tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-52132662024-03-08T01:58:54.461+10:00A little bit of this ... a little bit of that ...Little bits of the physical, mental, and spiritual experiences that constitute existence - writing, LIFE, THE UNIVERSE ... AND ANYTHING ... Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger2342125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5213266.post-45311508997797838182024-01-21T21:21:00.000+10:002024-01-21T21:21:04.951+10:00Glow UpDing dong. A mate has introduced me to a not-so-new reality series called"Glow Up". I had seen a program called "Glow" on one of the streaming channels and I had thought that was it - but it's not. "Glow up" is about aspiring MUA's who are competing for a contract to work in the industry. They are mostly young people - the oldest in Season One is 28 - and seem to be self-taught Make-Up Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5213266.post-91674622203337060172024-01-05T10:06:00.003+10:002024-01-05T10:06:46.010+10:00HeadlinesIn these days of information overload, how many of us see a headline served up to us on one of our devices and take that as the "story". Yesterday I saw this headline in bold print: Gold Coast crash pilot took cocaine in days before collision. It was referring to the crash of two helicopters on the Gold Coast early last year. I wonder how many people clicked on the Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5213266.post-36875578607080805242024-01-04T17:49:00.001+10:002024-01-04T17:49:23.252+10:00Memory lane via mediaIt's not often I go through my old media and devices, but it may be something I will be doing a bit more of in future. I started it as part of my 2024 'decluttering program' and also checking out photographs I have been taking on a phone (Pixel 7 Pro) - and I have been amazed at what I have been finding - including some music tracks which I had forgotten I had. This in itself is a bitUnknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5213266.post-4062763859264168632023-10-29T15:35:00.000+10:002023-10-29T15:35:41.714+10:00Not diversifiedI chanced upon a Wikipeida entry today that talked about Midsomer Murders, the television series, and the deliberate decision by then producer Brian True-May to exclude non-white characters from the start of the show. He saw the series as 'the last bastion of Englishness and I want to keep it that way'. His comments were investigated by the production company - he had been Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5213266.post-73971414915741209072022-11-18T13:30:00.007+10:002022-11-18T13:30:43.029+10:00How early is too early ... ... for Christmas decorations. It's okay for the shops to start doing Christmas decorations before November even starts, but we're supposed to save our Christmas shirts until Santa is almost with us and maybe sneak in a wearing for Christmas in July. Not this time! We have our new Christmas shirts and we've already started wearing them ... on the 12th of November ... and it feels good!Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5213266.post-45994340184928399282022-10-24T00:15:00.002+10:002022-10-24T00:15:55.246+10:00HeliumHelium. Who needs it anyway? Well, as it turns out, helium isn’t just about party balloons and doctors around the world are worried about a global helium shortage. Helium is used in MRI machines - each MRI needs about 2,000 litres of ultra-cold liquid helium to keep the MRI magnets cool enough to work. Helium, a nonrenewable element found deep within the Earth’s crust - is Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5213266.post-60718349719800784882022-10-24T00:14:00.001+10:002022-10-24T00:14:26.088+10:00Up front trainingHow much training should you have before you can run “front of house” at a cafe? We went to our usual Sunday morning venue today - and, admittedly it has had a change of management and it would also seem a change of staff, but you would think they would still be able to run a cafe properly … like knowing how old the croissants are, and when the jam is out of date … and to deliver the Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5213266.post-90862437549598077272022-10-22T21:24:00.004+10:002022-10-22T21:24:38.097+10:00In a wordIs it possible to tell a story in six words? I think you can convey an idea but I’m not sure about the telling a story. If you type “six word story” into a search bar, you will get many results including http://www.sixwordstories.net where there are numerous six word stories. I guess in a world where we have phone text messages as a way of conveying information, it’s feasible to think that Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5213266.post-13553302454698105742022-10-22T21:20:00.002+10:002022-10-22T21:20:11.324+10:00Up in the airWho knew? And what are the requirements? Reading a story today about a woman who had been tricked into paying money to a “cosmonaut” who couldn’t afford to pay for his “return ticket to Earth” from the ISS, it said that space travel didn’t work like that … you don’t have to buy your own ticket. The amazing thing, though, it seems like private astronauts (and cosmonauts?) can pay for their own Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5213266.post-34422950965394300572022-10-22T21:17:00.004+10:002022-10-22T21:17:51.982+10:00Intelligent AI?Plagiarism is a dirty word when it comes to study and research but it may be harder to detect now that some students are using advanced language generators to write papers for them - and this can’t be detected by plagiarism software. The issue is that AI-generated text is not copied from somewhere else - and that’s what plagiarism software checks for. In the article “Sneaky Students Using AI to Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5213266.post-73487208559110311032022-10-22T21:15:00.003+10:002022-10-22T21:15:38.463+10:00The long and short of itWhy did the T-Rex have such short arms? A study published in the journal Acta Paleontologica Polica suggested that the T-Rex evolved short arms because they fed in packs - and by having short arms it meant they wouldn’t bite off each other’s arms. Or was it a matter of the arms didn’t get shorter but that the legs got longer - that’s a suggestion put forward by John Hutchinson at London’s Royal Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5213266.post-47963029392367441642022-10-22T21:13:00.003+10:002022-10-22T21:13:15.180+10:00Sounds of musicSupercalifragilisticexpialidocious - I think that’s how you spell it; I once read that you spell it exactly as it sounds - and it sounds like that! I must watch the movie (“Mary Poppins”) one day … although I remember it from when the child actors in “The Sound of Music” talked about how Julie Andrews would entertain them on set with songs from her previous movie … “Mary Poppins”. Although, meUnknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5213266.post-87486755111344566992022-08-01T21:14:00.002+10:002022-08-01T21:14:50.821+10:00Date of birthWhy do they need my date of birth for a