Friday  27 Jul 2018           1 comment

This Arizona cypress, now 33" tall, has been growing for about as long as Julian Assange has been holed up at the Ecuadorian embassy in London.

Tuesday  17 Jul 2018           1 comment

It must be summer: car manufacturers are in the area for testing. Two similar specimens of an upcoming model were parked in town today. I got pics of one of them, after which the dude driving the other one put a cover over it.

The guy driving the car I photographed spoke to me and, as you'd expect, wasn't at liberty to say much about the car. He was quite gracious though and thanked me for my interest. There's a temperature sensor in the PVC tube on the roof.

Monday  16 Jul 2018           comment?

Wednesday  11 Jul 2018           comment?

Tuesday  10 Jul 2018           comment?

I want to see Tr--p leave office in disgrace deep enough to forever taint the reputation of anyone who hitched their wagon to his star. Needless to say, you can't always get what you want.

Shortly after being nominated, Brett Kavanaugh said,

No president has ever consulted more widely, or talked with more people from more backgrounds, to seek input about a Supreme Court nomination.

which he can't possibly know and which probably isn't true. But flattery is part of the job in this outfit.

Sunday  08 Jul 2018           comment?

Wednesday  04 Jul 2018           comment?

I was listening to the BBC while doing some woodworking yesterday, including when they played the programme The Invention of Numbers, in which host Bridget Kendall said (starting at 19:06):

As a group, [the Pythagoreans] had some very interesting ideas, didn't they. They wouldn't eat beans, and they thought of odd numbers as female and even numbers as male, and quite a lot of other things that we'd find a bit outlandish today.

It's the other way around. The Pythagoreans deemed odd numbers male and even numbers female. If this is hard to remember, try the mnemonic of recalling the shapes of numerals 0 and 1.

I'm assuming it's obvious that zero is even. Some people are hazy on this, as evidenced by what Mayor Bloomberg of New York felt a need to say while explaining gas rationing after Hurricane Sandy in 2012 (emphasis mine):

Drivers in New York City who have license plates that end in an odd number or end in a letter or other character will be able to buy gas or diesel only on odd-numbered days such as tomorrow which happens to be the 9th. Those with license plates ending in an even number, or the number zero, will be able to buy gas or diesel only on even number days such as Saturday November 10th.

The Pythagoreans weren't the only ones to associate odd/even with male/female. Research from a few years back suggested that people tend to make the association subconsciously. One study doesn't settle the question but I found the methodology the researchers used interesting. If you're curious, see Are Numbers Gendered?

Tuesday  03 Jul 2018           comment?