2014 — 30 July: Wednesday

I wonder if it was the confectionery industry's PR machine that managed to place the suggestion that you can't live longer by eating more than the 'recommended' five pieces of fruit1 per day into the daily mish-mash that passes for news. There actually remains precisely one, completely foolproof, way of living longer: not dying. I also wonder how many followers of how many of the various "one, true" religions know that?

You'd have to "not die" for an awfully long time to be able to visit any of the probable hordes of neighbouring planets to try their fruit and veg, too. As Ken Kalfus put it in the essay I mentioned last night:

...to comprehend the size of the universe is to comprehend our isolation within it.

Still, there's always the prospect of tea. Judging by the effect it has on my latest wonder mug, it must be coating the lining of my inner tube in an impenetrable protective layer of whatever it is that's so difficult to remove from that mug. Another cup, vicar?

How's this...

... for a happy trio of stories? Still, at least we're all in this together.

Trickling Down

Words fail me. I shall see if breakfast helps.

New light...

... was shed on the mystery of Sunday's missing pixel during a "thought experiment" chat on yesterday's country ramble. The question of exactly what I captured when I deployed Microsoft's Snipping Tool is deeper than at my first glance. Yes, there was evidence of a faulty pixel showing (or, to be more precise, not showing) on the screen. I was all set to perform the simple experiments Mike had suggested to confirm his own theory by swapping the leads to my screens. Followed by swapping out the new graphics card by its predecessor. Swap 1 should have "moved" the fault to the same part of the other screen. Swap 2 should have removed the fault entirely.

No need. The fault does indeed actually lie in (literally) a bit of memory, not on the display screen. This I now know simply because there is no longer a fault visible. So what I 'captured' was a transient glitch in the display card's own memory. Probably...

A swift pair...

... of trips (first up to Winchester, then down to Soton) with — happily — no wallet-related damage, followed by the making, and eating, of a bite to, erm, eat has left me with a free afternoon and the feeling I should perhaps now put my feet up and kick back for a while. It's been getting steadily warmer out there. I was also interested to find that discourteous driving is not confined to the rush hour.

I've been enjoying...

... my new "Doors" CD for the first time in a great many years. Christa and I both liked this group very much:

Weird Scenes Doors CD

There is, of course, a terribly simple explanation for why it was missing from my collection. It was only issued on CD for the first time a couple of months ago. I haven't a clue why, but good ol' Bruce Botnick's re-mastering is excellent. Not that there's a single completeist bone in my body.

My Doors collection

Nary a one.

Spotted a nice...

... quote attributed to Don Marquis:

Publishing a volume of verse is like dropping a rose
petal down the Grand Canyon and waiting for the echo.

It was placed by "Tufsort" in his comments to this piece on the right to be forgotten.

Postcard?

I haven't received one of your stinking postcards. Not at this address, sunshine.

Mobile 4G interference

But then, since I've not been watching Freeview terrestrial digital TV, I would have missed seeing any of this 4G interference. The rarely-used Sony TV box up in the reading room is permanently tuned to the radio channels. It's the last device hereabouts still getting any feed from the UHF aerial up on t'roof.

  

Footnote

1  Or veg. It was actually "scientists in America and China" so that's OK then :-)