No Traction

Even deer slip on the ice. Here is the evidence of one of them trying to cross the frozen-over creek. I wish I could have watched its unstable display of ballet.

Wrenched Orion—Part 1

I wrote recently about how the stars appear to be points of light scattered on a distant sphere above us. Our eye perceives this phenomenon as if the stars are all the same (great) distance from us, when, in fact, their distance varies. As a result, the constellations appear to us to be two-dimensional planar figures, when they are really three-dimensional objects.

The two-dimensional shape we perceive is a result of viewing a constellation from only one point in space: Earth. If we could move to another point in space, the constellation would appear very different.

Let's consider a simple example. Suppose we had an imaginary constellation of eight stars arranged in a way that they formed the corners of a perfect cube. Here's how a three-dimensional cube is represented:

From a particular point in space eight stars might look like this:

If we used our imaginations (as the ancients did, to create the constellations), we might connect the stars (dots) and see this: It's a cube!

But we might also imagine these eight stars (from this same location in space) to form an object like this:

or even this:

Depending on our culture, we could discern many different objects from these eight stars, depending on how we imagine them to be connected.

But it gets even more fascinating. Suppose we were able to travel vast distances through space. Our perspective of the “cubic” arrangement of these eight stars would change. What if we were to travel to a location where we viewed the cube face-on. It would look like this:

where each of the four stars is hiding another one behind it. 

How the civilizations at this location would perceive this “cubic” constellation, we can only guess. But it's a reminder that the constellations we see have their three-dimensional stars arranged in a pattern that is unique to us, at our location in space.

More on Orion next time...

Deep Snow

The winter has brought too much snow. On one of my treks through the woods, I found this poor individual buried in the deep snow--only his hand protruding, asking for rescue. I was too late.

Old Trees Rule!

The chorus to John Prine's song “Hello in There” begins with, “Ya know that old trees just grow stronger...” The song is a poignant appeal that, while trees strengthen in their later years, “old people just grow lonesome,” so we should make an extra effort to acknowledge them when we encounter them on the street and say, “Hello in there.” Years ago I played Prine's records a lot, and was touched one day when my then-10-year-old son said that he went out of his way while walking downtown to say hi to old people.

Old trees do become more and more magnificent, as the years pass... especially giants like redwoods and sequoia (or oaks and poplars, here in Virginia). I have had the opportunity a couple of times to stand at the base of some of these patriarchs and feel awed by their massive trunks and humbled by how they soar up into the heavens. It makes me feel simultaneously small and grand, to be close to one. It seems a tragedy when one of these behemoths is toppled for furniture.

Trees are also a major source of the oxygen that we animals breathe. They do double duty by both absorbing carbon dioxide from the air (thus countering global warming) as they simultaneously exhaust that life-giving oxygen. We need them, and they are being cut down at a terrifying rate.

There's been much attention in recent years put to the benefits of trees and other vegetation, in countering the heavy load of CO₂ that we are dumping into the atmosphere. But what kind of vegetation extracts the most carbon? Should we protect those kinds of plants more than others? Are they more valuable to the planet (and us)?

It has been assumed that fast-growing young trees are more valuable than big, old trees for removing carbon. But a recent study tells a different story. An international team of researchers published an article in the scientific journal Nature, showing that old trees are not less productive than robust young trees, but significantly more so. Because elderly trees vigorously continue to add mass—even into their senile period—they soak up more carbon than the juveniles do... as much as three times more!

Since I'm rapidly headed into my senile period, I take comfort from the fact that my old woody buddies that surround me aren't slowing down. Maybe they can inspire me to resist the ravages of age and continue to thrive as they do. I think I'll go out and hug a big ol' tree.

An Early Virginia Winter Morn

This was taken by my friend Shell, with her new camera and artistic skills. Click to enlarge.

Narrow or Broad View?

An article several months ago in the Guardian presented an interesting symbol about someone attempting to predict future events: it contained a sketch of a person holding a flashlight, whose beam is shining out into the darkness—the dark representing the hidden future. The description with the illustration described that the holder of the flashlight could choose to focus the beam either into a narrow ray, or a wider cone. The narrower the beam, the brighter the light shone on any future object, and the more accurate a prediction might be. When the beam is widened, more of the future could be revealed, but less light is shown and therefore one's guess would be less accurate.

The article's main thrust was about one's hoping to be able to predict the future reliably (by shining that narrow beam on a potential forthcoming event), but then risking having some surprise event—lurking in the darkness outside the narrow beam—prove the prediction wrong. In order to avoid these surprises, the article described, one could widen the flashlight's beam and spot more potential future events, but only at the expense of a dimmer light beam and nothing being as distinct. It's sort of like a horse wearing blinders: it can concentrate on things straight ahead of it, but is blind to unexpected things to the side.

