I am grateful for early voting.  No lines.  Paper ballot.  Clean paper trail.  I’m sure something evil could be done but not as transparently as with touch screens.

From the tone of discussion here at Eat Our Brains, you can probably guess we tend lefty.

It probably came as no surprise that I voted for the “Tiger Woods guy.”

Now I have to spend the entire next week with my flimbers krossed.

Makes for tricky typing that.

No, it’s not a fire-breathing human.  It’s a cough, caught on film through something called  “schlieren photography,” and discussed in today’s New York Times Science section.

Schlieren is German for “streaks”; in this case it refers to regions of different densities in a gas or a liquid, which can be photographed as shadows using a special technique.
The process involves a small, bright light source, precisely placed lenses, a curved mirror, a razor blade that blocks part of the light beam and other tools that make it possible to see and photograph disturbances in the air. In the world of gas dynamics, a cough is merely “a turbulent jet of air with density changes.”

What I find cool is how like art some of these images are: the black and white photo of a gun shot, the plume of a gas leak or the curl of heated air from a candle flame.  In these trying times I make an effort to remember that there’s, like, beauty all around us.  It’s an uphill climb some days, but The Times helped today.