Trolls

Are some people just argumentative by nature?  Down at the Broadwater on Sunday morning, the Ian Dipple Lagoon had been closed off to the public - as folk from SeaWorld and the Council looked to see if the sea snake sighted the previous day was still in the Lagoon.  As it turned out they weren't looking to see if it was there, they were looking to make sure it wasn't there.  Fun fact:  sea snakes are usually underwater but come up for air every half hour to an hour to breathe ... and then they look like a rope floating on top of the water.  Another not so fun fact - sea snakes are incredibly venomous but - and this is more fun - they have an incredibly small bite so they can really only get purchase on smaller areas, like the webbing area between people's fingers. 

I put a photograph of the lagoon, without any swimmers or children playing in it, onto Facebook and mentioned the search for the sea snakes.  There were then some comments about sea snakes - and then one from someone suggesting that there were NO SEA SNAKES.  It was obviously someone who hadn't been there or hadn't talked to one of the folk around the lagoon. In the great scheme of things it wasn't that much ... but still I was pleased when a couple of the other members of the group pointed out his "error". 

I can't imagine what it must be like to have serious trolls following you online.  They can be quite nasty. ... and persistent... like those badgering Cleo Smith's family after her abduction last month.  It would be interesting to see if the trolling has stopped since Cleo has been found and returned to her family. 

Who's listening?

We sometimes joke - and certainly it is the stuff of memes - that our electronic devices are listening to us - or watching us.  Sooz was telling me the other day that she had been watching videos on families with Tourettes Syndrome.  I'm not sure where she found them but she doesn't have any trouble finding them now because they keep coming up on her Facebook page.  I'm still getting videos and ads about MDC Caravans - I had looked at some of the videos from their site and now they're just not going away.  Most folk have a story about how Siri or Alexa or Cortana "eavesdrop" on their Google searches and they start getting related content soon after.  I can understand that ... what I don't understand is how they can pick up cues from conversations you've had with someone when you're not actually searching on the internet. 

Tribute (?) tattoos

A married couple from Niagra Falls ("fans") were recently tattooed with red and black ink infused with Charles Manson's ashes. They are calling them "tribute tattoos" and the husband is reported in a TMZ report as saying he followed the example of his wife Deanne who wanted to become the first woman to sport a tattoo featuring Manson's ashes. This seems odd, as the husband reportedly already had a "Helter Skelter" tattoo on his forehead using Manson's ashes.
I can't help wondering how much murderabilia can physically be extracted from one person's ashes. After his death in 2017, and following a court case involving several interested parties, Manson's remains were awarded to his grandson. Since then, the ashes have seemingly been used in at least one painting, two masks and now at least three tattoos.

The Last Supper

There was a recent story in the Washington Post abut Julie Green, renowned painter and art professor with Oregon State University, who died earlier this month. They (Julie preferred the gender-neutral pronoun) were "a wide ranging artist whose paintings ... examined gender roles, wrongful conviction, animal abuse and their own colourful life". They were particularly known for The Last Supper project - nearly 1,000 white plates with cobalt blue artwork that depicted the last meal of prisoners destined to the death chamber and which spurred debate over capital punishment and, some suggested, allowed a window into the life of a prisoner. Many of the works are currently on display at the Bellevue Arts Museum.
Julie had also been working on a series called First Meal depicting the first meal of those who were released after a wrongful conviction.

Photo of some of the "Last Supper" works from the media.npr.org website

Gender bias

I would like to say that sexism is so subtle that it isn't always noticed but that's not always the case. The Star Casino has an app where you can play table games or slot machines and it's good for relaxation - especially since you don't have to outlay any money but you can earn vouchers you can use at The Star's food and other outlets.
A new slot game dropped for Halloween and I had been playing it for a short while before I realised a glaring inconsistency ... the paylines with male characters paid far more than the paylines with female characters. Others could see this as inconsequential but it really does seem to reinforce that gender inequality is alive and well ... even in gambling.

