Jan 05 2025 - Water Stories

 

I've been sorting through all my photos of the past that involve water waves and reflections.  With features in Lightroom, these can be enhanced to show the textures and colours more vibrantly.  There's a headline today about foaming waves in Fort Erie. It made it to MSN with a video of waves hitting the pier in Port Stanley.  What is the significant of foam?  The National Ocean Service says that waves foam when air is mixed into dissolved organic matter in water, creating bubbles.  What are the strange waves and things that occur to water?   Most of the weirdest wave headlines are targeted to surfers.  But I remember the Ontario photographers who captured a face in the waves - I've included it below - it is by Cody Evans.  This was Lake Erie.

There's a 2018 story by Brian Hansel who captured a storm event on Lake Superior and has pictures in which the waves seem to have faces.  I sort of see them, maybe.  Not like the one above.      This next one is from Britain - at the Sunderland Roker Pier.   isn't it amazing - so many pictures of waves with faces.  But then, I see faces in lots of places - it seems to me to be a normal thing - its is called face pareidolia "fools the grain" - there are parts of our brain dedicated to processing real faces.  We use that part a lot so process lots of things into faces.

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Dec 2 2024 - It's Genius

 

"It's genius!"  There are complaints about the overuse of this expression.  A description says that it is just like "It's ingenious" Why would the two be the same?  Dictionary.com says this:  "Genius refers to a high level of intelligence, while ingenious refers to being clever or inventive. Another key difference is that genius is a noun, while ingenious is an adjective. One source of confusion is the prefix in-, which often negates the word it precedes. For example, the word incapable means not capable." On to "It's genius."  Maybe Little Women with the subtitle "Conceit spoils the finest genius." started the trend: "It's genius simmering, perhaps". Little Women By Louisa May Alcott This is an often-repeated quote.  And the novel has many occurrences of the word genius. I can't find out how many for the word genius.  The novel word count is 195,624 (verified) vs Great Expectations  at 187,596. Compare these two to Marcel Proust's 1.5 million words in In Search of Lost Time.  I guess it is inevitable that the word continues in the reviews - the author and book are described over and over as genius.   I arrive at the Oxford English Dictionary and it shows me the quotes where the word genius is used in classical works. It starts with genius as a pagan god.  It continues and continues with the variations of definitions  This is fascinating . Here is the OECD link.  I don't hear the expression It's Genius very often. Will it start to appear? Isn't this a strange water reflection?  It is a white sculpture at the Minneapolis Botanic Garden a few years ago.

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Oct 20 2024 - Rain Ahead

 

Everyone has commented on the beautiful weather.  It has been late summer temperatures and we are rolling into November.  But by the end of the sentence of delight,  people take a breath of despair and "gloom" about the upcoming season of winter.    The weather forecast does not look gloomy at all - it shows rain in the forecast over the next week weeks, rather than snow.   Is it true that everyone has this gloomy projection?  Or just the people in my age group?  That's who I see the most.  I expect it is the case.  That is what makes for snow birds.  As one ages, the spectre of cold winter snow chases one down to Florida. For those who want to grimace,  there is a website named snowchance.com - with the headline "Chance of Snow Storms this Winter.  Enter Any Location.  Below that are the standard headlines - Abou , Contact Us, Help and FAQ, and then - oddly - Edmonton.  Of course there is a "chance of snow storms for Edmonton, Alberta covering the 2024-2025 snow season."   Grimsby is expected to get a snow storm in November.  Of course, we know that.  The lake effects are strong in November and so our great snowstorm a few years ago has given rise to the Snowvember Storm in 2014.

I've been processing images of water, particularly ripples and reflections.  I found this one from Victoria Harbour from a visit years ago. What an intensity of colour and wonderful lyrical shapes of the motion blur effects.

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Sep 2 2024 - Busiest Day QEW

 

We are very attentive to the traffic on the QEW as this is one of the busiest days of the year.  In fact, the entire weekend.  People travelling into Niagara Falls for the splendid double fireworks.  People travelling out of Niagara returning from the U.S. There don't seem to be any statistics since the solar eclipse.   To make your holiday experience complete here is a youtube video of the Falls Fireworks Show.   This looks like it is only the CA side - this weekend will have both sides with a double show.  This is the Canadian side: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OoollQMAeLw Or experience it from the American Falls side here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNIUwQ-Zpkg And this final one has a drone view way up there.  I wonder how they got permission for that. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gU1afIdTza8 This has some pretty spectacular views of the Falls - one is right over the edge looking down into the falls. And the story of Indigenous peoples sending a young virgin over the Falls as a sacrifice to the spirit living under the Falls?  A colonial story made up.  One European version of the myth has LeLawala being offered to God Thunder in a human sacrifice.  "This version was created in the 17th century to pass on the idea, in the European society, that the Indians were savages who practiced human sacrifices and that, therefore, deserved to be conquered and civilized." Now we get to perform self-sacrifice by travelling the QEW on holiday weekends. Here's another abstract from the Monterey Aquarium.

