New Ice Age
For this year's Games, which kicked off in Paris on Friday, ice has been all the rage.
Cryotherapy – which includes cold-water swimming, ice baths and more advanced cooling chambers – is touted to help athletes recover after vigorous exercise.
Cryotherapy – which includes cold-water swimming, ice baths and more advanced cooling chambers – is touted to help athletes recover after vigorous exercise.
Perhaps pole vaulting should become a winter sport to cut out the middle man !
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According to a recent editorial published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, the federations taking part in the Paris Games together requested more than 16,000 tons of ice – at a cost of 2.5 million euros ($2.7 million).
No vendor was able to supply such a massive amount of ice, so the Olympics will have to make do with 650 tons, the editorial said. That is still 10 times more than was required at the Tokyo Games only three years ago. The editorial's authors criticised the routine use of cryotherapy for athletes between training sessions. While ice baths can treat some conditions, such as heat stroke, athletes often use it "to obtain benefits which are not evidence-based," they wrote. "Ice could have the opposite effect to that expected such as delayed tissue regeneration or impaired recovery." The authors also stressed the environmental impact of producing, transporting and storing such vast amounts of ice. |
Fruit flies combat long COVID
Researchers have just discovered a process in fruit flies which links inflammation with impaired motor function, providing researchers with a potential target for treating the persistent muscle fatigue that follows many infections.
Flies and mice that had COVID-associated proteins in the brain showed reduced motor function – the flies didn't climb as well as they should have, and the mice didn't run as well or as much as control mice," explains Johnson.
"We saw similar effects on muscle function when the brain was exposed to bacterial-associated proteins and the Alzheimer's protein amyloid beta. We also see evidence that this effect can become chronic. Even if an infection is cleared quickly, the reduced muscle performance remains many days longer in our experiments.
In humans, inflammation causes neurons to release the immune cytokine interleukin-6 (IL-6). The team found a comparable protein in their test animals traveled to their muscles via the bloodstream and activated a cellular program called JAK-STAT. JAK-STAT then turned down the amount of energy produced by the muscle tissues' mitochondria power plants.
If we want to speculate about possible reasons this process has stayed with us over the course of human evolution, despite the damage it does, it could be a way for the brain to reallocate resources to itself as it fights off disease. We need more research to better understand this process and its consequences throughout the body.
Yang and team then used drugs to block this pathway in flies to confirm the process can be reversed, as has been shown in previous mouse studies. IL-6 inhibitors have already successfully been used to treat autoimmune diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis, and have shown promise in a few severe COVID-19 cases so far.
Flies and mice that had COVID-associated proteins in the brain showed reduced motor function – the flies didn't climb as well as they should have, and the mice didn't run as well or as much as control mice," explains Johnson.
"We saw similar effects on muscle function when the brain was exposed to bacterial-associated proteins and the Alzheimer's protein amyloid beta. We also see evidence that this effect can become chronic. Even if an infection is cleared quickly, the reduced muscle performance remains many days longer in our experiments.
In humans, inflammation causes neurons to release the immune cytokine interleukin-6 (IL-6). The team found a comparable protein in their test animals traveled to their muscles via the bloodstream and activated a cellular program called JAK-STAT. JAK-STAT then turned down the amount of energy produced by the muscle tissues' mitochondria power plants.
If we want to speculate about possible reasons this process has stayed with us over the course of human evolution, despite the damage it does, it could be a way for the brain to reallocate resources to itself as it fights off disease. We need more research to better understand this process and its consequences throughout the body.
Yang and team then used drugs to block this pathway in flies to confirm the process can be reversed, as has been shown in previous mouse studies. IL-6 inhibitors have already successfully been used to treat autoimmune diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis, and have shown promise in a few severe COVID-19 cases so far.
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Is black coffee good for you?
Now, let's address the elephant in the room – caffeine. Yes, it's true that black coffee contains caffeine, which can have adverse effects if consumed in large quantities. However, drinking moderate amounts of black coffee (about 3-4 cups per day) can have several health benefits.
Firstly, black coffee is a rich source of antioxidants. These are compounds that protect our bodies from harmful free radicals and prevent cell damage. Studies have shown that the antioxidants in black coffee can help reduce the risk of chronic diseases, such as cancer and heart disease.
Firstly, black coffee is a rich source of antioxidants. These are compounds that protect our bodies from harmful free radicals and prevent cell damage. Studies have shown that the antioxidants in black coffee can help reduce the risk of chronic diseases, such as cancer and heart disease.
Black coffee is also known to improve brain function. Caffeine is a natural stimulant that blocks the effects of adenosine, a neurotransmitter that makes us feel tired. This, in turn, increases the production of other neurotransmitters like dopamine and norepinephrine, which improve mood, memory, and cognitive function.
Moreover, drinking black coffee can also help with weight loss. It is a low-calorie drink, and the caffeine in it can boost metabolism, suppressing appetite and aiding in fat burning. However, please note that this effect is not significant and can only be achieved when black coffee is consumed in moderation, along with a healthy diet and exercise.
Another surprising benefit of black coffee is its potential to lower the risk of developing type 2 diabetes. Studies have found that regular consumption of black coffee can decrease the risk of developing this disease by up to 30%. This is due to the presence of antioxidants and other compounds that improve insulin sensitivity and regulate blood sugar levels.
That being said, there are also some downsides to drinking black coffee, especially for those with certain health conditions. Individuals with anxiety, insomnia, or high blood pressure should limit their caffeine intake as it can exacerbate their symptoms. Moreover, pregnant women and people with acid reflux or ulcers should also avoid or limit their consumption of black coffee.
Moreover, drinking black coffee can also help with weight loss. It is a low-calorie drink, and the caffeine in it can boost metabolism, suppressing appetite and aiding in fat burning. However, please note that this effect is not significant and can only be achieved when black coffee is consumed in moderation, along with a healthy diet and exercise.
Another surprising benefit of black coffee is its potential to lower the risk of developing type 2 diabetes. Studies have found that regular consumption of black coffee can decrease the risk of developing this disease by up to 30%. This is due to the presence of antioxidants and other compounds that improve insulin sensitivity and regulate blood sugar levels.
That being said, there are also some downsides to drinking black coffee, especially for those with certain health conditions. Individuals with anxiety, insomnia, or high blood pressure should limit their caffeine intake as it can exacerbate their symptoms. Moreover, pregnant women and people with acid reflux or ulcers should also avoid or limit their consumption of black coffee.
No longer Red, Amber, Green!
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Red, amber, green – traffic lights are pretty much the same the world over, and have been for more than a century. However, they could one day have a fourth colour added to help traffic flow around driverless vehicles, scientists have proposed.
Autonomous vehicles (AV) are still a relatively new concept, with no fully driverless cars on the road yet. A study lead Dr Ali Hajbabaie has the idea to tap into the computing power of the AVs themselves to figure out which vehicles are where. ‘The white phase concept incorporates a new traffic signal, so that human drivers know what they are supposed to do,’ he said. ‘Red lights will still mean stop. Green lights will still mean go. And white lights will tell human drivers to simply follow the car in front of them. |
Engineers at North Carolina State University are proposing the ‘white light’ at traffic lights, which will allow self-driving cars to help with traffic flow and let human drivers understand what is going on.
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1970 computers at work
In November 2023 Voyager 1 started sending random signals that baffled scientists. The probe is now 46 years old and is approximately 24 Billion kilometers from earth. It is clearly the most distant human-made object from earth. So what do you do when your tools break as Voyager apparently has? Well NASA scientists have had to consult the Instruction Manuals written in the 1970's. No doubt all of them were not born then! This was the time when Hewlett Packard introduced the scientific calculator to replace the engineers slide rule and several years before Steve Job and Steve Wozniak assembled the first 50 Apple hobbyist single board computers.
Despite constraints also that fix-it instructions take 22hrs at the speed of light to reach the craft, they have managed to get it back in operation and expect result to keep coming for another 10 years or so.
Well done.
Despite constraints also that fix-it instructions take 22hrs at the speed of light to reach the craft, they have managed to get it back in operation and expect result to keep coming for another 10 years or so.
Well done.
The goat tree
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Shout out to Marg for finding this one.
There is a place in Morocco where you can find goats perching on Argania tree branches. According to one commentor this is due to this Souss-Massa-Draa area being arid and the goats are motivated to climb up to eat the fruit and leaves. After the goats consume the fruit the remaining nuts are collected and processed to Argan oil. This oil is rich in Vitamin E and contains much higher amounts of healthy fatty acids compared to coconut oil.
Another commentor on this video asked where he could find the cow tree seeds ... they weren't at Bunnings! |
Tonga disrupting weather
Originally written by Martin Jucker , Lecturer in Atmospheric Dynamics UNSW
Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai (Hunga Tonga for short) erupted on January 15 2022 in the Pacific Kingdom of Tonga. It created a tsunami which triggered warnings across the entire Pacific basin, and sent sound waves around the globe multiple times.
A new study published in the Journal of Climate explores the climate impacts of this eruption. Our findings show the volcano can explain last year's extraordinarily large ozone hole, as well as the much wetter than expected summer of 2024.
Because it was an underwater volcano, Hunga Tonga produced little smoke, but a lot of water vapor: 100–150 million tonnes, or the equivalent of 60,000 Olympic swimming pools. The enormous heat of the eruption transformed huge amounts of sea water into steam, which then shot high into the atmosphere with the force of the eruption.
All that water ended up in the stratosphere: a layer of the atmosphere between about 15 and 40 kilometers above the surface, which produces neither clouds nor rain because it is too dry.
Water vapour in the stratosphere has two main effects. One, it helps in the chemical reactions which destroy the ozone layer, and two, it is a very potent greenhouse gas.
The large ozone hole from August to December 2023 was at least in part due to Hunga Tonga. As the ozone hole lasted until late December, with it came a positive phase of the Southern Annular Mode during the summer of 2024. For Australia this meant a higher chance of a wet summer, which was exactly opposite what most people expected with the declared El Niño. The Tonga effect model predicted this two years ahead. For the northern half of Australia, the Tonga effect model predicts colder and wetter than usual winters up to about 2029. For North America, it predicts warmer than usual winters, while for Scandinavia, it again predicts colder than usual winters.
A new study published in the Journal of Climate explores the climate impacts of this eruption. Our findings show the volcano can explain last year's extraordinarily large ozone hole, as well as the much wetter than expected summer of 2024.
Because it was an underwater volcano, Hunga Tonga produced little smoke, but a lot of water vapor: 100–150 million tonnes, or the equivalent of 60,000 Olympic swimming pools. The enormous heat of the eruption transformed huge amounts of sea water into steam, which then shot high into the atmosphere with the force of the eruption.
