Category Archives: personal

medical, memes, personal, photography, science, thoughts

Pondering (Thirteen Things) in the Rain


Pondering in the Rain, originally uploaded by kcm76.

This week’s self-portrait: 52 Weeks 5/52, 2008 week 13.

As I took this standing outside the doctor’s this morning I thought we might have 13 medical things to go with it (mainly for the Flickr “Thirteen Things” group …

  1. I’ve never yet broken a bone in my body.
  2. I’ve had all the usual childhood illnesses except mumps.
  3. I’m short sighted and have worn glasses since my mid-teens.
  4. I have type 2 diabetes.
  5. I had my appendix out when I was 28.
  6. I had glandular fever when I was 32, and had 3 months of a nice hot summer off work.
  7. I suffer from hayfever; and with me the allergy really is to some species of grass pollen.
  8. I have obstructive sleep apnoea; this means I have to wear a mask at night with gentle air pressure pumped into it to keep my airway from collapsing.
  9. I was born with a deformed nail on my right index finger; everyone who noticed it assumed that I had damaged it in an accident. I finally had the nail permanently removed after I did rip it off by accident.
  10. When I was a kid of 6 or 7 I would have a week off school every term with a high fever (nothing else, just the fever). No-one knew why, but our old family doctor eventually suggested my parents take me off sugar; so no sweets for years, but no fever either. I still don’t know why it worked or what the underlying cause was.
  11. I’ve lost count of the number of crowns I have; it’s at least six. But none caused by an accident; all due to teeth falling apart.
  12. I’ve had a cartilage operation on both knees (at different times) and my knees still give me pain. But then apparently I also have the beginnings of arthritis in my knees; not surprising as my father had severely arthritic knees.
  13. I suffer from depression; Churchill’s “black dog”. It’s worse in winter as I am slightly afflicted with SAD as well.
arts, books, personal

Books Do Furnish a Room

I’ve just come across Terence Jagger’s weblog Books Do Furnish a Room about books, trees and gardens, wildlife, ideas. As those of your who know me at well will know Books Do Furnish a Room is the title of volume 10 of Anthony Powell’s 12-volume sequence A Dance to the Music of Time. And indeed Jagger does occasionally make reference to Powell, so his weblog is a “must read” for me. The first Powell-related items I spotted are Borage, Writer with the X Factor and Uncommon Readers. This weblog is well worth a look for those interested in books.

memes, personal, photography, thoughts

Scruffy Triptych


Scruffy Triptych, originally uploaded by kcm76.

Here’s this week’s self-portrait. I was mucking about and decided to try something different: this is a composite of 4 frames taken under identical conditions — well I had only to swivel my chair! I’m not sure if it works, but it’s different.

beliefs, history, people, personal, science, sexuality, thoughts

Infinitely Boggling Science

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Time to catch up on some Scientific American articles I’ve read over the last few weeks.

Remembrance of Things Future
An interesting article on how a writer in December 1900 thought things would be a century later. As expected some right:

  • ready cooked meals will be bought from the equivalent of bakeries
  • no street cars (ie. trams) in large cities

but mostly wrong:

  • mosquitoes, flies, rats and mice will have been exterminated
  • the alphabet will not longer contain C, X and Q
  • all traffic will be below ground, consequently
  • cities will be free of noise
  • Nicaragua and Mexico would be part of the USA

Full article
Complete list of original predictions

Infinity
Hard question of the year: Does infinity come in different sizes?
Hard answer: Yes.

This back-page “Fact or Fiction” article from January’s Scientific American contains some interesting insights, and some interesting mathematical sleights of hand. We probably all accept that there are an infinite number of integers (the natural numbers 1, 2, 3 …). And between each pair of adjacent integers there are an infinite number of fractional numbers (2.1, 2.11, 2.111, 2.112112 …). That means there are infinity to the power infinity real numbers (natural numbers and fractions) – which is an infinitely different ball-game in terms of defining the size of infinity.