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July 15 2023 - The Highest Wave

 

I am getting used to the foxes' barking sounds.  It isn’t so strange anymore. On the other hand, Millie has decided these are not desirable friends and she has taken to being on window alert. I don’t know what made me think of the biggest wave.  I remember looking into this in the past. The biggest wave every recorded?  It is 1,720 feet high at its peak. That is taller than the Empire State Building. It is close in height to the CN Tower which is a bit taller.   It was at Lituya Bay in southeast Alaska, triggered by an earthquake creating a megatsunami.  That was in 1958.  Rocks, glaciers and other debris fell from an altitude of 3,000 feet. The megatsunami measured between 100 feet (30 meters) and 300 feet (91 meters), but the subsequent breaking wave became much bigger.   Other modern day megatsunamis include the 1883 eruption of Krakatoa and the more recent Vajont Dam landslide in Northern Italy in 1963. That was a story of government corruption and about 2000 people died in the valley below. It is one of UNESCO’s five “cautionary tales” caused by the failure of engineers and geologists. What about the Wahoo Wave?  It was a test conducted in 1958and was 3,200 feet below the surface of the ocean.  Supposedly it was to evaluate the weapon’s efficiency against surface ships and submerged submarines.  That wave reached 800 feet. There’s a cautionary tale as well. Of course, there are the surfer records:  Sebastian Steudtner was recorded surfing the biggest wave at 86 feet - that is an eight-story building. Here are our popular tallest buildings.  There’s the CN Tower at the far right.   A wave the size of the CN Tower would make a lot of noise.

In the meantime, the fox has come around  to the office window “barking” at us (me and Millie on the office desk) from about 10 feet.  It has gone away and things are quiet again.   What a contrast to our picture of a calm morning ocean.   Read more daily posts here: marilyncornwellblogspot.com Purchase works here: Fine Art America- marilyncornwell.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.ca

May 29 2023 - Venice Canals Gone Green

 

Isn't this the start of tourist season in Venice? The National Post had the "waters turned green" story yesterday.  And the pictures show the water to be fluorescent green.  The Post says that environmental groups have been colouring monuments, including vegetable charcoal to turn the waters of Rome's Trevi fountain black in a protest against fossil fuels.  It started as a patch - a "verdant blob" according to CNN. So far it has been identified as a type of dye that is used to trace water leaks. This is the Vogalonga boat event, so there are lots of spectators to observe the spectacle.  No one has come forward so far.  The last time Venice's water got a lot of press was during the pandemic when the waters cleared up and dolphins were swimming in the harbour.   Here's one of my coloured water pictures.  These are reflections of flowers at the Kaufmann Botanical Garden in Kansas City.  Read more daily posts here: marilyncornwellblogspot.com Purchase works here: Fine Art America- marilyncornwell.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.ca

May 28 2023 - Sommelier of What?

 

That's what I found in the Globe and Mail's style section yesterday.  A vacation curated by a mountain air sommelier. Would there be 4 levels of mountain air sommeliers?  introductory, Certified, Advanced and Master?   There are olive oil, water, milk, sake, coffee and tea sommeliers.  Beer sommeliers are known as Cicerones. You can find Christina Li, Canadian water sommelier's website HERE.    As to being a sommelier, Wikipedia says this: In modern times, a sommelier's role may be considered broader than working only with wines, and may encompass all aspects of the restaurant's service, with an enhanced focus on wines, beers, spirits, soft-drinks, cocktails, mineral waters, and tobaccos. The inclusion of tobaccos makes me doubt that this has been written in modern times.  And what about this quote: "An experienced sommelier can even determine, through their refined sinus canals, the moon phase of the day the coffee beans were harvested." And what does the Guinness Book off Records say about sommeliers - first robot sommelier is the first headline, then largest sommelier lesson. NEC System Technologies and Mie University, Japan, have developed a robot capable of tasting wine and recognizing the differences between a few dozen varieties. To "taste", the "wine-bot" fires an infrared beam through the wine and analyses the various wavelengths of light that are absorbed. A built-in speaker is used to announce the variety of wine selected.   Read more daily posts here: marilyncornwellblogspot.com Purchase works here: Fine Art America- marilyncornwell.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.ca

Feb 9 2023 - Ask Me Anything

 

