Early Risers.

[New Haven Neil]

Back in the room.  An odd day when I have felt like I had forgotten to do something all day, even though I did actually remember my daughter's birthday.  How on earth she could be 37 I have no idea. 

 

I don't often mention her at the moment as she has been very ill for quite some time and it scares the hell out of me, but she is looking much better of late and hopefully can get back to work this year.  No, not cancer, but hypogammagloubiemia.  You may need to google it (but not iD!) but as you may imagine in this time of pandemic it has caused many a sleepless night.  Finally, finally, it seems to be improving.  As she is a hospital social worker (MA) she needs to be well to attend to her work.

 

To better days.

 

[Coombe Barton]

... the robin uses technology ...

 

https://johncolby.wordpress.com/2022/01/06/words-of-emptiness/

[Ozexpatriate]

13 hours ago, iL Dottore said:

... there is also the tiny matter of how highly chemically processed, water guzzling and environmentally unfriendly such meat, cheese and dairy substitutes are.

A factual statement indeed.

 

It can also be said that there is the tiny matter of how water guzzling and environmentally unfriendly meat and dairy* production can be (particularly at the industrial levels required to feed billions of people).

 

* For me, "dairy" encompasses cheese.

 

It would be interesting to compare the water requirements per mass of food consumed for bovine, porcine, ovine proteins versus their 'substitutes'. They don't compare well with pulses/legumes etc.

[pH]

3 hours ago, Ian Abel said:

Weather - you want to complain about the COLD!!!

-23 (real feel with a breeze blowing -30) getting the newspaper this AM, maybe 18 seconds outside and my hands were very cold time I got back in.

Sunny and clear skies - not that it matters at these temperatures - with a high of -16 expected, then -27 overnight!!!! Not even sure I CARE what the real feel is/will be by then.

Not trying to outdo you, Ian, just reporting. Yesterday I heard the overnight weather forecast for northern BC - with the windchill, minus 50C!

 

Edit to add - the boiling point of liquid propane is minus 42C. Guess what a lot of municipalities use to power their heavy equipment, snow plows for example?

Edited January 6, 2022 by pH

[Ozexpatriate]

14 hours ago, iL Dottore said:

... can any ER suggest a suitable “Work Substitute”? Something that would lead Mrs iD to conclude that I am working and can’t be disturbed when I am actually not working at all

11 hours ago, polybear said:

Perhaps a switch to disable the keyboard so that you can be seen and heard to be typing away when actually you're not........

Of course you'll have to make sure Mrs CC can't see the screen.....

Perhaps a 3d printed CC sat in front of the screen would add to the effect.....

Possible unhelpful in this case, but I did see a 'news' puff piece that, as a result of the pandemic-induced explosion in work-from-home that sales of devices/applications to imitate mouse movement have increased, in order to deceive corporate 'activity' monitoring spyware. These can take the form of applications (detectable), or a physical device to wiggle a mouse.

 

There was the story of an employee who along with a python script, trained the Watson AI application to produce "Sorry I was on mute, can you repeat the question" responses in his own voice when he wasn't paying attention to conference calls.

 

[Kelly]

On 30/12/2021 at 07:11, Barry O said:

Ey up!

 

 

@Nataliethanks for the update and letting us know that @Kelly is well.  I hope that we hear from @Debs. at some point.. she must have an enormous pile of awls  ready to go!!

 

 

Baz

 

 

Hi baz, 

 

Thanks for your enquiry after my well being. 

 

As Nat says, I keep forgetting that forums exist! 

 

Life has also been rather hectic the past few months. I have been in the slow process of preparing to move in with Richard and also having the usual health issues (mostly migraines and vertigo from getting used to new varifocals and putting my back out as well as the usual everyday stuff).

 

As well as that,  Richard had his 5th (first was july 2019) eye surgery just before Christmas. He recovered quite well as this time it was a less serious cataract surgery. Hopefully that is the surgeries out of the way now! But he's glad things have improved with his vision, in August 2020 he was very much thinking he could end up blind so feels very relieved to have recovered his eyesight. 

