A Little Horse and Electric Blue · 7:55pm Sep 10th, 2023
Has anyone else suffered from laryngitis? It really is a very annoyingly frustrating thing to get. You don’t actually feel too bad, just like a mild cold. Except you can’t talk. Trying to do so just hurts your throat. And there’s nothing you can do except wait for it to get better. This means you have to cancel lectures, teaching, meetings, just about everything where you need to interact with other people. And it always seems to strike just when you are really busy with lots of things you need to do. It seems to be linked to stress. I don’t think it is really understood why this is, but I have heard many teachers report similar experiences.
Anyway, with that out of the way, let’s get overs to the livestream with Pipp Petals and Electric Blue…
Pipp: Hello and welcome to this livestream with the epic Pegasus rock band, Electric Blue. We will talk about music, about style, and about all the backstage gossip. And particle physics research, of course. We all want to know what you’ve been up to since Bridlewoodstock and what are your plans for the future? But first, just to break the ice, can you tell us how the band got its name?
Fretlock: We are Electric Blue.
Jam Donut: We, err… We like blue, and we play electric guitars, and the manager said it was a good name…
Arpeggia: We wanted an epic name to illuminate our electrifying sound.
Fretlock: No no. We have a better reason than that. Let’s tell the full story. You know how, when you brought back magic, and we were all up in the clouds flying for the first time?
Pipp: Yes.
Fretlock: There were lots of sparks flying. And those amazing lights in the sky! We wanted to learn all about it. What is the link between electricity and glowing air? So, we set up an experiment in Arpeggia’s basement.
Arpeggia: It was a gas discharge tube You get a glass tube with electrodes at the ends, fill it with low pressure gas, and apply a high voltage—it needs to be pretty big—we repurposed an old amp—and it glows! When you have ionized gas—the electricity kicks the electrons out of place, so a current can flow. When the excited nitrogen molecules calm down, they emit blue light.
Fretlock: And, the really cool bit is when you put on your spectral-vision glasses…
…They contain a diffraction grating to split the light into all the separate colours. Kinda like your prisbeam, I guess. You can see the spectrum of each different gas—they all have coloured lines at different wavelengths. Every gas has its own unique spectrum
Arpeggia: We wanted to make more colours and understand what was going on. The different colours correspond to atomic transitions in the gas—when an electron moves from one energy state to another it emits light. Different gases in the air—oxygen, nitrogen, ozone, whatever, give different colours, but there are lots of different transitions—some are not so easy to reproduce in the basement, but you can see them in the sky.
Jam Donut: Argon worked really well, it was a lovely blue.
Pipp: So that’s why you called the band Electric Blue?
Fretlock: Yeah, well, we were going to call ourselves Corona Discharge, but our manager said that might upset the Queen as it meant ‘dismiss the crown’ or something like that, and she suggested Electric Blue would be better.
Jam Donut: Electric Blue! Whoo hoo!
Of course!
I would totally listen to a band called Corona Discharge! (At least once.
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Sorry about the laryngitis! I've only ever had it once (at an inopportune time, of course) and it was incredibly frustrating. I drank a lot of chamomile tea, which didn't help at all.
Sir Clive Sinclair was a gas. He had a totally unique Spectrum.
I had laryngitis over Christmas once, and while visiting relatives at that. The timing meant it didn't affect work, but it was indeed tremendously inconvenient. All I could do was whisper, which wasn't ideal when you were trying to make yourself heard over a boiling kettle or something!
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I actually have my ZX81 on a shelf in the room where I'm typing, but I can't think of a way to put that into a joke...
Oh bravo, bravo indeed.
For those fully vaccinated, a 'Rona-infection getting around the vaccination —— ¡we still have ponies rejecting biological evolution! ——, an infection is much like a mild cold. Maybe you have the 'Rona.
About laryngitis, the Physicist Stephen Hawking could not speak for 3 decades, but communicated using Text-To-Speech.
5745992 My corona this year was two days of NyQuill/Motrin, two days of general loafing and watching Swamp People to get over the quarantine period, and back to about 90% normal. About a month to get all the way back to 100% or as close as I get at this age.
Did you know there's a pegasus fan-named Electric Blue?
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I recommend getting Paxlovid next time.
You are not the only 1 with laryngitis:
After Rainbow Dash met Fluttershy, she asked about why Fluttershy speaks so softly. Fluttershy responded that it is because she is a little hoarse.
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I forgot to mention that Paxolid is ginuwine medicine which stops viral replication. I bring this up because I just got a reminder:
The clinic gets the vaccines against the new and improved SARS-CoV-2 the 1st week of October. That is too late for me, because I got the 'Rona (it must have happened at lunch at work because that is the only time I unmask). The partial immunity from the previous vaccines makes the case mild, and with the Paxolid, the cessation of viral replication should stop viral shedding and symptoms in a day. In a week, I should be all better.
I shall get my vaccination against the new and improved 'Rona in November (I have to recover), but that is a day late and a dollar short.
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It wasn't laryngitis, it was ALS he was stricken with. Which paralyzed his vocal chords, which is why he went to the Text-to-speech device.
Unless, you intended the statement to be a joke.
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Sorry, but I was not clear:
I know that Professor Hawking had ALS. What I meant is that Professor Pineta can use Text-To-Speech for delivering lectures when he has Laryngitis. After all, if Text-To-Speech worked for Professor Hawking, thus allowing him to lecture, Professor Pineta can write his speech and let his computer read it too.