Good news (in Danish)

[Ann]

Every country, and to some extent, the people in it, have their own peculiarities. It is often easier to spot the peculiarities of other nationalities than the ones of your own, since you are so used to your own.

I think, too, that it is particularly easy to spot the peculiarities of a group of people who are very similar to your own group of people, yet not exactly the same.

Like Swedes and Danes.

As a Swede, I find it particularly interesting that Danes are so happy, or at least they claim to be. Danes regularly score top marks in international "happiness polls", and often they come through as the happiest people in the world.

A lovely summer day in Copenhagen. But people here don't look happier than in Sweden.

I don't know. Walk around in Copenhagen, and people look very much the same as they do in Sweden. (Of course, it could be that the sad-looking ones are tourists from Sweden. )

Nevertheless, I can tell you this: there is a difference between Swedish and Danish TV news and weather reports. Really. For example, a few years ago, when stock exchanges everywhere began to have problems, Danish television would cheerfully concentrate on the few stocks that had done well that day, rather than wallowing in the poor performance of the stock exchange as a whole.

Goodness. Swedish television would never do that.

(Lately, news about finance and economy has been so negative that Danish television has stopped reporting about it every day. No need to get people down.)

And then there is the weather report.

Not the weather report for Denmark, but it talks about cold weather.

February has been extremely cold in southern Scandinavia. Here in Malmö we haven't had a moment of above-freezing temperatures since January turned into February, and the situation in much of Denmark has been similar. So you can imagine that many Danes smiled when the meteorologist of one of their TV channels told them that they could look forward to warmer temperatures soon.

Yes, but was it a real change in the weather or just a temporary reprieve?

A snowman you want to protect.

Instead of answering that question right away, the meteorologist showed us a picture of a splendid snowman. (Not this one.)

There is something about snowmen that tugs at your heartstrings. You want to protect them. You want to take care of them. You want to shield them from danger.

You want to save them from melting!

So when the meteorologist showed us the snowman, I felt right away that I needed to protect the poor human-shaped pile of snow. And I realized how sad it was that the pile of snow would melt, now that the weather was finally getting warmer.

Danish meteorologists. They always bring good news!

Hardly had I finished thinking that thought when the meteorologist was back on the TV screen again, smiling at us all pleasantly. "For those of you who like winter, I can tell you that the cold weather will be back again next week," he said with a smile. And I could feel half of Denmark nodding and smiling with him. "Oh yes, how lucky we are that the cold weather will be back! Our children love building snowmen, and now the snowmen won't melt, and our children will be so happy!"

My own need to protect the snowman disappeared the moment I was told that the cold weather would be back. I felt extremely un-Danish as I realized that if I had been a Dane, I would have been expected to be happy about the news that the Arctic temperatures would return. Be happy! Be Danish! Think of the snowman!

Gaah! I would blow the snowman up if I could, or, to punish him, I might bring my hair drier out to him on a very long extension cord and blow hot air in his face until he disintegrated with shame over the fact that he was being used to make me welcome more cold weather!

But many Danes, I'll bet, are smiling. Or else they'll just say that they are the next time an international happiness poll is asking them.

Ann

P.S. Seriously... Danish meteorologists don't always bring good news. They can be very serious, for example when they talk about global warming.

But they sure drive me crazy when they smile at us and tell us how lucky we are that we will get icy cold weather and snow!

[Chris Peterson]

There is something about snowmen that tugs at your heartstrings. You want to protect them. You want to take care of them. You want to shield them from danger.

(I guess it's my Danish blood that keeps me generally looking at the sunny side of things... even when it isn't sunny.)

[neufer]

(I guess it's my Danish blood that keeps me generally looking at the sunny side of things...
even when it isn't sunny.)

• 

You make Hamlet look like Victor Borge, Chris.

[Chris Peterson]

You make Hamlet look like Victor Borge, Chris.

It would be a mistake to think I'm not a generally upbeat and easy going person, simply because I also happen to think much of the world is going to hell in a handbasket, and that the human race is probably doomed to a short existence (along with perhaps every technological civilization in the Universe). Like I said... sunny even in the absence of sun <g>.

[jinger]

The reporting ethic here in the US has always struck me as a form of socially acceptable insanity. I don't know who is crazier, the talking heads that calmly report the grizzly stories, or the folks that wake up to them early in the morning or tune in right before bed.

