Bruges
I love it here. Good to be back, even if only for a day.
If you can keep your head when all around you are losing theirs...
A tiny part of the amazing frontage of Amiens cathedral.
A fire may have been Kindled
As an experiment, I've just read a whole Kindle book on my iPod Touch. And, rather unexpectedly, I went straight back and ordered another.
It's not that the reading experience is the best in the world... though it's not at all bad. The benefit I hadn't predicted came from my always having my iPod in my pocket, and therefore always having good reading matter in my pocket. Even in the loo.
It's a library that's smaller than any single book I own.
And it's a book that always opens up at the place where you left off. Useful if you just want to read a few sentences while waiting for the train.
And it's a book that you don't need to have the light on to read. Useful if you wake up earlier than your partner.
All these factors meant that I probably got through the book rather faster on my iTouch than I would have on a proper Kindle.
Or on paper.
Not what I expected.
Quote of the day
From Christopher Hitchens:
What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence.
which is, I suppose, a corollary of Carl Sagan's classic: "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence".
Half-timbered cars
There's a post on Sean and Nicci's site about the family Morris Traveller.
Well, the earliest car I can remember was also, I think, half-timbered. When when we first came back from Africa in 1970 my mother had a Mini Traveller. I was three years old at the time, but amazingly, I can remember its registration number: TBB 571G.
The brain works in mysterious ways...
Gears
John's musings about his old cars, and Sean and Nicci's post about double-declutching, reminded me of something my father taught me many years ago which few people probably know: that you can change gears without using the clutch, as long as you get the engine speeds right. You shift into neutral, rev the engine (or let it slow down) to the right point for your speed, and then shift into the next gear. It takes some practice, but if you know the car well enough, it is perfectly possible.
Since I've been married I've been driving automatics (which, I remember being horrified to first discover, you can't even bump-start!) But growing up with a sequence of elderly second-hand cars, techniques like these were often of real practical use. I remember driving one of my first cars several miles back home after the clutch cable had broken.
There is a real problem, though, with this technique. Because it's dependent on matching engine speed to road speed, the one thing you can't do is to stop, or you'll never get out of neutral again. Fortunately, I realised what had happened to the cable while I was still moving, and so could plan a route home that involved very few traffic lights and where the majority of other places I might have to stop were on downhill slopes...
NewsPeak
This has been doing the rounds for a while but I've only just come across it (thanks to Jason Perlow). Wonderful stuff.
Here are the winners of this year's Washington Post's Mensa Invitational which once again asked readers to take any word from the dictionary, alter it by adding, subtracting, or changing one letter, and supply a new definition:
1. Cashtration (n.): The act of buying a house, which renders the subject financially impotent for an indefinite period of time.
2. Ignoranus: A person who is both stupid and an ass.
3. Intaxication: Euphoria at getting a tax refund, which lasts until you realize it was your money to start with.
4. Reintarnation: Coming back to life as a hillbilly.
5. Bozone (n.): The substance surrounding stupid people that stops bright ideas from penetrating. The bozone layer, unfortunately, shows little sign of breaking down in the near future.
6. Foreploy: Any misrepresentation about yourself for the purpose of having sex.
7. Giraffiti: Vandalism spray-painted very, very high
8.Sarchasm: The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn't get it.
9. Inoculatte: To take coffee intravenously when you are running late.
10. Osteopornosis: A degenerate disease.
11. Karmageddon: It's like, when everybody is sending off all these really bad vibes, right? And then, like, the Earth explodes and it's like, a serious bummer.
12. Decafalon (n.): The grueling event of getting through the day consuming only things that are good for you.
13. Glibido: All talk and no action.
14. Dopeler Effect: The tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter when they come at you rapidly.
15. Arachnoleptic Fit (n.): The frantic dance performed just after you've accidentally walked through a spider web.
16. Beelzebug (n.): Satan in the form of a mosquito, that gets into your bedroom at three in the morning and cannot be cast out.
17. Caterpallor (n.): The color you turn after finding half a worm in the fruit you're eating.
The Washington Post has also published the winning submissions to its yearly contest in which readers are asked to supply alternate meanings for common words. And the winners are:
1. Coffee, n. The person upon whom one coughs.
2. Flabbergasted, adj. Appalled by discovering how much weight one has gained.
3. Abdicate, v. To give up all hope of ever having a flat stomach.
4. Esplanade, v, To attempt an explanation while drunk.
5. Willy-nilly, adj. Impotent.
6. Negligent, adj. Absentmindedly answering the door when wearing only a nightgown.
7. Lymph, v. To walk with a lisp.
8. Gargoyle, n. Olive-flavored mouthwash.
9. Flatulence, n. Emergency vehicle that picks up someone who has been run over by a steamroller.
10. Balderdash, n. A rapidly receding hairline.
11. Testicle n. A humorous question on an exam.
12. Rectitude, n. The formal, dignified bearing adopted by proctologists.
13. Pokemon, n. A Rastafarian proctologist.
14. Oyster, n. A person who sprinkles his conversation with yiddishisms.
15. Frisbeetarianism, n. The belief that, after death, the soul flies up onto the roof and gets stuck there.
16. Circumvent, n. An opening in the front of boxer shorts worn by Jewish men.
Required reading
Well, it should be, certainly for all science journalists, and probably for all science undergrads too. Ben Goldacre's Bad Science is an enjoyable but very well-informed rant about how the media gets science stories wrong, and how to look for the real facts behind the reports.
Ben has a few chips on his shoulder - perhaps a few too many - but that doesn't stop this from being a very important book. Recommended.
Spring
From yesterday’s walk…
Most of the paths I walked on obviously had more quadrapedal than bipedal traffic:
Do you think this notice shows concern about the mortal well-being of the animals, or is it a subtle threat?
Very proud...
...to discover that the Childwickbury goats' cheese made by my step-sister Elizabeth was served as the vegetarian starter for the G20 leaders last night.
Glad to know Jamie approves of it...
We're very proud too!...