Perfect timing

It's good when there are kids at the table next to you when you're out having breakfast. We have been known to "engage" with them, usually making them laugh or smile - waving, pretending to play "hide and seek" that type of thing especially if they seem to want to "engage". There was one lad this morning who kept looking at us and try as we might, we couldn't get a smile out of him ... he was just watching us ... and just as my partner said "he scares me" he turned around in his chair and then looked back over his other shoulder ... and it looked as though he was going to do an Exorcist 360° head rotation. The timing was impeccable ... and we laughed so much I'm sure everyone thought we had lost it.

Mascara ... in space?

I have a question. If you were a female astronaut lifting off to the International Space Station (ISS) - would you wear your usual makeup - including mascara? Or would you think that, for the duration of the flight, stay and return, you might just give it a miss? How do you take off makeup in space? I was pondering this as I watched the first episode of Apple TV's new series "Invasion" where the female astronaut does appear to be have thick long lashes, perhaps false, perhaps extensions (a very profitable business I hear) but at the very least, mascara! If you were off to the ISS for a year, would you bother? And why do most boys not have this issue?

Halloween colours ...

We drove past the local park today where folk were setting up for a party ... we were fairly sure it was a Halloween event (even though it is a bit early) because they were putting up orange and black balloons and crepe paper. How did orange and black come to be seen as Halloween colours? Black we get because of the "sinister" component but what about the orange ... the colour of pumpkins we decided. Because Halloween comes so quickly after the Americans' Thanksgiving, we figured there would be lots of pumpkins left over to use as decorations ... and then slowly rot away to nothing.
Well, we were close but not close enough. Black is "sad" rather than sinister - at that time of year the veil between the living and dead is said to be thinner and folk would offer tributes to the departed and wear black to honour them. Orange is not to do so much with pumpkins as the change of seasons with the trees turning orange ... that and the fires that would be lit to sustain folk during winter. Hmmmm ... practical.
Next time: why red and green are the colours of Christmas. (Just joking.)

Dolphin

What is it about dolphins? They always fill us with such pleasure - especially if we see them in the "wild" - and up close and personal. There was one this morning down at the Ian Dipple Lagoon - actually in the lagoon. They have been doing dredging there and deepening and widening the lagoon mouth which is how the dolphin could swim in. Everyone was delighted to see it - especially the folk who were swimming there at the time, and the people (like me) who were busy filming with their mobile phones.
We were so pleased we had gone down to the Broadwater this morning ... we were later than usual and had thought about not going ... but being later had its benefits - because if we hadn't been later we wouldn't have seen the dolphin. It was in the lagoon for no more than a few minutes before it found its way out again.

Science fiction ... science fact

Which came first ... the one on the left - the stylised robot killer "dog" from Howard Overman's War of the Worlds - definitely something you would not want to run in to OR the stylised robot killer "dog" on the right - the Vision 60 Quadruped equipped with SPUR (Special Purpose Unmanned Rifle) which is designed to help armed forces get (safely) closer to enemy targets and can shoot a target from three-quarters of a mile away ... and its thermal camera with 30x optical zoom means it can spot living, breathing targets at night - making it also something you definitely would not want to run into.
So is it life imitating art or art imitating life?

Kindness of strangers ...

