HOW TO MEET YOUR DOPPELGANGER

Doppelganger comes from Germany, where doppel means double and ganger is a walker, that is, a person who looks like you.  If you encounter your doppelganger, recent scientific evidence indicates that you probably have similar genetics.

We all have hair in the same area of the body and the same number of limbs, eyes, nose, and so on.  With 8 billion of us living on the same planet, it's only to be expected that some will have physical counterparts.  

Let's take someone at random.  Say, the writer Ernest Hemingway, who passed away around 60 years ago.

In 1977 an International Imitation Hemingway Competition began in Harry's Bar and American Grill, Century City, California.  The winner got two round-trip tickets to Florence, Italy, and dinner for two at Harry's.  Not sure why, for the Harry's Bar where Hemingway drank was in Venice.  The contest is now held at Sloppy Joe's in Key West, where he frequented for a dozen years when he lived there.  Actually, there are/were three SJ's, one in Havana, and he went to  all of them.

He drank virtually anything, but imbibed a lot of gin, and especially scotch and soda.  Had four wives, was mentally ill, and at the age of 61, killed himself with a firearm, just like his father.

According to Wikipedia, there were more than 24,000 entries only in the first ten years of operation.  In the 11th, HB&AG closed, so the contest was moved to Harry's in San Francisco, then to Key West. The latest competition was won by Jon Avuil (left) over 124 contestants. 

The whole point of the above is that there similarly could be thousands of individuals who look like you in the world.  However, in 2015 Teghan Lucas of Australia calculated that two people matching up exactly in eight key facial features is one in a trillion.  Even if you include the 100 billion Homo sapiens who have ever lived, the odds are then low that anyone ever looked exactly like you.  Yet, according to Lucas, there is a one in 135 chance that someone kind of looks like you somewhere on Earth.  So maybe there is hope for you.

But what are the chances of you seeing your double?  Probably low, except that today you have search options.  What about Facebook?  Has worked for some.  Here are 8 online tools at your disposal:

1. Twin Strangers

2. ILookLikeYou

3. My Twin Finder

4. StarByFace

5. Celebs

6. Google Arts and Culture

7. FamilySearch

8. Reverse Image Search

If you look like Abraham Lincoln or Mary Todd, and you want to be dazzled in a sea of doppelgangers, at 11AM on Saturday, October 1, 2022, go to the 51st annual Lincoln Days Celebration in Hodgenville, KY, the birthplace of our 16th president.  Both Abraham and Mary look-alikes will be selected.  A bit more than physical, for contestants need to spend three minutes doing something related to them.  Winners get $125 each.

-

AM I READY FOR SOME FOOTBALL, AND BASEBALL?

It's Saturday, and I will be watching the Hawaii-Tennessee Little League baseball game, plus range of NCAA football matches.  But first, a short entry.

From the New York Times:

But the situation changed around 2015, with the death rate mostly rising over the next several years. One reason seems to be distracted driving. By 2015, two-thirds of U.S. adults owned a smartphone, up from almost none in 2006.  This year, 115 Americans/day die on the road.

Was the pandemic a factor?

The most plausible theories tend to involve the mental health problems caused by Covid’s isolation and disruption. Alcohol and drug abuse have increased. Impulsive behavior, like running red lights and failing to wear seatbelts, also seems to have risen (as my colleague Simon Romero has reported). Many Americans have felt frustrated or unhappy, and it seems to have affected their driving.

Ethnic death rate:

Why is the Asian death rate so low?

Week started with two Japanese pork dishes, tofu and tonkatsu:

Then a soba lunch:

So last night, my pre-tailgate meal for the Hawaii-Vanderbilt game today was a luau:

Today my football tailgate will be something special, and different.  Aloha.

