The sky is overcast, temps are warmer, and I am hoping for snow to ski in next weekend. It's warm enough for ice to be slippery (mid 20s F), so the girls and I tread carefully. At temperatures near melting, ice forms a "liquid-like layer" on the surface because of the dangling bonds at the edges of the lattice. This is why you can ski and ice-skate. This is also why you can slip, fall, and whump your arse, as has apparently become a regular occurrence for me. I've learned that falling is a skill. If you feel yourself starting to fall, the goal is to fall safely, not risk worse injury by trying not to fall. There is nothing inherently injurious about falling. You can only hurt yourself if you fall the wrong way.
My not-so-stressful midterm is tonight. This prof is the epitome of reasonableness. He will not give trick questions. For him, the goal is not to point us on the path to a Nobel Prize. It is to get us to learn the fundamentals of his course and arm ourselves with the tools to learn any part of his course in more detail at a later time. Wow, there is a novel teaching style!
5 comments:
Hey! You're an ice-engineer-scientist-type person. Do you know why doesn't ice form around the rear-view mirror attachment place?
Luck on the midterms!
I'd never noticed... are you talking about overnight, when the rest of the frost forms? Maybe it's because plastic has a higher thermal capacity than glass, so the region of the glass in contact with the plastic cools slower. As the air is warmer in that region, it can hold its moisture for longer and not expel it as frost. Just a guess.
Now I have a question for you... why don't you use a photo of a moose in your avatar instead of a caribou? Aren't you a man who studies moose? Are caribou also considered large ungulates with palmate antlers? Do you also study them?
Wild guesses are fine. So long as they're educated wild guesses - I guess that means I like to be dazzled by large words and handwaving. ;) So if the windshield had a greater thermal capacity overall, it wouldn't be as likely to frost on nights where the temp doesn't dip too much?
I personally currently work with Caribou, Sitka Black Tail Deer, Wolves, and Polar Bears. In the past, I've worked on Moose, Dall Sheep and Muskox. The PI is primarily a moose biologist, and that's what he made his name doing, but we turn our razor focus on lots of issuse. Our lab's experise is primarily in ungulates, however; the wolf stuff is done in conjunction with ADF&G, and the P-Bear stuff is currently pilot work.
The moose thing in my profile is a joke - I once said I was a moose, when I meant to say study moose , to which people said `I knew it!` But see, obviously, I'm not a moose. My antlers are all wrong.
Also, I have a fondness for Caribou, both gastrointestinal and one of respect.
Also, it's a neat picture./shallow
Caribou are ungulates, though not terribly large. But their antlers aren't considered palmate, except by some people using the definition fast and loose. Lemme throw up a picture to show what I mean in my blog...
When I was learning to ski, my instructor was extremely impressed by my ability to fall the right way (And hoooooo boy! did I ever fall lots when I was learning to ski!). To this day, when I feel my weight shift outside of my center of gravity, I bend my knees, tuck them to the side and have a seat on my very well padded hip/tush. No more FOOSH-ing for me! (falling on an out-stretched hand...don't laugh, I actually taught my students this acronym to help them remember the mechanism for all sorts of injuries!)
"ungulate" just sounds like a Dr. Seuss word to me. Thanks for the cool fallow deer photo. I honestly could not think of another animal with palmate antlers besides a moose...
Enforcer, no joke! I am an expert at doing fantastically clumsy things... in a very safe way. Comes from years of finely-tuned experience. :)
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