 

Throughout once again poppy has been a trooper and kept moral up. 

 

We had a nice,  if quiet Christmas and New year (Richard had to go back to work on new year eve and worked new year day. Somehow he slept through the fireworks that went on past 2.30am! Poppy was very upset by it all and I spent most of the time cuddling and stroking her. 

 

Aside from the above all is well. 

 

Natalie is currently sat next to me at the nuneaton railway circle meeting - 21st century trams.

 

Attached is a picture of poppy enjoying her Christmas day. 

 

Hope everyone else is well  if not sympathy and thoughts as appropriate. 

 

Kelly 

Edited January 6, 2022 by Kelly

[iL Dottore]

15 minutes ago, Ozexpatriate said:

….It can also be said that there is the tiny matter of how water guzzling and environmentally unfriendly meat and dairy* production can be (particularly at the industrial levels required to feed billions of people).

Indeed, high-output, low animal welfare industrial farming is equally as bad. But at least there’s no pretence about “saving the planet” which is often given as the raison d'être for taking up such a lifestyle.

 

The Times had an interesting article on the topic:

Veganuary: a warning 

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/veganuary-bad-for-your-health-planet-soy-plantations-8n92ccx5t?shareToken=4a71215823518598018b7cbb8c6ef67a         

It’s certainly possible to to have high animal welfare and low environmental impact farming but that would mean eating every single bit of each animal, a smaller range of foodstuffs (no flying-in avocados from S America!) and much higher food prices.

 

Maybe we should go back to the days of a smaller choice of locally grown vegetables with meat being eaten in smaller quantities (and the cheaper cuts and offal), perhaps as the occasional treat…

[grandadbob]

Evenin' each,

Pleased to report that the chair repair was a success although I had to resort to screwing two small metal angle brackets to reinforce the joints as well as gluing them.  After that although stating that I wouldn't I did make a preliminary assault on the oven so it's quite a lot cleaner than it was.  Still needs more attention though.

Now waiting for The Boss to finish watching soaps on the box so I can then watch something more entertaining for a couple of hours.  Thinking about it watching paint dry would be more entertaining than some of the stuff she watches. 

Later on I have to make a decision about which of my Christmas bottles I open for a nightcap.  Hennessey? Dalwhinnie?  Highland Park?  Tamnavulin?     I thought that after I retired I wouldn't have all that hassle of making major decisions.  

Edited January 6, 2022 by grandadbob

[Barry O]

Thanks for the update @Kelly!  Fingers crossed 2022 will be a good one for both you and Richard!

 

Baz

[PupCam]

1 hour ago, New Haven Neil said:

.......  Finally, finally, it seems to be improving. .........

 

 

Having Googled, it must be a huge worry for all concerned.  Very glad to hear she seems to be on the mend, long may it continue Neil.

 

12 hours ago, polybear said:

And finally....

Oh good:

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/sport/tennis/novak-djokovic-s-australian-open-hopes-dashed-after-visa-cancelled-at-airport/ar-AASt732?ocid=msedgntp

 

Excellent!   It's simple mate, obey the rules (which are there for a good very good reason given the global circumstances) or push-off.  After all, whacking a small ball backwards and forwards over a net doesn't actually do much for humanity.    Getting vaccinated just might .....

 

14 hours ago, iL Dottore said:

Finally, on a more serious note - and following on the topic of meat substitutes - can any ER suggest a suitable “Work Substitute”? Something that would lead Mrs iD to conclude that I am working and can’t be disturbed when I am actually not working at all

 

 

12 hours ago, polybear said:

Perhaps a switch to disable the keyboard so that you can be seen and heard to be typing away when actually you're not........

Of course you'll have to make sure Mrs CC can't see the screen.....

Perhaps a 3d printed CC sat in front of the screen would add to the effect.....

 

My Starter for 10 would be to use Windows Sound Recorder to record some feverish keyboard  activity over, say, an hour.   This can be real or fake as only Bletchley Park would be able to decode what was actually being typed and a) The working bit of BP closed years ago and b) They wouldn't be interested anyway.     The recording can then be played back via the PC and it's speakers.   For the de-luxe version, you could also include in the recording a telephone ringing and some verbal but completely unintelligible dialogue (should be easy in your line of work ID!) .   What a shame dot matrix printers and fax machines are obsolete as they could have added to the variety.

