Category: In the News

boiling water, freezing air, & thundersnow

If you take boiling water and toss it into the air when it’s -22 degrees outside, it evaporates into steam before it hits the ground.  Here’s a video of it.  Looks neat. At first it looks like it’s instantly turning into snow, but it’s in fact steam.

I remember hearing that hot water can actually freeze faster than cold water.  Turns out that’s only sometimes true — according to science, water at 100 degrees C will freeze before water warmer than 60 degrees C but not before water cooler than 60 degrees C.  Although if you put hot water and cold water in the freezer at the same time, the hot water can freeze faster because the bottom part of the hot water can start freezing while the top is still warm (and no convection is occurring).  Further explanation is beyond the scope of this article, but you can read more here if you’re feeling particularly nerdy today.  (It’s actually called the Mpemba effect.)

Also on the page right now is a video of Jim Cantore of The Weather Channel getting surprised by “thundersnow“.  It’s basically just thunder and lightning, but it’s more rare in a snowstorm.  His reaction is interesting, which is why this video has been making the rounds on TV.

Grand Theft Bacon

In our weekly caption contests, when there’s something crazy going on, someone will occasionally say, “What would you do for bacon?”  It’s a valid question, because bacon is awesome. I can see someone doing stupid human tricks to get bacon.  But stealing bacon shouldn’t be one of them.

Last month in Little Rock, Arkansas, a man was arrested for trying to steal bacon from a grocery store.  He stuffed two packages of bacon in his pants and tried to leave the store.  An employee saw him trying to “abscond” with the merchandise and attempted to stop him.  The two got into a fight, before several customers helped restrain him.  (FYI, “abscond” is the word used in the newspaper article.  I wonder if they used a thesaurus for that one.)

Who would steal two packages of bacon?  Would you believe it was a 50-year-old man?   I would expect him to know better.  Also, he did this at 1:15 PM.  Was this a planned heist?  I’m guessing no.

Imagine this man in jail — a fellow inmate would ask, “What are you in for?”  His crime against society is stealing two packages of bacon — by stuffing them into his pants.  It’s not hard to imagine this guy getting beat up if he were to go to prison…

it might snow — gotta buy milk & bread!

The weather here in Arkansas can be so random… yesterday I was outside playing tennis because it was 62 degrees, and tomorrow we’re expecting from 2 to 8 inches of snow.  For those of you from the north, that amount of snow probably means nothing.  But here, where it snows maybe once or twice a year, it’s a big deal.  It’s been all over the news.  And there was even a segment on the news dedicated to people buying all the milk and bread because snow was mentioned in the weather forecast.

According to the news program, some people rush out to buy milk and bread before potential snow not because of the snow, but because other people will be buying milk and bread because of the snow.  So who started that cycle?  It’s not like we ever have more than a couple days of wintry weather, and it’s not like you can’t eat if you run out of milk and bread for a day or two.  So why is it such a big deal?

I wonder if that happens anywhere else but the South.  If there’s any readers north of here, do you experience anything like that?  I’d guess not, because road crews clear the roads quickly.  Here, if snow sticks to the road, the town shuts down.  People start leaving work when they see snow falling.  When I used to work for a large IT corporation, I worked with clients in Chicago and New York City, and they would be shocked that people couldn’t get into work for two inches of snow.  But that’s how it is.  The roads don’t get cleared quickly, and there is little to no public transportation, and there’s often some amount of ice, whether initially or the next day.  That may seem weird, the town closing down, but I kinda like it.

Hopefully we’ll get a LOT of snow so I can build giant snow creations (like a snow castle).  And of course, a day or two off work is nice…  🙂

the American Redneck Society

I heard that a man in Virginia founded the American Redneck Society recently.

The website has a page dedicated to what it means to be a redneck.  There isn’t a single specific answer to that question.  But according to the website, if you answer yes to any one of the following questions, you can proudly consider yourself a redneck.

1. Do you like to hunt or fish?
2. Are you a fan of NASCAR?
3. Do you own a pickup truck?
4. Are you a gun-owner?
5. Do you like country music?
6. Do you laugh at and identify with “you might be a redneck” jokes?
7. Do you agree with the creed of the American Redneck Society?
8. Are you a proud supporter of the U.S. military?
9. Can you fix just about anything with duct tape?
10. Did you think “duct” tape in question 9 should have been “duck” tape?

That’s going to include a lot of people, if you have to answer yes to only one of them…

Apparently you can get a number of store discounts if you become a paying member, so there looks to be something to it…