All that water ended up in the stratosphere: a layer of the atmosphere between about 15 and 40 kilometers above the surface, which produces neither clouds nor rain because it is too dry.
Water vapour in the stratosphere has two main effects. One, it helps in the chemical reactions which destroy the ozone layer, and two, it is a very potent greenhouse gas.
The large ozone hole from August to December 2023 was at least in part due to Hunga Tonga. As the ozone hole lasted until late December, with it came a positive phase of the Southern Annular Mode during the summer of 2024. For Australia this meant a higher chance of a wet summer, which was exactly opposite what most people expected with the declared El Niño. The Tonga effect model predicted this two years ahead. For the northern half of Australia, the Tonga effect model predicts colder and wetter than usual winters up to about 2029. For North America, it predicts warmer than usual winters, while for Scandinavia, it again predicts colder than usual winters.
Google AI
Google is racing to manually disable results for specific AI (artifical intelligence) searches as various memes get posted that shows misinformation or ridiculous results. Google has been testing AI Overviews for a year now — the feature launched in beta in May 2023 as the Search Generative Experience — and CEO Sundar Pichai has said the company served over a billion queries in that time.
But, as noted by Matt O'Brien in the Age, ask Google if cats have been on the moon, and it now comes up with an instant answer generated by artificial intelligence – which may or may not be correct.
‘‘Yes, astronauts have met cats on the moon, played with them, and provided care,’’ said Google’s newly retooled search engine. None of this is true. When asked about cheese sliding off pizza, it recommended a user apply glue.
But, as noted by Matt O'Brien in the Age, ask Google if cats have been on the moon, and it now comes up with an instant answer generated by artificial intelligence – which may or may not be correct.
‘‘Yes, astronauts have met cats on the moon, played with them, and provided care,’’ said Google’s newly retooled search engine. None of this is true. When asked about cheese sliding off pizza, it recommended a user apply glue.
‘‘Google’s AI system is not smart enough to figure out that this citation is not actually backing up the claim,’’ Mitchell said. ‘‘Given how untrustworthy it is, I think this AI Overview feature is very irresponsible and should be taken offline.’’
Google said on Friday that it was taking ‘‘swift action’’ to fix errors – but in most cases, Google claims the system is working the way it should.
Google said on Friday that it was taking ‘‘swift action’’ to fix errors – but in most cases, Google claims the system is working the way it should.
Electric cars ... will they catch on?
1901 ... an electric car that appealed to the sophisticated lady of the time. At the time petrol cars were noisy, dirty and extremely hard to start. Why did this solution not win the development race?
This is a fun clip that should appeal to most. It is a bit long but worth a look if you have any interest in the subject of history, why is it so or electric cars.
This is a fun clip that should appeal to most. It is a bit long but worth a look if you have any interest in the subject of history, why is it so or electric cars.
Priscilla Queen of the Desert
The bus at the centre of the iconic Australian film The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert was believed "lost to history" before it was found in a paddock in rural NSW.
The 1976 Hino Freighter bus narrowly avoided bushfires and floods as it sat for the past 16 years at an Ewingar property, in the state's Northern Rivers region. Now a campaign has been launched by the History Trust of South Australia to return the film star to her former glory.
The History Trust plans to restore Priscilla to a roadworthy condition to be used on "special outings", and authentically return its interior to the glamorous style of the 1994 film. Once restored Priscilla will find a new home at the National Motor Museum in the Adelaide Hills as part of an exhibition focusing on the film's cultural and social impact. "Even in the 21st century, [the film] speaks to audiences of the virtues of respect for diversity and the great Aussie larrikin tendency for irreverence," History Trust CEO Greg Mackie said. "It was first released into a world still grappling with the impact of HIV/AIDS and it immediately became a symbol of survival, the importance of love and respect, and of embracing difference."
The 1976 Hino Freighter bus narrowly avoided bushfires and floods as it sat for the past 16 years at an Ewingar property, in the state's Northern Rivers region. Now a campaign has been launched by the History Trust of South Australia to return the film star to her former glory.
The History Trust plans to restore Priscilla to a roadworthy condition to be used on "special outings", and authentically return its interior to the glamorous style of the 1994 film. Once restored Priscilla will find a new home at the National Motor Museum in the Adelaide Hills as part of an exhibition focusing on the film's cultural and social impact. "Even in the 21st century, [the film] speaks to audiences of the virtues of respect for diversity and the great Aussie larrikin tendency for irreverence," History Trust CEO Greg Mackie said. "It was first released into a world still grappling with the impact of HIV/AIDS and it immediately became a symbol of survival, the importance of love and respect, and of embracing difference."
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The news now is that the sequel to the film is being planned as well. Stephan Elliott – writer and director of The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert – confirmed in an interview that a sequel has been written. ‘‘The original cast is onboard, I’ve got a script . . . we’re still working out deals ... it’s happening,’’ Elliott said. ‘‘I’m not repeating myself, we’ll start the new film in Australia, but by god, we’re going on one helluva journey.’’
The director said the new film would bring back drag queens Bernadette (Terence Stamp), Felicia (Guy Pearce) and Mitzi (Hugo Weaving). In the original, the trio travel from Sydney to Alice Springs on their bus named Priscilla, encountering quirky characters in the outback. Elliott said Stamp, now aged 85, was particularly keen to ‘‘get it shooting this year’’.
The director said the new film would bring back drag queens Bernadette (Terence Stamp), Felicia (Guy Pearce) and Mitzi (Hugo Weaving). In the original, the trio travel from Sydney to Alice Springs on their bus named Priscilla, encountering quirky characters in the outback. Elliott said Stamp, now aged 85, was particularly keen to ‘‘get it shooting this year’’.
So, who owns the moon?
Extract of article written by Sherryn Groch and Felicity Lewis for the Age special "Explainer"
Dennis Hope.
At least that is his contention.
Dennis Hope says he’s owned the moon for more than 40 years. He was struggling to get by and dreaming of owning real estate when he looked up at a full moon one night and thought, now, there’s a lot of property. Then he remembered learning about the Outer Space Treaty – that binding agreement from 1967 that lays the groundwork for governing peace in space. Ratified by 110 nations, the treaty rules out any national appropriation of the moon and other celestial bodies (or launching nuclear weapons from them, for that matter). But it doesn’t explicitly mention individuals owning land off-world.
So, Hope quickly filed a notice of ownership for the moon (and the other planets in the solar system) at his local council and set up the Lunar Embassy, a business selling small plots of lunar land for about $US25 (as well as acres on Mars, Jupiter and beyond). Today the company has sold land to more than 6.5 million people, says Hope’s son Chris Lamar, who now serves as CEO. “We’ve had celebrities, actors, former presidents buy.” And, though Hope wrote to the United Nations as well as the two major space powers at the time – the United States and the Soviet Union – asking if his claim was illegal, he has yet to hear back.
The company’s thinking is from old frontier law – many nations have laws allowing people to claim unoccupied land, and Lamar says space is the ultimate uncharted territory. “No one else was doing it and we got there first.”
At least that is his contention.
Dennis Hope says he’s owned the moon for more than 40 years. He was struggling to get by and dreaming of owning real estate when he looked up at a full moon one night and thought, now, there’s a lot of property. Then he remembered learning about the Outer Space Treaty – that binding agreement from 1967 that lays the groundwork for governing peace in space. Ratified by 110 nations, the treaty rules out any national appropriation of the moon and other celestial bodies (or launching nuclear weapons from them, for that matter). But it doesn’t explicitly mention individuals owning land off-world.
So, Hope quickly filed a notice of ownership for the moon (and the other planets in the solar system) at his local council and set up the Lunar Embassy, a business selling small plots of lunar land for about $US25 (as well as acres on Mars, Jupiter and beyond). Today the company has sold land to more than 6.5 million people, says Hope’s son Chris Lamar, who now serves as CEO. “We’ve had celebrities, actors, former presidents buy.” And, though Hope wrote to the United Nations as well as the two major space powers at the time – the United States and the Soviet Union – asking if his claim was illegal, he has yet to hear back.
The company’s thinking is from old frontier law – many nations have laws allowing people to claim unoccupied land, and Lamar says space is the ultimate uncharted territory. “No one else was doing it and we got there first.”
$20 million war chest to fight alien ant invasion
We're at war. With the ants. And so far, they are winning.
Hidden among the big ticket announcements in Victoria's budget was almost $20 million over the next four years in boosted funding to eradicate the red imported fire ant. These copper-coloured ants might be tiny but the stakes are enormous, says the Invasive Species Council, an environmental lobby group.
Should we lose, parks and beaches will be overrun by aggressive stinging ants. The Victorian Government's funding will go to a national eradication program. More than $330 million has been spent on the problem in the last two decades, and yet the ants continue to spread - which is why governments around the country are now being asked to increase their spend on eradication programs.
Red imported fire ants are typically smaller than normal ants - but much more lethal. If a colony is disturbed , the ants attack en masse, silently swarming the body and waiting for a chemical signal to attack. In the US, where several states have infestations, 30 to 60 per cent of people living in infested areas are stung each year, the Invasive Species Council says. More than 85 Americans have been killed by fire ant attacks, with repeated stinging capable of pushing the body into anaphylactic shock. The Queensland Department of Health has already warned that "everyday activities, such as barbecues, picnics and sporting events may no longer be possible in high infestation areas."
"They sting in unison," Mr Cox said. "One stings, and then they fire off a chemical and all the ants sting. Your hand or leg feels like it's on fire because you've got hundreds of ants biting you all at once. They are hyper-aggressive and tend to attack and destroy native ants. They establish nests, which can be strung together into a super-colony with millions of ants.
Fire ants were first detected in Australia in 2001, in Brisbane. Since then there have been six further outbreaks – and the frequency appears to be increasing. In Queensland the ants have established a firm beachhead. The state has spent more than $330 million fighting them over the last two decades, but the infected area keeps growing. Biosecurity agencies use cutting-edge technologies to hunt and kill fire ants, including aerial photography, infrared and thermal scanning and sniffer dogs. Once the colonies are found, they are poisoned using insect baits. But even that has its difficulties.
Hidden among the big ticket announcements in Victoria's budget was almost $20 million over the next four years in boosted funding to eradicate the red imported fire ant. These copper-coloured ants might be tiny but the stakes are enormous, says the Invasive Species Council, an environmental lobby group.
Should we lose, parks and beaches will be overrun by aggressive stinging ants. The Victorian Government's funding will go to a national eradication program. More than $330 million has been spent on the problem in the last two decades, and yet the ants continue to spread - which is why governments around the country are now being asked to increase their spend on eradication programs.