Bing popped up today with Ask me anything... and a message that this is all new AI searching, give it a try.  I can't seem to be able to bring up the message again to find out more.  So I searched for "What's the new bing?" The timesofindia website has answered that question first.  "Microsoft has described the new Bing as “a research assistant, personal planner, and creative partner at your side whenever you search the web”. Bing can now answer real-world questions with human-like detailed answers." Windows Central has the story on this:  Microsoft just announced a new version of its Bing search engine. The new Bing uses ChatGPT technology to understand questions and generate answers. The search engine runs on the next generation of OpenAI's language model, which is significantly more capable than the version of ChatGPT that has been available since November 2022. A new version of Microsoft Edge will launch alongside the new Bing. That was yesterday, so we are experiencing the new search engine today.  The articles say you can ask anything - how to plan a dinner party, for example.  So I did that search, and I see the answer from paperless post.com looking visually pleasant.  I wonder if this is what they mean by Artificial Intelligence.  I asked what is the best way to see Niagara Ontario, and I get Niagara Falls, Ontario results.  I changed the search to: what are the best attractions in Niagara region, Ontario.  It is slightly enlarged, but still entirely focused on Niagara Falls.   We'll have lots of time to find out about it.   I wonder if Bing is more an illusion - like this Koi swimming into the reflections of the bridge railing.   Read more daily posts here: marilyncornwellblogspot.com Purchase works here: Fine Art America- marilyncornwellart.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.ca

Dec 27 2022 - FIFA vs Summer Olympics

 

Did FIFA overrun the Olympics in 2022?  It seems to be the headline for what major events happened this year.  It looks like Queen Elizabeth's death and funeral  is far behind the FIFA World Cup.  And even though the Tour de France has 3.5 billion viewers, so would be the biggest sporting event in the world, it only shows up in one article.  It is the World Cup and the Olympics that are compared.     So which is it?  FIFA or the Summer Olympics? Here are  Quora  answers:   1.  "Due to the fact that last Olympics Games and last FIFA World Cup were in the same country, it will be easier to compare both. During the Olympic Games, Rio de Janeiro received 1.2 millions visitors.  According to Rio’s city hall, 410 thousands of those were not from Brazil During FIFA world cup Rio received 886 thousands tourists, 471 thousands of those were foreign tourists." Of course FIFA world cup have more than one host city, so there were much more tourists than this. Also, Rio received less tourists from Brazil because there were lots of other cities hosting FIFA World Cup." 2. "If you talk about audience, both events are watched for about half of the Earth. Fifa World Cup reached 3.2 billions viewers, while Olympic Games 3.5 billions." Quora has many more answers, but most are opinion-based.  Here are more analytical articles' answers. 1. The number of countries participating: in the 2018 FIFA World Cup, 208+1 countries participated in qualifying events which narrowed down to 32 in the main event. Meanwhile, a total of 206 nations participated in the 2016 Rio Olympics. 2. Younger audiences show a preference for FIFA 3. Differences are observed based on gender.  The World Cup is the favourite event of men globally (55%) with the Summer Olympics at 52%.  For women it is Summery Olympics 47% and World Cup 35%. 4. Gamers are markedly more drawn to the World Cup than the overall population Finding out how many watched the 2022 series will likely take some time.  My bet is that FIFA wins. The expectation was over 5 billion people.  What do you think?

A swan at Charles Daley Park pond.

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Oct 10 2022 - Rogue Waves

 

The Weather Network insert videos shows a rogue wave in Miami.  That was Sep 30th.  Six people were injured when people were swept off the boardwalk, into the waves and some of them over the fence into the rock wall and down to the water below.    I found the twitter video which doesn't have the ads, etc.  HERE  There's a lot in Wikipedia on Rogue Waves.   The one that changed it all was the Draupner wave.   "The Draupner wave (or New Year's wave) was the first rogue wave to be detected by a measuring instrument. The wave was recorded in 1995 at Unit E of the Draupner platform, a gas pipeline support complex located in the North Sea about 160 kilometres (100 mi) southwest from the southern tip of Norway. The rig was built to withstand a calculated 1-in-10,000-years wave with a predicted height of 20 metres (64 ft) and was fitted with a state-of-the-art set of sensors, including a laser rangefinder wave recorder on the platform's underside. At 3 pm on 1 January 1995, the device recorded a rogue wave with a maximum wave height of 25.6 metres (84 ft). Peak elevation above still water level was 18.5 metres (61 ft).The reading was confirmed by the other sensors.The platform sustained minor damage in the event. In the area, the significant wave height was approximately 12 metres (39 ft), so the Draupner wave was more than twice as tall and steep as its neighbors, with characteristics that fell outside any known wave model. The wave caused enormous interest in the scientific community." The causes of rogue waves is still under active research.  And there are now measurement devices to capture the size. How high can they get?  130 feet high in the eyeball.   In 2006, researchers from U.S. Naval Institute theorised rogue waves may be responsible for the unexplained loss of low-flying aircraft, such as U.S. Coast Guard helicopters during search and rescue missions.  In 2019, Hurricane Dorian's extratropical remnant generated a 30-metre (100 ft) rogue wave off the coast of Newfoundland. These seem unimaginable, but here we are now with cameras that are capturing the extent of the waves.  For example, it is theorized that the SS Edmund Fitzgerald (1975) – Lost on Lake Superior was sunk by a rogue wave. Another nearby ship, the SS Arthur M. Anderson, was hit at a similar time by two rogue waves and possibly a third, and this appeared to coincide with the sinking around ten minutes later. One of my favourite pictures - motion blur waves.

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