Get It Done!

Did you ever go to your favorite department store with a long list of things to pick up, only to find that almost every department was under construction? Perhaps the entire front of the store and half the garage was included in the make-over so that you had to park several blocks away and make your way down a fenced serpentine walk-way to a tiny entry on the side. Once you got inside, you were still confined to fenced-in paths, just like everybody else. Maybe the escalators and all but one elevator were fenced off. And it turned out the only departments that were open were Ladies Socks, Pickles & Relish, and Toys for Children 100+. I suppose that would be fine if all you needed were socks, pickles and a birthday present for Great-Grandma. But would it be fun...?

Okay, I exaggerated a little, but that disappointed, claustrophobic feeling is what I’ve been feeling this past year whenever we go to DisneyWorld for the day. First, large swatches of Hollywood Studios were blocked off as they built Toy Story Land and Galaxy’s Edge... and rebuilt the security measures at the front gate. That meant a long walk from the greatly expanded parking lot around all the fenced off area to get passed through security so you could line up like sardines in a tin to go through the gate. They still don’t have the Chinese Theater open again.

Now they are working on TomorrowLand in Epcot. ALL of the central section of TomorrowLand is under construction. The rides around the edges are... supposedly... open, but when we went there the other day, ALL the attractions in The Land Pavilion had ‘technical difficulties’ until 9:45. When we got out of there, there was no way to walk across the central section to get to the rides on the other side. (You had to walk around the edges of the ‘donut hole’, either back to the front gate and up the other side, or around the lagoon side and down the other side.) Happily, it was 11:00, so we walked around the lagoon so we could say we had at least walked a mile that day.

I don’t know, maybe it’s just me, but when I want to go someplace fun, a major construction zone is NOT the first place I think of. Why can’t they do one building at a time, get it done, and then move on to the next piece of the project?

And what’s up with the Guardians of the Galaxy ride? It’s been under construction for what, 2 years now? And still another year to go? Sheesh!

Man Made Islands

If you think man has only recently decided to build their own islands, think again. In Scotland, Wales and Ireland, they started doing it nearly 6,000 years ago. They are called crannogs and while some of them are partially natural,  quite a few were entirely artificial, built in lakes and estuarine waters. Crannogs are not like the prehistoric pile dwellings of the Alps, which were built on the shores and became inundated later. Crannogs were actually built in the water, forming artificial islands.

These new islands were used as dwellings for over five millennia, possibly to the early 18th century. Some were free-standing wooden structures, although they more commonly existed as brush, stone or timber mounds. However, in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland, timber was unavailable, so their crannogs consisted of stone, with drystone architecture sitting atop the base stones. Today, crannogs typically appear as small, circular islets, 30 to 100 feet in diameter, covered in dense vegetation because they are inaccessible to grazing livestock.

Crannogs are wide-spread in Ireland, but are frequently undercounted in Scotland, as they can be called various things, depending on who you talk to. Mainland Scotland and the Scottish isles also refer to them in various ways. Previously unknown crannogs are still being found, as underwater surveys find completely submerged examples.

Crannogs were built with whatever material was most available in the immediate area. Several feet above the water’s surface, an ‘Atlantic roundhouse’ was built on the new island, connected to the shore by a causeway. At the time, most communication and travel was achieved by waterways. They may have served as simple farmsteads or as boltholes in times of danger. Their limited access may have served as a status symbol, and their inherited location would have implied legitimacy towards ownership of the surrounding landscape.

The earliest known crannog in Scotland appears to date from 3650 BC. It is interesting to note that crannogs were often reused after a period of non-use. Defense does not appear to be the major reason for building and living on a crannog, as there is little evidence of weapons or of destruction in the excavation of prehistoric crannogs.

I have to admit, I was unaware of any such method of building a home until I googled this word for information. My first thought is that it would be a wonderful home for a water spirit or for a child of a water spirit.

