Michael D. Young's "The Hunger" is a fantasy novel following Azil and his friends as they set out to change the world and help to bring on the coming of a new age.
In this world, everyone can do magic to a degree. Not only do they need to eat food for physical needs, but they also need to eat Sustenance for their magical needs. Those who cannot obtain Sustenance starve and become malformed, also losing the ability entirely to do magic, thus explaining the main title.
Different colors of Sustenance provide different types of magical boosts. Red provides sight-related magic, yellow is speed, and blue is strength. These can also be mixed to provide combination magic -- orange provides sight and speed, and so on. And then there are other Sustenances that provide special boost or effects.
There are also three Keeps, each specializing in one of the three magic types, and run by three families.
Watching over everyone is Rahim, the creator, or some kind of god character. In this day, the people have pretty much forsaken Rahim in their hearts, and have become full of pride where many are poor and unable to get Sustenance. This is why Azil and friends must change things up and do what must be done to clean house and bring on the good times.
I came across this book because my friend, Michael D. Young, reached out to me (among others) to critique the upcoming next two books in this series, not yet published. As part of this arrangement, I received this first book for free. Providing a review was not a requirement, but as is customary, he did ask me to provide one if I felt inspired to do so.
I was pleasantly surprised, as friends' books usually aren't as good as more professionally-established authors' books, but this one holds really well. I love all the imagery and the world building. The magic is believable, as are the creatures and the events as they unfold. I also love the use of color throughout the whole book.
I would rate this 8.0 out of 10.0. While the story is exciting all the way through, there are a couple of unanswered questions in the area of world building. The story concentrates entirely on the big players, so we don't get much in seeing how the little people live. I'm also struggling to see how everyone can do magic, but some are better than others. It just feels like something's missing in the setup. Also, I must admit that I like the upcoming sequels more -- even in their unedited state.
Regardless of these perceived weaknesses, the story gripped me. The twists and turns are fun. The characters are endearing and distinct. It becomes hard to predict what's going to happen next. The ending is satisfying and made me want to read more.
If you're looking for something new and different, give this book a try, and look for the sequels coming shortly.
It's time for me to get things in order. Time for some housekeeping.
Some of you may wonder where my promised Coronavirus Newsletters are, but never fear ... I've decided to move them to my Economy/Political blog. That seemed like a better home for the newsletters, so I can leave this blog exploring more of my fiction writing.
I realize you probably got excited ... "I finally get to hear from Mel after being so inactive for such a long time." So, don't worry about that. I promise an upcoming Review-a-thon over the next 2-3 months. Each week, I'll review a book, movie, or other, until I finally catch up with my back log.
This will all start next week, as I got a lot of housekeeping items to get out of the way first.
In today's newsletter: Introductions / Personal Update / Excess Death Tool / Conspiracy Entrenchers / Trump Update / Hotspots
Introductions
As of today, I'm moving my weekly coronavirus updates to here -- my writing blog, because I got tired of the Facebook interface and its boring lack of pictures, etc. But don't worry, Facebook followers ... I will still post a link on my wall to keep you informed.
For those of you following this blog -- you can see prior coronavirus newsletters with this Facebook search string I've put together.
Why do I do this? Because I'm concerned. I don't think the general public is sufficiently informed on all matters coronavirus, and I believe that if we all fully understood what was going on, we'd all know how to work together to fight this virus and end it for good.
I'm an actuary (associate), a modeler, a mathematician, a programmer, a logistician, a process improver, and a staunch follower of science. Part of my learning included how to handle medical related data, so even though I'm not an epidemiologist, I feel that I can offer a unique perspective on this outbreak, and explain things in a way that you may understand.
Personal Update
In earlier newsletters, I've mentioned that over the past month and a half I've been experiencing COVID-19 related symptoms off and on -- except no fever, and no loss of taste (though there is sometimes a funny taste). I got tested back in June and received a NEGATIVE result. And I got tested again last week at my doctor's request. After five days, I got back another NEGATIVE result. Both of these tests appear to be the same "emergency" or "quick" test and not the official FDA-approved test, though I'm not sure what the difference is.
I'm still frustrated because I don't know my current situation. I highly suspect I caught the virus in late May or early June, waited too long to get tested and had already fought the virus, and now may be fighting the remains ... randomly stored RNA fragments able to re-trigger symptoms.
Or it could a simple bronchitis infection. Either way, I'm having difficulty getting in to see a doctor, and I'm giving up because it's just not that bad. It's not worth the headache, and I'll revisit if I ever get a fever. Though, I do plan on getting an antibody test shortly.
I'm not happy about having to wait five days for the results this last time, and I hear some people are waiting for weeks for results. This tells me that we've reached our capacity of testing again, and as "actual" cases continue to rise, we won't see them in the official counts, because we can't keep up. And how can we effectively fight what we can't measure?
Excess Death Tool
I'm often asked: why do people care so much about COVID-19 deaths? Why don't people get upset with influenza deaths? Aren't these people dying from secondary conditions and not really from COVID-19? How can we trust the official numbers when hospitals are mis-categorizing unrelated deaths as COVID-19? Or how can we trust hospital counts when they have incentives to pad COVID-19 hospitalization/death counts?
For me, excess death statistics provide the answer to all these questions. Excess deaths = "Total actual deaths from all causes" minus "Total expected average deaths from all causes." What's nice about this metric is that it is very difficult to manipulate. It doesn't matter if a death is categorized as COVID-19 or as a heart-attack, because all deaths are the same. Then you can look at the big picture and ask "did a significant event occur at this time?"
In the graph at the top of this post, I've grabbed a screen shot from the CDC's US excess death tool for the City of New York. The blue bars show weekly total number of deaths from all causes for NYC for 2017 through today. The orange curve is an expected death threshold -- if the blue bars cross the orange line, deaths are noticeably higher than usual and an event is said to have occurred. These are marked with red plus signs above each breach of the threshold.