- 

CHINA UNDER SOME SERIOUS HEAT

            From Worldometer (new  COVID-19 deaths yesterday):

          DAY  USA  WORLD    Brazil    India    South Africa

June     9     1093     4732         1185        246       82

July    22      1205     7128         1293      1120     572

Aug    12      1504     6556        1242        835     130

Sept     9      1208      6222       1136       1168       82

Oct     21      1225      6849         571        703       85

Nov    25       2304    12025        620        518      118

Dec    30       3880    14748       1224       299      465

Jan     14       4142    15512       1151        189     712

Feb      3       4005    14265       1209       107      398

Mar      2       1989     9490        1726       110      194

April     6        906    11787         4211       631       37

May     4        853     13667        3025      3786     59 

June    1        287    10637         2346      3205      95

 July    7         251      8440        1595        817      411

Aug     4         656    10120        1118        532      423 

Sept   22      2228      9326          839       279     124

Oct      6       2102      8255          543       315       59

Nov    3        1436      7830         186        458       23

Dec     1       1633      8475          266        477       28

Jan     7        2025      6729         148         285     140

Feb     2        2990   12012          946        991      175

Mar     2        1778     7756          335         173       28 

Apr     1          439      4056         290          52       12

May    5          225      2404         151            ?        64

June    2          216      1413         130          10       31

July    6          316      1627         335           35       12 

Aug    4           311       2138         258          70         ?

         11          290       1994         173          49         ?

         17          461       2502         246          72         ?

         18          264       1950         202            ?         ?

         24          369       2140         190          36         2

         25          245       1909         197          68         ?

Summary:  Nothing much more to say except that Japan  yesterday had the most new cases with 237,410, while S. Korea at #2 had 113,281.  The USA was at #3, but with "only" 59,719 cases.

A couple of days ago New Scientist reported:

HEATWAVE IN CHINA IS THE MOST SEVERE EVER RECORDED IN THE WORLD

NPR (Emily Feng) said:  China battles its worst heat wave on record.

• China has had a continuous heat wave of 70 days, the longest in recorded modern history.
• More than 240 cities this week had temperatures above 104F.
• A national drought alert was announced for the first time 9 years.

• 
  Sichuan province, and this a location of 80 million people, is about 80% reliant on hydropower.  Except that there is no rain, with a huge demand for air conditioning.  Power was cut off to factories for a week so the local population could use it.  A lot of American companies like Intel and Texas Instruments are there, meaning that the global semiconductor shortage will worsen.
• Like in many other places, the Sichuan youth unemployment rate is at 20%, although feared to be much higher.

• 
  MIT in 2018 forecast that this part of northern China could become unlivable by the end of this country because of global warming.  The Persian Gulf is also mentioned.  Read the article and watch a video.  The lead author, Elfatih Eltahir, said that China is the largest contributor to greenhouse gas emissions, which will limit habitability of the most populous region of the most populous country. To quote:

At a wet-bulb temperature of 35 degrees Celsius (95 F), a healthy person may not be able to survive outdoors for more than six hours, research has shown. The new study shows that under business-as-usual scenarios for greenhouse gas emissions, that threshold will be reached several times in the NCP region between 2070 and 2100.

• Clearly, they will not have to wait until 2070.
• Rain will no doubt come.  But that also will mean flash floods and death, something that has bedeviled the USA this summer.

I close with some irony.  China has built 87,000 dams, and is using water supply as a political weapon.

-

PEOPLE IN HAWAII LIVE LONGER

           From Worldometer (new  COVID-19 deaths yesterday):

          DAY  USA  WORLD    Brazil    India    South Africa

June     9     1093     4732         1185        246       82

July    22      1205     7128         1293      1120     572

Aug    12      1504     6556        1242        835     130

Sept     9      1208      6222       1136       1168       82

Oct     21      1225      6849         571        703       85

Nov    25       2304    12025        620        518      118

Dec    30       3880    14748       1224       299      465

Jan     14       4142    15512       1151        189     712

Feb      3       4005    14265       1209       107      398

Mar      2       1989     9490        1726       110      194

April     6        906    11787         4211       631       37

May     4        853     13667        3025      3786     59 

June    1        287    10637         2346      3205      95

 July    7         251      8440        1595        817      411

Aug     4         656    10120        1118        532      423 

Sept   22      2228      9326          839       279     124

Oct      6       2102      8255          543       315       59

Nov    3        1436      7830         186        458       23

Dec     1       1633      8475          266        477       28

Jan     7        2025      6729         148         285     140

Feb     2        2990   12012          946        991      175

Mar     2        1778     7756          335         173       28 

Apr     1          439      4056         290          52       12

May    5          225      2404         151            ?        64

June    2          216      1413         130          10       31

July    6          316      1627         335           35       12 

Aug    4           311       2138         258          70         ?

         11          290       1994         173          49         ?

         17          461       2502         246          72         ?

         18          264       1950         202            ?         ?

