Personal Blogs

My friend was rushed to hospital after being kicked by a horse. Luckily his condition is stable.

Accordion to research, 9 out of 10 people don't notice when you replace words with random musical instruments.

Today we went to see the Christmas Light Show at Kew Gardens. Here are three installations that I thought  especially beautiful.

When my groceries came today the supermarket had replaced an item costing £12 with one costing £30. So a good deal! I messaged a friend and said “I lucked out”. But then I wondered if I meant “lucked in”.

Well lucked out is indeed what I meant. It’s an idiom for a fortunate event. But it is also an idiom for something happening that is unfortunate. So it can mean something and also the opposite, which is interesting. 

There are words in English that behave the same way: for example “cleave” can mean cling to, but also separate from. And “clip” can mean attach, but also cut off.

There is an interesting discussion here 

https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/words-own-opposites

PS Confusingly there is another idiom “lucked in”. And that is definitely good fortune. 

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I took the same snow scene as in my blogpost of 20 October and put it through the Deep Dream generator, but this time the transfornation was not based on a style image but instead on patterms the AI software has been trained to recognise. Here's the result, bizarre and vaguely disturbing, but very interesting.

Piston: Went out in the rain.

I’d never heard this before today but stumbled across it.

It originates with the Latin poet Horace, but was taken up by Immanuel Kant in response to the challenge: “What is the Enlightenment?” Usually it’s translated as “Dare to know”; the sapere part means “To know” (think sapient pearwood in Terry Pratchett) and aude as in “audacity”). In Latin word order didn’t matter (much); which is why it (misleadingly) looks like “To dare, know” in English. 

There’s the background. What do you think? Should we dare to know? What is the alternative?

Trepanning is an ancient (back to Bronze Age) surgical procedure (the earliest attested) that involves cutting a one inch or so circular hole through a person's cranium, to relieve pressure from a brain bleed, or perhaps to vent evil spirits, or for other for other ritual reasons. There’s a substantial body of archeological evidence for the practice,

But I can’t help thinking the patients (subjects?) would have found it tedious. They must have been bored out of their skulls.

I applied to join a support group for people with bladder infections. They came straight back, “You’re in.”

Gold leaf. It takes a lot of beating.