2010 — 11 October: Monday
A reasonably sunny start,1 and a cuppa will help me wake up fully. It's already 09:08.
Scientific studies... don'tcha just love 'em? "There's no evidence one way or the other and it could be either," Dr Page told the Guardian. Good grief! On the other hand, a retiring satellite called the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe has helped us conclude the following:
There are still many, many mysteries. But suddenly it was possible to say with real precision just how old the universe is — 13.75 billion years — and that it was made up of measurable percentages of things we still don't understand: 73% dark energy and 22.4% dark matter. Only 4.6% is the ordinary kind of matter we actually know something about.
I suppose it's nice (in some ways) to know precisely how ignorant we remain. Let alone how far off the mark Bishop James Ussher was. And confirming the spelling of that ill-informed cleric's name had me revisiting the excellent pages maintained by Jim Loy.
Two out of three
I bought dear Mama's next choccie ration, plus a decent card for my birthday twin, but (alas) "Word" magazine has yet to hit the shelves. Bumped into Chris Paradine, too, and had a brief exchange. He looks well, nearly 15 years into his retirement. (My chum Mike says he's a fine jazz keyboard player, too.) It's been a glorious sunny morning, blue sky, cool breeze, not too much traffic around. Now it's time for my noon cuppa and a bite to eat before I trot over to the care-home.
Today's free MP3 was very nice. "School of seven bells" — thank you, BBC 6Music.
A thing of shreds and (Microspit) patches... upcoming.
I now know EO Wilson has written a novel about ants. (Source.)
Quite a lot later
Glyn Moody has an interesting response to the Microspit researcher's suggestion that malware-afflicted PCs should be kept off the Internet until gaining a "health certificate" from for example, erm, Microspit (an idea so preposterous I didn't bother to comment, frankly). And Cory Doctorow has a neat piece on "the real cost of free".
Dear Mama was on splendidly repetitive "conversational" form this afternoon. She no longer knows my name (as far as I can tell) but still recognises me. For some bizarre reason she has now had nail varnish applied to her fingernails — I wasn't going to inquire about her toenails. Still, it seems to have been part of a skilful manicure. I wonder how its cost will compare to the £31 hair trim?
It's 19:10, the heating has just clicked on, my supper has been ingested, and the evening lies delightfully ahead of me. What shall I do first?!
Oops!
Guess who found an unpaid — and now overdue — credit card bill while tidying up the living room? It's the one that includes the Staples bookcases :-)
So that's a £12 late payment fee in addition to the month's interest charges. Silly boy. And today dear Mama asked me if I had any money worries... Grrr.