Full article

Love, Sex and Robots
Finally an item from the March Scientific American which considers the proposition that we might one day (soon) be able to have a relationship with, marry and even have sex with, a robot of the opposite sex. Scary? Probably for most of us. Fantasy? Probably not. After all go back 100 years and the idea of male homosexual marriage was absurd. Apparently there is a lot to be said for allowing the socially inept [my phrase] to gain some mutual comfort from a relationship with a robot. And there are already experiments showing that children (at least) will spontaneously treat a robot as (almost) sentient, for example by putting it to bed when its batteries run flat. I see the arguments, but I remain firmly skeptical.

Full article
amusements, personal, photography, pleasures, topographical

Watch Our Backs, Mate


Watch Our Backs, Mate, originally uploaded by kcm76.

I’m still working through the photographs I took on holiday in German a few weeks ago. I’ve put the latest few online on Flickr. Some of the shots are pretty grainy (like this one) as they were taken in absolutely appalling light — in the case of this shot it was very grey and overcast and getting on towards dusk. Lots more to come which I intend to put up about 8-10 at a time over the next few weeks — and I’m keeping the best of the steam train shots ’til last (probably). I still have some 30% of the shots to look at in detail.

amusements, beliefs, memes, personal, photography, thoughts

Self-Portrait of a Foot with Thirteen Things


Self-Portrait of a Foot, originally uploaded by kcm76.

One of the groups I belong to on Flickr is called “Thirteen Things”. The idea is to post a self-portrait with a list of thirteen things about oneself. This photo and list are my first contribution, posted a couple of days ago.

Amazing the things one thinks to do when getting bored in an hotel room!

As this is my foot I thought I’d use this for my first “Thirteen Things” list. So here are 13 Personal Things About Me …

  1. I’m an only child
  2. I’ve changed a lot over the years; even my boss says I’ve mellowed! I used to be very angry and lose my temper a lot, I’ve learnt to let things wash over me and go with the flow; tho’ I do still get irritated and frustrated and swear a lot.
  3. I love the smell of grapefruit, coconut oil, bacon cooking, fresh bread, the sea, wood smoke, frying garlic & onions.
  4. I hardly ever drink coffee.
  5. I lost 20Kg between summer 2007 and New Year 2008, but i’m still obese.
  6. I was born with a deformed right index finger-nail; I’ve now had it permanently removed.
  7. I have a third nipple.
  8. My parents didn’t have me circumcised, for which I am very grateful.
  9. I wasn’t baptised as an infant. I took the plunge myself at 22 (eeek, that’s 35 years ago!) when I joined the Roman Catholic church. I’ve since converted to atheism.
  10. I’ve worn glasses since I was 14; it doesn’t bother me and I can’t imagine switching to contact lenses.
  11. I have never driven a car or a motorbike.
  12. I’m actually boring, shy and introverted, although many people find this hard to believe.
  13. I have type 2 diabetes.
books, personal, quotes, thoughts

On Marriage

While we are sort-of on the subject of marriage, here’s an insightful quote from chapter two of Anthony Powell’s novel Casanova’s Chinese Restaurant:

A future marriage, or a past one, may be investigated and explained in terms of writing by one of its parties, but it is doubtful whether an existing marriage can ever be described directly in the first person and convey a sense of reality. Even those writers who suggest some of the substance of married life best, stylise heavily, losing the subtlety of the relationship at the price of a few accurately recorded, but isolated aspects. To think at all objectively about one’s own marriage is impossible, while a balanced view of other people’s marriage is almost equally hard to achieve with so much information available, so little to be believed. Objectivity is not, of course, everything in writing; but if one has cast objectivity aside, the difficulties of presenting marriage are inordinate. Its forms are at once so varied, providing a kaleidoscope, the colours of which are always changing, always the same. The moods of a love affair, the contradictions of friendship, the jealousy of business partners, the fellow feeling of opposed commanders in total war, these are all in their way to be charted. Marriage, partaking of such – and a thousand more – dual antagonisms and participations, finally defies definition.