Google Globe

If one zooms out on Google maps, it is now possible to see the
earth as a globe. This is pretty awesome. 😎

Mashed Potatoes

On the passing of Joël Robuchon, Le Figaro shared his approach
to mashed poatoes: get the water out, the butter in, add warm milk.

GAIA

Le Monde today is referencing the ESA (European Spaca Agency) GAIA project,
which published - last spring - a detailed 3D map of the Milky Way Galaxy.
A phenomenal 1,7 billion stars are referenced.

The web site explains that this map corrects for the earth's parallax problem in
doing stellar cartography (the picture will change depending on where the earth
finds itself in its annual orbit around the sun.) According to Wikipedia, what we
are seeing is 'proper position' ie where these bodies are with respect to the center
of gravity of the galaxy.

Warm Water

Four nuclear reactors have been closed in France and
a number of others are currently running at reduced capacity.
Blame the current heat wave!. Reactoes are cooled with
water from natural sources, and EDF (Électricité de France)
is forbidden from returning water warmer than 28° C.

source: MSN France

Weight Journey

Although France has a relatively low rate of morbid obesity, it is one of
most active countries with respect to using bariatric surgery. For recall, this is not a
benign procedure but invoves irreversibly making the stomah smaller, and in
the case of the bypass procedure, rewiring the smaller pouch lower in the intestinal
track. Not my idea of cosmetic fun. Interestingly, the YouTube video below does
give an idea on how this is approached.

Only two of the four patients go to surgery. the two teen-aged girls are sent to
boarding schools for  one year with other obese girls. The results are amazing: both
loose an appreciable amount of weight and do better academically. There is a psychologist
present but he doen't mess with the girls' heads. It is a limited form of interention whose
import is to disentangle compensatory eating in the day-to-day of these young women.

The two adults are not infantalized. It is a chance to live a normal life with their families,
and there is a cost to them. The operation itself lasts one hour (they are at 300 pounds,
not 600). Ten days in, they are served a regular portion of fish and spinach they free to eat
or leave; it is their journey.

Diet Shame

The dieting mind is a thing of wonder. Irregardless of the best
intentions in the world toward eating lean and clean, old indulgences
find their way back into one's diet. Case in point, I have taken
personal discipline to new heights with my summer diet, sticking
to three balanced light meals per day, with no calories ingested
outside those meal windows. Yet, inexplicably, my weight remained
up  few pounds from my usual summer low. What have I been doing?
Why just 'throwing in' a scoop of yogurt and/or whipped topping with
my evening bowl of Rice Krispies  and fresh fruit.

It hit me this morning, as I watched a YouTube vid which referenced the legendary
Corn Flake Milkshake served at Hawksmoor's Steak House in London.
With picture below. Couldn't find the recipe, although Kellog's does
give a version...

The Weather

Ah, the weather: subject I currently find extremely fascinating. Decided to
go with the BBC presentation for a few days because my usual sources keep
changing things up all the time. It's grey as anything but I am going out for my
morning walk to the food shops anyway...

Also found a very useful text from Météo France about relative humidity. Should have a
translation up later today.

                                            *     *     *

source: Météo France

translation : doxa-louise

Humidity

Definition and Units of Measure

The humidity parameter im Meteorology refers to the quantity of water vapor in the air.

Water vapor is one of the forms that water - necessary to life - can take on earth. The

others are liquid form (oceans, lakes, rain...) and solid form (glaciers, pack ice, snow...)

Water vapor is utterly transparent and invisible. Let us recall that the atmosphere is

essentially made up of nitrogen (78%) and oxygen (21%) leaving roughly 1% on 

average for other gases. Thus the proportion of water vapor varies between 0,1 %

to 5 % at the very most in the air which surrounds us! Yet it is its presence in the 

atmosphere which creates the conditions for the presence or absence of clouds, 

precipitation, fog. Moreover, ambient is humid even when it doesn’t ‘wet’! Take a glass

of iced tea out of the refrigerator, quickly, the sides will exhibit water droplets. This 

water comes from the condensation of water vapor in the air.

The air contains, as a function of its temperature, a variable maximum quantity of 

water vapor. In effect, the gas ‘water vapor’ condenses when temperature goes down 

and goes from gaseous to liquid form: this is saturation. Beyond the saturation point, 

water molecules, until then independent, will form deposits on all supporting materials 

(the tea cup, vegetation, or dust particles higher up) and form droplets visible to the 

naked eye. This is condensation. At high altitude, these droplets will form clouds: on 

the ground, one will notice dew (or white frost in the case of negative temperatures) or, 

if there is a bit of wind, mist if not fog.

In Meteorology, one quantifies humidity in two ways: absolute humidity and relative 

humidity.

-Absolute Humidity

Absolute humidity refers to the quantity of water vapor contained in air. One is dealing 

with grams of water per cubic meter of air (g/m3). This quantity doesn’t vary, it does 

not respond to changes in temperature. In effect, air is a mixture of dry air and water 

vapor and a cubic meter of air always contains a few grams of water vapor. This mass 

of water vapor will not change even if the temperature of the given volume of air 

changes ( assuming that there is no condensation involved, the transformation of 

part of the water vapor to liquid form).

-Relative Humidity

Relative humidity is the relation of the quantity of water vapor contained in the air to 

the possible maximum. It is this quantity which meteorologists measure. Relative 

humidity is a percentage. 100% corresponds to air which is saturated in water vapor 

(risk of cloud, rain, fog, dew or frost), 0% to perfectly dry air (this value for relative 

humidity is not found in a natural setting, even in deserts).

