Intergalactic radio bursts create possible new programming

In what could be the greatest thing since the 11-year-old version of me fell asleep every night listening to baseball, basketball and football games (and tennis matches) from up and down the West Coast, astronomers have detected a pattern in a fast radio burst from space.

I'm not sure what a "fast radio burst" means, but I suspect it means more radio stations!

Radio from space. Today's hits, yesterday's favorite. Hot talk. Traffic and weather on the eights. Giants games.

I don't know all the details, but here's what was announced: Earlier this year, astronomers identified two distinct fast radio burst patterns. First, they found a pattern that repeated in a weird sequence: Broadcasting (my term) once or twice an hour for four days, then silent for 12 days.

Later, they found a burst that "broadcasts" for 90 days, then is silent for 67 days.

A pretty solid broadcasting schedule. Predictable, at least.

Now that we know the schedule, the next question is what is being broadcast. Sure, the scientists identify the information as "radio bursts," rather than programming, but we've all been around long enough to know that "radio bursts" means "radio format."

Classic rock? Sports talk? Some new format?

Growing up in Humboldt County, my AM radio could pick up stations up and down the Pacific coast and across the western United States. I mostly listened to sports, so I could hear dozens of games a night. From stations in Seattle, Portland, the Bay Area, Los Angeles, even Salt Lake City and Denver. I also listened to stations that featured countdowns of the most popular songs, talk radio or even occasional radio dramas.

It was great because it made my world feel so much bigger than Humboldt County.

Of course, the 11-year-old me didn't realize that there were stations in distant galaxies that were also broadcasting. Do they have sports? Music (by Ringo Starr, Jefferson Starship, Bill Haley and the Comets)? Maybe talk radio (callers talking about threats from other galaxies and demonizing the inhabitants)?

Had I known, I would have asked for a more powerful radio for my 12th birthday.

Back to the programming. Scientists have plenty of theories about what's behind the bursts and the patterns.

Some researchers think the bursts could be due to the orbit of a huge star. Or a black hole. Or a dense neutron star. Researchers hope to find more repeating fast radio bursts and see if they have patterns. They also hope to discover if patterns change over time.

My observation: Of course the patterns will change. Radio formats always change. The former top-40 station becomes a classic rock station and then a country station and then a talk radio station. Maybe later it switches to religious programming or becomes a Spanish-language station.

Terrestrial radio stations are always flipping formats. Why wouldn't an intergalactic station?

However, one bit of advice to the operators of the intergalactic radio stations: Beware of fast video bursts.

Radio got knocked down when TV came in the 1950s. When music videos arrived in the 1980s. When the internet arrived in the 1990s.

As any student of history will tell you, video killed the radio star.

The question now is whether video will kill the star radio.

I just hope I can get my cool new receiver before that happens.

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@hotmail.com.

Have a problem? Today you can ask Dad

It's Father's Day! The 24-hour period when we recognize the role of the man who had a minority interest in the partnership that created and raised us: Dads.

As is traditional in this space, Father's Day is a time to turn the keys of this column over to a father to provide advice, in the tradition of Dear Annie, Miss Manners and Sister Golden Hair (one of those doesn't fit).

Following are real letters from fictitious readers who pretend to live in the Daily Republic's circulation area, seeking advice from a dad.

Dear Dad: Since the pandemic started, my controlling sister has insisted on Zoom calls every week. I don't mind them, since they give me a chance to see my parents and other members of my extended family – including my sister's children – but she dominates the conversation. When other people talk, she interrupts. She changes the subject to what interests her. And since she's in charge of the call, she determines when it ends. Am I wrong to just want to stop being part of these calls?

Frustrated in Fairfield

Dear FIF: It's not surprising that a stressful time brings up strong emotions in you. It reminds me of when I was a sophomore in high school and decided to play football. The old-school coach loved to see his players suffer, so he made us run sprints over and over and over. Before long, a lot of the bigger guys were throwing up, but the coach kept going, apparently wanting to make everyone throw up.

My best friend, Tony Rogers, realized that people who vomited didn't have to keep running, so we pretended to be sick so we could stop. It worked.

Last time I heard, Tony was in Southern California working for state or something. Man, he was really a character.

Dear Dad: I was a senior in high school this year and the shelter-in-place orders meant that I didn't get to experience any of the normal end-of-school highlights. No prom. No grad night. No graduation ceremony. I asked my parents if they would pay for a weekend away with me and my friends this summer, but they say it's not safe. I reminded them I'm 18 and out of high school and they didn't have to pay for a lot of things they normally would. Am I being unreasonable?

