Day: November 30, 2018

Dr. Hanson made a video about the Brazil Nut Effect, but called it the Raisin Bran Effect. To me, it will always be the “Brazil Nut Effect” because that’s the term that Jay Ingram used when discussing it 15 years ago on an episode of Discovery Channel’s “Daily Planet”.

That said, even then, I was already familiar with the effect from having noticed that upon shaking a cup of instant coffee grounds and sugar, the sugar would sink and the coffee grounds would rise. Simple observation (and slow shaking) revealed that the difference in size and shape of the grounds and sugar crystals was the reason for the “granular convection”.

Sorry Joe, but it I don’t know if the Raisin Bran Effect will take.

Some staff at Osseo high-school in Minnesota physically forced open the door to a bathroom stall while a transgender student was going to the bathroom. There’s a few salient points about this:

1. Despite what the student said, they didn’t “violate” him (her?). That is a loaded word that implies something akin to abuse or rape. 🙄
2. Couldn’t they have just waited a minute for him to come out on his own and then send him to the office to sort out the matter? What was the friggin’ rush? 😒
3. Regardless of how anyone feels about (trans-)gender issues in general, nobody can argue that the student was harming anyone by going to the bathroom in a stall. For decades, sometimes girls used the men’s bathroom when the ladies’ was full, and sometimes guys used the ladies’ room when the men’s was out of order, and nobody got hurt. I’d like to believe that (most) people are (still) mature enough to take a leak or wash their hands without causing anyone to die. ¬_¬ (Even before bathrooms were invented, people of all genders took dumps in the same grass and woods as each other for millennia without problem. This is “progress” for you. 🤦)