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Richard Walker

?!@#

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Richard Walker

Probability question

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A friend who I know to be reliable rings me up and tells me they have just rolled a pair of dice and at least one came up 6. What is the probability that the other one also showed 6?

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Richard Walker

Xmas Cheer

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I’m dreaming a wine Christmas.
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Telemedicine 1925

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This picture is from the cover of the February 1925 edition of Science and Invention. The author of the article on page 978 was Hugo Guensback.


Guensback's prescient article foreshadows by nearly 100 years developments that are only just starting to become common. 


The 'teledactyl' sounds like a prehistoric winged reptile but is in fact a remote finger that mirrors the movement of the doctor's finger. Here is Guensberg's diagram of how the system might work.


This is all quite well thought out and even in 1925 it might have been possible to build a limited proof of concept prototype in the laboratory but of course cost and technical issues would have made mass production impractical, and without a modern communications infrastructure such as the internet it would be very hard to make it work in practice.

Here is a link to the whole article, courtesey ofl worldradiohistory.com

https://www.worldradiohistory.com/Archive-Electrical-Experimenter/SI-1925-02.pdf


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Richard Walker

The Burning Bush

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Generated by DALL_E  from a photo of a hawthorn bush

Permalink 1 comment (latest comment by Richard Walker, Tuesday, 12 Dec 2023, 18:22)
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Richard Walker

Christmas Tree Festival

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Yesterday we went to a Christmas Tree Festival in the village church. There were about 30 trees from various local groups and organisations. Some were actual Christmas trees but others had been put together from various materials. They filled the whole church, and the effect was rather magical.


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Richard Walker

New blog post

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My Mother was very, cold towards me, but Father was aloofer. He was a bath sponge.

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Richard Walker

Shaggy Bear Story

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Edited by Richard Walker, Saturday, 2 Dec 2023, 01:00

Once upon a time a Hare


 Challenged Sooty


To a race.

The Hare got off to a flying start and soon Sooty, being only a glove puppet, was lagging badly. When the Hare looked back Sooty was nowhere to be seen.

So the Hare lay down for a nap.

You guessed it, Sooty came up from behind, passed the Hare, and reached the finishing post first.

In the papers next day the headlines read

Slow hand-teddy wins the race



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Richard Walker

Word of the day

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Backronym

An acronym is formed from the initial letters in a phrase, and can become a word in its own right. Scuba is a good example, derived from Self Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus. People like acronyms; they are handy and memorable.

A backronym is the exact opposite. Starting from a word that looks as though it could be an acronym, we reverse engineer an origin, sometimes to be comical, but sometimes because an acronym is suggested that seems plausible and satisfying. And some backronyms  are for serious purpose, as explained here 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backronym

As an example of the plausible type, it’s commonly said that posh comes from Port Out Starboard Home, in the context to sea travel to India, but I don’t believe there is any reliable evidence for this explanation. It always seemed fishy* to me.

A more modern backronym is rap = Rhythm And Poetry, which seems equally unlikely to be true.

And a really funny one is 

* False Information Some Hand You.

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Richard Walker

Bread Joke

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Erm, what's the name of that French bread? I baguette.

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From The Botanical Gardens

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Edited by Richard Walker, Wednesday, 29 Nov 2023, 00:10

These amazing plants look like something from a Gaugin painting. They were seen in thJardín de Aclimatación de la Orotava, Tenerife which dates from 1788.


Permalink 1 comment (latest comment by Gill Burrell, Wednesday, 29 Nov 2023, 19:16)
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Richard Walker

In Memoriam

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My Aunt died today.

And I can remember her;

Running across a sunlit field 

With we three children in hilarious pursuit

Laughing at the wind in our faces.

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Richard Walker

Found in the loft

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Edited by Richard Walker, Saturday, 2 Dec 2023, 01:37
Sorry this post has broken and I can't mend it sad
Permalink 1 comment (latest comment by Gill Burrell, Saturday, 18 Nov 2023, 22:02)
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Richard Walker

vort fun dem tog

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Edited by Richard Walker, Thursday, 16 Nov 2023, 23:54

Yesterday i stumbled across this expressive word from Yiddish:

shmegegge

meaning baloney, nonsense, rubbish, as in "Don't give me all that shmegegge".

It's pronounced shmuhGEGee. according to the Oxford English Dictionary. 

Here's the Google ngram. It's quite a recent word it seems, and is a bit less frequent than in the past. But why those high peaks? Was the word in. a film or TV show around those times? I'd love to know.




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Richard Walker

Change

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“Please always remember, the secret of survival is to embrace change, and to adapt.”

From A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry

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Richard Walker

Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow

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George Orwell I think it was that said Macbeth is a play about ambition.In this famous speech near the end of the play, Macbeth, facing ruin and defeat, meditates on the ultimate folly of human ambition.

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

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Richard Walker

Macbeth was here

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Corny joke

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Met a woman claiming to be the Roman goddess of crops. I was like really? You can’t be Ceres.

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Richard Walker

On the Night Train

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Permalink 2 comments (latest comment by Richard Walker, Thursday, 9 Nov 2023, 23:39)
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Richard Walker

Picture Hanging

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Conundrum

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Richard Walker

Autumn Haiku

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枯朶に烏のとまりけり秋の暮

on a withered branch
sits a crow
autumn nightfall

Matsuo Bashō 1644 – 1694

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Richard Walker

Cheese Joke

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Edited by Richard Walker, Saturday, 4 Nov 2023, 23:43

Last night I broke into a cheese factory and made away with some curds.

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Mystery Fungus - Help Needed

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Edited by Richard Walker, Saturday, 4 Nov 2023, 23:33

I found this attractive fungus growing at the base of a small fig tree I have in a pot. It's about 4 cm in diameter.

What is it?

I've asked on a couple of forums but so far no definite identification. It might be a wax-cap of some kind but that is a far as I've got.

Can anyone help?



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Richard Walker

There was an old man...

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There was an old man of the sea,
Who said, this is no life for me.
Fish nibble my nose,
My fingers and toes,
Can’t I just stay in and watch the TV?
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