My second thought was that it could be useful as a toll bridge across a river, with a causeway or bridge going from the home to both banks. Why break your back every day for the rest of your life to ferry people from one side of the river to the other when you can work hard as a youngster to build a home and 2 causeways, and still collect tolls as you totter into old age?

The article also mentioned kings and lords living on crannogs, of crannog islets being enlarged repeatedly and therefore being home to an extended family. What about a city growing up on an ever-enlarging crannog? Lots of ideas from this one word.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crannog

Y Dwarf Stars

What do you call a body in space that is bigger than a planet but not hot enough to be a star? Apparently, they are being called Y-dwarf stars.

These bodies are not undergoing fusion, so they aren’t what we usually think of when we think of stars. But they are bigger than a planet, and their gravity is so strong, the interior is heated - to some extent. If one was in orbit around a ‘normal’ star of any size, it would probably be called a planet. If it is wandering through space alone, or has anything orbiting it, it’s a failed star, a type of brown dwarf.

Brown dwarves come in 3 types, depending on their surface temperature. The hottest are the L-type, the cooler ones are T-type, and the coolest are this Y-type that we are discussing. Scientists know of at least 24 Y-type brown dwarves.

Brown dwarves can be as much as 80 times the mass of Jupiter, but a Y-type is only 5 to 20 times Jupiter’s mass. At that size, their surface temperature appears to be from 250 to 350 degrees Farenheit. They are hard to spot, not only because of their low temperature but because the energy they emit (weakly) is mostly in the infrared spectrum.

If I read the articles correctly, most Y-dwarves have an atmosphere, which I imagine is even more chaotic than that of Jupiter. And don’t be thinking that atmosphere might be breathable. Instead, think of alkali elements and noxious clouds.

I am left wondering how I could work a Y-type brown dwarf into a story. I don’t think you could ‘land’ on it. The articles didn’t specifically say it, but I don’t think they have any rocky core to them. How about if you had to dip into the atmosphere and ‘suck up’ some of that atmosphere as a type of fuel? Maybe you’d had a fuel leak that you finally got patched, but now you didn’t have enough fuel to get to any regular re-fueling station. Considering the gravity involved and the turbulence of that atmosphere, would your ship hold together?

Maybe you tried to stay on the very edge of the atmosphere, sipping up the fuel slowly, instead of going lower and gulping. But a sudden storm pulled you lower, to the point where the ship’s joints are creaking and complaining, so you have to open your vents wide and let the atmosphere flood your tanks, then take a chance and use that raw, unrefined fuel to blast your way out of the atmosphere and to a safe distance. That could be a bumpy ride, as your engines try to cope with pockets of impurities!

Well, that’s one thought. I’m sure others will come to me.

http://www.sci-news.com/astronomy/science-y-class-brown-dwarfs-01368.html

https://phys.org/news/2017-07-y-type-stars.html

Conspiracy?

Heard any good conspiracy theories lately? Let me share one with you that has nothing to do with today’s political scene. It’s one that’s dawned on me little by little, over the past few weeks.

Disney World’s Hollywood Studios has had a new ride for the past... I’m not sure, 6 weeks? 2 months? We didn’t pay close attention to it when it finally opened, because we figured it would be super-freaking popular (being new), and there was no chance we could get on it for a while. So basically, we ignored it for several weeks to let some of the hullabaloo die down.

After about a month, we ventured to Hollywood Studios and since we were there, we wandered over to sign up for a ‘boarding group’. See, they had started a ‘virtual cue’ for this ride, where once you are in the park, you can sign up for a boarding group. I think we were in Boarding Group #105 on that day. They had also put up information signs around the park that - among other things - would tell which group(s) were being boarded at that time. So we wandered around the park, riding all the other rides, seeking out a lunch reservation, eating lunch, riding more rides again. They still weren’t even up to Group #50, and we were flagging badly. So we gave up and went home. Just wasn’t our day, we figured.

J did some research after that. The official line was that once your entire party is in the park, you can use the disney app on your phone to sign up for the ride and get your boarding pass number. J had an account for that app, he used it on his home computer to get fast passes for us when we are planning to go to one of the Disney World parks. But he didn’t have the app on his phone, because 1) he seldom carries his phone, and 2) he doesn’t want to load up a bunch of apps, so he’s not adept at using them.