Anyway, great to hear there is a culture that values that kind of reporting. I spent a Christmas in Aalborg once and have fond memories of their friendliness and hospitality.

[jinger]

Hey these folks rival the Danes in optimism -- in Bhutan, they have a Gross National Happiness (GNH) index.

[orin stepanek]

Ann! For some reason I never felt like saving a snowman from melting. If you don't want him to melt; you should make him like these!

Click to view full size image

[Ann]

Good suggestion, Orin!

Ann

[bystander]

Wouldn't that be a strawman?

[neufer]

Wouldn't that be a strawman?

<<A straw man is a component of an argument and is an informal fallacy based on misrepresentation of an opponent's position. To "attack a straw man" is to create the illusion of having refuted a proposition by replacing it with a superficially similar yet unequivalent proposition (the "straw man"), and refuting it, without ever having actually refuted the original position. The origins of the term are unclear. The usage of the term in rhetoric suggests a human figure made of straw which is easily knocked down or destroyed, such as a military training dummy, scarecrow, or effigy. One common (folk) etymology is that it refers to men who stood outside courthouses with a straw in their shoe in order to indicate their willingness to be a false witness.

The straw man fallacy occurs in the following pattern of argument:

• Orin has position X.
  
  Bystander disregards certain key points of X and instead presents the superficially similar position Y.
  Thus, Y is a resulting distorted version of X and can be set up in several ways, including:
  
  • Presenting a misrepresentation of the opponent's (tumble weed man) position.
    
    Quoting an opponent's words out of context.
    
    Presenting someone who defends a position poorly as the defender, then refuting that person's arguments.
    
    Inventing a fictitious persona with actions or beliefs which are then criticized.
    
    Oversimplifying an opponent's argument, then attacking this oversimplified version.
  Bystander attacks position Y, concluding that X is false/incorrect/flawed.

[Chris Peterson]

Wouldn't that be a strawman?

I think somebody from Nebraska should be familiar with the difference between straw and tumbleweeds! <g>

[bystander]

Well, I'm not from Nebraska and tumble weed man just doesn't have the same ring to it as strawman!

[Beyond]

I think it's just plain amazing how many different ways people can beat-about-the-bushes.

[Chris Peterson]

Well, I'm not from Nebraska and tumble weed man just doesn't have the same ring to it as strawman!

That was directed at Orin, who posted the picture. But somebody from Oklahoma should be even more familiar with straw and tumbleweeds. Personally, I kind of like the sound of "tumbleweed man". There's a country song in there somewhere...

[bystander]

Click to play embedded YouTube video.

That was directed at Orin, who posted the picture.

• Sorry, but it was a reply to my post. Please forgive the confusion.

But somebody from Oklahoma should be even more familiar with straw and tumbleweeds.

• Oh, I do know the difference.

Personally, I kind of like the sound of "tumbleweed man". There's a country song in there somewhere...

• http://www.myspace.com/elizabethcarpent ... n-74190669

[orin stepanek]

Wouldn't that be a strawman?

Actually I found the tumbleweed men on wiki! They called them desert snowmen! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Tumbl ... nowmen.jpg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snowman I did it for Ann; she hated to see the snowmen melt!!!

[orin stepanek]

Back in the day; there was Roy Rogers and the Sons of the Pioneers! They had a thing about Tumbleweeds1

Click to play embedded YouTube video.

[Ann]

Thanks for flashing those eyebrows at me, Orin! (I think... )

Thanks for demonstrating tumbleweed to me. I had heard about it, and even seen something about it on TV, but I had forgotten about it. What do you do with it if you don't want it - set it on fire? (Sounds like a good way of starting a forest fire, though!)

Thanks for the song! Ahh, the Sons of the Pioneers. They don't sound exactly like today's death metal groups!

Ann

[orin stepanek]

Flashback! When I was growing up westerns were a big thing and Roy Rogers was a favorite. The eyebrows were meant to be a good thing.

[neufer]

<<A tumbleweed is the above-ground part of a plant that, once mature and dry, disengages from the root and tumbles away in the wind. Usually, the tumbleweed is the entire plant apart from the roots, but in a few species it is a flower cluster. The tumbleweed habit is most common in steppe and desert climates. The tumbleweed is a diaspore, aiding in dispersal of propagules (seeds or spores). It does this by scattering the propagules either as it tumbles, or after it has come to rest in a wet location. In the latter case, the tumbleweed opens mechanically as it absorbs water; apart from its propagules, the tumbleweed is dead.

