this case, new technology-related crimes. Ransomware is software that causes some kind of problem, like blocking access to your data, and demands you pay a ransom to fix it. What’s interesting about this word is that it looks like people used it infrequently starting in the 1980s to describe something I think of more as freeware—software that gives you limited access to features free and a full set of features if you pay—but the OED didn’t add the word until this update because it’s now being used frequently to describe the more malicious type of software.

“Snowflake” is another new word or at least a new sense of the word. And what’s interesting to me is that I remember how this word has evolved. It’s been around since 1983, but back then it was a good thing. A snowflake was a special person in a good way. It played on the idea that every snowflake is unique and was used to describe how people, especially children, are all special, cherished, and unique. I distinctly remember President George W. Bush talking about “snowflake babies” who came from frozen embryos left over from in vitro fertilization.

But then people seemed to get annoyed by the idea. For example, in the 1996 book “Fight Club,” the men embrace the philosophy as part of their indoctrination that “You are not a beautiful and unique snowflake. You are the same decaying organic matter as everyone else.” In my mind, “snowflake” ended up falling into the same category as participation trophies.

And then, more recently, “snowflake” has become an insult, a description of someone who is “overly sensitive or easily offended.” And it’s been used often enough and long enough that the editors at the OED believe it needs to be in the dictionary.

The final one I’ll talk about is “Tom Swifty” because I’ve actually been meaning to write about Tom Swifties for a few years. These are a type of joke that goes back to a children’s book series with a main character named Tom Swift. These science-fiction and adventure novels, created by the same man responsible for the Bobbsey Twins, the Rover Boys, Nancy Drew, and the Hardy Boys, were known for their avoidance of the bare word “said.” Tom did not just “say” things. Instead he said enthusiastically, he said bravely, he said happily, he said morosely, and so on.

This led to word play—a type of pun—in which the adverb relates to what Tom was saying, as in the following:

“Welcome to my apartment,” Tom said flatly. (because “flat” is another name for an  apartment)

“The thermostat must be broken,” Tom said hotly.

“Rover went to get the ball,” Tom said fetchingly.

“I’m being held captive,” Tom said guardedly.

The name “Tom Swifty” for this kind of joke dates back to 1963, and the OED finally felt it was time to give the name its due.

All in all, more than 1,100 new words were added in this dictionary update, and I’ll put a link to the whole list on the transcript of this podcast at the Quick and Dirty Tips website.

It’s interesting to watch spellcheckers try to catch up too. My spellchecker knows “mansplain” and “ransomware,” for example, but it doesn’t know “hangry.”

Mignon Fogarty is Grammar Girl and the founder of Quick and Dirty Tips. Check out her New York Times best-seller, “Grammar Girl’s Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing.

 

I have 2 new online businesses!

 

I am pleased to announce the launch of 2 new online businesses!

The first is an Etsy shop, Hourglass Spills. This shop offers a curated selection of fun vintage stuff, such as comic books, sports cards, vinyl records, toys, memorabilia, & collectibles!
To visit the shop, go here: HourglassSpills.Etsy.com
There is also a Facebook page: facebook.com/HourglassSpills

Also, I have started a copy editing and writing service, the Inky Fingerprint!
Visit the Inky Fingerprint Facebook page: facebook.com/inkyfingerprint

Let me help you with your copy editing and business writing needs. No project too big or too small. My resume is available upon request.

I offer copy editing and content editing for fiction, creative non-fiction, catalogs, and more. I read for accuracy, and I’m time conscious.

For businesses, I can assist with many kinds of business writing projects including manuals, web site content, newsletters, and more.

Please don’t forget my other online ventures!

Mondauk Music’s Amazon store – thousands of CDs, plus DVDs, Blu-rays, books, & more!
To visit my Amazon store, click here: www.amazon.com/shops/MondaukMusic

Mondauk Music’s E-Bay store – tons of comic books, collectibles, sports cards, toys, & more!
To visit my E-Bay store, click here: http://stores.shop.ebay.com/Mondauk-Music

Mondauk Music’s Facebook page. “Like” the page for the latest sale info for both stores!
To visit Mondauk Music’s Facebook page, click here: facebook.com/Mondauk

And let’s not forget my Facebook page. “Like” my page for info on my books & more!
Go here: facebook.com/michael.patrick.harrington.author

 

 

I’m getting ready for Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi by watching every Star Wars trailer…and here they are!