Red imported fire ants are typically smaller than normal ants - but much more lethal. If a colony is disturbed , the ants attack en masse, silently swarming the body and waiting for a chemical signal to attack. In the US, where several states have infestations, 30 to 60 per cent of people living in infested areas are stung each year, the Invasive Species Council says. More than 85 Americans have been killed by fire ant attacks, with repeated stinging capable of pushing the body into anaphylactic shock. The Queensland Department of Health has already warned that "everyday activities, such as barbecues, picnics and sporting events may no longer be possible in high infestation areas."
"They sting in unison," Mr Cox said. "One stings, and then they fire off a chemical and all the ants sting. Your hand or leg feels like it's on fire because you've got hundreds of ants biting you all at once. They are hyper-aggressive and tend to attack and destroy native ants. They establish nests, which can be strung together into a super-colony with millions of ants.
Fire ants were first detected in Australia in 2001, in Brisbane. Since then there have been six further outbreaks – and the frequency appears to be increasing. In Queensland the ants have established a firm beachhead. The state has spent more than $330 million fighting them over the last two decades, but the infected area keeps growing. Biosecurity agencies use cutting-edge technologies to hunt and kill fire ants, including aerial photography, infrared and thermal scanning and sniffer dogs. Once the colonies are found, they are poisoned using insect baits. But even that has its difficulties.
Camembert Cheese on endangered List
The French are having to contemplate life without Camembert after scientists said the revered cheese was "on the verge of extinction". Researchers have found the main fungus used in making Camembert was running low because of intensive production used to meet demand.
Camembert comes from Normandy in northern France. The official name of the original, officially protected Camembert is actually Camembert de Normandie; only cheeses made in certain parts of the region with the milk from certain types of heritage breed cows may use the name. Elsewhere in the world, “Camembert” is used to refer to small-format, soft-ripened bloomy cheeses made in this style. Camembert’s popular origin story is that Marie Harel, a farm woman from the Norman village of Camembert, first made this cheese in 1791 during the French Revolution.
Cheesemakers historically used several strains of a fungus called Penicillium biforme for Camembert. Since each strain was slightly different, each resulting cheese also had its own unique aroma, color and flavor. About 100 years ago, cheesemakers began exclusively using a specific albino strain called Penicillium camemberti. As its popularity skyrocketed, it became “the gold standard for brie and Camembert,” reports Vox’s Benji Jones. Camembert, in turn, became totally uniform—and all the variation in aroma, color and flavor disappeared. P. camemberti cannot reproduce sexually with other fungi, which means cheesemakers have had to clone it. Over time, however, this process caused mutations to develop in the strain’s genome. As a result, the strain lost its ability to produce asexual spores. This has made it difficult for the cheese industry to find enough P. camemberti spores to inoculate their Camembert.
Moral to the story: Lock up your Camembert with your Grange and choose your "platter to share" wisely.
Camembert comes from Normandy in northern France. The official name of the original, officially protected Camembert is actually Camembert de Normandie; only cheeses made in certain parts of the region with the milk from certain types of heritage breed cows may use the name. Elsewhere in the world, “Camembert” is used to refer to small-format, soft-ripened bloomy cheeses made in this style. Camembert’s popular origin story is that Marie Harel, a farm woman from the Norman village of Camembert, first made this cheese in 1791 during the French Revolution.
Cheesemakers historically used several strains of a fungus called Penicillium biforme for Camembert. Since each strain was slightly different, each resulting cheese also had its own unique aroma, color and flavor. About 100 years ago, cheesemakers began exclusively using a specific albino strain called Penicillium camemberti. As its popularity skyrocketed, it became “the gold standard for brie and Camembert,” reports Vox’s Benji Jones. Camembert, in turn, became totally uniform—and all the variation in aroma, color and flavor disappeared. P. camemberti cannot reproduce sexually with other fungi, which means cheesemakers have had to clone it. Over time, however, this process caused mutations to develop in the strain’s genome. As a result, the strain lost its ability to produce asexual spores. This has made it difficult for the cheese industry to find enough P. camemberti spores to inoculate their Camembert.
Moral to the story: Lock up your Camembert with your Grange and choose your "platter to share" wisely.
Parking fine
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I may get a fine for simply standing while trying to decipher the restrictions! All I can glean is that I need a horse drawn vehicle.
Sign in Mirboo Nth. |
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Road Range anxiety
Reporter: David Werner
Bruce Price has provided an education in the logistics of performing a roadtrip in a plug-in electric vehicle. I thought it my duty to our community to provide the full detail of the lessons learned.
Lesson 1: Make sure that you have enough luggage space for a very long power extension cord. Bruce's bright yellow cord was highly visible amongst the black luggage.
Lesson 1: Make sure that you have enough luggage space for a very long power extension cord. Bruce's bright yellow cord was highly visible amongst the black luggage.
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Lesson 2: Look for tours that involve both downhill and down-wind stretches in order to enable the achievement of advertised battery range. Apparently the reality is 300km in real driving conditions.
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Lesson 3: Plan ahead. When in Mt Gambier the nearest super-charging station is at Keith SA which is 235km away. So best to be fully charged when leaving Mt Gambier and do not consider any substantial diversion or hills.
Lesson 4: The flow-on from lesson 3 is to check when you will be fully charged in the night before travel. As a result of a long day travel into Mt Gambier the car was fully drained. The plug-in charger provided confidence that a full charge would happen by 7am. But lesson 4 is to check the date. Yes ... you guessed it ... fully charged by 7am the day after next!!!
Lesson 4: The flow-on from lesson 3 is to check when you will be fully charged in the night before travel. As a result of a long day travel into Mt Gambier the car was fully drained. The plug-in charger provided confidence that a full charge would happen by 7am. But lesson 4 is to check the date. Yes ... you guessed it ... fully charged by 7am the day after next!!!
Lesson 5: Recovery following plan failure. Time becomes an obsession when dealing with charging time that could be as low as 7km per hour of charge (normal power point). So, the fuel may be cheap ... but the coffee while waiting can become cost inhibiting. So the recovery plan requires a calculator.
When to stop charge = Desired arrival time - distance/speed - mid trip charge time - departure time when sufficiently charged to get to mid trip charging station
where "When to stop charge" > "time when sufficiently charged" and "mid trip charge time" < hours between stopping charge and desired arrival time.
It seems that you need all that coffee !!
When to stop charge = Desired arrival time - distance/speed - mid trip charge time - departure time when sufficiently charged to get to mid trip charging station
where "When to stop charge" > "time when sufficiently charged" and "mid trip charge time" < hours between stopping charge and desired arrival time.
It seems that you need all that coffee !!
Lesson 6: Have a contingency plan if calculations and conditions do not match ... after all there are some hills and perhaps travelling at 90km/hr in a car capable of accelerating from 0 to 90km/hr in less than 2 seconds may be a bit frustrating. Bruce was up to this task. He now has the phone number of the Keith SA flatbed recovery truck and a quotation for collection when 50km short of Keith.
Despite these challenges Bruce achieved his overall objective of a road trip from Melbourne to Adelaide and back. And I can add that if you ever get a chance to drive one of these special cars ... take it. It is a wonderful experience. Thanks Bruce.
Onion feet
Reporter: Fiona Glenn
Unfortunately Norm has been unwell for some time with the dreaded cold/flu. But Norm's misfortune provides us some interesting education. Whether or not you like the pungent veggie, we all know that onions are viewed mostly as food. But now we can reflect on the use of onions to heal you by putting them in your socks and sleeping with them by your feet at night. Apparently it can help alleviate cold, flu, and fever-like symptoms. Apart from the greengrocer fragrance in the bedroom apparently there is some science in the concept.
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So how does this work? Reflexologists will point out that the bottom of your foot has approximately 7,000 nerve endings that link to different organs within your body.
For colds, an onion pouch can help with congestion. In addition to treating colds, onion socks can be used for earaches, teething and bladder infections. To learn more https://www.google.com.au/amp/s/www.littlethings.com/onions-socks-feet-toxins-remedies/amp/ |
$10,000 quadrillion realestate
It might have just pushed back its manned mission to Mars, but NASA just fast-tracked a planned journey to 16 Psyche - an asteroid made almost entirely of nickel-iron metal.
Estimated to contain $10,000 quadrillion in iron alone, if we could somehow mine Psyche's minerals and bring them back to Earth, it would collapse our comparatively puny global economy of $78 trillion many times over. Fortunately for the economic stability of our planet, NASA plans on looking but not extracting.
Named after Psyche, a human figure in Greek mythology who earned immortality, 16 Psyche is one of the most massive asteroids that have been discovered in the asteroid belt so far - a dusty disc located between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter.Measuring 240 km in diameter, it's nowhere near as large as some of the other known asteroids in the belt - the largest, Ceres, has a diameter of 945 km - but 16 Psyche's claim to fame is it is by far the largest exposed iron metal body in the asteroid belt.
If NASA is successful in its mission, Psyche will give humans their first ever chance of exploring a world made of iron - not rock or ice.
The space agency had originally announced that it would be launching its 16 Psyche Discovery Mission in 2023, but has just brought that forward to the summer of 2022.
But the best part is NASA's Psyche probe is now expected to arrive at the metal asteroid four years earlier than initially planned, thanks to the discovery of more efficient trajectory that will get the probe to its destination by 2026.
"We challenged the mission design team to explore if an earlier launch date could provide a more efficient trajectory to the asteroid Psyche, and they came through in a big way," says Jim Green, director of the Planetary Science Division at NASA Headquarters in Washington.
"This will enable us to fulfil our science objectives sooner and at a reduced cost."
It's obviously a bit of a long wait, but it's going to be 100 percent worth it, because we're talking about an object that is entirely unique in the Solar System - an almost naked iron core.
While it's not clear how 16 Psyche has ended up without any rocky or icy coatings, scientists suspect that one or more massive collisions stripped it of its silicate crust and mantle, leaving it with just 10 percent silicate rock on its surface today.
The next question is how the molten core within the now obliterated silicate crust ended up solidifying.
"This mission would be a journey back in time to one of the earliest periods of planetary accretion, when the first bodies were not only differentiating, but were being pulverised, shredded, and accreted by collisions," Elkins-Tanton and her team explained at a conference back in 2014.
"It is also an exploration, by proxy, of the interiors of terrestrial planets and satellites today: we cannot visit a metallic core any other way."
This is going to be an historic mission - and if it somehow opens up the can of worms that is space mining, we're intrigued and excited and terrified all at once.
Can't wait to meet you, 16 Psyche.
Estimated to contain $10,000 quadrillion in iron alone, if we could somehow mine Psyche's minerals and bring them back to Earth, it would collapse our comparatively puny global economy of $78 trillion many times over. Fortunately for the economic stability of our planet, NASA plans on looking but not extracting.