         24          369       2140         190          36         2

Summary:

• Our pandemic is not improving.
• Worst new deaths/day (new deaths/million population in parentheses)
• #1  USA  369 (1.1)
• #2  Japan  317 (3.0)
• #3  Brazil 190 (0.9)
• "Only" seven countries had at least a hundred new deaths, three of them from Europe:  Germany, Italy and Hungary.
• Worst new deaths/day per million population.
• #1      Island of Man  (23)
• #2      Barbados  (17)
• #3      Hungary  (11)
• #7      Japan  (3)
• #8      New Zealand (3)
• #11    UK  (2)
• #13    Australia (2)
•           USA (1.1)
• #23    S. Korea (1)
• #31    Taiwan (0.8)
• #38    Thailand  (0.4)
• #43    Singapore  (0.3)
• #52    Sweden  (0.1)
• #58    S. Africa (0.03)
•           World (0.027)
• #109  China  (0.0003)
• Worst new cases/day per million population
• #1      Marshall Islands  7145
• #2      Montserrat  2801
• #3      S. Korea  2709
• #9      Japan  1546
• #10    Hungary  1534
• #11    Taiwan  1193
• #16    New Zealand  655
• #18    Australia  587
• #19    Germany  583
• #24    Singapore  445
•           USA  243
• #63    UAE (Dubai)  59
• #73    Thailand  28
•           World  10
• #88    S. Africa  4
• #108  China  0.3

Oh well, Hawaii's outbreak seems now to be on the decline, for until recently, we were the worst state in the union.  Now, we are only a bit above the national average in both new cases/day and new deaths/day.  Otherwise, we are among the most healthiest states.

For example, according to the World Health Organization, Hawaii is the third healthiest state, next to #1 Vermont and #2 Massachusetts.  We are also #3 to #1 Colorado and #2 Massachusetts in obesity rate.  Colorado is at 24.2%, still kind of high, but Mississippi, the worst, is at 39.7%.  

• But it can be worse, with the top ten sites all Pacific Islands, Nauru at the top with 61%.
• The U.S. average is 36%, the #12 highest in the world.
• Vietnam is the lowest at 2%, a representation more about culture than economy.  Many of the bottom ten are poor, like #2 Bangladesh and #3 Timor Leste.  However, in this list is Japan at 4.3% and South Korea at 4.7%.

In a recently released poll by Boston University, their well-being index showed Massachusetts at #1, with Hawaii at #2.  Mississippi was at the bottom, with Trump-states monopolizing them.

The Commonwealth Fund analyzed how the U.S. did during the pandemic.  Using 56 measures, they placed Hawaii and Massachusetts at the top, with Mississippi, Oklahoma and West Virginia at the bottom.  Hawaii's Lieutenant Governor Josh Green was the local voice of this disease, and his reputation was built to become our next governor.  While he spent full-time as LG, he also worked as an emergency room doctor.

Finally, want to live a long life?  Come to Hawaii, for we have the highest life expectancy at birth of 80.7 years.  #2 was Washington at 79.2 years and #3 Minnesota at 79.1 years.  Lowest?  You guessed it, Mississippi at 71.9 years.  Further, in the first year of this pandemic, our national life expectancy declined in all states, with Hawaii the lowest with 0.2 years and New York the highest with 3.0 years.  Further, For those 65 years old, you would be expected to live 16 years if you live in Mississippi, but 21 years for those in Hawaii.

Interestingly enough, more recent data show the following in life expectancy:

• #1  Hawaii  80.9
• #2  California  80.9
• #3  New York  80.7
• #50  West Virginia  74.5
• #51  Mississippi  74.4

So come to Hawaii if you want to live longer.

What about some other categories?  I made a quick search, and noted that Thrillist ranks Hawaii as the second most beautiful state, to California at #1.  Actually, Mississippi only ranks #45.  The worst?  Kansas at #50.  Next?  Indiana at #49.  Other sources had states like Utah, Florida and Oregon at the top.  Hawaii is always soon to follow.  Of course, beauty is in the eyes of the beholder, so variation would be expected.  I didn't try this but if I take the top ten reviews and averaged where each state placed, I would be surprised if Hawaii did not end up #1 in beauty.

Well, what about weather?  World Population Review has California at #1 and Hawaii at #2.  However, The Hill has Honolulu at #1, Los Angeles #2, Long Beach #3, San Diego#4, Lihue #5, Kahului #6 and Tampa #7.

