Fliegende Bauten
Photographer: Velibor Lukic.
Please note: This photograph is copyrighted and not for distribution or public use.
A koala named Bob (top), rescued from last week's
deadly bushfires, puts his paw around new friend and fellow fire
survivor Sam as she recovers from her burns at a wildlife centre near
Melbourne. Photo: Reuters
Sunday, 24 November 2013
Saturday, 3 August 2013
Batathonic: I'm in love with Bats
I'm completely besotted with bats. I know some find them creepy, but I love watching them scoffing away in trees, and the movement when they fly. When they're altogether, being beasts that live in colonies, they make great little snickering noises. Obviously, as they work most generally by sonar, we can't hear anything else when they communicate.
My favourites are microbats, which surprisingly enough, due to their vulnerability, are the most common bat species. All up there are over 1,000 bat species of the Order Chiroptera, which means ‘hand winged’, of which megabats Order Megachiroptera of which there are about 170 species. And yep, we really have microbats and megabats. I reckon they could do some good anime with them!
In Australia there are heaps of bats all over the place including in populated areas and excluding desert areas. Friends have had them fly in open windows, particularly microbats.
I've found some great clips on Youtube, so I thought I'd give you a looksy. This is an absolutely gorgeous clip which gives you a good insight to the size of microbats, and their eating style. In this one the bat is nibbling on a banana. They generally eat pollon, which is what that surprising tongue is for, fruit, insects, and caterpillar. They live and nest in tree hollows and bark.
The next video gives you a pretty good idea of the movements and fashion of flying. Another rescue and you can see him flying around the house.
The next one is a really gorgeous piece of a typical evening with ordinary flying foxes, not microbats.
I've put some reading references below including an article which details one of the significant problems with bats. They have been linked with viruses that are believed to have killed horses, and also with a school with disease that have caused child fatalities.
Further reading:
A lot of info on bats in Sydney, including school educational material and academic research reports
Loads of Bat Facts including eating habits, environmental impacts, and caring for injured bats
Bats Linked to Hendra Virus in Horses
Bats Linked to Human Fatalities
My favourites are microbats, which surprisingly enough, due to their vulnerability, are the most common bat species. All up there are over 1,000 bat species of the Order Chiroptera, which means ‘hand winged’, of which megabats Order Megachiroptera of which there are about 170 species. And yep, we really have microbats and megabats. I reckon they could do some good anime with them!
In Australia there are heaps of bats all over the place including in populated areas and excluding desert areas. Friends have had them fly in open windows, particularly microbats.
I've found some great clips on Youtube, so I thought I'd give you a looksy. This is an absolutely gorgeous clip which gives you a good insight to the size of microbats, and their eating style. In this one the bat is nibbling on a banana. They generally eat pollon, which is what that surprising tongue is for, fruit, insects, and caterpillar. They live and nest in tree hollows and bark.
The next video gives you a pretty good idea of the movements and fashion of flying. Another rescue and you can see him flying around the house.
The next one is a really gorgeous piece of a typical evening with ordinary flying foxes, not microbats.
I've put some reading references below including an article which details one of the significant problems with bats. They have been linked with viruses that are believed to have killed horses, and also with a school with disease that have caused child fatalities.
Further reading:
A lot of info on bats in Sydney, including school educational material and academic research reports
Loads of Bat Facts including eating habits, environmental impacts, and caring for injured bats
Bats Linked to Hendra Virus in Horses
Bats Linked to Human Fatalities
Tuesday, 30 July 2013
Love to Hate Politicians
We all love to hate politicians and the government. A friend shared this newspaper article from the Sydney Morning Herald on Facebook. Another sign of insider scoops and political corruption. What a surprise. Has the feel of the fine old adage:
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/coalitions-tent-city-trip-funded-by-logistics-company-that-provides-tents-20130730-2qws3.html#ixzz2aZTLpqNz
How do you know when a politicians lying?
their lips are moving.
So, here we go:
Coalition's 'tent city' trip funded by logistics company that provides tents
- Date
Abbott's Nauru plan questioned
A logistics company that stands to profit from the
Coalition's ''tent city'' on Nauru funded the trip of its immigration
spokesman Scott Morrison to the remote island to announce the plan to
house up to 2000 asylum seekers in tents.
The trip to Nauru was facilitated by Toll Holdings, which has multimillion-dollar contracts to help handle asylum seekers and is understood to have chartered the flight to Nauru for the Coalition and a journalist and photographer from News Corporation.
Tony Abbott and opposition immigration minister Scott Morrison. Photo: Jason South
Contacted on Tuesday morning, Mr Morrison's office had no
policy documents to accompany the announcement, and a spokeswoman
advised reporters to get their information from what had been reported
in News Corp newspapers. Mr Morrison later issued a news release with
broad details of the policy.
''My understanding is that the trip was wholly privately
funded,'' Opposition Leader Tony Abbott said. Asked whether Toll paid
for it, he said: ''Look, it's wholly privately funded, and there's no
reason whatsoever why it shouldn't be funded in that way.''