Note one breach happens the first month of 2018. This was a noticeably bad flu season for NYC -- and possibly some extra deaths due to a blizzard. It looks like a small bump, but it was enough to stress the hospital system.
And then look at 2020. Starting at the end of March, there is a very large breach -- a ridiculously high number of deaths not seen in NYC in decades. Not even the WTC attacks in 2001 had this many excess deaths. And the Swine Flu of 2009 showed practically no excess at all in NYC. (You can see 2001 and 2009 in the graph from this NY Times article.)
So, what can we say about the current COVID-19 pandemic? Is it "real"? Should we be concerned with so many deaths happening at the same time? Would it be good to continue trying to avoid further deaths?
I'll try to embed the tool here, but I'm not sure how successful it'll be on your device. Should it fail, just click on the picture at the very top of this post and it'll take you to the CDC Excess Death page. With this tool, you can select any state and a couple of selected cities, and see what kind of excess deaths have been happening. My home state of Georgia has a pretty sizable excess. My current state of North Carolina -- not so much. Utah -- hardly much at all except for the last couple of weeks. Arizona and Texas -- they were doing well except for the last month or two.
Conspiracy Entrenchers
Yet still, the conspiracies continue even today. I wrote about this a couple of days ago. Usually, I think these conspiracies are cute and easy to ignore, but unfortunately, this time it's leading many people to behave contrary to what needs to happen to eradicate the virus. This time believing the conspiracies is dangerous not only to the believers, but also everyone else ... not just the deaths, but also the destruction of jobs and the weakening of our economy.
More and more, I've witnessed many people, including friends, entrenching themselves in these dangerous beliefs. And over this past week or so, I've noticed an uptick of sincere pleas from these entrenchers, expressing a desire to be able to express their increasingly unpopular beliefs, to exercise their First Amendment rights, and to be respected instead of ridiculed. "Who is to say your science is better than my science?"
After a quick experiment, I was able to determine that these entrenchers' plea for respect seems to go only one way. They want respect for their ideas while maintaining the right to ridicule other people and their seemingly errant thoughts ... absolutely no attempt at all to try and understand opposing points of view.
And they all seem to agree on one thing: "I am never ever going to wear a mask." And so much anger. I'm sure you've seen videos of people attacking mask displays in the store and even other people wearing masks.
And I wonder ... how do people get like this? How can so many people turn against simple science and math, and simple strategies that have already helped several countries to nearly eradicate this virus?
I know a lot of it is Trump's fault and his lack of clear leadership ... sending mixed messages to the public, confusing even the knowledgable, and helping to create a perfect environment for conspiracy theories to thrive.
I also know that foreign actors are using our social media to feed us AI-generated posts scientifically engineered to maximize the division of our nation over this past decade. This is not just my own conspiracy theory, but rather a very well-documented development (of which I'll dedicate a post at a later time).
Also, ultra-conservative and ultra-liberal news sources have both contributed to this entrenchment, and I'm growing increasingly tired of watching all this intentional division.
We, the people, lose. I know a lot of these entrenchers personally, and they're all good people. I don't want to lose friends over this. As always, my goal is to get people to work together to fight this virus.
I've learned the hard way that shaming and pointing out logical errors is not the best way to convince these people to see the light ... rather, it seems to push them further into entrenchment.
When I'm diplomatic, my "contrary" friends and family react positively. They come to learn things from me, and I come to learn things from them (I've even included some of their ideas in these newsletters), and we all come out on the other end feeling more informed on the virus. I've watched several of these friends come to the point of: "Okay -- I'll put on a stupid mask, but I'm not going to like it."
But recently, I feel increasingly that we're running out of time and it's becoming more difficult to be diplomatic ... it feels so slow a process. Still, non-diplomatic solutions don't work -- so we must do our best not to shame others, and we should keep up the mutual respect, while not fearing to remind them to respect our ideas in return.
Trump Update
Which brings me to a very important message to my liberal friends. I know that Trump has been very disappointing in his leadership as per COVID-19. But back in April, he was really trying. After a couple of months of downplaying the epidemic, he helped to encourage lockdowns, and to help us through a most difficult time. But the liberal-leaning actors continued to ridicule Trump.
Right about the time Trump was ridiculed for suggesting using irradiation and injecting detergents to fight the virus, he stopped his daily briefings. He stopped talking to Fauci, and he went right back to downplaying the virus, and pushing for everything to open back up, which in hindsight was a disaster.
However, as of a couple of days ago, Trump has started his briefings again, and has told us we need to do the patriotic thing and put on our masks. Difficult times are coming again.
And please, please, please, please ... I beg of you ... we need to reinforce Trump when he's doing the right thing. We don't want Trump to revert to downplay mode, and if that happens, I'll guarantee you that his base will continue to refuse to wear masks, and deaths will continue to rise.
It's okay to pat Trump on the back and reinforce his good decisions ... then he'll see that he's finally doing a good job, and he'll continue ... and then perhaps his base will be convinced in time so that we can all finally get on the same page and fight this virus together.
If the Democrats can take the higher road, set aside politics, and work with Trump on this, I think we could have a chance at succeeding. If we instead wait four months for a hopeful changing of the guard, it could likely be too late to stop what's coming next.
Hotspots
And finally, to end ... I'd like to report that the New York Times has finally updated their hotspot map coloring scheme to now show the highest rates of new cases per capita, so now it's much easier to see where the bad spots are. And they appear to still be mainly in the South. Louisiana looks pretty bad now, and practically the whole coast of the Gulf. South Carolina is still pretty bad, and North Carolina has medium growth. California, Arizona, Idaho, Washington still look to have some strong hotspots going.
You can click the picture below to see the whole New York Times dashboard.
It's hard to believe that some people still believe in a flat Earth. There's even a Flat Earth Society where you can keep abreast of the newest developments.