 

As for generating simulated mouse movements to stop corporate activity sniffing.    Well, sounds like a very simple Arduino project driving a couple of servos to me - an hour or so could see a working prototype  (By the way @polybear what ever happened to your Arduino homework?   The dog can't still be eating it (particularly as you haven't got a dog!) .    Once finished with, the said hardware could be re-purposed into a control system for a couple of points for a model railway.

 

Alan

 

Edited January 6, 2022 by PupCam
Quote re-arrangement

[pH]

We got more snow overnight, followed by freezing rain, which produced an interesting crust on the snow.

 

We live on the first block of a side road, off a road to a local high school. (It’s a dead end road, three blocks long, with the school at the end of it. Obviously built before the age of 18 year olds being driven to school by caring parents - you should see the congestion and parking violations at 8:30 and 3:00). The snow started about 6PM last night, and there was a plow up and down that road at least every hour overnight. Only one problem with that - the school isn’t in session, and won’t be until next Monday. Meanwhile, the first plow passed along our block at 10AM.

[Coombe Barton]

17 minutes ago, iL Dottore said:

and offal

Buying kidneys here from a supermarket is a challenge. You'd have thought the steak and kidney pud never existed.

[iL Dottore]

1 hour ago, New Haven Neil said:

….my daughter…. has been very ill for quite some time and it scares the hell out of me, ….hypogammagloubiemia. 

I can understand and sympathise, Neil. Having a child with such an immune compromised system during an epidemic must really be frightening for a father.

 

I suppose it’s a relief for you that there is an mRNA vaccine alternative to the AZ vaccine (AZ is a viral vector vaccine - such vaccines should not be given to patients with Hypogammaglobulinemia).

 

The Omicron variant may indeed be a harbinger of better days to come (if the S. African experience is repeated world-wide)

 

iD

p.s. Now, if we can only do something about the anti-vaxxers and others who increase the risk to your daughter and others in similar situations…

[simontaylor484]

Watching Jonathon Creek then I will be carrying watching "The Girl Before" on I player its a bit strange but entertaining.

 

[Ian Abel]

1 hour ago, pH said:

Not trying to outdo you, Ian, just reporting. Yesterday I heard the overnight weather forecast for northern BC - with the windchill, minus 50C!

The small difference is, where I am is actually populated   

[Ozexpatriate]

11 hours ago, PhilJ W said:

The current Zenith and the old company are two separate companies.

To me "Zenith" is a former US manufacturer of television sets.

 

They had a fabulous 'mid-century' style lobby in their corporate headquarters in the Chicago suburbs - full of display cases of the 'technical' Emmy awards they had won. By contrast, the RCA facility in Indianapolis, was a dump.

[Winslow Boy]

1 hour ago, iL Dottore said:

Indeed, high-output, low animal welfare industrial farming is equally as bad. But at least there’s no pretence about “saving the planet” which is often given as the raison d'être for taking up such a lifestyle.

 

The Times had an interesting article on the topic:

Veganuary: a warning 

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/veganuary-bad-for-your-health-planet-soy-plantations-8n92ccx5t?shareToken=4a71215823518598018b7cbb8c6ef67a         

It’s certainly possible to to have high animal welfare and low environmental impact farming but that would mean eating every single bit of each animal, a smaller range of foodstuffs (no flying-in avocados from S America!) and much higher food prices.

 

Maybe we should go back to the days of a smaller choice of locally grown vegetables with meat being eaten in smaller quantities (and the cheaper cuts and offal), perhaps as the occasional treat…

 

There is one slight problem, well two really but I'll come back to that later, and that you can't grow crops everywhere. Yes I now you could grow different things to suit the climate of that area but that would require more resources etc.

