One of the unexpected surprises I had when traveling in Nicaragua was the Coca-Cola. In a country where drinking the water was somewhat hazardous, bottled water and drinks were a good option. Not that this was much of a problem, Coca-Cola was sold everywhere, little street vendors always had a cooler of sodas. As anyone who knows me will tell you, my one dietary vice is Coke.
Mexican bottled Coca-Cola bought at Costco in HawaiiThe standard price was about 20 cordoba, about 70 cents in US dollars. In the little streetside shops I paid C$15 for a bottle, in tourist areas the price jumped to C$20, while the hotel in Managua wanted C$40. If you bought the glass bottles be sure to get the bottle back to the vendor, there is a deposit.
The reason the coke tasted better in Nicaragua was simple… The formula is mixed with cane sugar in place of the corn syrup used in the United States. The taste difference is remarkable and to my palate much improved by the difference. While traveling I found myself buying a bottle or two each day. Eventually it would be back to the US and back to corn syrup.
I did miss the coke I had found in Central America. In response to my frustrated complaint about Coca-Cola one day my wife informed me that you can buy the real stuff here on the island. What? She let me know that imported Coca-Cola was available at Costco. What?
To prove the point she brought some home. Sure enough… Coca-Cola bottled in the classic glass bottles and imported from Mexico. Reading the ingredients quickly reveals that the soda is made with cane sugar, not corn syrup. Even better, it tastes the same as the cola I bought in Nicaragua.
XKCD has been on a roll lately. OK, when is Randall not on a roll? Perhaps it is that several of the latest directly address astronomy, with this last one hitting closer to home than usual. How often do I stand in front of a crowd talking about the stars? Plus, I am not really an astronomer…
XKCD comic “Stargazing” by Randall Munroe, creative commons license
Old boots and an older sewing machine in a cobbler’s shop
A review of my favorite photographs of 2015. So many wonderful images, so many memories! It was a very good year for photography with a number of excellent photo opportunities. Opportunities I did not waste. of course living in Hawaiʻi and working atop Mauna Kea often provide a photo or two. Add a trip to Nicaragua allowed a whole new range of photos.
In past eras it was popular to keep a detailed diary of one’s life. While real diaries are rarely kept anymore, blogs and photographs serve much the same purpose. As I have often stated, Darker View is a blog in the original sense, a personal diary of my life. To look back through these photos I relive much of the past year, the good parts anyway.
Click through for the full gallery and click on any photo for a slideshow.
This is fun… An entirely steam powered machine shop that is fully operational, from the boiler to a full set of machine tools. The shop is intended to show a shop as it would have looked in the 1920’s. It would be fun to use this shop to make something, but I will use an electrically powered lathe this evening.
It has been over three months since the protest began. Three months of standoff with the protesters who would not see another telescope built on Mauna Kea.
My 18″ telescope Deep violet set up under the stars at the MKVIS.It has been my habit over the last eight years to spend a night under the stars, high on the mountain, each time the new Moon arrives. On the nights when there is no moonlight the sky is dark, truly dark. The stars shine undiminished, the universe is open to be explored. I have used binoculars, small telescopes, cameras, or simply my eyes.
It is with my handmade 18 inch telescope that I can truly gaze into the depths of space. This simple device of plywood and glass allows me to see galaxies millions of light years into the past. With this telescope I have seen hundreds of galaxies, giving me a glimpse of the indescribable vastness of space.
Often I would set up in the patio right at the Mauna Kea Visitor Information Station. The first couple hours spent talking with visitors, showing them the wonders our universe has to offer. After the VIS closes the visitors depart, driven back to their hotels by the cold mountain air. I have a heavy winter jacket, ski-pants, a thermos of hot tea, everything I need to be comfortable under the night sky. I would have the rest of the night to myself, just me, the mountain and the stars.
Today will be 86,401 seconds long. That number may seem odd, particularly when you consider that most days are 86,400 seconds long. The difference is a result of the leap second being added to our clocks at the end of June 30, 2015 at 23:59:59.
Two new GPS time servers installed in the Keck 2 computer roomThe need for an extra second comes from the irregular rotation of our planet. Due to gravitational interaction with the Moon our planet is gradually slowing its rotation. Other shifts can also cause slight irregularities in the planetary rotational rate. In order to keep Coordinated Universal Time in phase with the Earth’s rotation it is necessary to insert an extra second every so often when the error becomes too large.
Since zero hours universal time occurs at 14:00 Hawaii Standard Time, this extra second will occur at 2pm in the afternoon for my readers in the islands. If you are watching a clock that can account for this leap second you will see this second appear. The clock can do a few things, it could simply stop for a second, holding at 23:59:59 for two seconds. The clock could also count the extra second, displaying 23:59:60.
Update: A small group of true nerds gathered in the Keck 2 computer room at 0hUT today and watched our timeserver do leap second. The display notably remained at 23:59:59 for two seconds.
Generally only high precision time servers and GPS receivers will contain software to correctly implement the leap second. Most clocks do not correct for leap seconds, it is just not that important that this feature be implemented perfectly in most devices.
Network connected clocks will simply adjust the time on the next opportunity. Connected clocks routinely synchronize with an online time standard. Your computer requests the correct time via NTP protocol from an internet time server once each day, this is the usual default configuration for a net connected computer unless you have changed it. Cell phones get their time from the network and may receive their extra second more quickly, maybe within a few moments of the leap.
The rest of the clocks in your life are usually more than a few seconds off in any case.
Last time this occurred in 2012 there were some troubling software crashes around the world. Airline departures were delayed and some major websites went down. There is some concern that similar occurrences may occur this time. As a result some experts have argued to do away with leap seconds and just let the error accumulate. The argument rages and we may see leap-seconds abolished, in the meantime this one will occur.
Now that you know about it, enjoy your extra second today. Remember to watch that clock at zero hours universal time and see what happens.
The fruit are just starting and I was only able to find enough for one dehydrator load. Over the next week there will be more fruit reaching that perfect ripeness. The fruit do not last long, there is only a few days for any given fruit before it spoils. Fortunately not all the fruit ripen at once, each visit to the tree finding a few more ready.
With this sort of bounty the fruit must be used quickly. I will give some away, taking them into work. Much of the harvest will go into the dehydrator, saved for later with a little processing.
Actually we get a couple mango seasons in our back yard. The trees I have are a different variety than the huge tree that overhangs our yard from the neighbor’s. It is just showing small starts right now, it will be later in the summer before those fruit are ready.
