Ask Alex - June 30, 2017

Alex is on vacation, don't bother her

Welcome back to "Ask Alex", where I answer all of your stupid questions with even dumber answers.  Have a question you need answered? Tweet it, email it or submit it here and I will get to it (maybe) next week.

--------------------------------

Friday before a long weekend...I’m sure you are all working really hard and can use a little break, right? I’m probably working a half day before I head out for the next week or so, which means you probably won’t get an #AskAlex next week. I’m sure that  makes you all very, very sad, but please don’t cry on America’s birthday, I would feel terrible!

One possibility…much like we did “Alex asks the Misfits” last month, we could do something like “Alex asks the Readers” next week. I’m not sure I will even have time for that, but if there are a half dozen or so readers who are interested in answer a ridiculous question from me, it might work. So, let me know if you would want to play along and I will see if I can figure something out.

I am still working through old questions from #MisfitMischief, so after one more question from Daryl, we’ll dive into that!

Let’s get to it.

Submitted by: Daryl
Where do Bostonians like to go for the 4th of July?

I like that “Daryl asks stuff about Boston” has become a regular feature here...I enjoy talking about my adopted home town:-)

At first, I actually thought that this was one of Daryl’s great Dad Jokes (“To a tea party!” or “The Battle of BBQ Hill”) but it is in fact a legitimate question. Since there are about 650,000 people in Boston proper, and another four million or so who identify as living in Greater Boston, the answer is obviously kind of all over the place.

This is an awfully big weekend for New Englanders, maybe even more so than other parts of the country. Since our public schools start and end later than a lot of places, the school year just ended within the last two weeks, and all of the associated spring activities (soccer, little league, etc) wrapped up as well. We have also finally reached the part of the year when we actually have consistently nice, warm weather...in other words, summer is here!!! And what better way to kick off our nine week summer than with a four-day weekend, right?

Just judging by the traffic this afternoon, which will back up in a whole bunch of spots heading away from Boston, I can tell you that large numbers of people head to the coasts of Maine and New Hampshire, and lakes in both of those state and Vermont. Lots will also head south to Newport, the surrounding towns, or South County, RI. And a larger volume still will head to Cape Cod - “down the Cape” in New Englander (that’s where I am headed, more or less) - either for the long weekend of to kick off the most popular vacation week of the year.

For people who stick around, or decide to come into the city on July 4th, though, the focus of the celebration is the Esplanade, a miles-long public park that runs along the Charles River through Back Bay. The Boston Pops will play their annual concert (and large numbers of people will, inexplicably, sit outside all fucking day long to get a good seat...like, 12-15 hours. It’s going to be a beautiful day, but c’mon people, the Pops play like 100 shows a year, they aren’t that hard to find.) Then they will set off a mother of a fireworks display as the band plays the 1812 Overture and they will use real cannons. The fireworks are visible from a lot of places, including a really great view from my roof:-).

If I could stop for a second, though, let’s evaluate the choice of music here. Unquestionably, it is a monumentally great composition. It is very possibly Tchaikovsky’s greatest work, which is really saying something - I mean, he wrote the Nutcracker and Swan Lake, for chrissakes. {Digression: Russia has a disproportionate number of great artists - Tolstoy, Chekov, Repin, Pushkin, Dostoyevsky, Stravinsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, Mussorgsky, Rachmaninoff. Possibly a testament to suffering making great art, but that is a subject for another day}. It’s also in the spirit of the event, it’s a celebration of a great national victory and it is upbeat and it has cannons. It is a historically important piece written by a historically important person (factoid: Tchaikovsky became the first major European composer of note to visit American when he personally conducted its playing at the dedication of Carnegie Hall in 1891). Did I mention the cannons?

It is, however, written to celebrate Russia’s victory over Napoleon's invading Grand Armee in 1812 using the first ever weapon of mass destruction, “Russian Winter” (which, btw, I could write about at length...it is a fascinating conflict). Here, in the Cradle of Liberty, on a day that celebrate our nation’s independence from Great Britain, we celebrate by playing...a song that honors Russia’s Victory over France?!?

It's Trump's America, people.

Submitted by: Allen Ray

Where does the white go when the snow melts?

I dunno, Allen, this question seems pretty racist to me. It seems like you have created some kind of euphemism for the collapse of the social structure of inner cities as a cause and effect of Suburban White Flight throughout post-war America…

Either that, or the melting water just washes all the color away, duh.