Catch up on the Star Wars universe with all of the official trailers…

 

Star Wars {aka Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope} (1977)

 

Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back (1980)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxLR_27ASpc

 

Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi (1983)

 

Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace (1999)

 

Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones (2002)

 

Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith (2005)

 

Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008)
animated film

 

Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Season 1 (2008-2009)
animated television series

 

Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Season 2: Rise of the Bounty Hunters (2009-2010)

animated television series

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=744yE9ueRo4

 

Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Season 3: Secrets Revealed (2010-2011)

animated television series

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F9s9SxrP6vk

 

Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Season 4: Battle Lines (2011-2012)

animated television series

 

Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Season 5 (2012-2013)
animated television series

 

Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Season 6: The Lost Missions (2014)

animated television series

 

Star Wars: Rebels, Season 1 (2014-2015)

animated television series

 

Star Wars: Rebels, Season 2 (2015-2016)

animated television series

 

Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens

 

Star Wars: Rebels, Season 3 (2016-2017)

animated television series

 

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)

 

Star Wars: Rebels, Season 4 (2017-2018)

animated television series

 

Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi (2017)

 

 

 

Democracy Dies in Darkness

 

Anything involving possible censorship should make everyone shudder, particularly when it consistently comes from a dysfunctional branch of the federal government. The Washington Post’s masthead says it all: Democracy Dies in Darkness.

 

From Politico.Com:

Trump suggests challenging NBC’s broadcast license

The veiled threat opens a new front in the president’s feud with the media.

By LOUIS NELSON and MARGARET HARDING MCGILL

10/11/2017 10:37 AM EDT
Updated 10/11/2017 12:07 PM EDT

President Donald Trump on Wednesday suggested that NBC’s broadcast license should be pulled as punishment for the network’s reporting on his national security meetings, opening a new front in the president’s long-running battle with the press.

NBC News published a report Wednesday morning stating that Trump had surprised his national security advisers by proposing a nearly tenfold increase in the U.S. nuclear arsenal during a July meeting. The meeting was what allegedly led Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to call Trump a “moron” — a comment that NBC first reported last week.

Trump lashed out at NBC, appearing to make a threat that is not even possible, given that the Federal Communications Commission doesn’t directly license networks.

“Fake @NBCNews made up a story that I wanted a ‘tenfold’ increase in our U.S. nuclear arsenal. Pure fiction, made up to demean. NBC = CNN!” Trump wrote on Twitter, equating the two TV news outlets he has most often lashed out against. “With all of the Fake News coming out of NBC and the Networks, at what point is it appropriate to challenge their License? Bad for country!”

NBC did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The FCC had no immediate comment.

The president’s willingness to potentially challenge the broadcast licenses of a media outlet whose coverage he objects to marked an escalation in rhetoric for Trump. The president has regularly complained about coverage he views as unfairly critical, labeling stories, reporters and entire outlets “fake news.”

As a candidate, Trump threatened to “open up our libel laws so when they write purposely negative and horrible and false articles, we can sue them and win lots of money.” He repeated that threat in a post to Twitter in March. He also floated the idea of canceling the long-held tradition of White House press briefings, which were moved mostly off-camera for weeks last summer.

It is the second time in as many weeks that Trump has attacked NBC News. The earlier attack came after the “moron” report, which also said Tillerson had been on the verge of quitting over the summer.

Tillerson has denied that he ever considered resigning, and a State Department spokeswoman later said the secretary doesn’t use language like “moron.”

Trump, meanwhile, said the network’s news division “is so knowingly inaccurate with their reporting” and had “low news and reporting standards.”

“NBC news is #FakeNews and more dishonest than even CNN. They are a disgrace to good reporting. No wonder their news ratings are way down!” Trump wrote on Twitter on Oct. 4.

It’s unclear exactly how Trump could directly challenge a media outlet’s broadcasting license, if he chose to follow through on his veiled threat.

The FCC, an independent federal agency, issues broadcast licenses to stations and oversees license holders. It does not license networks. NBC is owned by Comcast, which holds broadcast licenses for several stations. NBC also airs on affiliate stations owned by other companies.

Local residents or competitors can file a challenge to a station’s license renewal, but the basis for such a challenge is extremely limited — it must be a case where the station systematically violated the FCC’s rules or lacked the requisite “character” to hold the license. That is usually defined as a felony conviction, said Andrew Schwartzman, a communications lawyer with the Institute for Public Representation at Georgetown University Law Center.