I now travel only to safe places.  I have written off Paris, Milan, anything in Africa and just about all of Central and South America.  Where do Hawaii cities rank?  Well, don't see any.

On the other hand, these are boutique places, and throughout the world you will find havens of safety.  From Wikipedia, I saw a list that has the following in crime rate/100,000 people.  New York City a safe 1987 and San Francisco a dangerous 6917?

• #1    Irvine, California  1381
• #5    Plano, Texas  1892
• #6    New York City, New York  1987
• #10  Tampa, Florida  2218
• #11  San Diego, California  2220
• #20  Boise, Idaho  2742
• #27  Honolulu, Hawaii  3054
• #29  Los Angeles, California  3332
• #33  Las Vegas, Nevada  3405
• #42  Reno, Nevada  3767
• #57  Chicago, Illinois  4382
• #71  District of Columbia  5102
• #76  Milwaukee, Wisconsin  5442
• #81  Seattle, Washington  5912
• #86  Portland, Oregon  6240
• #94  San Francisco, California  6917

Finally, YouGov recently asked 77,000 people whether they think the people in their state tend to be more rude or more polite than most Americans.

• The rudest is Rhode Island, where 42% said they were the worst.  Only 9% said their population is unusually polite.
• Massachusetts was the second worse, where 40% thought the people in their state were Massholes.
• Hawaii was easily the best.

A few years ago, Travelzoo Inc. indicated that Florida and California beat out Hawaii as the friendliest destinations for travelers.  However, Honolulu was ranked as the friendliest city, with New York City #2, New Orleans #3, Las Vegas #4 and Boston #5.

I can go on and on, but you must certainly get the point by now.  Hawaii, and Honolulu in particular, is a great place to live, and visit.  On the other hand, earlier this year I posted on:

WHY YOU DON'T WANT TO LIVE IN HAWAII

To close, here is a photo I just took just about from where I am composing this posting.  Note the end of my Blood Lily season.

-

JAMES WEBB SPACE TELESCOPE: Jupiter

The latest photos from the James Webb Space Telescope were again noteworthy.  While earlier shots peered deep into space, the newest two featured Jupiter:

See that white spot?  This is the Great Red Spot, a storm so big that it could swallow Planet Earth.  Why is the color white?  That circle reflects a lot of sunlight.  This is the usual graphic.

The image also shows two tiny moons, Amalthea and Adrastea.  

• How many of you know how many moons are circling Jupiter?  There are 80, plus other moonlets.  

• 
  The largest moons are Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto, all discovered by Galileo Galilei in 1610.  There is a naming-pattern to these moons:  lovers and sexual partners of Roman god Jupiter, or his Greek equivalent Zeus.  23 of them have yet to be named.  They should begin to add those of Eros.

• 
  Actually, there are Chinese astronomical records reporting in 356 BC that Gan De detected a moon of Jupiter, probably Ganymede, with the naked eye.  Reportedly, he used a tree to "occult" the planet itself, allowing him to distinguish the moon. With Shi Shen, they compiled the first star catalogue, even before those from Babylonia and Greek Hipparchus.

• 
  Ganymede is the largest, the ninth-biggest object in our Solar System.  Mercury is #10.  To the right, Earth, Moon on top and Ganymede on bottom.
• Ganymede is almost all iron, silicate rock and water.
• There is a suspected internal ocean that may contain more water than Planet Earth.
• Has already been visited by four NASA missions, with the European Space Agency scheduled to send Jupiter Icy Moon Explorer (of course, JUICE) next year.

If you think the JWST has a great camera...no.  Here is what they need to do:

Data from telescopes like Webb doesn’t arrive on Earth neatly packaged. Instead, it contains information about the brightness of the light on Webb’s detectors. This information arrives at the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI, Baltimore, Maryland), Webb’s mission and science operations center, as raw data. STScI processes the data into calibrated files for scientific analysis and delivers it to the Mikulski Archive for Space Telescopes for dissemination. Scientists then translate that information into images like these during the course of their research (here’s a podcast about that). While a team at STScI formally processes Webb images for official release, non-professional astronomers known as citizen scientists often dive into the public data archive to retrieve and process images, too.

