Category Archives: Blogs' Archive

It was a pretty great day in the end, although there was a lot of kid infighting in the morning, Sam and his friend trying to shut Isabel out, literally and figuratively, they are 11 and she is 7, and a girl, but she wasn’t having it, there was a lot of crying, and some punching and scratching.  There was also a bit of fighting with the kids, especially Sam, who seems  to have decided it’s cool to talk bad to me, and needs to be frequently disabused of that notion.

I did, through the chaos, manage to complete one chapter, which didn’t involve more than a couple paragraphs of actual new text, but it’s a pivotal chapter in the book (aren’t they all?  of course they are) so I feel that progress was made, and I’m satisfied.

This was a good scene

Then, after lunch, we decided to go swimming and the boys were not happy at all with our choice of location, an actual body of water in the great outdoors.  They  wanted us to take them to a water park with slides and shit but I wanted something that was free and they said they weren’t going and I said you bloody well are, too.

When we got to the place it turned out to be more of a pond than a lake but it was great, the water was not dirty at all, there was a bit of a sand beach and everybody had a great time, even the dog who is about 14 and last night I was worrying that he was going to die on us and that would kind of ruin our reputation as dogsitters,   but he actually got kind of adventurous and exploratory,  albeit on wobbly legs.

After we got home the owner of the dog came over and baby sat for us while Helena and I went to the outdoor movie, Love Song (I guess the original, English title was ‘Begin Again’) with Keira Knightley, and it wasn’t bad.  It had some cute scenes, a couple of interesting love stories going on although I found that Mark Ruffalo’s character of the brilliant but failed,  divorced, alcoholic, never could pay for his own drinks record producer  was much more interesting than Knightley’s.  I’m not sure why, I guess pretty will only get you so far,  and her music didn’t really knock me out.

Walked home and the clouds parted to reveal a beautiful, bright full moon.

Overall, I’d rate the day about an 8 on a scale of 10, and that’s pretty darned good.

This weekend we have the pleasure to be dogsitting  and so of course the kids think that should be my blog topic for tonight, especially as one of their favorite TV shows is called “Dog With a Blog.”  It’s easy to think up a format for a Disney sit-com, all you’ve got to do is think up a clever name, have some sort of a tie-in with current trends, and you’re good to go.  Of course, a talking dog is comedy gold, tried and true.

The Original, Somewhat Larger Falco

The dog we have as a weekend house guest is named Falco, which is about as great a name for a dog as you can get.  He’s an old boy, 14, and probably a cross between a Dachshund and something a bit taller than a Dachshund, i.e. something other than a Dachshund.  That is to say he’s a small dog but his belly doesn’t scrape the ground; he can make it over a speed bump.

The kids are super excited about it and we’ve got 3 of them for the weekend as Sam has a friend staying with him.  Their enthusiasm had poor Falco a bit freaked out at first.  He was visibly shaking, but he got over it pretty quick and we went for a nice walk in the park which was, predictably, one long argument about who got to hold the leash.

I like dogs.  They are much more interesting than cats, which could care less if you live or die, and cats are more interesting than Hamsters.  My in-laws have a pet Hamster.  They should call them Sloths.  I don’t know what you’d call Sloths then, but Hamsters -at least their Hamster – just lie in one place and sleep almost all day.  They will occasionally stir from their slumber to nibble at some grass, after which they promptly fall asleep again.

But dogs are fun.  Dogs are active.  Dogs have personalities.  I would love to have a dog.  But, we have a small flat and I don’t like the idea of picking up dog poop every day.  So, no.

It is as I’ve heard many people say about children.  I love them, as long as they’re somebody else’s.

The comet is called Comet 67p/Churyumov-Gerasimenko.  The spacecraft is named Rosetta.  Launched ten years and a few months ago, it is now in close orbit around aforesaid comet, and snapping pictures like crazy.  The comet is not a particularly beautiful thing, by human standards.  It’s rough, seemingly covered with dust and not ice, and funny shaped (from one angle it looks like a rubber duck, from another just like a not particularly well formed potato,  and it’s spinning around like a drunk falling downhill).  It is about 5 kilometers from end to end and about 3 kilometers the other way.