The image of choosing between the flashlight's narrow or wide beams stuck in my head for a couple of days. It spoke to me as a metaphor for more than just the topic of the article: futurology (the ability to predict future events based on present trends). I came to see the cone of light shining outward as an illustration of one's attention to life in general. If my attention is kept too narrow, my ability to respond to life's events may be well focused, but I can miss the wider picture. Like the horse wearing blinders, I may be able to focus clearly on what I wish to see, but by so doing, I can miss the bigger picture that life is presenting me.

Life is full of surprises. Although we like to think that we're on top of things and that we know what to expect (and thus make smart choices), that's usually not the case. More often than not, life tosses unexpected contingencies in our path, and we stumble over them. If we are too narrowly focused, we can get blind-sided by an event coming from the side that we never expected; an event that we were ill prepared for.

I guess, like many choices in life, it's a case of seeking an appropriate balance: sometimes we focus narrowly and deftly handle an expected event—like shooting an arrow right into the bulls-eye. At other times we should keep our senses open and broad—so we don't miss something that could be important. In either case, our motto could be: PAY ATTENTION!

Weird Icicles Three

Authentic Audio—Part 2

A few years ago MP3s were quite acceptable to most listeners—largely because of their convenience—but recently their status has plunged. MP3s use what is termed as a "lossy compression algorithm" (because they throw away 90% of the information). That word "lossy" has been jumped upon as indicating that the listener is being deprived of some crucial information when listening to an MP3. Isn't some of that discarded 90% important? Well, yes, it is a loss of data, but the vast majority of what is discarded, your ear would never detect anyway. Under only the most exacting listening environments would you be able to perceive the difference. However, for most of us, for most of the music we listen to, for most of the equipment we employ, we'd never miss the lost information. So an MP3 really is very close in quality to a CD, despite the current popular belief.

There are a few other relevant factors, however, that rarely get considered, when comparing MP3s to CDs. For one, the quality of the original recording process is of top priority; such as the excellence of the recording equipment, the placement of the recording microphones, the competency of the engineer doing the sound mixing, etc. If any of these are not handled with care, even a top quality CD will provide a pedestrian experience—and it happens quite frequently for recording companies whose top priority is to crank out and sell as many CDs as possible. Not all of them pay attention to these details—especially those aiming for MTV exposure. And then, there's the final criterion: Are you really listening to that music? Many people are so busy multitasking or otherwise not paying attention to their music, that they'd be hard-pressed to tell the difference between an excellent CD and a mediocre one—let alone an MP3.

There is a similar belief that has arisen recently, for those who aspire to being audiophiles: why listen to a digital CD, when you can get the more "authentic" experience from an LP? This thinking comes from the fact that an analog recording gives the listener "everything," while a CD is a digital sample of the music. This reasoning is based on the following consideration: The CD recording process takes 44,000 samples per second, but is still not a continuous offering of the original music like analog is, so the CD (like the MP3) loses something, right? Well, true, for those who are able to hear sounds above 20 kHz—while most of us adults peter out by about 12 to 13 kHz. So, no, there's virtually nothing missing on a CD that your ear could ever discern. In fact, the best thing that is missing on a CD recording, when compared to an LP, is noise: those unpleasant artifacts introduced by the recording equipment or your playback system (such as pops and clicks due to dirt and imperfections on the LP surface or a worn needle).

But the digital CD recording is still sort of artificial, isn't it? After all, it's just a digital sample, not the whole analog signal. Some people declare that it lacks the "warmth" of a good LP. As I wrote above, there really is nothing missing that the human ear can discern. In fact, some experts say that it's likely what they are responding to is not a better sound, but the old familiar analog LP sound that has added things to it: low-frequency turntable "rumble" or other surface noise due to the stylus riding over imperfections on the record's surface.

I think that many people are susceptible to elitist audiophile suggestions. Our desire to acquire the latest and finest "improved" product, so we can stay a step or two ahead of the Acoustic Joneses, makes us vulnerable to the siren song of the marketplace. A high-quality music listening experience comes from far more than purchasing the latest audio fad and then convincing oneself that is the best yet (even when it's LP retro!). This attitude gives short shrift to simply developing good musical taste and attentively listening to what the artists intended to provide.

Authentic Audio—Part 1

I have been a music-listening freak ever since, as an 8-year-old kid, I discovered what it was like to listen to 78 RPM records on my aunt's post-World War II Victrola. (I realize that many younger people today may not fathom a few terms in that sentence, so here's an abbreviated glossary. 78 RPM: the turntable rotational speed of primeval record players. Victrola: a generic term for some of those ancient machines. Post-World War II: the late 1940s and early 50s. Okay; we're on same page now?)