“It’s an empty threat. The last thing that NBC is going to worry about is whether its broadcast licenses are in jeopardy,” Schwartzman said.

Schwartzman said the only time he could remember a large broadcaster losing its license was in the 1970s, after a New York station’s management was convicted of bribery. The license renewal issue surfaced in 2012, when Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. was facing controversy over a phone-hacking scandal in Britain, but Fox’s U.S. television licenses were not revoked over the issue.

Although NBC is currently in Trump’s cross hairs, CNN has most often been the target of Trump’s anger with the media. The president has sought to turn the network into something of a foil for him and his supporters, who have chanted “CNN sucks” at rallies. Trump has shared images viewed by some as encouraging violence against CNN, including a professional wrestling clip that shows the president attacking a man with a CNN logo superimposed over his head and a cartoon with a “Trump” train running over a man covered by a CNN logo.

The cable network’s White House reporters have sparred often with White House press secretaries Sean Spicer and Sarah Huckabee Sanders during briefings, while the administration has, at times, refused to put its spokespeople and surrogates on CNN.

Trump has lobbed insults and threats at newspapers, too, most often targeting the “money losing” New York Times and The Washington Post, which is owned by Jeff Bezos, the owner of online retail giant Amazon.

“The #AmazonWashingtonPost, sometimes referred to as the guardian of Amazon not paying internet taxes (which they should) is FAKE NEWS!” Trump wrote on Twitter in June.

The attack came one day after the Post reported that at least four Trump Organization golf properties had on display a fake Time magazine with Trump on the cover and flattering headlines about his reality TV show, “The Apprentice,” which aired on NBC.

Jason Schwartz contributed to this report.

We Lost Tom Petty

Tom Petty, Rock Icon Who Led the Heartbreakers, Dead at 66

Singer suffered cardiac arrest and was taken off life support at hospital

I’m speechless. It’s difficult to explain how much Tom Petty’s music (w/ the Heartbreakers, solo, with the Traveling Wilburys, or with Mudcrutch) meant to me, because his presence was a given. I doubt a week went by when I didn’t play one of his records. Petty didn’t have Bruce Springsteen’s gravitas or Elvis Costello’s lyrical stylings, but he was always there, record after record, a workhorse delivering (generally) no nonsense rock’n’roll. That’s not to say that his music wasn’t something special; it’s just that Petty delighted in the small details. Like Bruce, he grabbed the music of his past and brought it kicking and screaming into the now. He embraced the inherent humor of rock’n’roll, while extolling the virtues of living a life beyond the details he so lovingly explored. To wit, from “American Girl”:

Well it was kind of cold that night;
She stood alone on her balcony.
Yeah, she could hear the cars roll by
Out on 441 like waves crashin’ on the beach,
And for one desperate moment there
He crept back in her memory.
God it’s so painful when something that’s so close
Is still so far out of reach.

I will miss him.

Read the RollingStone.Com article by clicking here.

 

Bruce Springsteen releases classic live show w/ all proceeds going to Hurricane Relief

From BruceSpringsteen.net:

Bruce Springsteen has released the much sought after recording of the classic Houston ’78 show to Benefit MusiCares® Hurricane Relief Fund. Bruce, the E Street band, Sony Music, and nugs.net will donate ALL their proceeds to the hurricane relief effort.

Buy the show HERE.

More from BruceSpringsteen.net:

Bruce Springsteen is releasing an entire 1978 show with the E Street Band in Houston, Texas. The release will benefit the MusiCares® Hurricane Relief Fund, which will aid those affected by the recent devastation in Texas as well as in Florida.

The Houston show originally appeared as part of the Darkness on the Edge of Town box set.  It captures the final leg of the Darkness tour, including the extended intro version of “Prove It All Night,” the rarely performed “Streets of Fire,” and Darkness outtakes “Fire” and “Because the Night.”  It also features prototypes of The River’s “Independence Day,” “Point Blank” and “The Ties That Bind,” plus a rare September song, “Santa Claus is Comin’ To Town.”

Houston was one of Bruce’s earliest springboards, which accounts for the presence here of early favorites “Fire” and “It’s Hard to be a Saint in the City.”

Bruce, the E Street band, Sony Music and nugs.net will donate all their proceeds to the hurricane relief effort.

Houston ’78 is available now as MP3 and hi-res downloads including audiophile grade MQA, or as a 2 CD set. You can order it today at  live.brucespringsteen.net, Bruce Springsteen’s official live recording service powered by nugs.net.