Thursday, May 16, 2013

3733 Back yard business

Thursday, May 16, 2013

Art is anything you can get away with. 
-- Marshall McLuhan --

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There's some kind of very small bird hunting insects just before sundown every evening.  There's dozens of them, and they form a roundish cloud above the tops of the trees, and they swoop and dive in an intricate pattern. 

Immediately after sundown, the bats come out.  They fly in more angular patterns, with their wings more forward, and tend to spread out.  They come from somewhere in the woods on the shore of the lake.  They gave me an idea for Hercules' birthday next week.  I bought him a bat house.

About every early afternoon I hear a lot of racket out back.  We have a hawk living by the lake, and the smaller birds don't like it.  When he comes around he gets dive bombed by crows, blackbirds, and sparrows.   Something thrilling about a tiny sparrow bombing a hawk, hitting him in the back with claws out.

In the late afternoon, there's a racket from the big gum tree.  There are two pairs of woodpeckers who want to claim it as their own territory.  They chase each other all around and through the tree, screaming the whole time.

The robins who collected my yarn?  The yarn and twig nest, a few feet from the side of my house:
Momma bird is there, on the nest, although you can barely see her.  Daddy bird just chased a cowbird away.  Daddy bird is a hero.
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3732 Time waster

Thursday, May 16, 2013

I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought,
but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.
-- Albert Einstein --

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Google Easter Egg:

Google "Atari Breakout", then click on "images".

Let it load.

Say goodbye to your day.
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Tuesday, May 14, 2013

3731 Welcome back, leg.

Tuesday, May 14, 2013

If you explain so clearly that nobody can misunderstand, somebody will.

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Nugget got her cast off today (3.5 weeks).  We went to the doctor's office, quick xray, doctor said looking good, nurse went at it with a saw which Nugget didn't like at ALL, and then it was off.

Her right calf is visibly smaller than the left.  The calf muscles will be weak for a few weeks.  Doctor said not to encourage her to walk.  Let her go at her own pace.  And absolutely NO CLIMBING for three weeks.  (I don't know why. That's going to be rough.  She's part monkey.)  Come back in four weeks.

In the waiting room there was a big wooden train set on a low table that fascinated her, so after the cast was off we let her play with it for a long time.  She was standing holding on to the edge of the table, and she fell three times.  Either the leg doesn't want to hold her up, or she's bending the knee as if the cast is still on, but there's no bulk now under her foot, which unbalances her.  Or both.  So, yeah, it'll be a while.

I don't think she truly noticed that she had her real leg back for a while.  Back in the car, strapped in her car seat, she looked at her legs, studied them, then she lifted the right leg by the knee and foot, and kissed the calf.

"Welcome back, leg.  I missed you."
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3730 I don't understand.

Tuesday, May 14, 2013

A jury consists of 12 persons chosen to decide who has the better lawyer.
-- Robert Frost --

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I don't understand why folks of Spanish heritage are called Latino/a.  Weird.  Latin --> Rome --> Italy.  Aren't Italians the real Latinos?

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What?  NJ birds have taste?

I put out nest-building yarn.  An ugly orange 2-ply sport yarn, and some off-white worsted 4-ply that I had cut and split into 6 to 8-inch lengths of 2-ply.  Both were polyester or something - not wool or cotton, anyway.

All the off-white is gone.  The orange is still lying there.  Rejected.  Forlorn.

I don't understand.
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Monday, May 13, 2013

3729 Knitting a nest

Monday, May 13, 2013

Mythology, n.:  The body of a primitive people's beliefs concerning its origin, early history, heroes, deities and so forth, as distinguished from the true accounts which it invents later. 
-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" --

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I noticed a robin in my back yard picking up bits of straw and grass.  So I cut some 6" lengths of orange sport off-white yarn and tossed them on the patio.

I didn't see the bird come by, but within a half hour it was all gone.

Cool.
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3728 On printing guns, again

Monday, May 13, 2013

Impartial, adj.:  Unable to perceive any promise of personal advantage from espousing either side of a controversy or adopting either of two conflicting opinions.
-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" --

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Two posts back I wrote my opinion on 3-D printed guns.  This article points out that although the plans for the gun that were briefly available online had been downloaded 100,000 times, apparently no one has actually done it. 

I love this part, the last sentence:
According to experts I spoke with, printing the various parts that comprise the weapon would take at least eight hours. In other words, it's extremely possible that people intending to make a 3D-printed gun haven't quite finished doing so, or haven't quite finished the YouTube video. It is also possible that the hand with which they type now contains a lower number of fingers than it did on Sunday.