Named after Psyche, a human figure in Greek mythology who earned immortality, 16 Psyche is one of the most massive asteroids that have been discovered in the asteroid belt so far - a dusty disc located between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter.Measuring 240 km in diameter, it's nowhere near as large as some of the other known asteroids in the belt - the largest, Ceres, has a diameter of 945 km - but 16 Psyche's claim to fame is it is by far the largest exposed iron metal body in the asteroid belt.
If NASA is successful in its mission, Psyche will give humans their first ever chance of exploring a world made of iron - not rock or ice.
The space agency had originally announced that it would be launching its 16 Psyche Discovery Mission in 2023, but has just brought that forward to the summer of 2022.
But the best part is NASA's Psyche probe is now expected to arrive at the metal asteroid four years earlier than initially planned, thanks to the discovery of more efficient trajectory that will get the probe to its destination by 2026.
"We challenged the mission design team to explore if an earlier launch date could provide a more efficient trajectory to the asteroid Psyche, and they came through in a big way," says Jim Green, director of the Planetary Science Division at NASA Headquarters in Washington.
"This will enable us to fulfil our science objectives sooner and at a reduced cost."
It's obviously a bit of a long wait, but it's going to be 100 percent worth it, because we're talking about an object that is entirely unique in the Solar System - an almost naked iron core.
While it's not clear how 16 Psyche has ended up without any rocky or icy coatings, scientists suspect that one or more massive collisions stripped it of its silicate crust and mantle, leaving it with just 10 percent silicate rock on its surface today.
The next question is how the molten core within the now obliterated silicate crust ended up solidifying.
"This mission would be a journey back in time to one of the earliest periods of planetary accretion, when the first bodies were not only differentiating, but were being pulverised, shredded, and accreted by collisions," Elkins-Tanton and her team explained at a conference back in 2014.
"It is also an exploration, by proxy, of the interiors of terrestrial planets and satellites today: we cannot visit a metallic core any other way."
This is going to be an historic mission - and if it somehow opens up the can of worms that is space mining, we're intrigued and excited and terrified all at once.
Can't wait to meet you, 16 Psyche.
Facebook Live
While watching a bit of Grand Prix I was attracted to the concept of the new media that will come to play now that the 80 year Bernie Eccelstone has sold out of Formula 1 to a marketing team, Liberty Media Corporation and Delta Topco. Daniel Ricciardo arrived with his mobile phone recording his own Facebook Live. Are we going to see social media get an injection of $MMMM as Formula 1 moves into a new era.
Extract from BT.com
In its 12 years of in existence, Facebook has become the most popular site on the web. Facebook was launched on the campus of Harvard University on February 4th 2004. It was originally intended as an inter-university social network that soon expanded to other colleges like Yale and Stanford. In its infancy the social network was called The Facebook. That was dropped in 2005. Incidentally, the handsome chap who appeared in the top left corner of thefacebook.com website was a young Al Pacino. Back in 2005, Mark Zuckerberg had to be convinced that adding the opportunity to share photos was the right idea. 200 million photos are added each day.
Extract from BT.com
In its 12 years of in existence, Facebook has become the most popular site on the web. Facebook was launched on the campus of Harvard University on February 4th 2004. It was originally intended as an inter-university social network that soon expanded to other colleges like Yale and Stanford. In its infancy the social network was called The Facebook. That was dropped in 2005. Incidentally, the handsome chap who appeared in the top left corner of thefacebook.com website was a young Al Pacino. Back in 2005, Mark Zuckerberg had to be convinced that adding the opportunity to share photos was the right idea. 200 million photos are added each day.
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Facebook data from 2010 and 2011 tells us the most popular time to end a romantic relationship is two weeks before Christmas. There was also a big spike a few weeks after Valentine’s Day. Sticking with the relationship theme, a third of all divorces in the US in 2011 referenced the word Facebook, according to research.The world's favourite photo-sharing app, Instagram, is owned by Facebook. The company paid a billion dollars in cash and stock for the filter-friendly app back in 2012. In August 2013 Facebook launched Internet.org a global project to get the two thirds of the world’s population who don’t have internet access online.
Facebook has 1.59 billion active monthly members, making it larger than the population of China (1.36 billion) and India (1.24). Shakira is the most popular celebrity on Facebook with a whopping 104 million ‘Likes’; Coca-Cola is the most popular brand. |
Where the hell are you? Chinese have found us
Reporter: Adapted from ABC Landline
Alongside the Great Barrier Reef, Uluru and Sydney Harbour, Australia has a new and somewhat unlikely must-see tourism hotspot. Lake Tyrrell, a large salt lake in northern Victoria, has brilliant shades of pink and photos of it have gone viral on websites in China. It's causing a flood of Chinese tourists to the sleepy Mallee town of Sea Lake, which is proving quite a culture shock for both locals and visitors. The attraction, lauded on a growing number of Chinese websites as the best thing to see in Australia, is a shallow, salt-crusted depression six k's out of town - Lake Tyrrell.
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There are already more tour operators than hotels in Sea Lake. Rock Wong and his wife design Australian tours for corporate Chinese groups, and with tourists supplying the alluring photos, they can operate from an office set up in the garage.
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The backdrop to all of this is a town in sharp decline. Like so many rural communities across Australia, Sea Lake was once a bustling centre. But slowly, the banks and the barbers left, the butcher shut up shop. Today, you won't even find a bakery. And that domino effect continues on. The Newsagent is in the process of clearing out, closing a chapter on a 103-year-old family business. It's been on the market for 13 years.
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But the baffling influx of Asian tourists is forcing the community to see a sparkle in the things even they have taken for granted like the rooster who crossed back and forth the main street at will. Once a pesky nuisance forcing cars to stop and wait, the grumpy cock became a protected tourist attraction. And seen through new eyes, that salt-crusted depression out the road could be the lifeline this drought-stricken town needs.
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A fascinating half hour program.
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What is Pokeman Go - Update
Reporter: Dave
This is moving fast so I need to provide another update this week. Pokermon GO is now released in 26 more countries...but it is not always welcome.
- In Saudi Arabia, clerics renewed an existing fatwa against Pokemon, calling it "un-Islamic."Bosnia has warned players to avoid chasing the creatures onto land mines left over from the 1990s.
- An Egyptian communications official said the game should be banned because sharing photos or videos of security sites could put the sites at risk. "Pokemon GO is the latest tool used by spy agencies in the Intel war, a cunning despicable app that tries to infiltrate our communities in the most innocent way under the pretext of entertainment," said Hamdi Bakheet, a member of Egypt's defense and national security committee in parliament, according to a report on Al-Jazeera.
- Russian officials sounded similar warnings, saying that "the consequences would be irreversible" if Pokemon players continued unchecked.
- South Korea's government already restricts Google Maps for security reasons, so Pokemon GO — which uses the data to populate its own maps — wouldn't work anyway. But the app happens to be working in one small seaside town near the North Korean border — and busloads of people are showing up to play.
Crowds gather at the State Library looking for Pokemon
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Physduck in the Yarra
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THE Pokemon Go craze has been branded “appalling” and “disrespectful” by the RSL as hundreds swarm to the Shrine of Remembrance to try and catch their digital prey.
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Have you fallen into the latest craze...Pokeman GO? Or like me wondering what is all about. My curiosity has got the better of me and so here is some research that you might find useful.
Remember the '90s? Back then we played Pokemon video games on the Game Boy handhelds, watched Pokemon cartoons as well as movies and battled it out with Pokemon cards during lunch breaks at school. And...new generations of kids never quite stopped doing that. (The last two Nintendo 3DS video games sold 25 million copies, combined.) BTW, Pokemon is short for "pocket monster." They're tiny monsters. Since it comes from Japan, the word "Pokemon" is pronounced "po-kay-moan" and is both singular and plural. ("Fish" not "fishes".) |
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So, the premise of Pokemon Go is that these pocket monsters are hidden around our real world -- literally. You need to go look for them. When they get close enough, they'll appear on your in-game radar and then you can try to catch them. You walk around town, the park, the mall (if you can get a GPS signal), your workplace, until you find a Pokemon. Then, you try to catch it. The balls are for catching the Pokemon. It's a time-honored tradition that, to catch a Pokemon, you throw a ball at it. The ball slurps it up like a vacuum cleaner, or something. And then, according to the rules of Pokemon, it belongs to you.
Why am I enslaving a race of tiny animals?
To get them to fight for you, of course! (No, that doesn't make it better.) You're catching and raising animals to fight for your amusement, and perhaps getting them to evolve into more powerful ones. AR (augmented reality) is a fancy way of describing how Pokemon Go lets you see the tiny animals as if they're in the real world. Basically, it uses your phone's camera to show you what's behind the phone, then digitally places the Pokemon on top. The Pokemon you see in the game differ based on your location and geography. For example, in San Francisco we've found a lot of Zubats. Travel 45 minutes south to Mountain View and you'll find a lot of Pidgey, Paras and Rattata. You can expect to find different Pokemon near a body of water, for instance, than in a small midwest town.
Why am I enslaving a race of tiny animals?
To get them to fight for you, of course! (No, that doesn't make it better.) You're catching and raising animals to fight for your amusement, and perhaps getting them to evolve into more powerful ones. AR (augmented reality) is a fancy way of describing how Pokemon Go lets you see the tiny animals as if they're in the real world. Basically, it uses your phone's camera to show you what's behind the phone, then digitally places the Pokemon on top. The Pokemon you see in the game differ based on your location and geography. For example, in San Francisco we've found a lot of Zubats. Travel 45 minutes south to Mountain View and you'll find a lot of Pidgey, Paras and Rattata. You can expect to find different Pokemon near a body of water, for instance, than in a small midwest town.
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This phenomena is breaking many records.
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Human endeavours knows no bound
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Reporter: Jill Price
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The Great Wall MarathonTaking place in the Tianjin Province, the Great Wall Marathon requires runners to take a knee-shaking 5,164 steps over 42.1 kilometres, making it one of the toughest marathons in the world. If that wasn't enough, the marathon takes place in May, which often draws sweat-inducing temperatures of 30 degrees Celsius.
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Jungfrau MarathonDespite the extreme weather conditions, the Jungfrau marathon is extremely popular, attracting almost 3500 die-hard runners every year from around the world. During the race competitors climb almost 1800 metres straight up through vertigo-inducing mountain goat paths.
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Sesame Street goes cognitive
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Sesame Street and IBM join forces to change the world of education.
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The creator of the popular children’s show is teaming up with the computing powerhouse to explore and develop tools that prepare toddlers to succeed in school. Research suggests that 90 percent of a child’s brain is developed the age of five, and it’s during these formative years that IBM and Sesame want to focus on.
