"The 'surface' of the sun is really an unstable, roiling soup of plasma, heated to about 10,000 degrees Fahrenheit."

"The video released by researchers shows vortices of hot plasma that ebb and flow like bubbles in a pot of boiling water. Hot plasma is transported up from below the sun’s surface to a cooler area; as it cools, it drops back down to the inner parts of the star."

From "New video of the sun supports theory of what happens on its surface/Images of the sun’s surface that were published in a new study show turbulent, vortex-like structures in unprecedented detail" (WaPo)(gift link with video).

"So, yes, I do wear sunscreen every day despite working indoors."

"I commute at least 45 minutes to my office each way. I also face a nice large window behind my computer screen when I’m there. So even though I don’t actually step foot outside most of the day (tragically), my skin is getting UVA rays for much of my indoor time."

From "I’m a doctor. Here’s why I wear sunblock indoors. Plus, four tips for buying an effective sunscreen" (WaPo)(gift link).

I think the expression is "set foot" — not "step foot" — and I'm not going to take this doctor's advice. Frankly, I don't even use sunscreen outdoors. I walk at dawn and in places I know to be shady. Sunscreen is for people who go out in the sun and stay there a while, like I did when I was a child and even second-degree sunburns — the kind with blisters — were a normal part of a day at the beach. 

The Winter Solstice.

How will you observe the profound occasion?

Incredibly stupid NY Post headline: "Ghislaine Maxwell filmed bizarrely carrying umbrella on sunny day at Texas prison."

Text: "Ghislaine Maxwell was snapped going for a casual stroll while carrying an umbrella on a sunny day at the cushy Federal Prison Camp Bryan.... Maxwell accessorized with a large bottle and a black umbrella — a la Mary Poppins — which she carried overhead despite the seasonally balmy weather in an effort to shield the Sun or perhaps lower her profile...."

Yes, you eventually got there, so you knew before publishing exactly why she carried an umbrella. As you inanely put it: "in an effort to shield the Sun." Inane, because it's not to shield the sun. It's to shield oneself from the sun. An umbrella carried for sun protection can be called a "parasol." 

Does the reporter not know this? He's Shane Galvin: "Shane is an experienced writer with a proven track record. He has a Bachelor of Arts in English Language and Literature from The New School." How is English literature taught these days? Does one never encounter fictional characters who use parasols? There's nothing bizarre or nutty about protecting oneself from sunlight. I guarantee you that in Jane Austen novels nobody ever slathers on sunscreen.

I looked to see what else Shane Galvin had written. What is this "proven track record"? I find, from December 29, 2024: "I look like Luigi Mangione — and it got me a hot date with a model who slid into my DMs."

Yeesh. I'll move on. Just one more thing. I see Galvin capitalized "sun." That's wrong, but why is it wrong? We capitalize the names of the planets — Venus, Mars, etc. Is it because "sun" is like "planet," and not a name at all? What then is the proper noun for the sun? Other stars have names — Alpha Centauri, Sirius, Betelgeuse. If you're talking about our sun along with other stars, what name do you use?

What is the proper noun used as the name for our sun?

There isn't one!

Just capitalize "sun." Make it "Sun." Voila!

Oddly enough, it's Sol.

It's something else.

 

pollcode.com free polls

How to stop fretting about the coming and going of Daylight Savings Time and live by the light not the clock.

I know you have appointments and work and social obligations and need to observe the time of the clock to some extent, but your waking and sleeping and much of the rest of what you do — eating, going out walking, chores, reading, napping, conversing, and generally being the human animal that you are — can and should be done according to the time of the sun, which doesn't leap forward and fall back in one hour chunks semiannually, but changes very slightly day by day.

The easiest adjustment you can make is to get up at dawn, which is about half an hour before the sunrise. I recommend getting out and about and really experiencing the early light. Lots of health benefits to that — circadian rhythms and so forth. There's nothing about your "o'clock" affairs that should stop you from doing that. Set your day by the sun. I've done that since 2019, and I didn't need to be retired to do it. 