Trivia was a bit difficult last night ... we were not at our usual table; we thought we would be on the couches down the front but there was a cancellation so we ended up sitting at one of the "high tables" - the one right under one of the speakers.  So, as well as being on high stools (there is something quite comforting in not having to remember you are at height and are stepping down when you are standing up) we were six on a round table where we couldn't really confer properly even if we had been able to hear each other.  There was a bumper crowd last night as well - 90 folk were expected, with 19 teams - although one of the teams were a "no show".  It was painfully loud and I don't know about the others but it was so loud I could hardly concentrate on the game or the game play.  Pe seemed to be having a hard time hearing the team's input and working the buzzer ... especially in the "Fastest Finger" round.  Ah well, it's not as though we were last at the end of the game ... we were 12th ... so imagine our surprise when Adam told us not to go anywhere.  The winners, Ramsay Street, had decided to gift their first place voucher ($50) to us ... what the?  They said they had won the last three weeks and decided to share it ... we thanked them profusely ... and would have offered them our leftover scones had we not already promised them to Adam.  Yes, Wa is staying with us at the moment, had come along to Trivia, and made scones for the occasion.  I watched him this time and feeling that it wouldn't be wasted (now) he texted me his recipe.  I'll have to do a test run before I take a batch ... but I will.  The only difference will be that I won't be whipping up the cream in the car park with a whisk attachment on the Ryobi drill ... yes, he really did that ... and the scones were wonderful for it.

And if one episode of passing it forward for the week wasn't enough, when we were down at the Broadwater this morning, when we went to pay for our coffees, Ruth told us one of them was free because someone had paid for an extra one and said to "pass it forward".  

And did I mention our Trivia team managed a second at Monday night's game?  Yes, I know I could mention that the two top-performing teams had given the game a miss this week because of the storms that swept through the Coast that afternoon, dumping loads of rain and some hail on its way through ... but I won't.  :) 

Places not to live ...

... might have to include places like Midsomer.  So far there have been 95 episodes of this crime drama set in and around the fictional Midsomer - and at a minimum of two murders per episode of Midsomer Murders (there are often more) that makes a body count of about 200 since the show was launched in 1997.   It may not be a safe place to live (a bit like Murder She Wrote featuring novelist Jessica Fletcher and her hometown Cabot Cove) but filming location Buckinghamshire hopes it makes for a good place to visit - post-CoVid lockdowns there will be three Midsomer tours in the area:  The Midsomer Marlow Trail, Midsomer on the Misbourne, and Step into Midsomer - featuring various locations where the show has been filmed. 

Too early?

I am calling it as way too early on 20 October to have seen Christmas banners on light poles.  Seasons Greetings!  What?  We haven't even had Halloween yet - not that we're in America but there will be children going around the neighbourhood in their costumes in 11 days who do not even want to start thinking about Christmas yet ... or will they?   All this would be moot if we were all like pigs ... who are physically unable to lift their heads high enough to be able to look into the sky.  How sad would that be ... no Christmas banners, no clouds that look like anything, no moonrises ... no International Space Station - which is now the most expensive thing ever built at US$150 billion ... mind you, that was the 2010 total cost and they have kept spending on it since then!

Windfall

Windfall.  That's what was waiting for me when I went out to the backyard the other day and three of the neighbour's lemons had fallen off their tree and on to our lawn.  I'd just thought "free lemons" while I scooped them up and took then inside. But they were a "windfall" - because the wind had made them fall off the neighbour's tree and on to the ground on our side of the fence ... which, as well as picking them, had also made them (legally?) ours.  I'm not sure when the term went from windfall (an apple or other fruit blown down from a tree or bush by the wind) to windfall (a large amount of money that is won or received unexpectedly) but you can see how they are essentially the same - a reward for.little or no effort.

Popularity contest ...

What makes an establishment - I am thinking cafe in this particular instance - popular? When we stopped in to get a hot beverage at one of the local cafes on (Public Holiday) Monday morning it was busier than I have ever seen it. The joint was positively jumping with almost every table taken and a serious line-up for takeaways. Why so busy ? And was the only other cafe open in the area doing a similar-sized trade?

We have a system for rating cafes based on (in no particular order): how close to home are they, is there adequate parking, are the amenities close by and well-maintained, is the coffee good, is the food good, is the service good? You would think it would be easy to find (most of) these in more than a couple of nearby establishments but it is harder than you'd think. Still this helps us go further afield in search of a good breakfast ... unless we are keen on having fruit salad which so far we've found at only one cafe. It's not easy to find boiled eggs on a menu either!