A likely spot to find a Prince, and his Rose.

Rosetta, on the other hand, is a goddamned marvel.  Sure, men have landed on the moon but the whole mission took less than a week, and the moon is a lot closer to us  than Churyumov -Gerasimenko ever gets.  Also, it’s the size of North America so, comparatively, like hitting the broad side of a barn.  Mars is a bit further away but still closer than Chury-Gury,  and it’s a planet – roughly the same size as the Earth.

Rosetta had to orbit the sun 5 times to work up to speed and intersect the orbit of a rock about the size of Central Park, smaller than many small towns in Oklahoma.  We’ve all driven past places larger than Chury-Gury and never noticed them at all.  This was amazing planning.  Amazing execution.  An amazing machine.

In November, it will actually send down a lander.  Another small step for a machine that’s traveled a long way.  Another huge leap forward for all mankind.

Living in Europe, I’m proud of the fact that this was a European Space Agency project.  But that’s a minor point.  Like most people who are interested in space, I rejoice whenever NASA, the Russian’s,  the Chinese, or Richard Branson, Elon Musk and friends does something great in space.  Space is far out, space is beyond the petty squabbling of Earth governments and religious wackadoodles.  Literally beyond.  Way beyond.

Good job, Rosetta!

I am generally a very opinionated guy.  It would be pretty hard to write a blog every day if I weren’t.  Whatever the topic, I’ve got an opinion on it, and if a new question pops up, I can usually form an opinion on the fly with no problem at all, which may cast some doubt on the validity of my opinions but, hey, they are opinions.  Also, I don’t tend to change my opinions quickly.  I like being right and will defend a wrong position perhaps longer than is wise, just because I hate being wrong.

But, there are exceptions.  Today, one of my facebook friends raised this interesting question: to what extent does a typo reveal your true thoughts?  My immediate thought, despite it being a question I’d never considered before, was “Absolute bollocks.  It’s not the same as a Freudian slip, which is caused by your mouth saying what your mind is really thinking, because you have less than total control over your own expression.  There’s the question of the keyboard to be considered , and some of us are fat fingered fumblers.”

But it only took me a few seconds to see the other side of the situation.  The fingers are just as much an extension of the human mind as the tongue is and, as long as we’re working with a keyboard, so is it.  Also, I’ve noticed lately, largely because I tend to write this blog late at night, when I am somewhat fatigued, there are frequent mistakes such as to for too, new for knew and, a couple of days ago in my blog about the weird holes appearing in Siberia, I wrote wholes.  Which they are, of course.  Every hole is a whole hole.

So, I’d like to see some research on this.  Is it the same as a Freudian slip?  Is a Freudian slip even always a Freudian slip?

Here is an article worth reading and kind of a cool gif, if you’re in the mood for reading something where nobody gets killed for a change.

It’s actually not a first of any kind, but in the steady march of the robots as they evolve to the point where they take over the Earth, there won’t be many more firsts until we wake up one morning and find we are no longer relevant at all, the torch has been passed, we have relegated ourselves to the dustbin of history, gone down in a blaze of glory as the match that lit the fire that consumed the world.  There will just be a steady stream of small improvements.

Robo Gump

The search for life on other planets is at a similar stage.  We’ve discovered exoplanets, we know that many of them have water, we are steadily refining our techniques, and one day we will have first contact but, until then, it will be a series of small and incremental achievements.

Back to the robots.  Deep Blue can beat any Grand Master at chess, Watson is, without a doubt, the world champion at Jeopardy, and this is not the first time a robot football player has scored a goal against a human goalie.  The thing is, every year the robots are getting better, the goals are becoming more frequent, and they are not flukes.  Of course, the robots have a couple of advantages.  They roll around on wheels, for one, where the human footballers have to make do with legs, and they appear to shoot the ball out like out of a baseball pitching machine, so in a sense they are not playing football by the same rules.

However, robot legs are becoming better and better and soon, robots who look completely human, who have walked down into the uncanny valley and out the other side, will be kicking human ass at football and every other sport.  Their brain development, and eye-limb co0ordination, will also continue to improve.  It is only a matter of time.

A very short time.