Executives from both organizations describe the collaboration as a marriage between Sesame’s cache of high-quality educational media and IBM Watson’s cognitive computing powers. “The Watson technology, coupled with Sesame content, offers the potential to help teachers and parents deliver personalized learning experiences,” says Stanley Litow, IBM’s Vice President of Corporate Citizenship and Corporate Affairs, and the former Deputy Chancellor at New York City Public Schools.
But don’t expect Watson to show up in classrooms in the form of a hulky Jeopardy podium anytime soon. The first phase of the Sesame-IBM partnership will involve high-octane brainstorming sessions involving educators, developers, scientists and researchers from both organizations to determine what tools to build and prototype. These could be a “smart” toy like Elmo, or a reading app for students that can adapt lessons and stories based on their interests.
Executives from both organizations describe the collaboration as a marriage between Sesame’s cache of high-quality educational media and IBM Watson’s cognitive computing powers. “The Watson technology, coupled with Sesame content, offers the potential to help teachers and parents deliver personalized learning experiences,” says Stanley Litow, IBM’s Vice President of Corporate Citizenship and Corporate Affairs, and the former Deputy Chancellor at New York City Public Schools.
But don’t expect Watson to show up in classrooms in the form of a hulky Jeopardy podium anytime soon. The first phase of the Sesame-IBM partnership will involve high-octane brainstorming sessions involving educators, developers, scientists and researchers from both organizations to determine what tools to build and prototype. These could be a “smart” toy like Elmo, or a reading app for students that can adapt lessons and stories based on their interests.
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Satya Nitta, IBM’s Program Director of Cognitive Sciences and Education Technology, adds that his team is also “highly interested in tangible user interfaces [in the form of] physical blocks with digital signatures.”Within the next year, at least one tool should be ready to be tested in schools. Nitta says as many as six different technologies could be developed by 2019. Each tool will be piloted in New York City schools and other classrooms around the country, and be fine-tuned based on feedback from teachers and students.
No money is changing hands between IBM and Sesame Workshop. “This is purely a research and development partnership,” Dunn tells EdSurge. He also recognizes that “we’re in the exploratory phase, and we’re ways away from arriving at a solution and implementation.” |
17 years in the making
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Fascinating insight to nature. As you would expect brought to you by David Attenborough. These amazing insects creating a flurry of activity for a a few days where predators gorge themselves in millions of defenseless inserts but they still manage to create billions more offspring to populate the lifecycle for another 17 years.
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Melway turns 50
Adapted from article in the Age 23 April
The year is 1966. Decimal currency is introduced… Harold Holt’s in charge… the Saints win the flag… and a Melbourne icon is born.
The Melway Street Directory is as much a part of this city as the MCG, the Yarra River, Flinders Street Station and W Class trams.
Do you have a 1975 Melways hidden in a packing box or at the back of the bookcase. I suggest you look for it as it could be very valuable. Read on.
The Melway Street Directory is as much a part of this city as the MCG, the Yarra River, Flinders Street Station and W Class trams.
Do you have a 1975 Melways hidden in a packing box or at the back of the bookcase. I suggest you look for it as it could be very valuable. Read on.
Merv Godfrey, who died three years ago, was the co-founder of Melway, as well as the Sydway and Brisway street directories, all under the Ausway banner. For most of the company's history, clever data collection methods and sales figures have been kept close to the chest.
Compiling that first edition was an enormous task for him and business partner Iven Mackay: Godfrey – a cartographer - did the drawings and design in his home office while Mackay spent a good part of four years driving a total of 274,000 kilometres around every street of the metropolis, checking and double-checking details.
In 1982, a cartographer's note saying ''Looks Funny Eh?" - indicating the Tullamarine Airport terminal - made it through on 4000 copies.
It was – and still is - an incredible amount of hard work.
Compiling that first edition was an enormous task for him and business partner Iven Mackay: Godfrey – a cartographer - did the drawings and design in his home office while Mackay spent a good part of four years driving a total of 274,000 kilometres around every street of the metropolis, checking and double-checking details.
In 1982, a cartographer's note saying ''Looks Funny Eh?" - indicating the Tullamarine Airport terminal - made it through on 4000 copies.
It was – and still is - an incredible amount of hard work.
Note that the publication is called Melway, even though everyone knows it as Melways.
The Melway is so embedded in Melbourne culture that even today, most local businesses, retailers and party-throwers still list their Melway reference when giving directions. It is a code (eg ref: 88 C2, or ref: 39 F7) that must be utterly enigmatic to non-Melburnians.
Godfrey once quipped that "I have spent a lifetime telling people where to go!" but it was his wife Barbara who got the books onto the market. Many told her that because of the price, this street directory would never sell but she persisted. It took her six months to cover Melbourne, walking into a few newsagents each day to tout the directories.
She was not a born salesperson. On her first day, the story goes, she visited newsagents around Huntingdale and was so anxious she could barely speak. One shop-owner told her to go back outside, take a few deep breaths and start again. She did - and sold him a box of 36 street directories. Later, her husband would go into the shops and buy a couple – an old trick to get retailers to restock and build some buzz about the product.
THEN AND NOW1966
There were 106 maps in the first edition. This year, there are more than 500.
The map key listed 25 symbols, compared to 76 in 2016.
Schools were divided into "Specialist-Type, Non-Catholic and Catholic".
The edition marks "Public Telephones", "Roads not fully trafficable" and "Migrant Hostels".
1968
The central City map was printed at a larger scale than the rest of the directory for the first time.
"Alternate routes" were inserted.
1969
Postcode boundaries and house numbers were introduced.
The Melway is so embedded in Melbourne culture that even today, most local businesses, retailers and party-throwers still list their Melway reference when giving directions. It is a code (eg ref: 88 C2, or ref: 39 F7) that must be utterly enigmatic to non-Melburnians.
Godfrey once quipped that "I have spent a lifetime telling people where to go!" but it was his wife Barbara who got the books onto the market. Many told her that because of the price, this street directory would never sell but she persisted. It took her six months to cover Melbourne, walking into a few newsagents each day to tout the directories.
She was not a born salesperson. On her first day, the story goes, she visited newsagents around Huntingdale and was so anxious she could barely speak. One shop-owner told her to go back outside, take a few deep breaths and start again. She did - and sold him a box of 36 street directories. Later, her husband would go into the shops and buy a couple – an old trick to get retailers to restock and build some buzz about the product.
THEN AND NOW1966
There were 106 maps in the first edition. This year, there are more than 500.
The map key listed 25 symbols, compared to 76 in 2016.
Schools were divided into "Specialist-Type, Non-Catholic and Catholic".
The edition marks "Public Telephones", "Roads not fully trafficable" and "Migrant Hostels".
1968
The central City map was printed at a larger scale than the rest of the directory for the first time.
"Alternate routes" were inserted.
1969
Postcode boundaries and house numbers were introduced.
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1970
21 drive-in theatres (2016 lists three). 1974 45 new maps (4000 new streets) including Mornington Peninsula 1975 Melway had to stop the presses when it was announced that the Healesville Freeway had not been approved. It was already on the press, so plates were swapped. A limited number of copies that made it through are now collector's gold. 1976 Traffic lights introduced to maps. 1977 36 new maps including Bacchus Marsh & Geelong 1980 Public transport section introduced. 1982 A cartographer's note saying "Looks Funny" – indicating the Tullamarine Airport terminal – made it through on 4000 copies. Bicycle tracks added. 2000 An ant wandered onto the plate-making apparatus and has been forever enshrined on map 1A. 2003 Federation Square appears for the first time. 2012 Melway mApp iPhone app launched and eWay Electronic Melway Street Directory introduced. |
Robots don't survive Fukushima
Adapted from articles in RT News and BigThink
Nearly two-thirds of the US Navy ships that assisted in the relief efforts that followed the March 2011 nuclear disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant in Japan are still contaminated with low-level radiation, according to a new report.
About 150 tons of contaminated groundwater per day continues to leak out of the plant despite the installation of gargantuan water containers and some of the world’s most sophisticated purification systems. Those people operating the plant say contaminants will continue to stream out until at least 2020.
Meanwhile, the West Coast of the US is receiving its highest levels of radiation from Fukushima yet. The samples, taken roughly 1,600 miles west of San Francisco, are 50 percent more radioactive than other samples collected previously, according to to Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI).
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Not even robots can survive within the ruins of the Fukushima power plant. Operators lost contact with the five robots that went in, they are assumed to have broken-down from the radiation.
After a 9.0 Earthquake triggered a tsunami, killing 16,000 people and causing a meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi plant, officials began removing the spent fuel pins (or rods) back in 2013. This project was headed up by the plant's operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co (Tepco). They have so far removed hundreds of spent fuel rods from one of the damaged buildings, but there are still three more buildings to clear, and locating the fuel rods is proving difficult. “It is extremely difficult to access the inside of the nuclear plant," Naohiro Masuda, Tepco's head of decommissioning told Reuters. "The biggest obstacle is the radiation.” The rods are about 13 feet long and weigh several tons and contain pellets of spent uranium fuel. The fear is that the storage pools or the rods themselves may have been damaged after the Earthquake and tsunami hit. Reuters has already reported that some of the rods have melted through their containment vessels. The radiation near the Fukushima plant is too strong for humans to survive, so Tepco developed robots to navigate the land terrain and underwater tunnels to track down the missing rods. However, robots are not immune to radiation; it can and has melted the wiring within the five robots it sent in. Tepco spent two years developing and building one of these specialized robots. At this rate officials believe it could take up to four decades to decommission the plant. |
What happens when you lose your iPhone?
Speculation ran wild online last month over a very modern mystery. For months, owners of lost Android and Apple phones on various networks had shown up at the suburban Atlanta home of Christina Lee and Michael Saba, having been directed there by phone-tracking apps.
Sometimes the visitors were accompanied by police. In one case, the pair were detained as their home became embroiled in a missing person investigation. As Lee and Saba had to explain over and over again, the phones were not there. But phone-tracking apps kept insisting that they were. Now, an investigator may have an answer as to why. Mysterious photographer - was she a spy
Interesting article from Tony.