Look up!

At any point it seems that the world is surrounded by space junk … those bits of hardware that have boosted rockets and people into space that have not fallen back towards the earth and burned up in re-entry. They have to be small enough to burn up in re-entry though and there is apparently a piece of Chinese rocket is spiralling out of control towards earth – all 30-metres and 22.5 tonnes of it. Under international (should that be interplanetary) guidelines, rockets are supposed to return to earth in a controlled way. The Chinese rocket will not. A report on the ABC News site says no-one really knows where the Long March 5B will come down just that it will probably come down at lunchtime this coming Sunday – give or take a day. The last time this happened - yes, another rocket – the prototype of the one in question – fell to Earth in the Atlantic Ocean and dumped a 12-metre long piece of debris near an African village – luckily no-one was injured. You have to wonder if there’s a dollar or two to be made if you happen to be lucky enough to be near it when the Long March 5B falls to earth and lucky enough not to be damaged by it. The U.S. Skylab which had a “controlled” return to Earth in 1979 left a substantial debris field, including pelting Stan Thornton’s home in Esperance WA with bits of space station. He grabbed some and hopped the first plane from there to the offices of The San Francisco Examiner – it had offered a $10,000 prize to the first person to deliver a piece of debris to them within 72 hours of the crash. They paid up even though they may not have expected to get any takers on their offer especially from Australia!

Body parts ... with caps

The crossword clue had me stumped at first ... five letters ... body parts with caps ... who would have thought there were at least three possible answers ... heads, teeth, knees.  It was knees.  

Ice cream

We have been watching the new season of MasterChef and the other night two contestants used nitrogen to make ice cream for their dishes. It looked amazing with "mist" rolling out of the mixing bowl. Stunning stuff. We were lucky enough to see it done in real life today. We have a local shop - Nitrogen Ice Cream - which does just that. They have ten flavours or so - all starting from an Anglais base and then they add the different flavours to make the ice cream - and then the different components eg crumb on the Cheesecake for the different "flavours" as they "plate up".  The ones we had were delicious: dinner and a show. It was interesting speaking to the owner as well; she was saying that if you have ice cream at a fine dining restaurant, this is how it would be prepared - except they would mix it by hand rather than use a beater/mixer. 

Too many colours?

We all perceive the world differently but we'll never know quite how other folk see the world - particularly in relation to actual colours. Most folk have three receptors in their eyes for colour recognition but if you're born with just one extra cone cell in your eye you can see 100 million more colours. How amazing would that be - how many colours would you be able to see in a rainbow; more than the standard seven? And how would it be if your job was to look through the spectral whats-it to determine the chemical composition of planets. Who knew that's how it was done? Yes, those colours on the Periodic Table are there for a reason ... each element has a different colour and if there are numerous elements "together" then viewing then with the help of a spectral whats-it will allow the colours to be seen separately.

Dognostics

New research suggests that dogs are able to detect the presence of CoVid-19. At the moment the results are encouraging ... and at a hospital in Florida, Buffy (a two-year-old yellow Labrador) is trained to sniff out CoVid-19; she sniffs visitors to the hospital and if they are Covid-19 positive, she sits down. They are claiming a 95% accuracy rate for her. As well as the lab test, or dognostic test as some are calling it, visitors also have their temperatures checked but if Buffy gets a positive result, the person has to have a CoVid-19 test. In research elsewhere, nine previously untrained dogs have been first taught in general scent detection and then moved on to learning to distinguish between urine samples from Covid-positive and Covid-negative patients. The samples had first been "inactivated" so it was safe for the dogs (who can apparently catch Covid-19) to smell. Success rate:  96%.  The information I read suggested that the use of dognostics may not be implemented quickly for day-to-day screening ... this was supposed to be something to do with the costs involved in large-scale training/testing, but I'm wondering if it has more to do with the dogs being trained to detect the virus in urine ... it's going to take longer to screen people if they need to give that sample first!