(Real answer that is totally off the top of my head and not at all from howstuffworks.com: snow isn’t actually white. It is a bunch of tiny little crystals of ice, and ice is not transparent; it's actually translucent. This means that the light photons don't pass right through the material in a direct path -- the material's particles change the light's direction. This happens because the distances between some atoms in the ice's molecular structure are close to the height of light wavelengths, which means the light photons will interact with the structures. The result is that the light photon's path is altered and it exits the ice in a different direction than it entered the ice.

Snow is a whole bunch of individual ice crystals arranged together. When a light photon enters a layer of snow, it goes through an ice crystal on the top, which changes its direction slightly and sends it on to a new ice crystal, which does the same thing. Basically, all the crystals bounce the light all around so that it comes right back out of the snow pile. It does the same thing to all the different light frequencies, so all colors of light are bounced back out. The "color" of all the frequencies in the visible spectrum combined in equal measure is white, so this is the color we see in snow, while it's not the color we see in the individual ice crystals that form snow.

When snow melts and the water falls out of its crystalline structure and into its liquid structure, the light reacts very differently and it no longer appears white. Got it?)

Submitted by: Fuzzy Chimp
In Louise Mensch's mind, who between Mike Pence, King Neptune on Spongebob, and Joffrey is impeached first by the Marshal of the SCOTUS?

See, you just don’t understand how this works, do you? Let me break it down. First, the Senate Pages vote for a Declaration of Impeachment. If that carries by a simple majority, then it is referred to the International Supreme Council of the Ordo Templi Orientis where it is voted upon after the sacrifice of four young chickens and a virgin sea otter (which they also eat after grilling it with a little salt, pepper and olive oil...it is really quite delicious!).

Now, here is where it gets tricky...IF the first chicken flaps its wings an even number of times before its neck breaks, then the Supreme Council must vote by a ¾ super-majority to impeach, whereas an odd number of flaps requires only a ⅗ vote to impeach. Assuming the motion carries, then a carrier pigeon is given a message detailing the vote for delivery to LeBron James’ personal assistant, who must do 25 burpees and run seven laps around the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo, collecting a single feather from a cockatoo on the third lap (this is important), kidnapping the Hairy Armadillo on the fourth lap, and extracting half-pint of blood from an adult female lion (note: this is dangerous) on the last lap.

After packing all of these things into a vintage Charlie’s Angels lunchbox (which must feature Cheryl Ladd, who was the hottest angel, and don’t @ me), the assistant must approach Mr. James’ teammate Kryie Irving and ask him what shape the earth is. If his answer is “The Earth is flat. The Earth is flat. ... It's right in front of our faces. I'm telling you, it's right in front of our faces. They lie to us.” then you must know that THE PLAN IS ON, and Trump has exactly 133 days to live!!!

That statement will also act as a cue for Eric Garland, who will appear at your side and take the lunchbox, announcing that it is “time for some game theory” (which, it turns out, it is not, but not everyone can know what game theory really is, I suppose). Garland will contact the Queen of Thorns, who will make sure that Tiffany Trump’s jeweled hair net will include the cyanide pill for tomorrow’s state dinner.

MEANWHILE…

The Bureau of Mines will enact their Article XI “gay prison camp” powers to strip Mike Pence of his office as VP, and the Army will draft Paul Ryan, forcing him to give up his Speaker’s role. With Orrin Hatch on NASA’s newly launched “Senators on Venus” mission (it’s super secret, and I am risking all of our lives by even mentioning it) and Rex Tillerson lost somewhere in Oman with no way to get home, BAM...President Mnuchin.

This is why the NSC has already begin briefing Mnuchin on various national security issues. THEY KNOW IT IS HAPPENING.

Submitted by: Ingenious Firebrand
Why didn't Doc just make gasoline in Back to the Future 3?

I feel like I have written about this basic idea a bunch in the past. Why do time travelers and people with other superpowers in books and movies do such stupid shit? At least Biff acted like a normal person would have...he used his knowledge of the future to get rich.