In 2007 an 81 year old woman in Chicago failed to keep up the rental payments on five storage lockers that housed an assortment of boxes, crates and chests containing the souvenirs of a lifetime. The items were duly put up for auction and Ron Gunderson, a second-hand furniture dealer, bought the lot, contents unseen, for $250. He took the goods back to his auction room and resold them for a tidy profit. Some of the boxes and chests contained photographs, slides and film. Three buyers, John Maloof, Ron Slattery and Randy Prow, took these home for between $250 and $400 each. A Californian photographer and art critic, came forward to confirm the artistic value of the work and Maloof transformed himself from casual collector to fulltime archivist. He chased down other people who’d bought Vivian’s work at Ron Gunderson’s auction and purchased more and more negatives and film. He now estimates he owns 90 per cent of all Vivian’s work – in excess of 100,000 negatives. There’s no doubt that Vivian Maier’s photography is popular and that’s interesting in an era when there is just so much photography competing for attention and all so easily accessible. What is it beyond the nicely composed and exposed images, the lower angle of view, shooting waist high with the Rolleiflex (rather than eye level) and the unceasing fascination with photos from the past? There’s more than that in Vivian Maier. Often it’s the superb geometry of the subjects, (Vivian was an expert at focusing with her feet), the uncanny timing – the decisive moment in action – and often the sense of fun in the shots. |
Read this to find out.
http://www.smh.com.au/digital-life/mobiles/why-lost-phones-are-traced-to-christina-lee-and-michael-sabas-atlanta-house-20160208-gmo5va.html
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Winter solstice
The seasons are governed by the tilt of the Earth’s axis in space as it journeys around the Sun in a year. When the South Pole of the Earth is tilted towards the Sun, this is our Summer. Six months later, when the South Pole is tilted away from the Sun, it's our Winter. In between these we have Autumn and Spring.
Temperatures on our planet are not determined by the distance of the Earth from the Sun. Rather it is the angle of the Sun’s rays striking the Earth. In Summer, the Sun is high in the Sky and the rays hit the Earth at a steep angle. In winter, the Sun is low in the Sky and the rays strike the Earth at a shallow angle. In some parts of the world, such as Australia, seasons begin on the first day of a particular calendar month - in March for Autumn, June for Winter, September for Spring and December for Summer. In other countries such as Britain, it’s accepted that the seasons begin on the dates that the Earth passes four special points in its orbit about the Sun. The solstice may have been a special moment of the annual cycle for some cultures even during neolithic times. Astronomical events were often used to guide activities such as the mating of animals, the sowing of crops and the monitoring of winter reserves of food. Many cultural mythologies and traditions are derived from this.This is attested by physical remains in the layouts of late Neolithic and Bronze Age archaeological sites, such as Stonehenge in England and Newgrange in Ireland. The primary axes of both of these monuments seem to have been carefully aligned on a sight-line pointing to the winter solstice sunrise (Newgrange) and the winter solstice sunset (Stonehenge).
The winter solstice was immensely important because the people were economically dependent on monitoring the progress of the seasons. Starvation was common during the first months of the winter, January to April (northern hemisphere) or July to October (southern hemisphere), also known as "the famine months". In temperate climates, the midwinter festival was the last feast celebration, before deep winter began. Most cattle were slaughtered so they would not have to be fed during the winter, so it was almost the only time of year when a plentiful supply of fresh meat was available. The majority of wine and beer made during the year was finally fermented and ready for drinking at this time. |
The longest night creates an opportunity to party
If interest why not check out these: Fed Square http://fedsquare.com/events/solstice-celebration Montsalvat (Eltham) http://wintersolsticemelbourne.com.au/the-event/ 
The Sun and the seasons
Artist: Frey Micklethwait. Source: Museum Victoria. Spring Equinox (AEST) 2014
2015 September 23, 18:20 On the day of the Spring Equinox, the Earth’s poles are the same distance from the Sun. In Melbourne, the Sun rises due east, sets due west and gets to 52° above the horizon at noon. On this day there are roughly 12 hrs of day and 12 hrs of night. Summer Solstice (AEDT) 2015 December 22, 15:48 On the day of Summer Solstice, the Earth’s south pole is tilted towards the Sun. The Sun rises south of east, sets south of west and reaches 75 1/2° above the horizon at noon. This is, usually, the longest day of the year. Autumn Equinox (AEDT) 2015 March 21, 09:45 On the day of the Autumn Equinox, the Earth’s poles are the same distance from the Sun. The Sun rises due east, sets due west and reaches 52° above the horizon at noon. There are roughly 12 hrs of day and 12 hrs of night. Winter Solstice (AEST) 2015 June 22, 02:38 On the day of Winter Solstice, Earth’s south pole is tilted away from the Sun. The Sun rises north of east, sets north of west and reaches 28 1/2° above the horizon at noon. This is, usually, the shortest day of the year. |
The facts about the oceans
Almost two-thirds of the earths surface is covered by water. If the earth were flat, water would cover everything in a layer two miles deep!
Geologists have discovered there seems to be more water miles deep between the rocks of Earths mantle than in all the oceans of the world. The intense pressure of the tons of rocks above keeps the hot water from turning to steam and escaping. Water is the only substance on earth that is lighter as a solid than a liquid. The biggest canyons in the world are under water. Beneath the Bering Sea off Alaska there are seven giant canyons: Bering Canyon, 240 miles long; Navarin Canyon, 60 miles wide; Zhemchung Canyon, 9000 feet deep. In comparison, the Grand Canyon in Arizona is only 10 miles wide, one mile deep and 250 miles long. 
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Monster waves of over 100 feet tall can suddenly appear at sea when there is no storm to cause them. They are actually accidental meetings of several waves that can combine to form one huge one that can easily sink a freighter.
When scientist drilled through the ice of Antarctica’s Lake Vanda, they discovered that the water at the bottom of the lake was an amazingly warm 77 degrees Fahrenheit. Ice crystals actually heat the water by focusing on the bottom of the lake. 8,200 below the surface of the ocean a ridge of volcanoes stretch around the globe. Vents in the ridge spew mineral rich water at temperatures of 700 degrees Fahrenheit or more. In the hot waters, bacteria live feeding on the minerals. Tube worms grow to six feet long and foot long clams grow 500 times faster than their relatives living near the surface. A two-mile thick dome of glacial ice covers most of Greenland. The weight of the ice is so great that if it suddenly melted the bedrock of the island would rise 2500 feet! There are giant waterfalls under the ocean! The largest is between Greenland and Iceland. This submarine waterfall drops 11,500 feet; three times the height of any land waterfall. One inch of rain is equal to 10 inches of snow. |
Vintage photos
Doctor WHO
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Back in 1962, a report on the viability of science fiction as a genre for BBC drama had concluded that it could never guarantee a large TV audience. 'Doctor Who' was inspired by that report and in this document from the BBC Audience Research Department we can finally see whether there was any truth in those early findings. As expected, those who liked the show seem passionate about it, while those who didn't like it appear almost as determined.
After more than 50 years the series launched on 24 August 2014 with the 12th Doctor Who. The cult lives on. |
Doctor Who is a British science-fiction television programme produced by the BBC. The programme depicts the adventures of the Doctor, a Time Lord—a time-travelling humanoid alien. He explores the universe in his TARDIS, a sentient time-travelling space ship. Its exterior appears as a blue British police box, which was a common sight in Britain in 1963 when the series first aired. Along with a succession of companions, the Doctor faces a variety of foes while working to save civilisations, help ordinary people, and right wrongs.
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The show is a significant part of British popular culture, and elsewhere it has become a cult television favourite. The show has influenced generations of British television professionals, many of whom grew up watching the series. The programme originally ran from 1963 to 1989. After an unsuccessful attempt to revive regular production in 1996 with a backdoor pilot in the form of a television film, the programme was relaunched in 2005 by Russell T Davies who was showrunner and head writer for the first five years of its revival, produced in-house by BBC Wales in Cardiff. The first series of the 21st century, featuring Christopher Eccleston in the title role, was produced by the BBC. Series two and three had some development money contributed by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), which was credited as a co-producer. Doctor Who also spawned spin-offs in multiple media, including Torchwood (2006–11) and The Sarah Jane Adventures (2007–11), both created by Russell T Davies; K-9 (2009–10); and a single pilot episode of K-9 and Company (1981). There also have been many spoofs and cultural references of the character in other media.
Twelve actors have headlined the series as the Doctor. The transition from one actor to another, and the differing approach to the role that they bring, is written into the plot of the show as regeneration into a new incarnation, a life process of Time Lords through which the character of the Doctor takes on a new body and, to some extent, new personality, which occurs after sustaining injury which would be fatal to most other species. While each actor's portrayal differs, they are all intended to be aspects of the same character, and form part of the same storyline. The time-travelling nature of the plot means that on occasion, story arcs have involved different Doctors meeting each other. The Doctor is currently portrayed by Peter Capaldi, who took on the role after Matt Smith's final appearance in the 2013 Christmas special, "The Time of the Doctor".
Twelve actors have headlined the series as the Doctor. The transition from one actor to another, and the differing approach to the role that they bring, is written into the plot of the show as regeneration into a new incarnation, a life process of Time Lords through which the character of the Doctor takes on a new body and, to some extent, new personality, which occurs after sustaining injury which would be fatal to most other species. While each actor's portrayal differs, they are all intended to be aspects of the same character, and form part of the same storyline. The time-travelling nature of the plot means that on occasion, story arcs have involved different Doctors meeting each other. The Doctor is currently portrayed by Peter Capaldi, who took on the role after Matt Smith's final appearance in the 2013 Christmas special, "The Time of the Doctor".
Housecleaning tips
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This tip comes to you from the husband whose wife is overseas walking various parts of Europe.
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the Ultimate Journey
For more information
http://www.mars-one.com/ |
By 2015, Mars One expects put up to 10 four-member teams through intensive training, with the first of those teams reaching to Mars in 2023 on a high-risk journey that would take seven months to complete. If they survive the trip, the human Martians will have to deal with temperatures of minus 55 degrees C in a desert-like atmosphere that consists mainly of carbon dioxide. They will also have to consent to being observed back on Earth full-time as stars of a reality TV show that would help cover expenses.
Countdown to take-off:2011: Mars One is founded 2013: Crew recruitment process begins 2015: Training selected crew members begins 2016: Demonstration Mission to launch to provide proof of concept 2018: Rover launched to find the best settlement location. Once located it will prepare for the arrival of cargo missions. A communication satellite will also be launched. 2020: Cargo mission will be launched with living united, life support systems and supply units. 2021: Rover will set up the outpost to the cargo units to prepare for human arrival 2022: The first crew departs from planet earth. It will take 210 days for them to arrive. 2023: The first crew of humans lands on Mars 2024: The second crew departs from planet earth - they take 240 days to arrive. |
Tour de France
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How are you doing with the late night/early mornings that comes at this time of the year as the northern hemisphere enjoys the summer sports. Wimbeldon, World Cup and just over in time to give way to the Tour de France.
The animation here give you excellent insight to the event. Well worth a look as it provides some interesting facts. Did you know that the Tour de France was commenced in 1903 when a man called Henri Desgrange needed to boost the sales of his newspaper : L’Auto. Henri’s newspaper was locked in a competitive sales war with the sports paper Le Velo at the time and desperately needed to widen his readership. Fortunately for Henri the six-day race was a success and the sales of L’Auto were hugely boosted as a result. |
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For those frightened of technology
Thanks to Bruce Longden for the idea.
