Rowena Ball

People seem terribly self-absorbed and self-serving these days. In a recent meeting I attended, a keynote speaker talked at the audience for 50 minutes about themself, having apparently written an entire PhD thesis about themself.

For some self-perspective, tonight's astronomy should do the trick

Of course, you need to place a shoe box – a sentry box – on the lookout shelf, into which the cat settles itself into a loaf for supervision duty, and, like all good sentries, dozing on the job.

Cat wants to watch and supervise the work. Cats are fascinated by the motions of humans' clever hands. I used to let my cats sit in a high place where they could see what my hands are doing. Curiosity satisfied, they soon went to sleep!

Be that as it may, the report explicitly states 'This will benefit airlines'. Also, that the high-speed trains will have an onboard bistro. We have a deal.
Did they redact the 'artist's impression of bistro' tho? Fools. What were they thinking of?

Only the sharp eyes will spot that slinking cat. Anyway, Canberrans can have heaps good fun hopping off the Xplorer at Campbelltown, onto T8, off at Glenfield, onto T5, off at Blacktown, onto T1, off at St Marys, onto airport metro

Mitigate risk to qantas' profitability, they mean. In that case, high speed rail could never be extended to Melbourne, and extending it only to Canberra would be political suicide for relatively few additional passengers delivered.

Well I'm still waiting. What is this, let's be nice to Canberra after all? Heaven forbid, the central coast electorates won't put up with that. Canberra-bashing is a traditional Aussie sport, I'm not bad at it meself

Also: Qantas does not fly Sydney-Newcastle

The overall message is succinctly expressed as kabari banjeeri, an old Mithaka dialect phrase, 'the very good companions'. Being a very good companion means that you earn and receive that respect while sharing those qualities with others. You "identify where it may be possible to 'do good’."

Well I've got news for them. I assess their applications.
Scrupulously fairly of course. Taking all relevant matters into consideration.

Truth. No bloody wonder that is the advice. Most actual careers, especially in academic research, are whole systems set up to function through, and depend for success on, career aspirants having someone else to do literally myriads of support tasks and daily life chores for them in perpetuity.

I'll work on it! Way back, I was skilled at wrapping cloth nappies around babies. That particular art has long been superseded, thankfully, but in general I do think that women from ancient times invented much of geometry and topology in optimizing areas and wrappings and fittings of textiles.

Tailor shop

Still thinking... got a vague pocket-ish scheme going, so sought inspiration from a Tailor nearby. The shop was closed of course but I took this photo of the pretty coloured thread spools through the window. Geometry, that's the key. That's progress, isn't it?

You would need pockets and buttons on both sides, too. I shall give the matter some thought overnight

Brill! I can't imagine how you do it, all clothes ought to be reversible

That calculus was developed 200 years before Newton and Liebniz by Madhavan of the Kerala school in India.

Pish tosh. Nothing does hardness like the rough-hewn Aussie hardwood pews of the Rocky Plains Presbyterian Church. You sit awake at an angle of exactly 90 degrees while the cadaverous Reverend McKilljoy thunders hellfire and thumps the pulpit for hours. The woman behind can see if lovers hold hands.

Really, does the ABC always to have to trot out the same old losers?
It’s Abbot this time
Gah!

I went out the back to throw up

Where I work!

True, that. I am proud of our wildlife volunteers who fasten ivermectin strips at wombat burrows to cure the poor animals of parasitic scabies mites caught from foxes introduced by humans!
I wonder if the creationists/spurious-uses-of-ivermectin mob donate to that cause in their paroxysms of proud

There are some dots to join between spurious uses of ivermectin and creationism, but their advocates likely are the same people and, based on form, it would have to do with sheer venality. Creationism makes money, so...
#FollowTheMoneyTrail

Yarralumla creek's concrete straitjacket is damaged after a storm. Image from ABC News/ James Tugwell https://www.instagram.com/p/DUhmY1ult0U/

'Thunderstorms caused damage to Yarralumla Creek'.

No, humans caused damage to Yarralumla Creek. Why was it ever thought ok to put creeks into concrete straitjackets?

The trend began as relief works for unemployed men in the 1930s. It causes flooding and ruins wildlife habitat. #urbanism #wildlife

Indeed! I feel like a result obtained rigorously by Robert May in 1972 (Nature) would be a good starting point: A complex system that is too richly or too strongly connected is likely to be unstable and this instability becomes more dramatic the larger the number of connected nodes.

Oh humans typically tire quickly of their new toys and discard them. Whatever happened to the Casio calculator watch. What next. They'll all have artificial quantum consciousness to play havoc with that's what. Then humans will become extinct through their own stupidity.

True, that. I would choose hell except there are no toilets there, the bible says it is eternal damnation without relief.

Likely the answers to this problem lie in mathematics!

Typically those certain people likely believe in god and that they are doing god's work, so THEY will go to heaven. But if a mob of otherwise sin-free atheists arrive in purgatory, satan would pop up and say 'You lot must feel pretty bloody silly. Down you come for eternity!' So you can't win. 😉

Yes that is always helpful. I'm looking at ways in which people could AI-proof their works.

My mathematical research is a great joy and delight. But I no longer want to publish because AI will plagiarise and mangle it. I'm sure lots of researchers feel like this.