Dave’s Musings
Blue Springs State Park in the central part of Florida is a beautiful, natural wonder that offers various water activities in the summer. But in the winter, its a warm, natural spring that attracts manatees. The manatee population was on the decline for some years (due to climate issues, and poor behavior by humans!). But the numbers have been increasing over the last few years (thanks in large part to getting boaters to be more mindful).
At the park, they count the manatees every morning as a part of the conservation effort. And this weekend, they recorded the highest number of manatees ever - 973. They were very excited, and it caught some national attention as well.
You can read more here: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/nearly-1000-manatees-converge-florida-state-park-record-breaking-sighting-180983683/
The park also offers a wildlife kayaking tour around the river, with a stop near the manatee protected area. We took it last year, and I had a delightful interaction with a young manatee.
| Methane is a key contributor to trapping heat, and leading to climate change. Scientists at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory have come up with a way to use the spectrometer on the ISS (and a few other satellites) to "see" methane emissions in real time, which they then share.
In some cases, countries can use the data to help them pinpoint areas that need some help. And in other cases, the pressure comes from an international coalition. But in any case, we have an ability to see where methane emissions are high.
It's amazing how we can use technology to help address climate change.
Image from Tehran in 2022
https://spacenews.com/satellites-reveal-sources-of-atmospheric-methane/ |
| Cool story out of Philadelphia about a deaf boy who was given a gene treatment, via an injection of a virus. The gene allowed for the body to correct for an abnormal gene that affected his ability to hear.
Its an interesting starting point for potential gene therapy in the future, though at the moment this is one specific person with a very specific issue. But the possibilities are really intriguing!
https://www.sciencealert.com/breakthrough-deaf-boy-can-hear-after-first-gene-treatment-in-us |
| I was reflecting on a flawed idea that Disney had a little over a decade ago to play with attendance a little. They offered a free Disney day on your birthday. What a fantastic guest promotion!
The concept was that you would go to the gate on your birthday and show ID, and they would grant you free admission on that day. On paper, it was great.
But in reality, maybe not so much. They had hoped more people would book vacations around their birthday and bring their families. The thinking was that there would be more paid days than they gave away.
There were three main problems: First, you couldn't book it in advance, so people had to do some planning to take advantage of it. How that worked related to purchasing a length of stay ticket was very unclear, and caused a lot of confusion and dissatisfaction.
Second, locals were the main beneficiaries of the program since they could easily just go over on their birthday.
And third, it was unannounced that there were a limited number of these admissions available for the entire year, so they ran out of the free tickets in about March.
And so the promotion was short lived, and caused a lot of dissatisfaction for anyone with a birthday anytime after the first few months. At that time, a day pass was probably around $50, so I still can't figure out why they made this so difficult.
But yet, this is a mostly forgotten footnote in history. That's how good Disney is at manipulating things that happen to their advantage. |
| Here's an interesting story about the quest to find Amelia Earhart's long-missing plane.
Short primer: Earhart was to be the first woman to fly around the world, in the late 1930s. She apparently got lost in the Pacific near the Howland Islands (between Australia and Hawaii), and there has been much speculation about what happened to her, her navigator, and her plane in the 80 years since.
Hobbyists and even some professional organizations have searched but come up empty - but have a lot of speculation. And now a former aviator has found something on a sonar trip around the area that very well could be Earhart's Lockheed plane. It will take some time for him - or someone else - to pass over the area again to see if they can gather more details about the craft that's there. It could be another lower-profile missing plane, or perhaps a WWII craft that was sunk. But its definitely intriguing, and we may be close to solving the mystery.
https://www.businessinsider.com/sonar-image-pilot-amelia-earhart-plane-found-pacific-ocean-2024?amp |
One Little Spark …
| Recently, I was getting quotes to paint my house. One guy came out and was pretty chatty. He had a lot to say about many topics. But the one that caught my interest was that hails from a third world country and sees the United States as a "third world country with first world infrastructure" - he went on to tick the boxes for how to define a third world country, and I think he kind of summed it up well.
I've stated in the past that the US really doesn't fit the definition of a first world country and should probably have a new category like "fourth world" or something.
But specific to his comments, the income disparity came to mind. We hear stories every day about people struggling just to get by. People work two jobs and maybe can make ends meet. But certainly, they can't grow wealth, can't hope to reach some sort of financial independence.
And yet, we are on the verge of creating the worlds first TRILLIONAIRE. And at the moment, we've got around 750 Billionaires.
Meanwhile 53% of the US population (~180 million people) have less than $10,000 saved, and 15% have between $10k and $50k (that's ~50 million people).
Something is wrong with the system in that case. And of course, people we consider minorities are disproportionately represented in what we might consider the "poor population."
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Dave’s Musings
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