Watch the following short clip that takes less than a minute.
A daughter is visiting her father and is helping in the kitchen. She asks: " Tell me dad, how are you managing with the new I-Pad we gave you for your birthday?"
This clip is spoken in German but it's totally understandable in any language.
Watch the following short clip that takes less than a minute.
A daughter is visiting her father and is helping in the kitchen. She asks: " Tell me dad, how are you managing with the new I-Pad we gave you for your birthday?"
This clip is spoken in German but it's totally understandable in any language.
Oils aint Oils
Sorry about the obvious advertisement but this series of Youtube cartoons seemed too cute.
If you have a spare 30 mins check out the third cartoon that provides an amusing look at McLaren testing with Jensen Button and Louis Hamilton.
If you have a spare 30 mins check out the third cartoon that provides an amusing look at McLaren testing with Jensen Button and Louis Hamilton.
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casino not liable for unshuffled cards
Seems incredible but it appears that an act of negligence from a casino does not necessarily cost them dearly.
An Atlantic City casino does not have to pay $US1.5 million ($A1.62 million) won by a group of gamblers who realised the cards had not been shuffled, and can move to recover more than $US500,000 it already paid them.Superior Court judge ruled that because the cards had been unshuffled, that made the game of mini-baccarat in April 2012 illegal under state casino rules.
Fourteen players racked up $US1.5 million in winnings over 41 straight hands when they realised the cards were coming out in a specific pattern.Many of them quickly upped their bets from $US10 a hand to $US5000.The problem was that a Kansas City playing card manufacturer that sold decks of cards guaranteed to have been pre-shuffled did not do so in this case.The company, Gemaco, admitted in court it had erred in providing cards to the casino. Isman dismissed a racketeering count against the casino.
An Atlantic City casino does not have to pay $US1.5 million ($A1.62 million) won by a group of gamblers who realised the cards had not been shuffled, and can move to recover more than $US500,000 it already paid them.Superior Court judge ruled that because the cards had been unshuffled, that made the game of mini-baccarat in April 2012 illegal under state casino rules.
Fourteen players racked up $US1.5 million in winnings over 41 straight hands when they realised the cards were coming out in a specific pattern.Many of them quickly upped their bets from $US10 a hand to $US5000.The problem was that a Kansas City playing card manufacturer that sold decks of cards guaranteed to have been pre-shuffled did not do so in this case.The company, Gemaco, admitted in court it had erred in providing cards to the casino. Isman dismissed a racketeering count against the casino.
Shrine of Remembrance
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As redevelopment of the Shrine of Remembrance continues in preparation for the major events of next year I have watched a fascinating program on Landline. This took a look at the history of the memorial and its link to the small Victorian town of Tynong.
Materials for building the Shrine were sourced from within
Australia: the chosen building stone was granodiorite quarried from Tynong; the
internal walls use sandstone from Redesdale; and the black marble columns used
stone from Buchan. This raised some concerns when redeveloping the Shrine, as
the Tynong quarry was no longer in use, and it proved to be prohibitively
expensive to reopen the site. Fortunately another quarry in the area was
available and was able to provide the necessary stone.
Check out the Landline program at this link as it presents some interesting aspects such as the techniques used, the stonemasons involved and the challenges of building such a beautiful memorial in the late 1920's http://www.abc.net.au/landline/content/2014/s4025478.htm |
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Do you suffer friggatriskaidekaphobia
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According to folklorists, there is no written evidence for a "Friday the 13th" superstition before the 19th century. One author, noting that references are all but nonexistent before 1907 but frequently seen thereafter, has argued that its popularity derives from the publication that year of Thomas W. Lawson's popular novel Friday, the Thirteenth, in which an unscrupulous broker takes advantage of the superstition to create a Wall Street panic on a Friday the 13th.
In numerology, the number twelve is considered the number of divine organizational arrangement or chronological completeness, as reflected in the twelve months of the year, twelve hours of the clock day, the twelve deities of Olympus, twelve tribes of Israel, twelve Apostles of Jesus, the 12 successors of Muhammad in Shia Islam, twelve signs of the Zodiac, the 12 years of the Buddhist cycle, etc., whereas the number thirteen was considered irregular, transgressing this completeness. In Norse mythology, the beloved hero Balder was killed at a banquet by the mischievous god Loki, who crashed the party of twelve, bringing the group to 13. This story, as well as the story of the Last Supper, led to one of the most entrenched 13-related beliefs: You should never sit down to a meal in a group of 13. 
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Friday has been considered an unlucky day at least since the 14th century's The Canterbury Tales, and many other professions have regarded Friday as an unlucky day to undertake journeys or begin new projects. Sailors were particularly superstitious in this regard, often refusing to ship out on a Friday. According to unverified legend (very likely untrue), the British Navy commissioned a ship in the 1800s called H.M.S. Friday, in order to quell the superstition. The navy selected the crew on a Friday, launched the ship on a Friday and even selected a man named James Friday as the ship's captain. Then, one Friday morning, the ship set off on its maiden voyage... and disappeared forever. A similar, entirely factual story is the harrowing flight of Apollo 13. |
Drone delivers the pizza
They come topped with pepperoni, chicken tikka or vegetarian. But a flying variety may soon be found on Indian pizza menus, after an outlet in Mumbai said it had successfully delivered by drone.
Staff at Francesco's Pizzeria in south Mumbai were inspired by the news that online retail giant Amazon was planning to use unmanned drones to deliver goods, and decided to try one out as a means to beat the city's notorious traffic. 'We successfully carried out a test delivery by sending a pizza to a customer located 1.5 kilometre away from our outlet on May 11,' Francesco's Pizzeria chief executive Mikhel Rajani told the Press Trust of India (PTI) news agency.
The company posted a video of the delivery on YouTube, which shows the drone carrying the pizza box over shops, cricketers and the coastline of the financial capital before landing on a high-rise rooftop.
Rajani believes the test will lead the way to a cheaper and quicker service than their usual two-wheelers can provide by road. He said there were some snags, however, such as batteries running out after eight kilometres and drones being banned from flying over security establishments.
Staff at Francesco's Pizzeria in south Mumbai were inspired by the news that online retail giant Amazon was planning to use unmanned drones to deliver goods, and decided to try one out as a means to beat the city's notorious traffic. 'We successfully carried out a test delivery by sending a pizza to a customer located 1.5 kilometre away from our outlet on May 11,' Francesco's Pizzeria chief executive Mikhel Rajani told the Press Trust of India (PTI) news agency.
The company posted a video of the delivery on YouTube, which shows the drone carrying the pizza box over shops, cricketers and the coastline of the financial capital before landing on a high-rise rooftop.
Rajani believes the test will lead the way to a cheaper and quicker service than their usual two-wheelers can provide by road. He said there were some snags, however, such as batteries running out after eight kilometres and drones being banned from flying over security establishments.
It could only be India
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Submitted by Ian Stevenson
You might remember that Ian and Jenny spent some time in Delhi a couple of years ago when Dale was competing in the Commonwealth Games. Therefore it is not surprising that these photos appeal to Ian as he recalls the reality that they show when in India. For those interested to reflect back to 2012 there were some good stories that Ian and Jenny submitted back then. You can re-read these here.... Dale's delhi |
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may the Force be with You
Who would have thought Margaret Thatcher’s election would be the genesis of a worldwide, annual celebration of all things “Star Wars?” Yet that’s exactly how May The Fourth began.
In 1979, Thatcher was congratulated on becoming the first ever female Prime Minister of Britain by the London Evening News with a half page ad that stated, “May The Fourth Be With You, Maggie. Congratulations.”
“Star Wars” had been released two years earlier, and its cultural impact was enough that the pun on “May The Force Be With You,” one of the movie’s catchphrases, was universal enough to make sense in a British print ad.
Did you know that.......
In 1979, Thatcher was congratulated on becoming the first ever female Prime Minister of Britain by the London Evening News with a half page ad that stated, “May The Fourth Be With You, Maggie. Congratulations.”
“Star Wars” had been released two years earlier, and its cultural impact was enough that the pun on “May The Force Be With You,” one of the movie’s catchphrases, was universal enough to make sense in a British print ad.
Did you know that.......
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The original Star Wars, A New Hope, is still the highest grossing Star Wars Film.
It is the second highest grossing film of all time in the US if you adjust for ticket price inflation (right behind Gone With The Wind) Star Wars has made over 3.5 Billion dollars. Carrie Fisher and Sissy Spasic both auditioned for the role of Princess Leia and "Carrie" from Stephen King's Carrie at the same time. Fisher took Star Wars, as she was against the initial "nude" scene in Carrie. Can you imagine Princess Leia played by Sissy? Sixteen years after the release of the trilogy’s final film, the first in a new prequel trilogy of films was released. In October 2012, The Walt Disney Company acquired Lucasfilm for $4.05 billion and announced that it would produce three new films, with the first film, Star Wars Episode VII, planned for release in 2015. |
George Lucas was the first filmmaker to ask for and sucessfully retain the merchandising rights to his characters...creating an empire of toys, t-shirts, and other movie memorabilia. This has been successful...
...after box office the franchise has grossed (so far)
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The sound effects for the Death Star's turbo-lasers were created by striking a telephone pole suspension wire with a heavy pole
Lightsaber sounds were a combo of the hum from the back of an old TV set and an old 35mm movie projector Luke Skywalker's landspeeder noise is actually traffic on the Harbor Freeway in Los Angeles, as heard through a vacuum-cleaner pipe. In ROTS, bubbling, moving lava can be either a macaroni casserole being squished or a wet towel rubbed in mud. |
Here are a few examples that I know some of you have seen. Tell us about it or add some more using the box above. I can add you comments for future editions.
What were they thinking...
I was prompted to look for this array of amusing signs when I was reminded of the sign that was displayed in Sunbury after the recent fires.
I did not get a photo but there was a big roadside electronic flashing sign that proclaimed; CAUTION LIVESTOCK WONDERING ON ROADS I am sure they were confused after the fire but I suspect that they were roaming around after the fences got burnt and were not necessary gathering in packs on the road debating the reason for the fences being down! |
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50 years on....do you remember.....
Sir Robert Menzies - 12th Australian Prime Minister in office in 1964. He is the longest serving PM with 18 years in office.
Sir Henry Bolte - 38th Victorian Premier. Also longest serving with 17 years in the highest office in Vic.
Well known 50 year olds
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3rd free to air TV channel starts
In April 1963 the licence to operate Melbourne's third commercial television station was awarded Austarama Television, owned by transport magnate Sir Reginald Ansett. The new channel, ATV-0 (pronounced as O, never the number zero), began transmission on 1 August 1964 from a large modern studio complex located in the then-outer eastern suburb of Nunawading, in the locality now known as Forest Hill, but referred to at the time as East Burwood.