Now, I've been designing an app in my head for a while. I wanted something that would display Sun Time next to clock time. It would know where I am located and display the clock time of dawn, sunrise, sunset, and dusk along with the passage of the sunlight over the course of the day. I pictured Sun Time as a percentage, with dawn at 0% and the end of dusk at 100%. So every day in Sun Time has an equal number of daylight gradations understood in terms of percentages even though the number of hours in clock time varies greatly over the course of the year and includes the brutal jumps when DST comes or goes. The Sun Time gradations are perfectly gentle — because they are tiny and because they put you in close touch with the natural world of sunlight.

I thought I could get A.I. to write the code for this app I had in mind, but I had the sense to ask first if there already was such an app. There are a few. I picked Sundial. It looks like this:

I would like to see the Sun Time percentages displayed on the dial, but you can see at the bottom right that I was 45.1% into today's daylight when I took the screenshot. I want to maximize my thinking in terms of that percentage, which, of course, ticks by faster in the winter than the summer. But that's good if you want to be adjusted to nature. You've got to hurry a bit to get out for a walk (or whatever) in the daylight, and it's cold, so you'll want to move fast. You've got a longer night in the winter, but confront it, full on, and make something of the dark.

I've had it with complaints about Daylight Savings Time. I have shown you the better way to live. Step into the Sun Time and don't go back.

The face covering I was about to bemoan... and then wanted to buy for myself.

I'm reading "Why Can’t Fashion See What It Does to Women? A season that included off-putting, sometimes cruel designs left us wondering about what it all means." That's by the NYT fashion critic Vanessa Friedman, and I'm giving you a free-access link so you can read the whole argument and see all the pictures. But I just want to concentrate on one thing.

At Courrèges, Nicolas Di Felice covered the faces of many models, in an otherwise elegant show inspired by the idea of the sun and rising temperatures, and shielded them from view. But even if the shades were meant as protection, the suggestion that a woman would need to hide was problematic....

Hide from the sun?! Is the sun sexist? I spend my life hiding from the sun — going for walks before sunrise or in the shadiest woods. I had a childhood full of sunburns, and the calendar of my old age is studded with dermatology appointments. I'm averse to the ritual of slathering sunblock goo all over. I prefer protective clothing when I can get it. And to me this Courrèges thing is fantastic.

It's not like the other things pictured at the link, e.g. "Arm-trapping 'cocoon' bodysuits at Alaïa, and mouth guards that stretched the face into rictus grins at Margiela."

Here's the Vogue article about the Courrèges show: 

"'The 'never go outside without S.P.F. 50' approach treated sun exposure as if it were universally harmful,' said Dr. Lucy McBride..."

"... an internal medicine physician in Washington, D.C.... Research has found that spending more time in the sun is associated with lower blood pressure....Sunlight may also help support the immune system by controlling inflammation and immune cells.... A well-known benefit of sun exposure is that it triggers the body to produce vitamin D.... The research on sunshine’s potential benefits is still quite limited, so it’s hard to know how to interpret or apply it, or how to square it with the risks for skin cancer, Dr. McBride said. And you shouldn’t stop using sun protection altogether, she said.... Ultimately, it may make sense to consider sunlight's potential benefits along with its harms, Dr. McBride said. 'Skin cancer remains a serious threat,' she said. 'But it is about moving beyond fear-based, one-size-fits-all messaging.'"

From "What are the Health Benefits of Sunshine? We’ve been taught to avoid the sun at all costs. Is that right?" (NYT).

Missing from the article is anything about the chemicals in sunscreen we've been urged to slather on repeatedly and excessively. Personally, despite being at great risk for skin cancer, I don't use the stuff. I go out in the very early morning or I use clothing for protection or I try to stay mostly in the shade. Here I am a year ago, in the semi-shade, interacting with a mushroom...

... and if you're inclined to say Althouse, you need to get that spot on your back checked out, let me assure you, I have!

Did you notice?

The Biocore — at 1:45.

Photo by Meade.

Talk about whatever you want in the comments. And support the Althouse blog by doing your Amazon shopping going in through the Althouse Amazon link.

"There are, like, 8 people down there today. Is that normal?"

Said a woman returning from what is my sunrise vantage point.

My answer: "Maybe after the eclipse, there's more interest in the sun."

