Favorite Links Friday Week of July 15, 2016

Governor is bully culprit, complaint says

By Suzanne Downing

In a quickly issued apology, Gov. Bill Walker yesterday walked back his threats against lawmakers and candidates, in which he had stated that he would be interviewing each of them to determine which of three plans they supported, and then, in veiled terms threatened to work against them as candidates if they chose wrong.

“While it has been determined that the statement I made about the upcoming election was not a violation of the ethics act, I want to clarify that I am not trying to influence an election. I am trying to inform the public about what the legislature’s own analyst has called the ‘gravest fiscal crisis in state history.‘ I want Alaskans to know the consequences of action and inaction. I regret any misunderstanding this may have created.” –Governor Bill Walker [Full Source]

Walker spells disaster if Legislature stalls on budget

By Andrew Kitchenman, APRN & KTOO - Juneau

Governor Bill Walker’s administration has spelled out what it would mean if the Legislature doesn’t take action on his plan to fund state government. With no more money, in two years the state would slash services, jobs, and the support it gives to local schools and communities.

If lawmakers do nothing, the budget is hacked by 85%.“Look at like Fish & Game and all those. That would change from 134 to 18.”

“You’d never get to go hunting. Or fishing. I think this is what people up in Alaska live here for. Is the fishing, the hunting, the parks. If we cut all the funding for that….” “It’s just going to deteriorate.”

House Majority Leader Anchorage Republican Charisse Millett questioned this tactic.

“I think it’s unfortunate that that’s the way the governor chooses to work with the Legislature,” Millett said. “When you’re trying to push a fiscal plan, I think the last thing you want to do is threaten folks with campaigns.”

Back at the state park, Palmer resident Linda Lozanoff and her family are about to head up the trail. She says it’s time for the Legislature to pick a path.

“I really appreciate Governor Walker’s efforts to take them to task, make them work hard and make decisions,” Lozanoff said. But she says everyone in the state, including schools, needs to do their part and accept some cuts. [Full Source]

Scientists discover new fish off Alaska’s islands

Anchorage, Alaska — Federal biologist Jay Orr never knows what’s going to come up in nets lowered to the ocean floor off Alaska’s remote Aleutian Islands, which separate the Bering Sea from the rest of the Pacific Ocean. Sometimes it’s stuff he has to name.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration biologist is part of a group that uses trawl nets to survey commercially important fish species such as cod in waters off Alaska. Sometimes those nets come up with things no one has seen before.

With co-authors, Orr has discovered 14 kinds of new snailfish, a creature that can be found in tide pools but also in the deepest parts of the ocean. A dozen more new snailfish are waiting to be named. Additional species are likely to be found as scientists expand their time investigating areas such as the Bering Sea Slope, in water 800 to 5,200 feet deep, or the 25,663-foot deep Aleutian Trench.

Five boats with six researchers each surveyed Alaska waters in late June. The teams trawl on the Bering Shelf every summer and in either Aleutian waters or the Gulf of Alaska every other year.

Their findings on fish abundance are fed into models for managing fish populations.

The scientists put down a 131-foot trawl net that captures whatever is along the ocean bottom. A ton of fish is a standard sample. Along with fish, they get clues to the seafloor habitat. Sponges, for example, indicate a hard seafloor, or substrate. [Full Source]

'Game of Thrones' season 7 delay could mean winter is coming later

"Game of Thrones" fans may need to wait around a little longer for winter to finally show up. Showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss showed up for a UFC Unfiltered podcast and spilled some information about the production schedule for season 7. What we learned is that no air date is set and that filming may be delayed thanks to the cheerful sunny weather currently happening at the show's usual filming locations.

The showrunners are holding out for "grim, gray weather" to get the wintry look necessary for the dark final days of "Game of Thrones." The season premieres normally happen in March or April. Season 6 kicked off on April 24. A late start to filming could potentially push back the usual premiere time for season 7. [Full Source]

Why Does Time Seem to Speed Up with Age?

In 2005, for instance, psychologists Marc Wittmann and Sandra Lenhoff, both then at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, surveyed 499 participants, ranging in age from 14 to 94 years, about the pace at which they felt time moving—from “very slowly” to “very fast.” For shorter durations—a week, a month, even a year—the subjects' perception of time did not appear to increase with age. Most participants felt that the clock ticked by quickly. But for longer durations, such as a decade, a pattern emerged: older people tended to perceive time as moving faster. When asked to reflect on their lives, the participants older than 40 felt that time elapsed slowly in their childhood but then accelerated steadily through their teenage years into early adulthood.

There are good reasons why older people may feel that way. When it comes to how we perceive time, humans can estimate the length of an event from two very different perspectives: a prospective vantage, while an event is still occurring, or a retrospective one, after it has ended. In addition, our experience of time varies with whatever we are doing and how we feel about it. In fact, time does fly when we are having fun. Engaging in a novel exploit makes time appear to pass more quickly in the moment. But if we remember that activity later on, it will seem to have lasted longer than more mundane experiences. [Full Source]

Each year you live represents a smaller percentage of your life, and you perceive this time to pass by more quickly as compared to when you were younger. In addition, each year you age becomes less valuable because you have more of it. These two factors contribute to the perception that time goes faster as you age.

When you were 12 months old, 1 year represented 100% of your life. That time was important to you, because it represented 100% of your life. You perceived it as going by slowly because each month represented such a large portion of your life.
When you turn 50, one year is only 1/50th of your entire life - it doesn't hold as much perceptual "weight" as when you were younger, so time appears to fly by.

Plus, all the things you do when you're younger are all "firsts". You value the first date, first kiss, first breakup etc. - all that happens only once, when you're younger, so the perceptual weight of that time is even greater.

I also think it's this, combined with the fact that most people tend to settle into pretty rigid daily routines as they get older. When you literally do the same things every day with very little variance, time will naturally seem to accelerate as your brain actually starts disregarding information because there is nothing new to process. That's why when you "zone out" time seems to fly as if you were asleep, because your brain was either busy processing some other bullshit that wasn't your perception of time or it was processing very little at all.

Your observance of time is very malleable, there's a reason we say it's relative. Want time to slow down? Do new things. Learn. Explore. Escape your routine, get out of your rut.
But remember, at the end of the day, the march of time is endless and unchanging, it is only your perception of it that changes.

Read More: Favorite Links Friday Week of July 1st 2016

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