links

More Sexy Science You May Have Missed …

This week’s selection of links to items spotted recently which you may have missed. And you really didn’t want to miss this juicy selection …

First up here are some awesome illuminated manuscript cookies. Just where does one get edible ink and paper for an inkjet printer?

How is it that we see dark, even when we close our eyes, because apparently the eye gives off more “black body radiation” than there is daylight? It’s all down to Quantum Mechanics. Interesting for you scientists; awesome for the rest of you that someone even investigated this!

Apparently the government may be about to (re)introduce obscenece laws allowing the persecution of buzzards. The birds are allegedly stealing too many pheasants from the idle rich who now want to shoot the buzzards as well as the pheasants.

Why are tomatoes so tasteless these days? Well the scientists think they’ve found out what adds the taste (and it wasn’t obvious!) so they can now breed better commercial varieties. In the meantime the advice seems to be to grow your own.

So just why are harps harp-shaped? It’s physics again.

A Drink to Help You Orgasm? Fantastic idea; shame about the marketing hype.

OK so extended breastfeeding is the norm in most human and primate societies. So why are all you western girlies weirdly not doing it? Ah, I see, not enough Neurogasm. 😉

What? An American designer who hopes his better vibrator can rejuvenate the American sex life? Only if it comes in a plain brown wrapper.

So apparently the urge to sext naked self-portraits is primal. Yeah right; so our distant ancestors had mobile phones!? But seriously, where’s the f***ing problem? Nudity is neither unnatural nor unwholesome — actually just the opposite. If people want to show themselves off, well fine, isn’t that their privilege?

Besides it seems Rihanna (“a nubile chanteuse, m’lud”) is spending a lot of time and energy sharing round what’s between her legs. Again, where’s the problem? Isn’t it her prerogative. Good for her for knowing what she wants and not being afraid to go for it. It’s a pity more of us aren’t so unbuttoned.

current affairs, science

Fukushima Follow-ups

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Just a quick note of a couple of follow-up pieces on the Fukushima accident which appeared this week.

First off there is a WHO report looking at the likely long-term health effects of the accident. I’ve clearly not read the whole report but there is a good summary of the main findings on Nature News here and here. The main thrust is that, as has always been said, the radiation effects on the affected citizens are likely to be negligible and far outweighed by the psychological trauma.

Secondly Robert Cringely in his blog I, Cringely writes about what he sees as the inevitability of a further major accident at Fukushima — and one which may be far worse. Basically his contention is that a further large earthquake is inevitable before the Japanese manage to clean up the exposed fuel rods from Reactor 4. No only is this a huge project in its own right but Cringely maintains it will be made worse by the totally dysfunctional way in which Japanese business works (or rather doesn’t work). It makes chilling reading; let’s just hope he’s wrong.

words

Word : Vicissitude

Vicissitude

  1. A change or variation occurring in the course of something.
  2. Interchange or alternation, as of states or things.
  3. Successive, alternating, or changing phases or conditions, as of life or fortune; ups and downs: They remained friends through the vicissitudes of 40 years.
  4. Regular change or succession of one state or thing to another.
  5. Change; mutation; mutability.
photography

Gallery : Picture Postcard

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This week is the 100th showing of Tara’s Gallery, and for the theme she has of course chosen Picture Postcard. So here’s a postcard from me …

Double Departure from Alexisbad

Double Departure from Alexisbad

This is from a set of Steam in the Harz Mountains, Germany taken on a RailTrail tour in February 2008. It was taken, as the title suggests, at Alexisbad during a steam charter from Quedlinberg to Wernigerode.

This was a special photoshoot staged for our group; the train on the right is our charter train; the one on the left was a service train which had just terminated at Alexisbad. And I must say it was a magnificent sight and not something you will see these days during normal service.

It was a fantastic trip with travel entirely by train from London: well organised, excellent and interesting tour leaders, good company, good food and lots of trains! As well as this full day charter the five day trip also included a tour of the Harzer Schmalspurbahnen works, a trip up the Broken Mountain (yes, by steam train) and a stop-over in Wuppertal for a ride on the Schwebebahn, their hanging monorail.

The only thing missing was the snow that we should have rightly had in February!

In five days the only train that was late was the return Thalys service from Köln to Brussels, and that was by the staggering amount of just 10 minutes.

An absolutely first class trip which really wasn’t long enough!

Lots more of my photos from the trip on Flickr.

quotes

Quotes : Recent Amusements

The irregular collection of quotes seen recently and which hare amused or interested me:

You cannot shake hands with a clenched fist.
[Indira Gandhi]

[P]remature births are increasing in rich countries because of obesity, smoking, IVF and older women having babies, and in poor countries owing to malnutrition, teen pregnancy and lack of contraception …
[New Scientist, 05/05/2012]

Duh!

Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.
[Aldous Huxley]

We are not retreating — we are advancing in another direction.
[Douglas MacArthur]

If we put all Parliament through a mincer and sorted the good bits, would there be enough to build just one competent prime minister?
[Andrew Baker on Facebook]

The main aim of education should be to send children out into the world with a reasonably sized anthology in their heads so that, while seated on the lavatory, waiting in doctors’ surgeries, on stationary trains or watching interviews with politicians, they may have something interesting to think about.
[Sir John Mortimer]

personal, pleasures

Reasons to be Grateful: 27

Experiment, week 27. Well here we are; another week another selection in my continuing experiment in documenting five things which have made me happy or for which I’m grateful this week. It’s mostly been a repetitive and foodie week, again …

  1. Orchids. I know I keep saying orchids, but every time I go in the bedroom, where they reside on the windowsill, I can’t get how amazing they are!
  2. Home Baked Ham. I’m sure I’ve said this before too. Last weekend we had a joint of smoked collar bacon — much more character to it than gammon and cheaper too — as long as you can get large joints! (See here.) Noreen did her usual bake it in huff pastry and then glazed it with spicy tomato chutney. Definitely yummy!
  3. Pasta with Seafood. This was a variant on my Pasta with Bacon or Prawns dish on Friday evening. This time with a bag of mixed seafood, cherry tomatoes and lime. Another yummy tea!

  4. Oriental Tree. Then last night we went out with our friends Sue & Ziggy (and their boys) to their local Chinese, the Oriental Tree in Northfields Avenue, West Ealing (see here for my earlier review-ette). The Oriental Tree is essentially Chinese with an admixture of bits of Thai and Vietnamese. The food is to die for! Especially the gorgeous succulent prawn dishes, the Chilli Shredded Beef. Luckily for our waistlines it isn’t on our doorstep otherwise we’d be in there several nights a week!
  5. English Asparagus. This was today’s treat! We have just eaten roast chicken with steamed new potatoes, steamed English asparagus and mushroom sauce. Yeah, I know it sounds dull, but it wasn’t — I love asparagus!
personal

Listography : Arrggghhhh!!!!! Bloody Children!

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After a hiatus of a few weeks Kate’s Listography is back and has gone monthly.

This month her theme is the Top 5 Things I Love about Kids.

Bloody kids again! Why does the world have to revolve around children?

Why is it that these days I seem to see nothing but kid-centric, “doting-mummy” blogs and websites? And sycophantic parents/grandparents?

Why is it that the vast majority of people can only identify themselves through their children? Or their grandchildren? To the exclusion of all else.

Noreen and I mostly don’t do children. We chose not to have children because we were neither of us convinced we wanted them. We were agreed that for us parenthood had to be a full time job for one of us until any youngest child was able to reasonably look after itself after school, especially as we didn’t have a raft of nearby family to provide (free) childcare. And we both had careers; in Noreen’s case a career break (25+ years ago) would have ended her career — the career she had always wanted. So we preferred to be here to help our friends and their children when they needed it. It’s a different sort of give-back.

Fine if you want children. But too many people seem to drift into having kids because they’re conditioned to it and can’t think about any alternative. Then when they’ve got them they forget everything else they ever knew and that there’s more to life the kids. Once upon a time there weren’t reliable alternatives to spawning a child every year or two. Now there are alternatives; let’s use them to their fullest potential.

It’s almost as if those of us without children become invisible. We don’t matter to anyone and we almost don’t exist. UK employment law gives special privileges to parents in terms of being allowed time away from work for their family. Those of us without kids get nothing except to cover the parents’ work. Isn’t that discrimination? Bah! Humbug!

Actually it’s worse than because it seems some women are actually vilified and/or bullied because they don’t have children, see here.

Besides not having children is probably the least selfish and most eco-friendly thing any of us can do.

Actually I guess it’s really that I dislike society’s attitude to children and the overarching influence it has on most parents. (Clearly there are exceptions — we spent yesterday evening, very enjoyably, with one of them.)

Having said that, I don’t dislike children as long as they are well behaved (but then that applies to adults too). I do dislike those nasty-yelling-messy-smelly-baby-things and their doting retinues.

So what (if anything) do I like about kids? I can’t make five but …

1. Yes, they can be highly amusing. Mispronunciations. Wacky ideas. Crazy antics.

2. Being able to have an adult conversation with them. In my (limited) experience they are actually quite good at this much younger than we think, as long as one picks words and concepts carefully.

3. Being able to “give them back”. They’re fine for an hour or two, but God, looking after the little buggers all the time would seriously drive me nuts!

Sorry Kate! I’m just being a grumpy old git.

books

Desert Island Discs

News for those of you who are Anthony Powell aficionados …

At long last the recording of Powell’s 1976 BBC Radio 4 appearance on Desert Island Discs is available on the BBC website.

You can find it at www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/features/desert-island-discs/castaway/20d4d62a.

It is well worth a listen!

current affairs, ramblings

Get out of jail free?

Now here’s a fascinating idea to play with …

The UK could be handed a “Get out of jail free” card by the Scots.

A senior Scots constitutional lawyer has suggested that “Scottish independence could see the UK kicked out of the European Union”.

Rejoining would then require a new referendum (which would likely be lost?) and if we did rejoin we’d likely lose our huge EU payments discount.

One can hope that the Scots might do us a favour, but I suspect the EU would fudge things so they didn’t … so we’ll still need an acrobatic display of pig avionics as well.

Heresy Corner has a fuller report on the speculations.