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penumbra of such advice
Monday, August 21 2017
Today was the day of the big solar eclipse of 2017, with a patch of totality sweeping west-to-east from Portland, Oregon to Columbia, South Carolina, the first time totality would scan the United States from one coast to the other in 99 years. I didn't even know totality could go as far north as Oregon, or that there were astronomical phenomena that start in the west and end in the east. I wasn't aware that it had a west-to-east movement until just before morning standup (our remote videoconference where our IT team touches base), which was delayed for the eclipse well before it had begun in the east.
It was a gorgeous sunny day with only occasional clouds, so when the eclipse came to Hurley (and it was only partial), Gretchen and I could experience it in nearly ideal conditions. Unfortunately, we didn't have great gear for looking at the eclipse. We didn't have eclipse glasses, though I do have a number of welding masks. Supposedly they didn't have sufficient darkening power, but if we weren't staring at the sun endlessly, they would be fine. Though she's a born rule breaker, for some reason Gretchen wants to follow the letter of professional advice about such things (even when it's clear that the penumbra of such advice is deliberately vast so as to eliminate harmful edge cases). Nevertheless, I convinced her to try looking briefly at the eclipse through the welding mask. She was really glad she did; the crescents we projected with a perforated piece of cardboard were charming, but underwhelming. I could also watch the eclipse in real time through my big Nikon camera, whose LCD viewing screen that can be angled such that the viewer doesn't have to look in the direction of the thing being photographed. To cut back on the image-bleaching power of the sunlight, I held a greenish welding filter over the lense. While Gretchen and I looked, I snapped a couple pictures, of course, some of which were not terrible. It was an experience, but it wasn't the darkest solar eclipse I'd ever experienced. That honor probably goes to the one that happened in 1994, which I saw on a sunny day from my childhood home near Staunton, Virginia. The one I saw just before shop class in 1984 was also better.
Meanwhile Facebook was exploding with pictures of people looking at the eclipse and the eclipse itself. True to his toddler persona, the current President of the United States, Donald J. Trump, was photographed on the porch of the White House buffoonishly looking at the eclipse without any eye protection (despite concerned shouts from aids that he not do this). I imagined that when it was finally imparted to him the danger of looking at the sun, he process the new information as if it was a piece of special wisdom that very few knew. I imagined him tweeting or something like:
Most people don't know this, and they really should teach it in schools, but did you know you're not supposed to look at an eclipse? It's bad for the eyes. Very bad! People don't know!
--Donald J. Trump, August 21, 201
The eclipse (near its maximum in Hurley) as seen through my big Nikon camera through a green welding filter.
Burn, baby, burn!
This evening I was supposed to interview someone for a job (I was the person doing the hiring) but he never materialized, and it might've been my fault. This hiring bullshit is not what I want to be doing, and I'm pretty bad at it. The web-based tools help, but in this case I'd used them to schedule an interview and then the prospect hadn't replied, and I'd just assumed it was on. I was wrong.
Meanwhile Gretchen had gone to Onteora Lake (without the dogs) because that friend she'd had dinner with last night had said it had been cleaned up and de-redneckified and was now a great place to go swimming. Supposedly even the poison ivy was gone. Gretchen returned hours later saying it was awesome and perhaps even a life-changer. She keeps wanting to buy a cabin on a lake in the Adirondacks, but if there is a nice lake less than a seven mile drive away, why (for now, at least) bother?
For linking purposes this article's URL is:
http://asecular.com/blog.php?170821 feedback
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