competition entry? Isn't it enough that they have my name, email address, phone number, physical address and ... well, I'm sure there was something else they needed before they would let me submit my competition entry. Bad enough they now have all my marketing information without making it easier for them to identify me. I can't help but wonder how secure Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5213266.post-55770414470682218362022-06-30T23:00:00.003+10:002022-06-30T23:00:56.450+10:00Droning on (no, not really)Following some close-up viewing of drone footage last week, I decided it was time to think about pulling my drone out again for another "go". Or was it? I've never had much luck with it ... the battery life is not great (12 min) and it is quite light which means I haven't been able to take it out flying if there was even a whiff of a wind. The drone and I have spent some time together - mostlyUnknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5213266.post-77330216904512803482022-06-29T22:12:00.001+10:002022-06-29T22:12:14.409+10:00CoVid BrainI would not have believed how much you could not be able to think clearly if I hadn't experienced myself. At one stage there I even thought about withdrawing from my TAFE course and enrolling in the next intake ... hopefully when cognitive services returned to normal. Each time I sat down to work on my assignment I couldn't concentrate and I really needed to as I set up several social media Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5213266.post-27588931793046159502022-05-21T14:07:00.002+10:002022-05-21T14:07:32.699+10:00Get those arms up! I don't always believe what I read on the internet but I was hoping that this one was true. We've all had those situations - when you or someone with you laughs or does something just as they eat or drink and it "goes down the wrong way" leading to coughing and spluttering as you try to catch your breath. So I was happy to read that you could help fix this by raising both arms in the air to help Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5213266.post-31240259419541028622022-05-21T08:57:00.000+10:002022-05-21T08:57:05.239+10:00What's that? It's great when just being yourself can make folk happy! We went around to my sister and her partner's house where they had been getting ready for a surprise birthday party which in the end didn't happen as the Guest of Honour and her three children had all come down with a lurgy. The decorations were up when we arrived and while most of the balloons and other bits and bobs had been relocated to Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5213266.post-64042228631986613252022-04-17T21:49:00.005+10:002022-04-18T08:19:56.253+10:00Jurassic ParkThe next movie in the Jurassic Park franchise is now only a couple of months away and the promotion for it is flying thick and fast. I was hooked from the teasers before the Beijing Winter Olympics and with each new release I am getting more excited. The latest promo was released only a couple of days ago: Jurassic World Dominion Legacy Featurette. I checked on the Outlook site to see when theUnknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5213266.post-24366158297546250782022-04-17T18:19:00.005+10:002022-04-17T18:19:47.809+10:00Now ... that's lucky! We had a lesiurely breakfast at a cafe which supplies newspapers for their customers to read - which is how we chanced upon the story "Alleged acid attack appears on TikTok". It seems a TikTok "personality" was live-streaming as she was waiting outside a Sydney restaurant on Friday night when police say three masked men got out of a black Mazda SUV and approached her before allegedly attacking Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5213266.post-53207922214655588132022-04-16T19:39:00.003+10:002022-04-16T19:39:44.915+10:00Life imitates artLet's call them Murder Dogs. I first saw them in "War of the Worlds" where they were roaming the countryside sampling human DNA. Unfortunately that required them to shoot a bolt into people's foreheads. Since then I have seen pictures of then in the real world in Shanghai where at least one remote-controlled robot dog walks the streets with a megaphone strapped to its back. The robot Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5213266.post-56473567704170368102022-04-15T20:13:00.006+10:002022-04-15T20:13:55.535+10:00Let the games begin ... The Federal Election has been called for 21 May 2022 and as we wait for the big day to arrive, the Liberal and Labor Parties (and the others) will be doing everything in their power to sway the voters to their side. Current PM Scott Morrison has already come out swinging - making less than polite comments about Mr Albanese's physical appearance. This may well be one of those elections where Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5213266.post-31186576471520723852022-04-15T19:49:00.000+10:002022-04-15T19:49:24.498+10:00Feel good moviesA few years back my partner said she would take me to a "feel good" movie ... which turned out to be Slumdog Millionaire. I was quite distressed with the mother being bashed, children being mutilated so they would be more "successful" when they were sent out begging - and just generally. I remember asking her (yes, through what might have been tears) when it was going to start being a "feel Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5213266.post-45037393103830067012022-04-10T21:02:00.001+10:002022-04-10T21:02:14.930+10:00Waiting ... waiting ... waitingI'm not sure what it is about some tradespeople and how they seem to be so not good at scheduling their time or at keeping folk informed when they had made or changed the schedule. It must be good to have so much work on that they can ignore repeated calls from clients to find out when you are planning to get to them - at least I hope they have too much work rather than just not being able to Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5213266.post-51302387948063012812022-03-26T21:05:00.001+10:002022-03-26T21:05:11.684+10:00How long ... ?I decided that I wanted to rewatch Independence Day and when I did a search on Google to see which streaming service it was on, I was stunned to see that it had been made in 1996. What the ... ? That's over a quarter of a century ago! That makes sense thought when I think about it because we were living in Leichhardt at the time, and that was that long ago. I remember when it was about to comeUnknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5213266.post-22043088880829872392022-02-10T21:13:00.001+10:002022-02-10T21:13:20.049+10:00MatrixI was very much looking forward to the new Matrix - Resurrection movie, and I hate to admit it, but I was extremely disappointed with it. It's not often that I think about walking out of a movie, but I was prepared to make an exception this time. Even the person I was watching it with - who had been looking forward to seeing it even more than I, contemplated leaving. So what was it? The Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0