It may sound crazy, but Flat Earthers provide several compelling arguments. According to Einstein, gravity is indistinguishable from acceleration. Imagine two different scenarios:
#1) Earth is a sphere large enough to have its own gravity. Someone standing on Earth's surface will feel a constant downward acceleration (what we call gravity). If you drop a ball, it will start falling slowly, but then quickly build up downward speed until it hits the ground.
#2) Earth is a flat surface, constantly accelerating upwards. If you're standing on this surface and drop a ball, it will first appear to hover over the ground, but then the upward accelerating ground beneath it will speed up and catch up to it.
In both situations, when you perform an experiment (dropping the ball), it looks exactly the same. So, how can you tell the difference? According to Einstein, you can't tell which is which just from the experiment itself.
So ... crap? Could Earth really be flat?
If you visit the FES site, you can get educated on how everything works ... they have an explanation for everything. From the picture above, you can see the flat Earth, with the North Pole in the center, and then the impenetrable ice shelves of the Antarctic at the border, helping to keep all the oceans' water from falling into the abyss below us.
Also note the sun floating above our world. This picture doesn't show it well, but the sun is like a lamp with a shade to help it shine down on different parts of the world depending on the time of day. The moon also orbits above our world ... in the current picture, its location would provide a full moon phase at night. As it moves to a different position in relation to the sun, you get all the other different phases.
They even have explanations as to why the sun sets ... it's an illusion due to the refraction of light as the lampshade starts turning away. Solar and lunar eclipses? There are complex explanations for those as well.
So how can we tell if Earth is really a sphere? Why should we believe the images that NASA provides to us? How do we know that they're not keeping us in the dark, and keeping us from the truth?
Hopefully I haven't convinced you that Flat Earth Theory (FET) is true, but I think it very important to demonstrate how much work people are putting into this, and how easy it is to justify it with the visage of science and math. In fact, I've tried myself to construct a flat-earth model that works consistently with our observations, just to see if it could be done. I still haven't quite managed it, though -- something always comes up to break it.
For example, if you look at the picture above, the "Southern Hemisphere" is stretched out much further than the inside "Northern Hemisphere." This would imply that planes flying in the Southern Hemisphere would take much longer to get to their destinations than planes in the Northern Hemisphere. This one issue by itself destroys FET and convinces me that our Earth is round.
But, one who is not so rehearsed on math, science, and correct principles, may easily be swayed by these intelligent-sounding arguments.
A famous rapper, BoB, tells us he's been in a plane high in the sky and didn't see any curvature, and he has recently tried to raise money to launch a satellite into space to prove it. Also, daredevil Mike Hughes started building rockets for the purpose of eventually launching himself into space high enough to see for himself if the world was flat. He ended up dying earlier this year in a failed rocket launch.
Enter the idea of "settled science," a term you've probably heard several times in the past few weeks. From a strict interpretation of the scientific method, it's nearly impossible to have "settled science," as science promotes the idea of skepticism. You start with what most people believe (a null hypothesis), you present a challenge -- an alternative theory (the alternative hypothesis), and then you perform tests to see which hypothesis wins.
Probably the most famous example of this is Newton's laws of motion and gravity, which made sense until Einstein came around to present his own laws, which did a much better job of explaining everything ... and it was revolutionary. Einstein's alternative theory won out. Newton's strongly held "settled science" theory was overthrown! (Sort of.)
Since we can't have 100% certainty on anything, we must settle for "settled science" to mean "we're 99.9% sure this is right." There's nothing wrong with challenging even the most stalwart theories, but in order to get things done, scientists and engineers need to accept what's close enough to reality for practical purposes. Thus, experts tend to hold to the stalwart theories and follow them until something better comes around.
Back to Flat Earth ... so what do you think? Is the Earth a sphere? Is it settled science? The number of people who believe FET is very small. Though, there are still some otherwise competent mathematicians and scientists trying to challenge the notion of Round Earth. We find it easy to laugh at these guys because it's just a very, very small following. We can all pat ourselves on the back because we know better.
Then, there's something called "Occam's Razor." It's the idea that if you have two competing theories to explain the same phenomenon, chances are, the most simplest explanation is the true one. When it comes to FET, I might be able to successfully create an isomorphism from Round Earth to Flat Earth Theory -- it would require a very complex set of equations and rules, such that it would be much easier to accept Round Earth Theory, as its equations are simpler, and it just "makes sense." This is the power of Occam's Razor.
In fact, everyone who does anything related to world travel uses Round Earth Theory. Planes tend to travel in Great Circles around the world, because that's proven to be the shortest distance (rather than a straight line). Satellites are placed in orbit around our planet using Round Earth Theory equations. Otherwise, our satellite TV wouldn't work, and neither would all of our GPS devices.
So, the Flat Earthers can believe what they want, but the people doing the navigating are all using Round Earth Theory -- without even giving it a second thought. Why should they care about competing FET ideas when Round Earth Theory works perfectly fine?
And finally, from the start of this post, you already know where I'm headed with all of this -- the recent pandemic.
When it comes down to it, pandemics are really simple math. The SIR Model explains the movement of a disease through a Susceptible population. As each person gets Infected, they will eventually Recover (or die), and eventually one of two scenarios play out: #1) the disease dies out, infecting only a portion of the population -- with some people reaching the Recover/Death stage, and the rest remaining indefinitely in the Susceptible stage. OR #2) the disease infects everyone until everyone reaches the Recover/Death stage.
This model along with other competing models rely on a set of underlying simple differential equations, and we have a long history of outbreaks to study, and fine tune our models.
The current coronavirus outbreak (SARS-CoV-2) is not unlike many of these other past outbreaks. In fact, some mathematicians have expressed wonder at how closely the spread of the disease matches popular epidemiology models. (Though, there are some local off-ages as this particular strain exhibits a "superspreader" nature -- where it seems to spread in chunks rather than in smooth patterns like the flu.)