Vacaville Senior

Dear VS: You know what's unreasonable? How someone could have an entire meal, get all the dirty dishes and then leave them on the counter and not put them in the dishwasher. Is it asking too much when I say to put the dishes in the dishwasher? Do you think they'll magically walk into the dishwasher if you put them on the counter? You are not a child anymore. Please pick up after yourself or start buying paper plates for your food – although my guess is you'd leave them out, too!

Dear Dad: My husband and I sent our grandson a very nice gift for his birthday this year, but never heard back from him or his mother. Amazon indicated the gift was delivered, but how can we be sure if my grandson and his parents don't acknowledge it? Should we call and ask? Please don't answer with a dumb "dad joke."

Suisun City Grandma

Dear SCG: Your situation reminds me of this book I was reading. It was the autobiography of the guy who invented "smart" front doors that could sense when someone is approaching and alert the home's residents.

I heard he won the no-bell prize.

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@hotmail.com.

Time to rip the mask off American racism

Imagine a world in which the COVID-19 pandemic has been going on for centuries and you don't have a mask. You can't get one.

Your parents couldn't get a mask. Your grandparents couldn't get a mask. Their grandparents couldn't get a mask. As far back as anyone knows, no one in your family could get a mask. It wasn't allowed.

And all the while – also for as long as people remember – those without masks were treated differently. Hostility. They had fewer rights because they don't wear masks.

About 12 to 15 percent of the population don't have masks and can't get masks. You and people like you will never have a mask. 

You don't have the coronavirus. You can't infect anyone. In fact, in this scenario, virtually no one is at risk, but those with masks still fear you. They still consider you different. Lesser.

You can't disguise it: You don't wear a mask. You can't wear a mask and people with masks don't trust you.

Mask-wearing people are in power. During your childhood, you had few, if any, no-mask teachers. Even now, most police officers and judges and jailers and bosses wear masks. Most elected officials wear masks. Wearing masks is the unofficial uniform of power.

When the residents of your town feel danger, they often blame it on those  without masks. When law enforcement members stop those of you without masks, they are more suspicious and aggressive than they are when they stop people wearing masks.

You grew up hearing how people like you – people who didn't and couldn't wear masks – were mistreated. How you were enslaved by the mask-wearers until 150 years ago. How there were laws allowing discrimination against no-mask people until about 50 years ago.

You know the statistics: Those without masks receive less schooling, make less money and go to prison at a far greater rate than those with masks. In fact, nearly 20 percent of non-masked men have been in federal or state prison, while only 3 percent of men wearing masks have suffered the same fate. Masked people say that's because people without masks commit more crimes, but that difference – nearly seven times as many non-masked men spent time in prison – makes that explanation ridiculous.

You are angry. Then you see videos – again and again – of non-masked people being abused by powerful people in masks. It happens over and over.

Decade after decade.

In city after city.

How can those with masks not see how the system is set up against those without masks? Are they willingly blind? Do they secretly (or not secretly) hate people without masks?

In this scenario, would you be content? Would you be OK with mask-wearers telling you how fair the system is, how much better it is than it used to be, how they have friends and even bosses who didn't wear masks? Obviously, there's no discrimination against people without masks!

Of course you wouldn't think that was OK.

If you're black in America, you don't have a mask.

Of course in 2020, we wear masks because of a pandemic that will someday be over. After three month, it feels like it's gone on forever. We demand action to find a cure.

The pandemic of American racism is more than 300 years old and as a white, middle-aged male, I'm one of the mask-wearing people in this illustration.

People like me need to care as much about racism as we do about a virus that will likely be eradicated.

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@hotmail.com.

An updated version of the SAT to get you into college

The Scholastic Aptitude Test is struggling, which seems only fair: The SAT has caused students to struggle for decades.

The standardized test, taken by millions of college-bound students every year, was an early victim of COVID-19. Students could no longer sit in a crowded lunchroom at their high school and pore over the three-hour test.

Lucky for them.

The SAT people tried to adjust, switching to an at-home test. Of course, that brought it's own set of issues – most notably the fact that it required three hours of uninterrupted internet access, which is no guarantee. (Also presumably an issue: The use of a smartphone to check answers.)

Colleges have historically required students to take the SAT or the rival American College Testing (ACT) exam – they are the Giants and Dodgers of college-board tests – for admission. The better you score on the test, the better your chances for admission–assuming you have good grades, your parents know someone in admissions or your family can pay someone to create a fictitious resume to get you in the school.