We experienced the longest darkness in Indiana...

... in Vincennes, Indiana (a place named after François-Marie Bissot, Sieur de Vincennes, who was burned at the stake in 1736, "during the French war with the Chickasaw nation").

His name glows on a vibrant mural:

I don't know if this is the town's official motto, but we talked a lot about it: "Where everyone fulfills their God-given purpose!"

It seemed to be a grandiose claim, but I said maybe the people interpret God's requirements narrowly, so that it's not understood to be terribly difficult. My son Chris, texting, said, maybe God does not give them any particularly challenging purpose. I contemplated whether Chris was saying something different from what I'd just said and decided he certainly was. My idea was that people are self-serving, and his idea was that God was easy-going and pretty darned nice. Hearing that, Meade noted that "fulfills" could mean that citizens are simply wherever they are in a process of fulfilling.

We walked through the festival atmosphere on historic Main Street, by the Wabash River, but given the hubbub and live, loud rock music, we kept moving until we arrived at the memorial for the men who died in the War of the Union....

We set up on the lush grass by the county courthouse, which looked like this at 3:01:51 — 3 minutes before the beginning of the total eclipse:

And here it is, at the very beginning of the totality:

Thanks to Vincennes for hosting us and many others. The show was free and the number of dollars we spent was equal to the number of minutes of the totality of the eclipse. Meade bought a pulled pork sandwich at a food truck:

The text at the pig silhouette in the lower right corner of the truck deserves contemplative comparison to the aforementioned "Where everyone fulfills their God-given purpose!" It says: "Every butt loves a rub."

Where were you when the light went out?

Did you experience the totality? We did. But there's been so much driving that I'm not in the state of mind to discuss whether it was life-changing and so forth. I have some more pictures, not serious pictures of the actual corona, which I leave to professional photographers with special equipment. This is just a picture I happened to take where we were. Tomorrow, I’ll show you the cool little town where we witnessed the celestial spectacle. Now is the time to cuddle up and watch Purdue beat UConn.

"She was hanging from a rope on the side of Mt. Everest, four hours from the summit. The night was frozen...."

"She focused on exactly where to put her foot, her hand, alongside her fellow climbers. Then, peripherally to her right, she saw an orange flash. 'I see this sunrise that I will never forget as long as I live,' she reflected. 'The colors — it is just red, and then it is orange, and then it is yellow, and then the blue is coming. It was so incredibly spiritual for me, and beautiful.'"

So begins a NYT article that is not about going all the way to the top of Mount Everest or about taking the tiny trouble of gazing at a sunrise. It's about tomorrow's solar eclipse and the elusive human capacity to achieve awe:

“The whole thing is very awe-ful. A-w-e,” she said, meaning full of awe.

Ah, yes. Thanks for the sledgehammering. We might not have figured it out, just as we might not have experienced the spiritual dimension of the sunrise unless we were hanging from a rope on the side of Mt. Everest.

The article must mean for us to laugh at her, no? Or is it sincerely attempting to maximize the deeper benefits of tomorrow's celestial event? Here's the article — by Elizabeth Dias, the NYT religion correspondent: "Gazing Skyward, and Awaiting a Moment of Awe/Millions of people making plans to be in the path of the solar eclipse on Monday know it will be awe-inspiring. What is that feeling?"

"To see what happens at totality, how cold it gets, what the birds do, you know, if everyone gets hushed, and just kind of a surreal experience...."

Says a woman, anticipating the solar eclipse, quoted in "2024 solar eclipse preparations in home stretch in Carbondale" (ABC7Chicago).

That's a big if.

If everyone gets hushed, you may have a peak spiritual experience. 

But if you're in any kind of crowd, your shot at hearing a hush are approximately zero. Look at the videos from the 2017 eclipse and you will see how Americans respond. They scream:

 

LOOK AT IT JUSTIN!!!!

Every mom within earshot will be yelling her own kid's name, insisting that he look at this thing. And that was 7 years ago. These days, the kids will probably be staring into smart phones and the moms and dads will need to scold them. I can't believe we came all this way and you'd rather look at that fucking phone!  NOAH! Look at the fucking sun!!! And all the little Noahs and Liams will respond in variations of Mom! I told you I didn't give a shit about the sun!

