We have a garden pond to help encourage frogs and other amphibians.
Hedgehogs may suffer, however.
:-(
Hedgehogs may suffer, however.
Monday, 31 October 2011
Sunday, 30 October 2011
Looking through our favourite TV listings magazine, it seems to be knee deep in artfully posed casts. We get them draped over the set:
or against a skyline:
Sometimes they looks as if separate pictures have been badly Photoshopped together:
The newest variant of this style appears to be a flying goose-like V shape, to emphasise the main character:
With a big enough cast, two Vs can be used to highlight the upstairs and the downstairs main characters:
Sometimes, when the poses are chosen well, this can work. But mostly, it's just very tired. Every new TV series seems to get one of these style of shots.
How about a new meme?
or against a skyline:
Sometimes they looks as if separate pictures have been badly Photoshopped together:
The newest variant of this style appears to be a flying goose-like V shape, to emphasise the main character:
With a big enough cast, two Vs can be used to highlight the upstairs and the downstairs main characters:
Sometimes, when the poses are chosen well, this can work. But mostly, it's just very tired. Every new TV series seems to get one of these style of shots.
How about a new meme?
Saturday, 29 October 2011
What's with hyperbolic discounting? It's everywhere! I first consciously noticed the term at a workshop about six weeks ago, and now I can't turn around without tripping over another paper, article, or blog post on the subject. The most recent example is a post I read yesterday, from the [citation needed] blog, about how Future Self is able to be so much more productive than Present Self: "things that would take me a week of full-time work in the Now apparently take me only five to ten minutes when I plan them three months ahead of time". The post also contains the wonderful:
It’s about large-scale automated synthesis of human functional neuroimaging data. In fact, it’s so about that that that’s the title of the paper*.Yet I didn't even notice how wonderful it was, until I read the footnote:
* Three “that”s in a row! What are the odds! Good luck parsing that sentence!Three "that"s in a row, and yet I parsed it just fine. It reminds me of the time (many years ago) when my English teacher at school expressed surprise at how bad a speller I was (I'm better now, partly due to several decades more practice, but mainly due to spell-checkers). "I don't understand how you can spell so poorly given you read so much." It took me a while to realise that some people see the letters in the words they read; when I'm deeply into reading something (fiction or technical) I don't even see the words. I know when I've been pulled out of the book when I start seeing the words. That may be because something is wrong, which may include a misspelling. But there's a big difference between recognition (I see it and know it's wrong) and recall (I can spell it from scratch).
Sunday, 23 October 2011
Which of Jupiter's moons did we manage to snap yesterday? More help on the web, from the Sky and Telescope site.
So it's Ganymede further out and Europa closer in, then. Callisto is too close to see in this:
Or is it? Enhance, enhance! (courtesy of Photoshop)
Now, with a following wind, I can convince myself there's a third moon snuggling up to the (now very evidently) over-exposed Jupiter. Also, we can see that the camera lens really is a bit rubbish -- with the red and blue splitting out. But still, pretty good with no (very) special equipment.
So it's Ganymede further out and Europa closer in, then. Callisto is too close to see in this:
Or is it? Enhance, enhance! (courtesy of Photoshop)
Now, with a following wind, I can convince myself there's a third moon snuggling up to the (now very evidently) over-exposed Jupiter. Also, we can see that the camera lens really is a bit rubbish -- with the red and blue splitting out. But still, pretty good with no (very) special equipment.
Saturday, 22 October 2011
We also had a camera ready. We have a venerable old Canon EOS 20D digital SLR (2005 vintage), with a 18-55mm lens, here set at about 24mm.
The camera wasn't moved between the first two pictures, so the star field is the same, showing the very clear streak from the rapidly moving (from right to left) space station. (Click to embiggen, and see the stars.)
The camera was moved for the final shot, which shows the ISS fading from view as it moves out of the sunlight.
We then went back indoors, and watched the last ever Sarah Jane Adventures episode, over tea. Sniff.
Jupiter was very bright, so a bit later (around 21:30 BST), when we realised just how well the ISS shots had come out, it was time to try to photograph it with a bigger lens, a Sigma 70-300mm, set at 300mm.
Okay, so not the sharpest focus, but, OMFSM, two moons as well! We can stand in our front garden with a commodity camera and lens, and snap Jupiter's moons.
We tend to remember outliers, especially negative ones. So, just to redress the national stereotypes balance, here is the (much more representative) departure board at Kings Cross, exactly three weeks later:
Thursday, 13 October 2011
So not long after the scam phone call, the phone rings again. It's British Gas -- they get to call me because I'm actually a customer. But they're not trying to sell me gas, they're trying to sell me insurance. Or a maintenance contract, as they call it. When I said I wasn't interested, the guy said "not even if you had a £800 boiler breakdown?" Gah! That's just as much trying to invoke fear to make me buy something as was the virus scammer.
Then, a bit later, a third phone call. This time, something to do with market research. "Have you heard of the Telephone Preference Service?" I ask them, "because I'm a subscriber". "Oh, very sorry -- you've come up on a national database -- you should take it up with the TPS". Yet curiously, when I went to the TPS website and re-registered, just in case my previous registration had evaporated or something, I was informed that I was already registered.
So, not just cold-calling scum. Lying cold-calling scum.
Robert Heinlein has an apt quotation: "Waking a person unnecessarily should not be considered a capital crime. For the first offense, that is." I believe the same sentiment applies to cold callers.
Oh, and in case you're wondering why I kept answering the phone and at least engaging in an initial conversation -- I was waiting for a business call from a colleague. That was the fourth call. Fortunately, I didn't bite his head off...
So, not just cold-calling scum. Lying cold-calling scum.
Robert Heinlein has an apt quotation: "Waking a person unnecessarily should not be considered a capital crime. For the first offense, that is." I believe the same sentiment applies to cold callers.
Oh, and in case you're wondering why I kept answering the phone and at least engaging in an initial conversation -- I was waiting for a business call from a colleague. That was the fourth call. Fortunately, I didn't bite his head off...
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