Just for a change, this month’s ten things are quite ordinary.
Ten Things which are Mundane but Pleasing
Noreen found these two feathers in the garden yesterday afternoon. They are from a Greater Spotted Woodpecker. The top one, a secondary wing feather, is about 8.5cm in total length. The lower is a primary feather. Note the feathers come from different wings, as they curve in opposite directions.
Apologies to all my readers for my absence for the last couple of weeks. Unfortunately my mother died on the afternoon of 26 May in the Norfolk & Norwich University Hospital. So as well as trying to keep all the usual balls in the air, I’ve been dealing with the inevitable fallout.
This is the last photograph I have of my mother, taken last October on her 99th birthday.
According to researchers, when you remember a past event, you’re actually remembering the last time you remembered it.
When you’ve wrapped your head around that you’ll see that this is why memories fade and distort over time.
For more information see
www.themarysue.com/memory-distortion-in-brain/
and
medicalxpress.com/news/2012-09-memory-gameeach-recall-event-brain.html
I spotted this on the menu of a Taylor Walker pub in central London — Mayfair, forsooth! — on Saturday. It raised quite a giggle amongst the assembled company.
For some time I’ve been collecting fun things one can do which shouldn’t be either especially scary (so no bungee jumping) or outrageously expensive (so no world cruises). I now have a list of 50 which don’t quite form a bucket list for me, although it is interesting to see which ones I’ve done and which I haven’t. When I get round to it I shall put the list on my website, but meanwhile I thought this month we would have a selection, just as a taster.
Ten Fun Things To Do (which shouldn’t cost a fortune).
Continuing last week’s mobile phone theme …
Another selection of amusing or thought-provoking quotes recently encountered. For some reason we seem to have quite a few heavyweights this time. In no particular order …
Follow your bliss and don’t be afraid. Doors will open where you didn’t know they were going to be.
[Joseph Campbell]
Language is the armoury of the human mind; and at once contains the trophies of its past, and the weapons of its future conquests.
[Samuel Taylor Coleridge]
If our minds are ruled by destructive emotions, by self-centredness, with little regard for others, we won’t be happy. As social animals we need to work together. With friends around us, we feel secure, happy and our minds are calm. We’re physically well too. When we’re filled with anger, fear and frustration, our minds are upset and our health declines. Therefore, the ultimate source of happiness is warmheartedness.
[Dalai Lama]
When you talk you are only repeating what you already know. But if you listen you may learn something new.
[Dalai Lama]
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people.
[Eleanor Roosevelt]
So what advice should one give to a young person? By all means, go to college. In fact, approach college in the spirit of craftsmanship, going deep into liberal arts and sciences. In the summers, learn a manual trade. You’re likely to be less damaged, and quite possibly better paid, as an independent tradesman than as a cubicle-dwelling tender of information systems. To heed such advice would require a certain contrarian streak, as it entails rejecting a life course mapped out by others as obligatory and inevitable.
[Matthew B Crawford in his essay “Shop Class as Soulcraft”]
The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.
[Marcel Proust]
The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper.
[WB Yeats]
The kind of pleasure and understanding that I get from studying natural history has long vanished from most contemporary teaching institutions that have become part of intensive care units, which are supposed to save the residual intellectual machinery of medical students. The teeming mass of hope and pain, technical virtuosity, and depersonalization called a “health center” delivers packets of what is termed “medical care”. The capacity to look remains, but the capacity to see has all but vanished. Teachers and students forget that the ability to palpate is not the same as the ability to feel.
[Prof. William B Bean]
The less you worry about what people think, the less complicated life becomes.
[unknown]
One of the painful things about our time is that those who feel certainty are stupid, and those with any imagination and understanding are filled with doubt and indecision
[Bertrand Russell]
The Foole doth thinke he is wise, but the wiseman knowes himselfe to be a Foole.
[Shakespeare; As You Like It]
Granny grasped her broomstick purposefully. “Million-to-one chances,” she said, “crop up nine times out of ten.”
[Terry Pratchett; Equal Rites]
There goes more to matrimony than four bare legs in bed.
[Ben Jonson]
And finally …
Tip for the Day: Treat every problem as your dog would. If you can’t eat it or fuck it, piss on it and walk away.
[unknown]
Scientific names can be wonderful for many reasons. [There is] a bird whose name has rhythm, a fish with a fascinating etymology, and a butterfly named for a pioneering (and amazing) woman in entomology. Today’s entry is Yi qi, a newly described dinosaur whose name is interesting in origin and sound, and also wonderfully and surprisingly short.
Actually, the dinosaur is pretty wonderful too. Yi qi was a feathered theropod dinosaur … about the size of a large pigeon. In addition to feathers, it has two really odd features: a bony rod extending from each wrist, and sheets of membranous soft tissue that are preserved near the arms [which seem to be] wing membranes …
… two things about Yi qi‘s name.
First: why “Yi qi” (pronounced “ee chee”)? Yi means “wing” and qi means “strange” in Mandarin … So Yi qi is the “strange winged” dinosaur …
Second: what’s up with just four letters? We’re used to scientific names being long … and difficult to spell or pronounce …
So is Yi qi the shortest scientific name? Well, for an animal no shorter name is possible, because according to the International Code for Zoological Nomenclature … genus and species names must have at least two letters each … As it turns out, though, the race for the shortest name is a tie***: the Great Evening Bat is Ia io, also just 4 letters (and the only scientific name I know without consonants). Yi qi and Ia io have a few things in common besides the succinctness of their names: both are from China, both are flying predators, and both fly on membranous stretched from their arms.
*** With honourable mention to the Australian sphecid wasp Aha ha, at 5 letters.
From Wonderful Scientific Names, Part 4: Yi qi