Citizens help too, and the two images above involved the collaboration of people like Judy Schmidt of Modesto, California.  She has had no formal training.  Here she is with another her contributions:  Minkowski's Butterfly, a planetary nebula in the direction of the constellation Ophiuchus.

Then there are other kinds of image makers.  We know some as photographers.

-

STANFORD SPORTS

First, very good news.  Pfizer-BioNTech submitted a request to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to authorize its Omicron-specific vaccine:

• The shot targets B.1, BA.4 and BA.5 variants that are responsible for nearly 100% of all current cases in the U.S.

• 
  What about that BA.2.75 subvariant, which replaced BA.5 in India as the dominant strain?  No word yet, but my analysis of the evolution of both is that they came from the same variant, BA.2, so there has to be something good to this link.
• Intended for anyone 12 years or older.
• 
  Dr. Ashish Jha, who coordinates COVID for the White House, and will effectively replace Dr. Anthony Fauci as the face of the administration on this subject, said that this booster could be available by early to mid September.
• Moderna's version, very similar to Pfizer's, will soon also come before the FDA.

I feel happy today, so for my nostalgic Tueday posting today, I selected

STANFORD SWEEPS PENN STATE FOR NCAA VOLLEYBALL CHAMPIONSHIP

This was from my 8May2010 blog.  I was in California for what was then an annual golf outing to Reno or Las Vegas.  Had lunch in Walnut Creek with Carl Weinberg, former R&D director for PG&E and Terry Surles, who spent time at more national laboratories than I can remember, and is returning next month with a group of Stanford University sophomores for a tour of energy sites in Hawaii.  I'm addressing them on September 10.

The next day our golf group showed up in San Francisco, and we had to place chains on the tires to traverse what was a snow blizzard the day before, where we had to get through Donner pass, which is at an elevation of 7000 miles, to reach Reno.  It was reported that winds topped 131 MPH in the Sierra Nevadas.  

Our Green Safari golfed seven times.  Our best meal was lunch at Hisui 2.

So back to 8May2010 a day after I left the group, for they went home to Honolulu and Florida.  I had a meal at St. Michael's Alley:

Half a century ago St. Michael's Alley was a favorite restaurant. Egg salad sandwich with a lettuce salad that featured a dressing I've been imagining all these years. Never liked that taste then, but I thought I would today. While that restaurant still exists a short walk from the Caltrain Palo Alto station, the owners have changed a few times and the menu is totally different. No memorable salad dressing.

Saturday brunch is very popular, with a swarm of people waiting outside the door. However, I managed to sneak into a bar seat and ordered a Salmon Benedict and Caesar Salad with a Kir Royale and Page Mill (name of the street a block away) Chardonnay.

I saw a wall of violet flowers on my way to Maples Pavilion to pick up my will call ticket for the Stanford-Penn State NCAA Men's Volleyball Championship. There is something about a campus like Stanford the day of a big game. The atmosphere was electric and students were everywhere. 

During my eating club days, I lived in Toyon Hall, a block away. A block further was my freshman dormitory Wilbur. I went to say hi to both. Never before noticed this, but there is now a wing called Okada, an Asian-American theme house named after John Okada, author of No-No Boy. His bio shows no connection to Stanford. I'll need to look into this later. The University has become super ethnically sensitive since my days there. I also noticed a Chicano/Latino theme house in Stern Hall, and there is a prominent Black Community Services Center.

 

The reserved seats were sold out, but, it turned out that if you enter the auditorium when the door opens, your general admission seat can be at mid-court with a perfect view.  Stanford, led by mostly Hawaii players, swept Penn State. Ironically, Stanford had to beat Hawaii last week to get to this championship game.

In July of 2020 Stanford announced the discontinuation of 11 sports, including men's volleyball.  How could they do that to this to such a successful team?  

This is heartbreaking news to share. These 11 programs consist of more than 240 incredible student-athletes and 22 dedicated coaches. They were built by more than 4,000 alumni whose contributions led to 20 national championships, 27 Olympic medals, and an untold number of academic and professional achievements. Each of the individuals associated with these programs will forever have a place in Stanford’s history.

Then just as shockingly, in May of 2021, Stanford reinstated all 11 sport programs.  However, the damage was done.  From 1994 to 2019 Stanford won the Director's Cup every year for NCAA sports programs.  There was no award in 2020 because of the pandemic.  In 2021 and 2022 the winning school was the University of Texas.  Stanford did place #2 both times.

-