From earlier, similar outbreaks, epidemiologists have determined what tactics and strategies work in combating viruses. In the case of respiratory diseases ... universal mask wearing works very well. We have not only seen this in earlier outbreaks, but we've even seen it already in the current SARS-CoV-2 outbreak. Countries that are used to outbreaks put on their masks with hardly a second thought, and have already effectively eradicated the virus -- except for onesies/twosies coming mainly from foreigners. And countries who later adopt mask wearing enjoy a sudden drop in cases after a couple of weeks of consistent habits.
In a sense, this is all pretty much settled science. Or at least, prior to 2020, there had already existed plenty of experience to support these ideas. And much of what I know on outbreaks I had learned prior to 2020. You can't really learn basic modeling of data without having some exposure to exponential, S-curve, and other distributions that describe outbreaks. In fact, one of my textbooks was on how to truncate data effectively, geared more toward medical applications.
I suppose a little bit of inconsistent mishandling of the pandemic by the WHO and a lack of direct experience in the US has led to our current situation where most people don't seem to know how to behave in such a way to effectively fight the virus and eradicate it (as many other countries have already successfully done). And perhaps it's the whole idea of "free thought" in the US that has given credence to competing theories.
Unlike FET, where a very small people believe the very few skeptics, we have a situation where a very large number of people believe the very few skeptics ... and most frustratingly, it has become yet another highly charged politicized topic -- which has unfortunately led to too many unnecessary deaths.
To me, the solutions are very simple ... we could have eradicated this thing months ago, and avoided a nationwide shutdown. But we were lazy and we let it get out of hand. In April, our lockdowns helped us to get a handle on things -- numbers were going down, but then we thought it was safe to reopen everything, and we didn't do so safely. So (as what exactly happened in 1918-1920), cases in the US have blown up to levels not seen anywhere else in the world.
Instead of taking simple measures to win, we're flooded by crazy conspiracy theories ... the Democrats are trying to nuke Trump's reelection chances ... Bill Gates is trying to sneak in microchips in the upcoming vaccine ... masks are activating COVID that's been around for at least a decade ... hospitals are lying about the deaths and attributing them all to COVID, and so on.
There really is no difference between FET and these pandemic conspiracy theories, and I'm not sure what I can do about it. I can only watch in disbelief, and hope for the best. How can someone really ignore what is going on outside of our borders?
Despite the fact that these conspiracy theories are enjoyed by a large chunk of people, the theories are still worthy of ridicule and scorn. Unfortunately, this is very difficult to pull off on social media, because your friends are likely to take it personally. I always try to attack the ideas and not the people, but peeps today are very fragile. My goal is to help people understand so they can behave in such a way to help fight the virus ... together. But that's not how they take it.
Most people are being manipulated by forces intent on dividing our nation and to increase the spread of the virus -- encouraging "not settled science" as their battlecry, and "1st Amendment" / "freedoms" (without realizing that wearing masks is a means to enjoy more freedoms), and "you can't stop this virus -- no one can" (even though so many countries have demonstrably done so), and so much quoting of bad science studies.
I wish you all well, and be smart! Listen to the experts because they've been doing this for years. Ignorance can only kill, and intelligence is the only way to win. My hope is that if you can see the silliness of FET and understand how some people come to believe in it, then you may also be able to see the exact same things in COVID conspiracy theories today.
"Serafina and the Twisted Staff" is book #2 of the Serafina series. In the first book, we learn about Serafina and her cat-like powers, and how she confronted a mysterious man with a mysterious cloak. She does this while secretly living in the basement of the Biltmore House in Asheville, NC.
In this, the second book, the story continues, building on the first. This time, the Biltmore household already know Serafina and have welcomed her into their home. With all the world building mostly out of the way, the author, Robert Beatty, delivers a story even better than the first.
Serafina and her new friend, Braeden Vanderbilt, go on an adventure to discover the source of evil occurrences. Any of the recent visitors are suspect. Can Serafina figure out what's going on in time to save the Vanderbilts and their staff?
Along the way, the unseen enemy successfully turns the household against Serafina, making it much more difficult for her to accomplish her tasks.
Again, the writing is top notch. The plot is enjoyable. We also get to see more parts of the Biltmore House as the story progresses. And we also learn more about what really happened in parts of the first book. Be warned, though ... anyone can die.
As before, I'm surprised that this book series isn't as well known as it is now. Perhaps I'm biased because I've been to the House at least five different times, and I'm a NC resident? Yet, I think the books work well even without having to know what the House looks like. Beatty does a good job describing everything.
The series is now up to four books, already going past the original trilogy idea, and I suspect any month now it will become much more known, as "Harry Potter" didn't take off exponentially until after the fourth book came out.
Two books in, I still love this series, and you should check it out, too.
You ready to have some fun? If you love color and rainbows, and don't mind a little experimenting, get ready to learn stuffs.
Let's start with a quick quiz. Get out a piece of paper, or open up a notepad app, and write down the color you see in this pretty flower. Blue? Purple? Some other color?
Okay, and again, look at the swatch of color below, and answer the same question. What color do you see?
We'll come back to the answers you've written after you watch this quick Minute Physics video, which claims that purple is not in the rainbow and that Newton's "violet" was really a dark blue.
Don't worry -- it's only a couple minutes long, and it'll be fun tearing it apart afterward.
After having watched the video, what do you think? Is Henry right ... is there no purple in the rainbow? Can I, a non-physicist, even hope to prove this guy wrong? Especially when so many reputable science websites have been referring to and using this video? Check out this article from the Smithsonian.
The nice thing about science is that anyone, anywhere, can test any scientific claim, provided they have enough tools to do the job. So, over the past month, I've been testing, interviewing, researching, and compiling, and now you can see all the gory results.
