Tuesday, November 12, 2013

Seven ramdom pieces of info about me...

A Facebook friend assigned to provide seven random pieces of information about myself. Here we go:

1. One of the ways I learned English was to listen to shortwave radio before coming to the U.S. and speaking on the CB radio once here.

2. I have never been to Alabama, Omaha, Burkina Faso, or Egypt.

3. There was no yellow submarine--at least that I am aware of--in the town where I was born.

4. I believe that the World would be better off without communists, alcohol, and adulterers.

5. I like to listen to Supreme Court oral arguments.

6. I used to be somewhat judgmental.

7. The last two times I rented a car were in 2000 and 2005. On the latter occasion, the AM band did not work on the car radio, but when I got within the reach of an FM station, I heard for the first time in the news about the nomination of John Roberts to replace Sandra Day O'Connor (which was subsequently changed to the nomination to replace William Rehnquist as Chief Justice after his passing)

Wednesday, November 06, 2013

How, exactly, does the Earth's tilt cause the seasons?


Different individuals on the autism spectrum are impacted in different ways. The one area in which I am severely impaired is spatial perception. I do not have good intuition in this area and I have real difficulty reasoning myself through spatial transformations. People will give me directions to a destination and say "You can't miss it!" Unfortunately, my response is going to be "Oh yes, I can!" Ever since I first learned about the Earth's tilt in elementary school, I have been aware that Earth's seasons are somehow related to the tilt of the Earth. Yet, until today, I have never been able to understand how, in reality, the tilt brings about the change in seasons as the Earth rotates around the sun. I have never doubted the truth of this explanation and never suspected that there was some conspiracy going on to mislead the population. I just didn't understand what was going on. I have tried to read a number of descriptions and observed numerous animations. Until today, I still ended up walking away without understanding the explanation. However, after watching this lecture, I finally understand (sort of, at least): https://www.khanacademy.org/science/cosmology-and-astronomy/earth-history-topic/earth-title-topic/v/how-earth-s-tilt-causes-seasons .