Saturday, May 28, 2011 Lethbridge

4:50 am

The temperature is +5 C, with a high predicted of +14 C.

From the Environment Canada website:

Today Cloudy with 60 percent chance of showers. Risk of a thunderstorm this afternoon. Wind becoming northwest 20 km/h this morning. High 14. UV index 3 or moderate. Tonight Cloudy with 30 percent chance of showers early this evening and risk of a thunderstorm. Clearing late this evening. Wind northwest 20 km/h becoming light overnight. Low plus 2 with risk of frost. Normals Max: 20°C Min: 7°C

Another day of unseasonable low temperatures. Coupled with high winds and rain, it is a poor day for outdoor activities of any kind.

9:00 am Model Trains

I have completed creating the databases for Ship It!. That is, I have the rolling stock, locomotives and cabooses all added to the background files. I also have the towns inserted.

The next step is to add the shippers and consignees data. This can get quite involved so I will leave it for another day. Once that is done, I need to add the schedule fr each of the 10 trains that I plan to run.

Then I will begin "balancing" the data, which will involve making adjustments to the shippers and consignees values until I have a reasonably low "score". At that point I will begin printing out the operational switching lists and using that to start operational runs on the layout.

4:00 PM Birding

While staying inside today we managed to see 3 birds for the first time this year in Alberta: a Yellow Warbler, 3 American Goldfinches, and 2 Swainson's Thrushes. The thrushes were a first for us in Alberta. We had seen one while in Windsor, Ontario a few years ago but this is only our second sighting of this species.

9:00 PM Science

I had difficulty deciding whether to label this entry as being Science or Philosophy. Deutsch's book "The Beginning of Infinity" seemed to start out as a book about science and leading edge physics, but it is now beginning to look like it is about Philosophy and Epistemology as well as Moral and Political philosophy. It is a very engaging book, and one that has totally captured me.

What a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to understand!

I bought this book while making a brief foray into a Toronto bookstore last week. I have since noticed that it is already available as an ebook. At the moment I am underlining passages with a pencil but I after I finish the book I am tempted to buy the e-version and use the yellow-highlighting and note features while rereading the book. This makes sense to me as it is impossible to read the same book twice (something like stepping into the same river twice). I am also tempted to buy a couple of Karl Popper's recent books on philosophy of science and politics.

Here is a scan of the back cover, in a larger size so that it is easily readable.