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Richard Walker

Listed Building

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Richard Walker

Lake Windemere With Rainbow

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Edited by Richard Walker, Saturday, 22 Jan 2022, 15:24


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Richard Walker

Tom Swifty

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"It's nothing, just a sawmill accident" said Tom off-handedly.

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Richard Walker

Tim’s Troubles

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Richard Walker

The Drinker

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If I should die, think only this of me:
      That there’s some corner of a local pub
That is for ever taken.


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Richard Walker

Snow in the Lakes

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Richard Walker

One Liner

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Edited by Richard Walker, Saturday, 8 Jan 2022, 21:35

I’m not very stable on my feet. But I’m quite sane lying down.

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Richard Walker

Dad Joke

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One of my Christmas presents was a book about how to annoy people living in castles. It’s a fort provoking read.

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Richard Walker

Evening Haiku

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Why am I up late 

Writing a night time poem?

Pillow, here I come.

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Richard Walker

Dad Joke

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What would you call a Russian man who has magnetic eyes? Nikolai.

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Richard Walker

Dad Joke

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What would you call a man who’s had his car stolen? Carlos.

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Richard Walker

One-liner

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Edited by Richard Walker, Friday, 7 Jan 2022, 01:31

I put some self-threading needles near a reel of cotton. But nothing happened.

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Richard Walker

New Year Problem - Solution

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For the problem see

https://learn1.open.ac.uk/mod/oublog/viewpost.php?post=242384


This was new to me. I found it in Mathematical Puzzles: A Connoisseur’s Collection, by Peter Winkler.

Think of the 2023 numbers 1, 11, 111, 1111, … up to the number with 2023 digits, all 1’s. Imagine dividing each by 2022 and taking the remainder. There are only 2022 distinct remainders possible 0, 1, 2, 3, … 2021 but we have produced 2023 remainders, and thus there must be at least two of the numbers 1, 11, 111, 1111, … with the same remainder.

If we now take the smaller of the two from the larger, the number we get must be divisible by 2022, and it will consist only of 0’s and 1’s .as required.

It’s late, hope I have the details right, but you should be able to see that the argument is correct and 2022 could be replaced by any number we please.

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Richard Walker

New Year Problem

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Show we can find a multiple of 2022 whose digits are all 0’s and 1’s.

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Richard Walker

Dad Joke

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I met this bloke who claimed he’d built a house with a thousand floors. I thought, that’s a tall story.

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Richard Walker

Robin

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Whenever I go on the garden the robin appears. It will come to the feeder while I am standing really close, a foot or so, and I'm hoping I can get it to take food out of my hand.




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Richard Walker

My Viral Livestock

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This surprises me!

I calculate that if all the viral particles in my garden were arranged end-to-end they would reach to the Sun.

It's estimated that each cm3 of soil contains 1011 such particles, of multifarious kinds, some known to science, most not. A typical diameter for a virus particle is 10-7 m. 

So the particles in each cm3 would stretch for 1011 x 10-7 m = 104 m = 10 km.

I estimate the volume of topsoil in my garden as a bit over 15 m3, and 1 m3 = 106 cm3.

That gives a distance of 15 x 106 x 10 km = 150 million km, the distance from here to the Sun. 

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Richard Walker

Fluorescent Tonic

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It's little surprise that day-glo items like highlighter pens fluoresce under Ultraviolet but who would have guessed that Indian Tonic Water is also fluorescent? It's the quinine in it that causes the fluoresence.




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Richard Walker

Uranium glass flourescing - See earlier post

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Richard Walker

Cookery Musings

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Edited by Richard Walker, Tuesday, 28 Dec 2021, 20:53

When people compliment me

On my Indian cuisine

Are they just

Trying to curry flavour?

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Richard Walker

Radioactive Glass

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Edited by Richard Walker, Wednesday, 29 Dec 2021, 21:54

I rediscovered this goblet at the back of a shelf. It’s something I picked up in an antique shop years ago.


I bought it for its attractive colour and grape vine design. Looking at it anew it occurred to me that it’s probably uranium glass, which has literally got uranium in it, although not very much, a few percent at most, and although it will be slightly radioactive it ought to be harmless. Uranium glass used to be quite popular but fell out of favour, possibly because the availability of uranium was restricted during the Cold War (Wikipedia).

If it is uranium glass it should fluoresce under ultraviolet, so I got a UV lamp and tried it. Wow!!! How beautiful is this? I was so excited.





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Richard Walker

Word of the day - Thigmotaxis

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The tendency of an animal to hug vertical surfaces, especially in a situation of anxiety or potential danger.

I came across this word when reading about house mice, but many kinds of animal exhibit this behaviour. I think we do; if I were exploring an unfamiliar open field with boundary hedges I’d probably follow the perimeter at first, even without any overhead threat.

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Richard Walker

I Stumbled Across This Beautiful Wayside Decoration

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Edited by Richard Walker, Saturday, 25 Dec 2021, 16:02


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Richard Walker

Word of the day - Nugget

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Edited by Richard Walker, Monday, 20 Dec 2021, 01:29

A small nug. Not joking; seems a nug is a dialect word for a chunk of something; and there you have it. Pure gold, I love words.

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Richard Walker

Ant Joke

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Exuberant = ant no longer driving taxi

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