But now, after years of criticism that the ACT and SAT had cultural biases that made them unreliable, the pandemic finally sidelined the SAT – and the University of California system announced it would phase out the ACT and SAT.

So what to do? Is there an answer? How can we determine whether students are ready for college?

I have the solution. As a college graduate (Electoral College, Class of '86; University of Hard Knocks, Class of '89), I prepared an exam to test potential college students. It's Stanhope Aptitude Test (New SAT), so decrease (or possibly increase) confusion.

The beauty of the New SAT is it takes just a few minutes to complete.

You're on the honor system, so please don't check your phone unless you really need to do so. A perfect score is 2,000 points.

Feel free to take the test, then ask the questions of a 17-year-old.

• Math: There are three cars with a total of 15 passengers. If one car has four more passengers than either of the other two, what was the name of the character who was the manager on "The Partridge Family?"
• Geography: Washington is the westernmost state in the continental United States  and is the home of Mount St. Helens. If Mount St. Helens erupted again, like it did in 1980, would Michael Jordan or LeBron James be the greatest player in NBA history?
• English: Write a sentence of five words or more that describes your favorite type of pizza and then state whether you think thin crust or thick crust is better.
• History: The Declaration of Independence was signed in 1776 and the Constitution was signed in 1789, a 13-year gap. With that in mind, what is your favorite TV streaming service?
• Science: If water freezes at 32 degrees Fahrenheit and turns to a gas at 212 degrees Fahrenheit, can you come up with a single good reason, other than the box office, that they made the third Hunger Games book into two movies? Especially since the book was clearly the worst of the three.

Thank you for taking the New SAT. Be sure to provide a copy of this column with your score as you submit  your college application.

Read Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@hotmail.com.

What is the greatest kitchen appliance? Cooking up answers

It's one of life's great questions, along with "What is the meaning of life?" "Why is there evil?" "What our our inalienable rights?" and "Who let the dogs out?"

Today's question: What is the most important kitchen appliance?

In other words, if you could keep just one kitchen appliance, which would you pick?

Shaped by 11 weeks of working 10 feet from my kitchen, I'm prepared issue the official power rankings for appliances.

As with all my rankings – greatest generations, greatest modern inventions, greatest punctuation marks, greatest days of the week, greatest minor holidays – I use a strict mathematical formula that includes . . . uh . . . my opinion.

Feel free to disagree. The Constitution guarantees us the right to disagree about the most important kitchen appliances and I suspect the Supreme Court will rule that it applies beyond the kitchen, which may come in handy if this pandemic goes on long enough. I'm working on a power rankings for the closet, but we'll see.

Anyway, I've ranked the top five kitchen appliances. Obviously,  there are more than five appliances in most kitchens. If you're interested, three fell just outside the rankings: Dishwasher (convenient, but there's clear backup), blender (Mrs. Brad uses ours, I've never used it.), trash compactor (listed for my amusement. Do they still exist?).

But let's move to the top five kitchen appliances, in reverse order:

5. Toaster. For straight-up utility, this is a remarkable tool that hasn't been improved much since it took its current form in the early 1900s. The arrival of the "toaster oven" improved utility, but this appliance still operates largely like it did in 1910: Turn it on and bread becomes toast. The offensive lineman of kitchen appliances. Reliable.

4. Coffee maker. This ranks high because the panic that ensues if you think your coffee maker is broken. A few months ago, my coffee machine didn't start. I almost hyperventilated, wondering how I could make coffee, until I realized a breaker had been thrown.

3. Oven/stove. Crucial for virtually all cooking. Lose this appliance and you lose the ability to make many significant meals. Of course, you'd also lose the ability to scar your hand – either on the burner that you forgot was turned on or a hot rack in the oven.

2. Refrigerator. Imagine a time traveler from 100 years ago visiting your kitchen. The thing that would amaze them the most is that we can keep food cold without having to have the ice man (a real job, not legendary NBA star George Gervin) come by every couple of days. Lose the fridge and you lose a lot, but  if it went away, you could have a solution: The ice man cometh (which was a great gag on Broadway in 1946. Trust me.).

1. Microwave. Four decades ago, this was exotic (I remember game shows, where people would compete for the "Amana Radarange,") but now it's essential–both for being able to cook or reheat most of our meals, but also because it's the backup for most other appliances. Did your oven break down? Use the microwave. Coffee maker? Use the microwave. Refrigerator? Well, not quite. But you get the point. If I had to keep just one appliance in my kitchen, it would be my microwave.

The microwave oven is the Michael Jordan of kitchen appliances.

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@hotmail.com.