The new station opened with a preview program hosted by Barry McQueen and Nancy Cato followed by a variety program, This Is It!. Reception difficulties in parts of the city resulted in the station's virtually permanent third position in the Melbourne television ratings. ATV had been experimenting with colour transmissions from 1967, when the station was the first to mount a colour outside broadcast in Australia, from the Pakenham races. Many other colour test transmissions occurred subsequently. Full-time colour transmission was introduced to ATV-0 in March 1975 Writer Isaac Asimov predicts life in 50 years back in 1964.
Writing in the New York Times in 1964, science fiction author and biochemistry professor Isaac Asimov predicted what the world would look like 50 years on in 2014. What do you think...how close did he get?
"By 2014, electroluminescent panels will be in common use. Ceilings and walls will glow softly, and in a variety of colours that will change at the touch of a push button," "The appliances of 2014 will have no electric cords, of course, for they will be powered by long-lived batteries," "Communications will become sight-sound and you will see as well as hear the person you telephone. The screen can be used not only to see the people you call but also for studying documents and photographs and reading passages from books." "As for television, wall screens will have replaced the ordinary set; and transparent cubes will be making their appearance in which three-dimensional viewing will be possible." |
Donald Campbell sets world land speed record in Australia.
Campbell decided the Bonneville course was too short at 11-mile (18 km) and the salt surface was in poor condition for his land speed record attempt. After a long search, Lake Eyre, in South Australia, was chosen. It hadn’t rained there for nine years and the vast dry bed of the salt lake offered a course of up to 20-mile (32 km). At the end of 1962, CN7 was shipped out to Australia ready for the new attempt. Low-speed runs had just started when the rains came. By May 1963, Lake Eyre was flooded to a depth of 3 inches, causing the attempt to be abandoned.
Campbell returned to Australia in early spring 1964, but the Lake Eyre course failed to fulfil the early promise it had shown in 1962 and there were further spells of rain. The track never properly dried out. Finally, in July 1964, he took advantage of a break in the weather and made two courageous runs along the shortened and still damp track, posting a new LSR of 403.10 mph (648.73 km/h). This represented the official Land Speed Record for wheeled vehicle. This has never been beaten. In 2014 the fastest production car is the Bugatti Veyron that reached 267.857 mph (431 km/h). 
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Strange but true returns
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Bubble Wrap was invented by two engineers Al Fielding and Swiss inventor Marc Chavannes in Hawthorne, N.J. in 1957. The two were not, however, trying to make a product to be used as packaging material. Rather, they were trying to create a textured wallpaper. They started out by sealing two shower curtains together in such a way that it would capture air bubbles which would make the textured appearance for their wallpaper. Needless to say, this wallpaper idea didn’t sell too well.
It was three years after the initial creation of Bubble Wrap that Frederick W. Bowers, a marketer at Sealed Air, which makes Bubble Wrap, finally came up with the perfect use for their product. On October the 5, 1959, IBM announced their new 1401 variable word length computer. Bowers got the idea that Bubble Wrap could be used as a good packaging material to protect the computer while it was being shipped. He then pitched the idea to IBM and demonstrated Bubble Wrap’s protective abilities. His demonstration went over well and IBM began purchasing Bubble Wrap to protect their 1401 and other fragile product they sold and shipped. From those humble beginnings, the company has grown to annual sales of around $4 billion with a net profit of around $255 million. For reference, about 10% of Sealed Air’s revenue comes from Bubble Wrap, so around $400 million worth of Bubble Wrap is sold annually. |
One of the things to prompt this return of the "Strange but True" is some facts that are being presented by IBM as part of their latest strategy.
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Nowadays there are so many companies with instantly recognizable logos, but few people actually know the meaning behind these corporate symbols. Here are 10 modern day examples of company logos and the meanings behind them:
The FedEx logo looks simple and it’s hard to see what could be hidden within it. But looking closely at the space between the ‘E’ and ‘X’ in the orange Ex shows an arrow pointing forward. This arrow represents moving forward toward to the future.
Mercedes’ tri-star represents the companies dominance over land, sea and air.
The arrow which looks like a smiling face in Amazon’s logo has another meaning behind it. It is a representation of the wide range of items available for retail by Amazon, from A to Z.
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Parched lips - Google Earth
Eat your heart out, Angelina Jolie. These lips may not be as famous Jolie's but they're bigger. This geological find (12°22'13.32"N, 23°19'20.18"E) (see it in Google Earth) is located in Gharb, Darfur, in Sudan. To earthbound locals, the landmass is just another nondescript hill that's 0.5 mile long. If you ask me, this lady needs to do something about her 5 o'clock shadow.
Google Earth shows the artificial island
Need an island, but can't find one to buy? Why not build one? That appears to be the philosophy behind islands being built in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, in the shape of palm trees crowned with crescents. This image shows one (25° 7'2.64"N, 55° 7'59.28"E) (see it in Google Maps) of three identical Palm Islands being built from an estimated 500,000 cubic meters of rock and sand. Google Earth offers a unique way to explore this island, serving up a high-resolution map where you can wander the island's 100 luxury hotels, water parks, and lavish homes.
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A good Father's Day presentWhat about one of the bottles of scotch whisky found recently in a crate that had been stored in the Antarctic for over 100 years.
The crate was recovered from the Antarctic hut of renowned explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton earlier this year after being found in 2006. It contained 11 bottles of Mackinlay's Scotch whisky dating from 1896 to 1907, wrapped in paper and straw to protect them from the harsh conditions of Shackleton's 1907 Nimrod expedition. Even though the crate was frozen solid, the whisky inside could be heard sloshing around in the bottles as Antarctica's -30C temperature was not enough to freeze it. The whisky has been thawed very slowly in recent weeks at theCanterbury Museum in Christchurch on New Zealand's South Island. Once samples have been extracted they will be sent to Scottish distiller Whyte and Mackay, which took over Mackinlay's distillery many years ago. The bottles will then be returned to their home - under the floorboards of Shackleton's hut at Cape Royds on Ross Island, near Antarctica's McMurdo Sound. Richard Paterson, the master blender for Whyte and Mackay, said: "This is immensely exciting and a great find for the Scottish whisky industry. "We hope to take possibly two of the bottles back to Scotland and replicate the recipe. "The ice should have preserved the whisky but we won't know until we examine it." |
Sometimes history mocks the famous
I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.
Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943 and the famous quote by Donald Rumsfeld Reports that say that something hasn't happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns - the ones we don't know we don't know. |
No-you are not the centre of the universe
Click on the video to appreciate the latest discovery from outer space.
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Who needs to work for a living
A US woman has continued an amazing run of luck after pocketing a fourth multi-million dollar payout from a scratchie ticket. Joan Ginther's $US10 million ($14 million) win from a $US50 scratchie ticket last week was nothing out of the ordinary - it was the fourth time she has won a seven-figure sum through playing lottery.
Her win has US news networks calling her the world's luckiest ever lottery player. ABC News said Ginther's first win came in 1993 when she won $US5.4 million. She won a further $US2 million from a $US30 scratchie ticket in 2006. Ginther then won another $US3 million in 2008, again from a scratchie ticket. ABC news reported the 63-year-old bought three of her winning tickets from a local Texas store. The lucky winner requested minimal publicity, according to the Texas lottery commission, and has not given any interviews. Read more: http://www.news.com.au/weird-true-freaky/millions-more-for-scratch-lotto-four-time-winner-joan-ginther/story-e6frflri-1225887913130#ixzz0tMo1XWzu |
Entries flood into Lake Eyre Regatta 2010An outback yacht club says about 50 boats have registered for a rare event in the South Australian desert in early July.
Lake Eyre Yacht Club was formed in 2000 but seldom sees enough water to hold a regatta. The giant salt pan still does not have enough water for sailing this year despite flows from Queensland, so the regatta will be held on Lake Killamperpunna, about 160 kilometres north of Marree. Club commodore Bob Backway says boats have not sailed on that lake since 1989. "To think that just a month-and-a-half ago this area was just bone dry," he said. "[Now] you're sailing on this beautiful lake that looks like it's been there forever but hasn't had water this depth in it for 20 years, it's just ... out of this world."He says yachties will travel from across Australia will take advantage of the rare opportunity for desert sailing. "My wife and I sailed on the lake a few weeks ago and it's just magical and Cooper Creek is just so amazing," he said. "Where the punt is it's 200 metres wide and five metres deep and it's just such beautiful scenery going through the sand dunes and of course the sand dunes are all covered with wild flowers at the moment." |
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Hole-in One by two
BRICKIES labourer Richard Kube plans to have his golf ball mounted after it played a starring role in one of the rarest golfing events in the world two holes in one during the same round.
Even before he walked off the Tasmania Golf Club course at 4.45pm (AEST) yesterday, the local golfing community was abuzz with Mr Kube's amazing double. "We looked it up on the internet and it said it was a one in 67,000,000 occurrence, so it's pretty rare," the 23-year-old said at the 19th hole.
He plays off a two handicap, and is a member of the Tasmanian senior team that will contest the Interstate Series against all other states in Queensland in September. His hole-in-one double happened in the TGC's regular Wednesday competition, which he only entered because he got off work earlier than expected.
His first hole-in-one was on the par three eighth hole using a six iron. The second came on the par three 11th using an eight iron and the same brand new Srixon ball he dug out of his bag on the seventh.
Even before he walked off the Tasmania Golf Club course at 4.45pm (AEST) yesterday, the local golfing community was abuzz with Mr Kube's amazing double. "We looked it up on the internet and it said it was a one in 67,000,000 occurrence, so it's pretty rare," the 23-year-old said at the 19th hole.
He plays off a two handicap, and is a member of the Tasmanian senior team that will contest the Interstate Series against all other states in Queensland in September. His hole-in-one double happened in the TGC's regular Wednesday competition, which he only entered because he got off work earlier than expected.
His first hole-in-one was on the par three eighth hole using a six iron. The second came on the par three 11th using an eight iron and the same brand new Srixon ball he dug out of his bag on the seventh.
Buy a whole NZ town for $800,000Why settle for a $1 million house in Sydney when you can have a whole village in New Zealand for less?
The tiny town of Otira, in the Southern Alps of New Zealand, is on the market for $NZ1 million ($817,060). The village's current owners, Bill and Christine Hennah, made the purchase in 1998 after passing through the town and "feeling sorry for it". They paid $NZ80,000 ($65,290) for the hotel, school, railway station, town hall and 18 houses. The Kiwi couple, now in their 60s, are asking for $NZ350,000 ($285,520) for the hotel, or $NZ1 million for the whole lot. Otira has a population of 40 and is in the middle of a national park on the west coast of the South Island. |
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