So, I am with you on making gasoline, but not because he could have used it to drive the car (btw, I have never seen Back to the Future III, so I have no idea if that is what he was actually doing...I feel like Plutonium was important). No, he should have built a refinery and started selling refined petroleum products in the same way that John D. Rockefeller was doing at about the same time. Actually, fuck that, he should have just bet on Rockefeller and give him all of his money as equity capital in Standard Oil. Not like he would have been a better oil man than Rockefeller, even knowing the future.  From there, a couple well-timed market moves (get out before the panic of 1893, back in a year later and out before 1896, then back in until McKinley’s assassination, etc. etc.) and Doc’s entire bloodline would be richer than he could ever imagine for all of eternity.

But no...this allegedly smart dipshit has no interest in any of that, he is too focused on being a quack scientists and probably trying to impress some demure elementary school teacher or preacher’s daughter (I’m guessing) to make even the most simple of rational decisions.

And while we are at it, why didn’t they ever go to the future just to see what it was like and whether they wanted to stay or go back? Why not, when they were in 2015, just take a quick peak at what real estate is hottest and then go back to 1985 knowing that. Do you have any idea how cheap Brooklyn was in the 1980’s!?!? Or how cheaply you could have picked up shares in Microsoft in 1985 or Apple in 2002? OR THE WINNING LOTTERY NUMBERS!!!

I can’t write about this anymore, it is making me angry. Doc didn’t make gasoline because he is a fucking moron, which is why a guy who understands nuclear physics and can build time machines lives in a fucking garage. Pick better friends, Marty.

Submitted by: Brian A.
Who is going to bring me some mozzarella sticks?!?

Have you tried Applebee’s? They will almost certainly bring you some, although you should be leery of crazy guys lurking in the bar who think that the waitresses are their girlfriends. On the plus side, I hear that the quality of servers has improved a lot lately...they must have cut some of the dead weight.

But, what are you, like 12? Mozzarella sticks, really? Do you plan to wash that down with a chocolate milk before you tackle a bowl of Kraft Mac and Cheese? My kids are 7, and even they feel like Mozzarella sticks are kind of a little kid food, not nearly as sophisticated as chicken fingers or hot dogs…

Really, though, outside of having to put forth a modicum of effort, getting mozzarella sticks is really pretty fucking easy. Dominoes or Pizza Hut will almost certainly deliver them, and I assume that you have a bunch of other options as well...Westchester County is hardly the end of the earth, you should have some people to bring you food around. Or, with just a little bit of planning, you could buy a giant bag of frozen mozzarella sticks at the grocery store and just toss them into the toaster whenever you need some. There are quite a few options here...

Submitted by: Timothy E. Miller
Under what circumstances is it appropriate to plot world domination while on a quest for the hand of a fair maiden?

I have some questions first. How hot is she? Is she like “fair” in a plain and sort of cute way, or “fair” in a Charlize Theron kinda way? And why does it have to be a maiden...she’s not worth fighting for if you’re not her first? Man, guys have some seriously weird shit going on about their girls’ virginity...what if you get married and realize that you hate sex? Or that you just totally suck at it? That’s gonna be a long, miserable life for all of you. Well, maybe not for Rodrigo the pool boy…

Actually, don’t answer because the answer is “Never”. If the quest for the maiden’s hand is grand enough to be called a quest in the first place, then you are going to need to be focused just on that objective. You’ve hear of a “Jack of all trades, master of none?” Well, that is what we are trying to avoid here...if you spend half your time trying to impress the girl and half the time trying to conquer the world, you will inevitably fail at both.

That leaves you as a lonely, non-dominant and landless knight fighting insinuations about your failures as a world-conqueror and, quite frankly, a “confirmed bachelor” followed around by some pretty obvious rumors about your sexuality. Not that there’s anything wrong with that...

Submitted by: Foxy Conservative
Do the smug celebs lecturing us about the climate while flying on their jets have magic atmosphere scrubbers we don't know about?

They do, in fact. It is much like the special animals that the celebrities have at their famous people zoos that us regulars don’t get to see. Like the Fantastapotomous...she only sings twice a day, you know! (How is there no video of this scene?!?! Looking at you, YouTube).

So, to get a little serious for a bit...I haven’t really written much on climate change because it is a topic that is very hard to discuss rationally on Twitter.  It is not quite as hard as trying to talk abortion (which I generally avoid entirely), but it is pretty difficult. The science is both much more convoluted than climate change alarmists would have you believe, and also much more convincing than absolute deniers would tell you. The earth is warming and the amount of greenhouse gases that we have pumped into the atmosphere are contributing to that. These things should be beyond dispute.

