2014 — 11 February: Tuesday
Can you believe that a Lord who mildly suggests that people shouldn't really be buying homes built on a flood plain1 is being criticised this morning? I wonder whether people will react similarly to the news that Barclays is still planning nice, fat bonuses up 13% to £1,700,000,000 despite a large drop in operating profits.
Yet more drizzle...
... heading our way hereabouts, I gather. There was even a short report on NPR last night about our soggy state. One has to wonder what things will be like should global climate change ever turn out to be not a million miles from the truth. (Which I strongly suspect it will — though not on the basis of one wet spell in the UK.) Not that climate change is any worse than the stupid species that currently sits atop the only planet we can reach that sustains us:
The Neanderthals were extremely similar to us; less than 0.3 percent of our DNA diverges. But they did not venture into new terrain, they did not significantly alter the terrain they
were already in, and they certainly did not make a bonsai project out of the tree of life...
Meanwhile, we Homo sapiens traveled out of Africa en route to everywhere, encountered the Neanderthals in Europe, had sex with them, and, directly or through competition for
resources, exterminated them. Some 30,000 years later, we rediscovered them, via their remains, in a cave in limestone cliffs in a valley in Germany. That cave no longer exists. Those
cliffs no longer exist...
What species does this? Only ours. Somewhere along the line, thanks to some twist in that 0.3 percent of uniquely human DNA, we became the sort of creatures who could level cliffs and
turn stone to steel; "the sort of creature," Kolbert writes, "who could wipe out its nearest relative, then dig up its bones and reassemble its genome."
Nurse! More pills!
Pictures...
... show that I was correct yesterday about flooding in Old Windsor. Though I can't tell precisely where this street is. (Link.)
Is it just me...
... or is £0.5m a ludicrous sum for our wise and benevolent guvmint to allocate to teaching teachers how to teach "code" starting with pupils still in Junior school (or whatever "Junior school" has morphed into in these Po-Mo days of "education")? Apparently Lottie Dexter thinks a teacher can be taught "the necessary" in one day, while also holding the belief that it will take her (personally, lest there be any doubt) a year to "learn to code"! This is beyond satire. (Link.)
Just back from...
... a wetter than strictly necessary supplies expotition. But it's mid-winter. What else do I expect? Stop moaning, and put the kettle on.
I own copies of...
... just four of the titles on this slightly weird list. And I may yet have to sell them to pay the tree surgeon who's been busy in my back jungle today, and who returns tomorrow.
Progress?
The Windows 8.1 Update 1 (due in April) can now detect your hardware and adjust itself accordingly. SkyDrive (which I don't use) is now OneDrive (which I don't see myself using). I can list my Apps alphabetically. And there will be a Power button and Context menus on the Start screen. Modern Apps (which I don't use) will now sport a title bar, making them easier to close. I think I can contain my excitement.
Meanwhile, my goal of having replacement low-energy LED bulbs wherever I've currently got low-energy CFLs lurches ever nearer. Brian very kindly picked up four more of the bright little devils today for me, now that Ikea has them back in stock.