First off, let's talk about where Henry Reich (the Minute Physics guy) is right. By definition, violet is indeed the color at the end of the spectrum as we see it. It is monochromatic, meaning that its color consists of just one wavelength of color.
Also by definition, purple is indeed the combination of two colors: red and blue. In other words, it's bichromatic, having two wavelengths of color mixed together. So far it's not looking good for me -- Henry is winning.
And what about this picture I took of a rainbow that clearly shows purple on the bottom? Is this a win for me?
Alas, if you zoom in to the purple region and look carefully, you'll see the supernumerary rainbows Henry describes in the bottom right-hand corner, starting in the middle of the purple band. Are the additional reds at the bottom mixing with blue to make purple?
Dang! Looks like another point for Henry. Should I just give up now?
Not so fast, Dr. Eggman!
Henry is wrong on one very important detail. Violet is not a dark blue as he describes, and I can prove it.
To clarify what I mean, let's define "blueish" as describing a color that appears to our brains to contain only blue and no red; and "purplish" describes a color that appears to consist of both blue and red.
For example, check out this screen cap from Henry's video. Looking at the end of this rainbow, I see no purplish hues. There isn't even a hint of red in that violet end. Do you see any purple?
But I'm not done yet ... wait for it. When it comes to flowers, have you ever seen a blue violet? Or ever wondered why the poem says "violets are blue"? (The truth is they couldn't find a good rhyme for "purple.")
I will explain later two phenomenon as to why the picture above is missing the purplish hue at the end. Then you'll see how it's a terrible representation of the full spectrum as our brains see it.
Try this really fast ... do an image search on "real prism rainbow," and you will see about half with a blueish hue at the end, and half with a purplish hue.
Here's one pic I found that sports a purplish hue:
What's going on here? Why the contradicting pictures?
The best way to understand is to conduct your own experiments. The first thing I did when I heard the terrible news about poor purple was to find a prism-generated rainbow and check it out, myself.
I found one at work projected on a white table. I invited three victims to come and look at it with me, and asked, "What color do you see at the end of this spectrum?" They all answered: purple. (I took this picture with my iPhone 8.)
What color do you see at the end?
I also found a prism-generated rainbow at home. Check this out. I'll even zoom in for you in the image on the right. Also taken by my iPhone 8.
What color do you see at the end? Would you call it dark blue, or some kind of purple?
Note that any purplish hue you may see here is not coming from any supernumerary rainbows, which only exist in rainbows produced by thousands of rain droplets. The science here is different. Most spectrums created by prisms are "pure" ... you only get one iteration of the spectrum, and no overlaps.
Remember those colors I had you write down at the very beginning? Check your answers. The first picture is a violet I've owned over the past few years. It has always looked purplish to me. And the swatch of color comes from my prism picture just above -- again, it looks purplish to my eyes, not blueish. There's definitely more blue than red, but there does appear to be some red included.
In fact most people describe spectral violet as a mixture of 1 part red and 2 parts blue -- kind of like mixing blue and purple together.
Let me hit you with four color swatches and let you compare them all. The first is magenta -- 2 parts red and 2 parts blue -- definitely not in the rainbow. The second is a generated violet -- 1 part red and 2 parts blue -- which many seem to think appears in the rainbow. The third is the violet color grab (from the very top) -- it was in my rainbow, and the fourth is the blue demonstrated by Henry at around 1:26 (which never looks purple to me in his video -- BTW).
Which one of these looks blue to you (containing no red at all)? If you answered, "Only the last one," then perhaps Henry is wrong? And so are all the other reputable science sites that cited him?
Then again, I can understand the confusion -- red and blue are on opposite sides of the rainbow and every other color seems to make sense. Yellow falls between red and green. Orange is between red and yellow. Cyan falls between blue and green, and green between yellow and blue. But how does red wrap around all the way to the other end of the spectrum to make purple/violet?
Let's dive into this.
Most of us have three types of cones at the back of our eyes. One is mostly sensitive to red light, one to green, and one to blue. Wikipedia and several reputable websites show graphs similar to this to show each cone's sensitivity to light.
TV's and computer monitors take advantage of our cones. They're made of only three colors: red, green, and blue -- matching each of our three cones. And most all the colors we see can be emulated by different combinations of brightnesses. Here is one of many websites that explains this phenomenon. And here's a close-up of a typical monitor:
Consider pure yellow light, which activates both our red and green cones. A computer screen cannot shine yellow light, but it can shine red and green at the same time to emulate yellow. And our eyes can't tell the difference!
To experience this cool phenomenon, you can play around with this cute tool I found: an RGB Slider. If you go to the link, you can slide R(ed), G(reen), and B(lue) sliders to try to get any of 16 million colors.
Try these combinations:
Red = All R, No G, No B.
Yellow = All R, All G, No B.
Orange = All R, Half G, No B.
Cyan = No R, All G, All B.
Magenta = All R, No G, All B.
Purple = Half R, No G, Half B.
Violet = Half R, No G, All B.
White = All R, All G, All B.
Black = No R, No G, No B.
See what other colors you can produce. It all comes from just three colors with different levels of brightness. And it only works for human eyes. Animals looking at our screens would see something completely different and strange.
If it wasn't clear before, it should be clear now ... you can't have purplish hues without a hint of red. I challenge you ... dial Red down to zero, and then shifting only the Green and Blue sliders, can you get a purplish hue to appear?
Then, how in the world can we see purplish hues in the violet range (400-450nm)? I've come across a few theories among the Internets.
One theory is that the absence of green triggers our brains to see purplish hues. Maybe this is the case, but it doesn't satisfy me. When I hit the RGB slider with R=0, B=127, G=255, and then slowly lower green, I don't think I ever see purple as green disappears.