The hotter the air is, the more water vapor it can contain. Inversely, when air cools, 

vapor condenses and forms water droplets: one expresses this saying the threshold of 

saturation goes up with temperature.

The relative humidity pf an air mass will thus vary with the temperature of the air. When 

temperature goes up, during the day, relative humidity goes down, although the water 

content of the air mass - absolute humidity - remains unchanged.

A level of humidity between 10 and 20% corresponds to very dry air, too dry for comfort

for an organism. Inversely, when temperature goes down, during the night, relative humidity 

goes up and can reach saturation, that is, relative humidity at 100%. At

30°C, the air can contain up to 30g/m3 of water as vapor, hence 10 times more than at -5°C. 

This explains in part why rains are much more abundant in tropical regions than in temperate ones and that in the middle of  Antartica, snowfall is rare with little intensity.

Reading the table, at 30°C an air particle whose relative humidity is 50% contains 

15g/m3 of water vapor, thus half as much as it could contain at maximum.

Being efficient with aeration or how not to trap humidity

At the end of the vacation period, you assiduously clean your cottage, boat or motor

home, before closing things down for the winter. If this aeration occurs on a hot day, 

worse on a stormy and humid one, the air boxed up in the closets and cushions will 

contain a great deal of water vapor. At the slightest cooling, this vapor will condense

and create mold. Inversely, aeration performed in the dead of winter will imprison air 

poor in water, which will become increasingly dry with rising temperatures.

Instrument and Measure

Air humidity can be measured with a hygrometer or a psychrometer. Meteorologists 

apply norms defines by the World Meteorological Organization to make the measures

comparable. The instruments, or probes in the case of telemetry readings, must be placed 

in a well-aired shelter to avoid direct sunlight or rain.

Meteorologists are also interested in air humidity at high altitude. Thus, during 

atmospheric radio probes, the humidity profile is measured - as is that of temperature, 

pressure or again wind. Knowing these parameters permits to foresee fog, clouds, 

thunderstorms...Meteorological satellites also carry along instruments making possible

estimates as to the relative humidity of air.

Hygrometer

In order to measure the humidity of air, or hygrometry, we use electronic probes containing a condenser whose capacity will vary with the surrounding air mass.

Beginning in the middle of the XVth century, the first hygrometers relied on the properties 

of certain organic substances (wool, rope, sponge, wheat awns, hair, leather...) which on 

absorbing water vapor change in mass, form, length or color.  In 1781, Horace Bénédict de 

Saussure developed the first hair sensitive hygrometer in history. Simple, not expensive and 

relatively accurate, it will be used until the XXth century. The length of hairs varies as a 

function of relative humidity and move the pen which inscribes the humidity reading on 

a metered piece of paper surrounding a cylinder. This instrument was used in meteorological 

stations at the end of the XIXth century up to the 1970s. It was then kept in the stations as 

back-up until the years 1980-1990s.

Psychrometry

A psychrometer is made up of two thermometers. The first, the ’dry thermometer’, 

measures air temperature. The reservoir of the second, the ‘wet thermometer’, is kept 

wet by a cloth  kept permanently soaked. Water evaporation cools the wet thermometer. 

The dryer the air, the more active the evaporation, the more the temperature on the wet 

thermometer goes down and the greater the difference between the two thermometers 

becomes. If humidity is at 100%, the temperature of the two thermometers will be 

identical.This instrument, invented by Gay Lussac in 1825 and carried on by August 

in 1831, was in use between 1860 up to the 1970s. Then, kept in meteorological shelters 

as back-up, its usage was abandoned after 1994.

The humid regions of Metropolitan France

Coastal regions, especially so if the sea is cold and winds coming from the open sea 

dominate, are more humid than continental regions. This is true notably on the coasts

of the English Channel and the Atlantic. the Mediterranean coast is dryer because of a 

warmer sea and the predominance of winds from the interior ( mistral and tramontane).

In the interior, it is more difficult to delineate dry and humid zones. The kind of  

ground and hence its capacity to retain rain water, exposure to wind and sun for mountainous 

regions, will have much influence on the humidity of air.

Humidity is greater on average in December, and  least in July and August. For 

Metropolitan France, air humidity is rarely seen below 20%. Taking Marignane as an

example, one of the dries cities in France, this value was reached on the average 5 times 

per year in the period 1990-2009.

Heat and Humidity

The more humid it gets, the less the air can take in additional water. Thus in times of high temperature and strong humidity, the human body has trouble cooling itself: it becomes 

impossible for sweat to evaporate.

http://www.meteofrance.fr/prevoir-le-temps/observer-le-temps/parametres-observes/humidite

                                              *     *     *

https://scijinks.gov/pressure/

http://www.meteofrance.fr/climat-passe-et-futur/comprendre-le-climat-mondial/le-systeme-climatique

nfrared radiation (IR) is electromagnetic radiation (EMR) with longer wavelengths than those of visible light, and is therefore generally invisible to the human eye (although IR at wavelengths up to 1050 nm from specially pulsed lasers can be seen by humans under certain conditions ^[1][2][3][4]). It is sometimes called infrared light. IR wavelengths extend from the nominal rededge of the visible spectrum at 700 nanometers (frequency 430 THz), to 1 millimeter (300 GHz)^[5] Most of the thermal radiationemitted by objects near room temperature is infrared. Like all EMR, IR carries radiant energy, and behaves both like a wave and like its quantum particle, the photon.

source: Wikipedia