Oh, yes, there will be some lovely children too and maybe some of them will even respond with hushed awe. But those are not the ones you will hear. Maybe someone will attempt crowd control, screaming, "Everyone shut the fuck up!" Or, less likely, Please honor those of us who have traveled here to experience the eclipse in a state of hushed awe.

Maybe you think you'll find the ideal secluded place....

"Look! Look up there!" someone will surely scream, as if it's tricky to find where the sun is. What are the chances you won't hear the phrase "Oh, my God!" at least a hundred times? Well, who going to count? Some blogger who wastes the hushed-awe opportunity to count the annoying things other people shouted?

I'm suddenly torn from my reverie by Meade, who has been reading something and decides to read this aloud: "It will be remarkably awesome for a few life-altering minutes."

My response: "I'm writing a poem about that.... I mean... where did that come from? I'm writing a post."

"Inmates in New York are suing to be allowed to see the solar eclipse."

WaPo reports.

The six plaintiffs in the class-action suit filed Friday, who are Christian, Muslim, Santerian and atheist, are... arguing it has religious significance. Some said it is critical to their practice of their faith — because the Bible describes the sun going dark during the crucifixion of Jesus Christ; because Muslims perform a special prayer upon the eclipse; and because it is important in the Santeria faith to make a spiritual offering.

“Watching the eclipse with the people I know here is a way for me to feel closer to God,” wrote Travis Hudson, a Protestant Baptist....

"As the sky darkens, light-sensitive cells in human eyes become more sensitive to blue and green hues than to reds and oranges."

"This shift in color perception is known as the Purkinje effect, after a 19th-century Czech scientist, and is typically seen at twilight. To take advantage of the Purkinje effect, wear green clothes or a contrasting combination of greens and reds. Blue-green colors (shorter wavelengths) will appear brighter, while red colors (longer wavelengths) will appear to recede into the darkness."

From a NYT article about the solar eclipse, coming to a city near you on April 8th.

Do you have plans to locate yourself appropriately? Had you thought about what to wear? The pleasing coordination with the Purkinje effect is to wear red and to go dark along with the sun, but the NYT is prompting you to steal focus from the sun by wearing green. I hope I'm nowhere near anyone attempting to take photos to be captioned, "Me and the solar eclipse."

"Summer travel cuts across social class; whether you go to a state fair or Sardinia, you cash in precious vacation days. You suntan, you eat more indulgently..."

"... and reach for your wallet with less angst. Travel helps you hide from reality, or at least pause it for a bit. But even if the idea of a summer getaway remains culturally resilient, is it still practical?...... 'Everything has been geared for that desire to seek the sun'.... Think of the airports, accommodations and other capital-intensive projects erected to serve the visitors of historically sunny places.... Now Italy offers nearly 1.1 million hotel rooms; Finland has fewer than 65,000. Decades of predictable travel have dug deep grooves to popular hubs, complicating the most intuitive solution to a changing climate: simply going somewhere else...."

I'm reading "Is This the End of the Summer Vacation as We Know It? This year, everything from scorching heat to fires, floods, tornadoes and hail storms driven by climate change have disrupted the plans of travelers around the world. A summer getaway remains a powerful desire, but it’s at a tipping point" (NYT).

In honor of his 80th birthday: 80 things about Mick Jagger.

At The Guardian.

A few that struck me the right way:

10. “You do tend to present a yobbish image.” One interviewer suggested this to him as the Stones were breaking through. “Moronic, I think, is a better word,” he replied, deliciously....

15. Great rock stars project vanity. And you don’t get more magnificently vain than Jagger singing “Tell me a story about how you adore me,” on Have You Seen Your Mother, Baby, Standing in the Shadow?...

25. Jagger is the only middle-class Englishman from Kent who could sing “I met a gin-soaked bar-room queen in Memphis / She tried to take me upstairs for a ride” without it sounding like cosplay....

"Seems like you're avoiding me."

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The long day.

Daylight hours on the Summer Solstice. 😎 pic.twitter.com/ih3j6EZYOe

— Brian Brettschneider (@Climatologist49) June 20, 2023