Another theory is that there's actually a second peak in the red cone sensitivity. This website shows the following picture (the extra gray line shows sensitivity of our rods for night vision). Note the small bump in the red sensitivity in the 380-430nm range -- which would explain how we see purplish hues. I like this theory, but unfortunately I can't find any credible sources to support this idea. And if it were true, why don't all websites show this bump?
Another theory is a combination of the two above, where if you look at the sensitivities in absolute values and not normalized to 100%, it could be that the red cones drop off in sensitivity slower than green -- so that when green drops out, there's enough residual red to give us purplish hues. Kind of like this ...
Whatever the cause, most humans seem to report purplish hues in the violet range, as evident in the CIE 1931 color matching scheme. This website goes to great lengths to describe all the experimentation with lights and all the formulae that went into being able to imitate practically all colors from just three lights: red, blue, green.
The CIE 1931 scheme plots most colors like so:
The pure spectrum exists along the upper outer edge, starting from the 770nm mark in the bottom right-hand red corner going along the green top around the 520nm mark, and then down the left side to the 380nm mark in the lower left-hand corner described as "Purplish Blue." The diagonal line along the bottom is not part of the spectrum. According to this scheme, "purple" is not in the rainbow, but "blueish purple" is. In other words, violet is a purplish hue, and not dark blue.
And check out from that CIE 1931 website, the standard RGB sensitivities used to emulate the spectrum ...
See that red bump in the 400-500nm range? I've scoured the webs, and I see that different versions of this chart are universally accepted anywhere it talks about CIE 1391 color matching. And all charts show two red bumps -- one big and one small.
Here's a nifty tool. It's a spectrum emulator, where you can shift the slider and see the resulting RGB makeup. Note how it shows purplish hues in the violet range (380-430). You can even see the "R" number rising in that range. Play around with the tool and have some fun with it.
If you made it this far, either you really like learning stuffs, or you still need more convincing. Why is it that Henry's picture of the spectrum up top shows deep blue and no purple at all? I believe this is due to two phenomenon.
#1) Our eyes have a hard time seeing violet. Once you get below 450nm, it becomes harder for our eyes to see it. In fact, in my many experimentations, there were plenty of times when I saw only the blue and no purplish hues. But if the light source is bright enough, violet becomes easier to see. It also appears to me not only to be purplish, but also "glowy" or "radioactive." That is, it seems to shimmer more than the other colors. In your experimentations, if you don't see "purple," you might want to try a stronger light source.
And #2) It turns out that some cameras have a hard time resolving violet as "purplish", but rather renders them as a dark blue color. Evidently the Panasonic FZ200 has this issue. If you're interested to learn more, here's a very informative video explaining these shortcomings in some cameras.
If such deficient cameras were to take pictures of spectra, they would only see blue at the end. I would further venture to postulate that if a human doesn't have a secondary peak in their red cones, they may likewise see just dark blue in the violet range. I found nothing supporting this, but could explain why some people claim not to see purplish hues in the violet range. To them, violet would look blue to them in real life and purple on a computer screen. Evidently, my iPhone 8 has no problem resolving violet as a purplish hue.
If you're still not convinced, you can check out these videos featuring "purple" lasers that shine a monochromatic 405nm -- well into the violet range. In each video, the lasers appear to be purple. You only need to watch a few seconds of each to get the idea. Keep in mind that lasers only emit one wavelength of light -- and not a mixture of red and blue.
And finally, let's come full circle by returning to rainbows. If I'm right, then shouldn't we be able to see the pure "purplish" violet in a rainbow? Turns out we can ... if the light source is bright enough and conditions are right. In fact, here's a screen shot from Henry's video, where it demonstrates a simulation of supernumerary rainbows based on raindrop sizes. At the very beginning of the clip, there are no supernumerary rainbows, and then as the drops get smaller, they appear and become more numerous.
I've found the actual website here if you want to play around with drop size. From that same website, this page shows the pure colors that combine to create the supernumerary images, and note that it depicts violet (400nm) as a purplish hue -- not dark blue.
And take a closer look at what color is depicted in this near-none-supernumerary rainbow simulation.
Doesn't that look purplish to you?
Now it's your turn. Do your own experiments. Find prism-generated rainbows (can't rely on rain-generated rainbows because of the supernumeraries) -- if you're observant enough, they're not too hard to find. And report back ... what color do you see at the end of your rainbows?
Update: 5-11-2022
As if we need further evidence, we now have "purple" lights that are peppering our nighttime cityscape. These were originally white LED street lights, but because of some defect, they have turned partially purple. You may see these if you live in North Carolina, Iowa, Florida, Arkansas, Texas, or Kentucky.
At first, I thought that the lights were losing the green, leaving red and blue to make purple. But then I wondered why my glasses weren't separating out the red, as I see with purple Halloween lights.
I decided to do a spectral analysis with my handy-dandy diffraction grating, and sure enough -- there is a big bump in the blue section, and no bump in the red. The violet light was too dim for me to make out, but the blue bump extended as far out as I could see. Either way it was clear -- this was NOT red+blue = purple.
So -- wow! These lights are really blue and violet. As you can see, my camera is picking up both blue and violet (depending, I think, on the angle).
Additionally, you may wonder why some of these lights look more "purple" than others. It turns out that it's not one LED light, but rather an array of many. The particular light pictured above had probably around 20 individual LEDs, a few of which were still shining white. So, one can watch a particular street light slowly transition from white to full "purple" as the LEDs go bad, one by one.
Enjoy these violet lights as long as you can, as they're slowly being replaced, and then we'll only have red+blue = purple lights left during Halloween and Christmas.
Last year I was all gusto about setting annual goals. I posted in all of my blogs: This is what I'm going to do this year. In some cases, I killed my goals, and in other cases, they killed me. It's all fun to get all excited and make plans, but then -- as my friend helped to point out -- they can be a source of major depression. It's very possible to get a lot done and then look back at what you wrote 12 years ago at a massive list of things you didn't get done. The result: depression and a sense of non-accomplishment.