About a week later, we tried again, getting up early enough to get there by 7am (we arrived at the entrance about 6:50am, only to find they were already letting people in). Once inside, J took off for the ride (located in the back of the park) to get us signed up, sure he did not need my wristband to get us both signed up. Meanwhile, I had halfway listened to the announcements, and went to the closest ‘Guest Experience’ umbrella, where staff members were helping people get signed up for this fantastic new ride. I was placed in Boarding Group #115. I was sure they would never get that far, but the staff person said they had gotten through #130 the day before. I assumed that meant they hadn’t had any delays, but I went off to the place where J and I were supposed to meet. He was impatiently waiting for me so I could go back with him and get myself signed up, because he couldn’t do it without my armband. But he was in Group #115, too. Good enough, we figured, and tried to pace ourselves, to get through the day.

It didn’t happen. We aren’t spring chickens anymore. Once again we gave up and went home long before they got anywhere near our group number.

This time, I got my own account, AND downloaded it onto my phone, but when I tried to tie his membership to my account, I couldn’t do it, not even on my at-home computer. So, the next time we tried, we got up at 4 am to leave by 5am to get to the park by 6am. Yes, we live that far from the park. And we made it, and only had to stand in line at the gate about 20 minutes before we got in the park, they started letting people about 6:15. We high-tailed it to the neared ‘Guest Experience to get signed up... only to find nobody there to help us because it wasn’t 7 am yet. Yes, we had to stand in line until 7am to get assigned to a Boarding Group. At 7:02, they assigned us to Group #94. 94! In 2 minutes, the computer filled up 93 groups? Yes, they said, those people using their phones can be awfully quick.

We had a melt-down. If we’d gotten any angrier, we probably would have been expelled from the park for the day. But the staff lady kept her cool, kept working with her pad, and finally told us she’d gotten us into Group 50, but that was the best she could do. We took it and were grateful. So, maybe we were looking at getting on the ride in early afternoon, rather than late evening. Providing the ride did not experience too many glitches to shut it down during the day.

We wandered around the park, riding rides, standing in lots of long lines, and finally had a funnel cake, because breakfast at 4:30 did not last until lunchtime. We consulted with another staff lady about the difficulty with my account, and she called their IT department, who got it fixed.

At long last, about 1pm, about the time I was beginning to feel my blood sugar was getting low, we saw a sign that said they were now accepting Groups 40-60. That included us. No chance to get another snack, we reported for duty! They checked our wristbands and told us we were good to go! Except they didn’t tell us where to go to get on the ride. I finally noticed another staffer lazily waving people onto a particular path, so I asked. Their answer? “Yes, if you just have a regular Boarding Group and nothing else, that is where you go now.”

So we beat feet down that path. But as we stood in the line for about an hour (so much for virtual cues eliminating long lines), we wondered about the ‘something else’ that might have gotten us onto the ride. We also wondered about 93 Boarding Groups filling up in 2 minutes or less. A Boarding Group appears to be 16 people, based on what we observed during the ride, so that would be 1,488 people (or more) managed to get into a Boarding Group in 2 minutes or less. Remember, these people supposedly all had to be in the park at 7am in order to do that.

I don’t buy that explanation. Yes, I did see people standing just inside the gate, focused solely on their phones, but I didn’t see 1000 of them.

I think the first several Groups are reserved for ‘special people’. I don’t know who those people are, or how they manage to get into one of those early groups. Maybe when you are signing up for a Boarding Group, the computer checks to see if you are staying at a Disney hotel or resort. If you are, you get an earlier group. If you’re a ‘local’, like us, you get shunted to a later group.

I don’t know how they are doing it, but I think Disney is pulling a fast one. Supposedly, there are no fast passes for this ride, but evidently, there are methods of getting on it besides the virtual cue that we worked so hard to get into.