I discovered at this tender age the magic of listening to recorded music: I could play it over and over again—until I either knew the song by heart, or the record became too worn-out for me to tolerate the noise of its scratches and pops and clicks. Today's younger generation knows little about how analog records deteriorate with age or careless handling, as they can play a CD or other digital audio file endlessly and never wear it out.

So the experience of listening to modern digital music recordings is far superior to the old records, right? Well, that's not the case in some people's minds. There are many people in the last few years who have come to believe that the venerable 12-inch LP vinyl record represents the peak of music listening. In their minds it beats the digital CD, hands down. And speaking of digital sound reproduction, those MP3 formats pale in comparison to a good quality CD, don't they? There seems to be a backlash brewing, wherein some people prefer an LP to a CD, and many feel the MP3 is the pits.

What's going on here? What, after all, is the best format for music listening among these candidates? I have been skeptical of people who express these recent (retro) preferences, so I did some research to check into the validity of them. As a former acoustic engineer and ongoing music enthusiast, I wanted to delve into the matter and see what the truth is—if possible. I feel that some of the popularity of LPs, as well as the belittling of MP3s is a misunderstanding of the physics of music reproduction, and I sought to learn more.

Let me begin with what I found out about MP3s. This recording format was developed a few decades ago, as a means of reducing the size of the digital file required to store a song (either on a CD or any another digital format). It is based upon a rigorous analysis of the science of psychoacoustics—which tells us that the human ear cannot detect all of the content of a pure, live acoustic event, such as music. We are destined to remain ignorant of some of the information, due to the limitations of our ear and the brain's processing of the electrical signals received from the ear. So those working on developing the MP3 asked: if a CD can essentially reproduce all of the original signal, why record those parts of it that the ear cannot detect? Why waste storage space that is not needed? So recording engineers set out to reduce the size of the music file.

Their task was to measure what part of the original signal we can hear and delete the rest. Why not save just the important parts and throw away the part we can't hear? After many laboratory experiments, the MP3 format was settled upon. It discards nearly 90% of the digitized signal, thereby reducing the required kilobits of storage by a factor of 10! That huge savings is particularly important when you're streaming music over the internet. But what about the information that is lost? Does discarding so much of the original signal cheapen the experience?

More on MP3s and other audio topics next time...

It's Cold!

Frost over the front door--just from warm air escaping.

Deer Desperadoes

I wrote last year (“Masting Aftermath,” 12/26/12) about experiencing a heavy masting year for oak acorns. (The masting process is one in which oak trees somehow collaborate to grow a superabundance of acorns every few years, thereby coating the forest floor with far too many acorns for critters to eat—ensuring that some survive to grow the next generation's oak trees.) Everywhere I trekked in the woods last year, the ground was carpeted with countless acorns. I had to watch my step, lest I slip on them and fall.

So last winter the deer, squirrels, turkeys, and other critters were fat and happy—gorging themselves on the oaks' bounty. All that overindulgence came to a screeching halt this fall, as the trees were unusually stingy in their acorn crop. The result is severe hunger in the ranks of these acorn harvesters. I don't know how the squirrels and turkeys are faring, but we've seen lots of evidence of famished deer.

We depend on our free-roaming dogs to keep the deer from invading our garden, and they do a good job of it. A garden fence deters the deer to some degree, but the dogs love to chase any deer who takes a second look at the fence and is contemplating a jump over it into veggie heaven. So once again we made it through the summer with no deer incursions in the garden.

This fall has been a very different story, however. As foraging on tender plants in the woods was brought to a close by the beginning of cold weather and no backup supply of acorns was to be had this year, the deer have repeatedly invaded the clearing. Numerous shrubs and bushes do not get fenced, as the garden does. That is usually no problem, because I've chosen varieties of shrubs known to be shunned by deer.

Well, that may be true for normal years, but when starvation threatens, the deer become desperate. They'll eat most anything green, as well as many other types of barely edible plants. It's irritating as hell to go out in the morning and find that deer have devastated our holly, privet, and other evergreen shrubs.

It makes me wish I had caught one in the act with a large stone in my fist, which I could ricochet painfully off its butt. But when my wave of fury has subsided, I feel sympathy for their plight. What kinds of desperate actions might I take, if I were starving? I try to let go my ire at the severe damage they've caused. After all, most of those shrubs will probably recover next spring... or so I fervently hope.

But I can't help wishing their stolen meal gives them a big bellyache. If so, it might deter them from returning and finishing off what little of the plants they spared.