I'm reminded that the Stephen Covey books on 7 Habits talks about ongoing (long term) goals and weekly/daily (short term) goals, but not "yearly" goals. In fact I now remember Covey talking about how the year is too long an interval for effective planning, and too short an interval to accomplish the tasks. I remember saying, "I'll keep my annual planning, thank you," but now I wish I had listened. I don't think I've ever accomplished ALL of my annual goals, and I've let it convince me that I'm a loser.
I'm sure many of you have seen this often at work. Bob works hard and got a lot accomplished last year, but when the time for annual reviews comes around there are two tasks written down that Bob just didn't get to. Even though Bob was an excellent employee, he gets a smaller raise than he deserves. If you ask me, it's all an excuse for businesses to not hand out more money than they have to.
So, no more annual goals for me -- and I will also be doing away with the bimonthly updates. I have long term goals, and they're not really changing year-to-year.
However, I do think a look back on the prior year is healthy. As for blogging, 2019 was the lightest year yet for me -- and this is true in all my blogs. Most of my free time went to composing during the first half of the year and into my publishing company, Melkim Publishing, during the last half.
I finished composing and submitted six hymns and four primary (children) songs to my Church for consideration in their upcoming new hymnal. As part of this, I made a few friends, including Michael Young, a singer and prolific lyricist who collaborated with me, and future items may be in the works.
I also continued my friendship with Daniel Carter, the composer of one of my favorite Christmas songs, Shine for Me Again Star of Bethlehem. We've been working on some semi-large projects, and we have lots of good ideas floating around -- helping each other out. I also started publishing a new composer, Paul E. Anderson, nephew of the Paul Anderson who penned several hymns in our current hymnal.
I also did get in some blog writing, and as usual I have plans for some more fun posts. I did write and enter a story into the biannual Actuarial Speculative Fiction Contest, but I never heard back from them -- now under new management. I take it I didn't win. Either that or the Contest fell apart. Not sure ... don't care ... I won't waste any more time with them. I did enjoy writing the story, though: "The Immortal Actuary."
I hope you had a great year in 2019, and I hope you have a great year in 2020. Keep pushing forward.
A Clash of Kings, the second book of George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire, a series also affectionately known as "Game of Thrones," picks up where the first book leaves off. Throughout some 700-800 pages, it introduces new characters, kills off many, and forwards the story.
By the end of the first book, the Stark family had been spread out among different parts of the land, and similarly, the second book primarily follows what happens to each of them. Of course, this opens the door wide for plenty of side stories along the way. Plus we learn more about the almost entirely separate story of Daenerys Targaryen, stuck in the eastern continent of Essos -- you know - that land mass that doesn't get a map in the first two books? Though separate, we learn more about how she is tied in with what's happening in Westeros, where most of everything else happens.
I had earlier complained that the first book was about 5% fantasy and 95% politics and war -- so much so that one might doubt if it could be considered "fantasy," but A Clash of Kings increases the fantasy elements to roughly 20%. Now there are dragons, magic witches, more info on the White Walkers or whatever you call those zombie creatures, and so on. Still nowhere the amount of fantasy in a Robert Jordan book, but getting there.
And as you may suspect, that other 80% that is politics and war continues to engage. It becomes so addictive!
Yet, reading the actual words is still a chore. Martin loves to take pages to describe the simplest of things, which provides a rich and immersive environment, but sometimes I just wanted the story to move on. One of my favorite examples of this was when Theon Greyjoy meets this girl at the beach, convinces her to come home with him, and tries to seduce her along the way. This goes on for about 20 pages. It was worth the payout, but man ... that author can just go on and on.
Around page 400, the run-on sentences seemed to become more frequent, slowing me down even more. It took a while, but eventually I finished reading the book to its end, bringing various endings to each individual Stark story, and making me want to read more ... once I get up enough energy to continue, that is.
I have yet to see the TV show, but I'm still enjoying reading these books. If you have a lot of time on your hands, give it a try.
I know, I know. There haven't been many posts by me here recently. I've been very busy--doing other things. Business is really picking up with Melkim Publishing, requiring more time, but in the long run it will be worth it. There are so many "good" things in life that I can do, and there's just not enough time to do it all.
And yes ... I still have all these stories that want to be told, and it's so easy to come up with even other newer ideas. As my teachers in school told me often -- I definitely have ideas.
As long as I'm pushing forward and making progress, I'm doing something right. So, I'm not going to beat myself up, and just let it all happen. Right now, writing fiction is just less of a priority, but I'm going to come back to it sometime soon, lest I go insane!
Have you ever read a book and realized it was the worst you've read in over a decade? How about two decades? I only finished One Second After because I wanted to give an honest review. Or was it because I hoped it would finally redeem itself? Or was it the train wreck syndrome?
In a nutshell, the writing was boring, the plot was convoluted and predictable, the science was iffy, and the behavior of civilization was entirely unbelievable. After I deliver one more paragraph of a brief intro, I will be dropping spoilers throughout the rest of the review, so if you plan on reading this book, you may want to stop now and run for the hills.
John Matherson is a resident of Black Mountain, NC. While talking to his military friend on the phone, and right after said friend says, "Wait. Something big is happening," the power goes out -- everything stops working, including things not plugged in, such as most cars, phones, and other handheld devices. The entire US had become the victim of an ElectroMagnetic Pulse (EMP). John must work with others to help the residents of Black Mountain survive without electricity.
This actually sounds exciting, and I must admit that I was grabbed at first. This book was recommended by people at work, and I love a post-apocalyptic scenario. I also enjoyed the book's coverage of the Black Mountain and Asheville area -- an area I've visited a few times.
Okay ... got the "good" things out of the way. So, what didn't work?