Although thought to be native to Eurasia, several annual species of Salsola (family Amaranthaceae) that form tumbleweeds have become so common in North America that they are a common symbol in Western movies, where they are typically symbolic of desolation in frontier areas. The tumbleweed's association with the Western film has led to a highly symbolic meaning in visual media. It has come to represent locations that are desolate, dry, and often humorless, with few or no occupants. A common use is when characters encounter a long abandoned or dismal-looking place: a tumbleweed will be seen rolling past, often accompanied by the sound of a dry, hollow wind. This is sometimes used in locations where tumbleweeds are not expected, for comedic effect. Tumbleweeds can also be shown to punctuate a bad joke or a character otherwise making an absurd declaration, with the plant rolling past in the background and the wind effect emphasizing the awkward silence (similar to the sound of crickets).

Salsola tragus (Russian thistle) is an annual plant that breaks off at the stem base, forming a tumbleweed that disperses its seeds as it rolls on top of the ground. It seems to have been imported into South Dakota from Russia in 1870 or 1874 in shipments of flaxseed. It has become a noxious weed that has spread throughout North America to inhabit suitable habitats which include areas with disturbed soils like roadsides, cultivated fields and eroded slopes, and in natural habitats that have sparse vegetation like coastal and riparian sands, semi-deserts and deserts. Though it is a noxious weed, Salsola tragus is useful on arid rangelands as forage for livestock.

Tumbleweeds have a significant effect on wind soil erosion in open regions, particularly on dry-land agricultural operations where the outside application of additional moisture is impossible. One study showed that a single Russian Thistle can remove up to 44 gallons of water from the soil while competing with a wheat crop. The amount of water removed from fallow land more subject to erosion would be even higher. In addition to the moisture consumed by the plant, significant damage to the protective soil crust is caused by the tumbleweeds' motion. The damage to the soil surface then provides exposure for subsequent wind damage and topsoil loss.>>

[Ann]

On the lawn below my balcony some kids have built a snowman. It is a sweet little snowman, very cute and endearing.

I hope it melts soon.

Ann

[neufer]

---

Click to play embedded YouTube video.

Inside a Martian tumbleweed rover
Posted on May 23, 2012 - 12:16 by Trent Nouveau

<<Scientists have determined that a wind-driven "tumbleweed" Mars rover would be more than capable of effectively navigating rocky Martian terrain. "There is quite a bit of interest within NASA to pursue the tumbleweed rover design, but one of the questions regarding the concept is how it might perform on the rocky surface of Mars," explained Dr. Andre Mazzoleni of North Carolina State University. "And we set out to address that question."



Indeed, Mazzoleni and Dr. Alexander Hartl, an adjunct professor of MAE at NC State, developed a computer model to determine how varying the diameter and mass of a tumbleweed rover would affect its speed and ability to avoid getting stuck in Martian rock fields. Rock fields are common on the surface of Mars, which averages one rock per square meter. "We found that, in general, the larger the diameter, and the lower the overall weight, the better the rover performs," Mazzoleni confirmed. "We also found that a tumbleweed rover would need to have a diameter of at least six meters in order to achieve an acceptable level of performance - meaning the rover could move through rock fields without getting stuck."

Using the model, the researchers also discovered tumbleweed rovers are more likely to bounce than roll across the surface - due to the spacing of the rocks and the size of the rovers. "Computer simulations are crucial for designing Mars rovers because the only place where you find Martian conditions is on Mars," says Mazzoleni. "Earth-based testing alone cannot establish whether a particular design will work on Mars." 

 To be sure, Mars has approximately three-eighths of Earth's gravity - with an atmospheric density on the surface that is only duplicated around 100,000 feet above the Earth's surface.

Tumbleweed rovers are attractive because they can cover much larger distances, and handle rougher terrain, than the rovers that have already been sent to Mars – such as Spirit and Opportunity. 

While tumbleweed rovers would lack the precise controls of wheeled rovers, they wouldn't be dependent on a power supply for mobility - being literally blown across the Martian landscape by the wind.>>