 

Which leads neatly into the problem that a lot of the habitats that we occupied are specific to us. For example if you go back say ten thousand years the UK was mainly trees and tundra. The trees were cleared r as the climate changed. This led in turn to more climate change which led to more expansion of the environment by humans.

 

The simply fact is that if you want to make fundamental changes to the way humans interreact with the environment something has to give. Anyone up for a global pandemic but with a 50 % mortality rate. Thought not. Oh and don't think martians invading, asteroid strike or third world war. Too much collateral damage.

[PhilJ W]

Evening all from Estuary-Land. Great to hear from Kelly, and good to hear that Richards eye problems are being dealt with. I was informed that I had cataracts six or seven years ago but fortunately they haven't got any worse in that time. Last eye test the optician done some extra tests for a detached retina, fortunately that was not the case but it was a bit worrying. One thing that annoys me is newspapers and magazines that use a font or print so small that is difficult to read.

[pH]

28 minutes ago, Ian Abel said:

The small difference is, where I am is actually populated   

Oh, there are people there, Ian. Not many, I grant you, but there are some. One of our sons worked up there for a year or so - he has no burning ambition to return any time soon.

[monkeysarefun]

1 hour ago, Ozexpatriate said:

imitate mouse movement have increased, in order to deceive corporate 'activity' monitoring spyware. These can take the form of applications (detectable), or a physical device to wiggle a mouse.

 

The Air Operations Centre at work displays the Australian  Air situation map onto a huge monitor on the wall, redirected from a PC.

 

Corporate IT policy is to have a screen lock come up on PC's  after 5 minutes and they don't allow any exemptions, even for this PC.  This meant that every 5 minutes the huge display changed to a screenlock and the watchkeeper had to then unlock it with his password, or remember to move the mouse every couple of minutes  - either of which was very annoying for him.

 

Luckily RAAF ingenuity came to the fore and up until a couple of years ago when different technology came and took the problem away  the mouse for that particular PC used to sit on top of  one of those massaging cushions that used to buzz away annoyingly on the desk beside the watchkeeper.

[Ozexpatriate]

14 minutes ago, Winslow Boy said:

... if you go back say ten thousand years the UK was mainly trees and tundra. The trees were cleared r as the climate changed.

I may be misinformed, but I thought a good deal of deforestation in the UK was related to post-medieval ship-building. (Doubtless, there was also much prior, and more gradual, deforestation for farmland from antiquity through the medieval periods.)

[Erichill16]

Evening All,

Another busy day at work and feet/ankles are killing me but only one more day to go. (hopefully).

When I got home I finished the vat return. 
SWMBO is watching tv as I have a quick look around here. She’s watching The Apprentice, one of my least favorite tv programs, featuring back stabbing, self centred, greasy pole climbing, obnoxious, big heads. 
Goodnight,

Robert

[simontaylor484]

23 minutes ago, Winslow Boy said:

 

There is one slight problem, well two really but I'll come back to that later, and that you can't grow crops everywhere. Yes I now you could grow different things to suit the climate of that area but that would require more resources etc.

 

Which leads neatly into the problem that a lot of the habitats that we occupied are specific to us. For example if you go back say ten thousand years the UK was mainly trees and tundra. The trees were cleared r as the climate changed. This led in turn to more climate change which led to more expansion of the environment by humans.

 

The simply fact is that if you want to make fundamental changes to the way humans interreact with the environment something has to give. Anyone up for a global pandemic but with a 50 % mortality rate. Thought not. Oh and don't think martians invading, asteroid strike or third world war. Too much collateral damage.

That sounds like the Theory of Malthus that I studied in A level Geography.

 

[simontaylor484]

Lots of oak was used for post medieval ship building but deforestation has been going on ever since humanity began farming. Obviously rates have changed throughout time deforestation increased rapidly during the world wars with difficulty of imports.

Lots of fast growing coniferous trees were planted. These are now being replaced with broad leafed deciduous native tree species

 

Edited January 6, 2022 by simontaylor484
Further thoughts

[PhilJ W]

The term forest does not necessarily mean just trees. Think of the New Forest or Hatfield Forest which both consist of a mix of open grassland and wooded areas.