I already mentioned the boring writing. It was flat and relied mostly on dialogue. Yeah, most of the book read like meeting notes as people stood around arguing about what to do next. Even when the book attempted to build to a big battle of baddies coming into town, it ... (I can't believe I'm writing this about a professionally produced book) ... it skipped the whole battle and went right back to people standing around talking about what had just happened. Noooooo!
The science is based loosely on fact. If one were to explode a sufficiently strong nuclear weapon above our atmosphere, the resulting radiation burst would interact with our atmosphere and magnetic field to create a large EMP current, which can damage equipment (anything in the line of sight from the explosion). This happens through something called the Compton Effect.
Though the Compton Effect is real, William Forstchen, the book's author, overestimates the damage that can be caused. You can check out the wiki on nuclear electromagnetic pulse for more detail.
Summarized here:
Small electronic devices (like phones) are likely to survive because there is probably not enough circuitry to resonate with the pulse. This would also be true of pacemakers, most cars, watches, and so on. (Though, the phones would have no service.)
Planes flying at high altitudes would probably survive, as the main effects of an EMP is at the lower altitudes.
Things that are not plugged in at the time are believed to be more likely to survive an attack.
A couple of tests were conducted in 1962. One over Hawaii, which burned out some street lights (but not all), and set off burglar alarms; and one over Russia, which probably caused more damage.
The higher the weapon is detonated, the weaker the effects are due to the inverse power law. But higher explosions can reach further (line of sight).
The stronger the weapon, the stronger the effects.
Could terrorists pull off such an attack? As per One Second After, the enemies attack with the intention of killing off all the inhabitants while preserving the land and infrastructure. But there are problems with carrying out such an attack. The bomb has to get to an ideal altitude, which is difficult and expensive. It also has to be strong enough do a lot of damage, also difficult and expensive.
In fact, it would be so expensive that many experts believe that it would be much easier for terrorists to just nuke the people outright.
Also, should someone launch such a weapon, its signature would be picked up, and we would know where it came from. The retaliation would quickly destroy the parties that launched it.
In other words, there just wouldn't be enough incentive for anyone to pull off such an attack.
Would the US civilization fall apart as rapidly as it did in One Second After? I doubt it. We humans are pretty resilient and can remain good-natured even in the most dire situations. When we're all in the same boat, we tend to come together and work things out. Look at when New York City had an extended blackout a few years ago. On the most part, the people evacuated the city in an orderly manner, shooting the breeze with perfect strangers while crossing the bridges leading out of the city.
Early on in the book, we read that a Black Mountain old folk's home is utterly abandoned. Seriously? People are going to be that selfish and not go out to check on the elderly and sick? Look at hurricanes that recently devastated parts of the southeast, and look at how many volunteers stepped up to help with the cleanup. Something that not even one person thought of in Black Mountain?
I get the part about how sick people (who need electricity to survive) would die quickly. Not much could be done about that. I get that there would be challenges, such as how to keep everything sanitary, but there exist people who know how to handle those types of situations. We'd figure things out.
Not only that, I think we'd get our power generators back up and running much faster than how it does in the book. Our lives would be wrecked big time, but we'd quickly rebuild. It's not like we smart people would lose the knowledge we had before the blast.
And get this ... near the end of the book, John learns that due to his awesome leadership and know-how, his little town of Black Mountain is the only city within thousands of miles to have any kind of survival success. John is just that smart while everyone else in the world is selfish, or idiotic, or just simply unknowledgeable. And believe it or not, this wasn't the most arrogant thing I read in the book.
In real life, Forstchen really is trying to prepare us and encourage us to EMP-proof all of our electronics. I don't think this is too difficult to do to any one piece of hardware, but overall it could be expensive across the US, and in many cases unnecessary. Forstchen has many dealings with Congress, trying to get them to pass legislature. He wrote this book as an example of what WILL happen if we ignore him. Yes, I really mean "WILL" and not "COULD." If you read his book, you'll see what I mean.
Since Forstchen is the author, you'd never guess, but everything proceeds EXACTLY as Forstchen predicts events would proceed in real life. Thus, at the very end when John's daughter dies from diabetes when they run out of insulin, we're supposed to be flowing tears and saying, "Screw us all for not listening to Forstchen. Our ignorance killed this daughter! Wait -- we're not really dead yet. We still have time. We can still fix this."
But instead, I ended up thinking: "Screw you, Forstchen, for creating such a convoluted story that ended up killing this perfectly good daughter, whom I never really got to know throughout the book, since the writing was so bad."
Here are some actual quotes from the book where Forstchen has his self-fulfilling told-you-so moments:
"The crime, the real crime, was those who truly knew the level of threat doing nothing to prepare or prevent it. Bitterly he wondered if they were suffering as the rest of the nation now suffered or were they safely hidden away, the special bunkers for Congress, the administration, where food, water, and medicine for years were waiting for them ... and their families?"
"Remember Jonestown. ... nearly a thousand of them committed suicide on account of some d*** nutcase who told them to drink Kool-Aid laced with poison because God had ordered them to. Look, you get people scared, then you knock out every prop that we've taken for granted. ... [there] will still be hundreds of thousands of barbarians on the march and the rest of us running, scared ... D*** our enemies who did this to us, they knew us well... They knew human nature too well, and just how fragile civilization is, and how tough it is to defend it. Something we forgot."
The sad part is that if you go read reviews on this book, you're going to see a whole slew of 5-star reviews. What this book does well is to give a semblance of teaching something "no one else knows," but needs to know. Readers talk about how this book completely changed the way they look at life, and I'm like ... really? Is it really that simple to believe what one man writes and not do any quick independent research on the web? And not to mention ... is no one else phased by the terrible prose and contrived plot and the terrible way that civilization reacts to the attack? And if I write my own book where people just stand around talking to each other, it'd sell well?
Perhaps I should just give up now. Go read this best-selling book.