Also beyond dispute is the absurdity of any idea that, globally, we are permanently going to produce less greenhouse gas emissions than we do right now. The middle class throughout Asia, Africa and South America is expanding rapidly, and all of those upwardly mobile people are consuming a lot more energy. Because electricity is really pretty awesome. Even as the developed world cuts its emissions through more efficient usage and though changes to our fuel mix (thank fracking) there is no reasonable scenario under which the world emits less greenhouse emissions than it does today in the long-run without simply telling ¾ of the world’s population that, sorry, they will simply have to remain poor.

I also find it pretty silly to think that some international government consortium is going to figure this out in any kind of acceptable way. The UN has shown almost no ability to keep determined enemies from slaughtering each other, but we are going to allow them the authority to centrally plan the entire global economy? Other international consortiums are just as bad...FIFA is the most corrupt organization on the planet, except for maybe the International Olympic Committee. Long story short: sovereign nations will never (and really should never) cede the power necessary to any international body to implement a global carbon strategy, and there is absolutely no evidence that says such an organization would be even remotely effective.

I could probably write a lot more about this, but it is Friday afternoon and I need to get to the beach, so I won’t bore you all...maybe some other time;-)

Submitted by: Andrew Lynch
If 42 is the answer to life, the universe, and everything... what's the question?

What is 6 times 7? Or 14 times 3? Or 21 times 2? Or 84 times ½?

It is also the number worn by Jackie Robinson, and the only number retired universally across an entire sport as a result. Which reminds me that I went to Mariano Rivera’s last game in Fenway Park, which was I think just before the Yankees returned home for his last three games. The Red Sox had a ceremony for him that paid tribute to his greatness, his very unique relationship with Red Sox fans (who genuinely loved him, which is really pretty unique among Yankees) and his status as the last player to ever wear #42 in the majors.

That is a sort of wonderful accident of baseball history. When the league retired #42, they allowed any player who was already wearing the number to continue. Several, who had simply been assigned the number, gave it up right away as a sign of deference, but a handful of players who wore the number specifically because it had been Jackie Robinson’s, kept it. By 2003, when Mo Vaughn retired, only Mariano Rivera was left wearing the number, and in hindsight it is hard to think of a better representative to have worn it in its final years. Rivera was unquestionably great, universally respected by friend and foe alike, never sniffed even the tiniest bit of controversy and carried himself as a model citizen and baseball player at every moment of his career. For Jackie Robinson, who stands as so much more than a great baseball player, it seems fitting that such a man as Rivera would last wear his #42.

The left field wall in Fenway Park has a gigantic manually operated scoreboard. On that scoreboard are places where the operator hangs the number of the pitcher currently in the game for both teams. After Jose Lima retired in 2002, the only person for whom the #42 was ever used was Rivera, and when he retired, they simply had no more use for a green placard with a big white #42 on it. So they gave it to him.

This leads to two absurd baseball stats, courtesy of my best friend to whom I defer all sports questions:-) (I am giving away my secrets!). Baseballreference.com maintains stats for almost everything that has ever happened in baseball. One of them, for ERA+, measures a pitcher's effectiveness by comparing his Earned Run Average to the league average, adjusting for the park he pitches in. That is converted into a number that compares to a league average of 100, higher being better. Anything over 120 for a career gets you into the discussion for the Hall of Fame. The great Red Sox Right-hander Pedro Martinez has the third highest ERA+ in baseball history, at 154. Clayton Kershaw, the Dodgers current ace, sports an unfathomable 160.

Mariano Rivera? 205.

Second absurd stat, that is unrelated but that she just wanted to tell you, is that Rickey Henderson is second all-time and Joe Morgan fifth in walks. Every other player anywhere near the top of that list (Bonds, Ruth, Williams, Mantle, Ott, Thomas, Musial…) was a feared slugger who pitchers routinely pitched around rather than risk giving up a home run. But when Henderson or Morgan got to home plate, the primary thought from the pitcher, the catcher and the manager was “don’t walk him” and yet they still did it more than almost anyone else in the history of the game.

Anyway, this is related to absolutely nothing, but Happy July 4th!!!