Fairfax Media is awaiting a response from Toll Holdings.
The Coalition has announced a plan to massively expand the tent accommodation on Nauru. Photo: Angela Wylie
Allan Asher, a former Commonwealth ombudsman, was critical of
the arrangement: ''I think at any time of the year that would be a
questionable thing, but in the context of elections, it just makes it an
entirely inappropriate thing to do.''
Toll Holdings has contracts with the Department of Immigration valued at about $26 million.
This is not the first time a company has funded media travel to Nauru.
Illustration: Ron Tandberg.
In 2011 the trucking baron Lindsay Fox loaned his private
plane to Mr Abbott, Mr Morrison and a media group - including Fairfax,
News Limited and the ABC - after the government refused Mr Abbott the
use of government VIP jets.
with Matt O'Sullivan and Bianca Hall
Questions over funding for media coverage and capacity for
asylum seekers have clouded Tony Abbott's plans for using Nauru as a key
centre for off shore processing.
The trip to Nauru was facilitated by Toll Holdings, which has multimillion-dollar contracts to help handle asylum seekers and is understood to have chartered the flight to Nauru for the Coalition and a journalist and photographer from News Corporation.
Tony Abbott and opposition immigration minister Scott Morrison. Photo: Jason SouthFairfax Media is awaiting a response from Toll Holdings.
The Coalition has announced a plan to massively expand the tent accommodation on Nauru. Photo: Angela WylieToll Holdings has contracts with the Department of Immigration valued at about $26 million.
This is not the first time a company has funded media travel to Nauru.
Illustration: Ron Tandberg. with Matt O'Sullivan and Bianca Hall
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/coalitions-tent-city-trip-funded-by-logistics-company-that-provides-tents-20130730-2qws3.html#ixzz2aZTLpqNz
River Fleetathonic - London, UK
London’s Fleet River, runs, not surprisingly, under Fleet
Street, and actually goes quite a way.
What is interesting of course, is that it is completely underground,
with quite a history and checkered past.
I recall being gobsmacked when I found out about the Fleet and had a
look on-line – pretty damned fabulous.
The stuff below here is from a site called London's Lost Rivers. There's a good slide show of photos and it the Fleet River, and also heaps of other info on other rivers (obviously) with plenty of good shots right through the site.
London's Lost Rivers - The River Fleet
Outfall under Blackfriars Bridge
The
source of the Fleet were two springs at Hampstead Heath separated by
Parliament Hill– one on the western side near Hampstead and one on the
eastern side in the grounds of Kenwood House. Each spring feeds a line
of ponds on either side (the Hampstead Ponds to the west and Highgate
Ponds to the east). They were built as resevoirs in the 1700’s. These
sources joined together in Camden Town and flow under Kings Cross. From
here the Fleet flows down the valley of Farringdon Street, finally
falling into the Thames beneath Blackfriars Bridge.
The River Fleet is the most well known of London’s subterranean rivers and is known to be used in Roman times as a major river with a tide mill in its estuary. The word "Fleet" is derived from an old Anglo-Saxon word flÄ“ot meaning "estuary, bay or inlet". The Fleet once was a broad tidal basin several hundred feet wide. The higher reaches of the rivers flow were known as the Holbourne (or Oldbourne), from the word Holburna (from where the name Holborn was derived from) meaning hollow stream, referring to its deep valley. A large iron bridge called The Holborn Viaduct ,opened by Queen Victoria in 1840, spans what is known as the Fleet Valley.
King's Cross was originally named Battle Bridge, referring to an ancient bridge over The Fleet where Queen Boudicca’s army is said to have fought an important battle against the Romans in 60 AD and 80,000 Britons are said to have been slaughtered here. Rumours are that Boudicca is buried undeneath a platform of Kings Cross railway station which is perhaps, no more than an urban myth….
The Fleet ran beside St Pancras Old Church nearby to the present day railway station of the same name. It was one of Europe’s most ancient sites of Christian worship possibly dating back to the early 4th century. The present church building has been here since the 11th or 12th Century. A board on the entrance railings the Church show a drawing of bathers in the Fleet in 1827. During 1865 an architect called Thomas Hardy, who later became famous as a novelist and poet, was overseeing the careful removal of bodies and tombs from part of the churchyard on which the Midland Railway line was being built. The headstones around this Ash Tree in the remainder of St Pancras Churchyard were placed by Hardy as part of that project and still exists in the churchyard to this day.
In Roman & Anglo Saxon times the Fleet was a major river but the flow of the river was greatly reduced as London grew in population as local industry waste (such as remains of carcasses from the adjacent Smithfield Market) and human waste polluted the river by the 13th century. The lower section of the river was now known as the Fleet Ditch by this time and was little more than a large open sewer. In 1710 Jonathan Swift (author of "Gullivers Travels") mentioned the filth in the Fleet during a storm in a poem:
"Sweepings from Butchers Stalls, Dung, Guts and Blood,
Drown'd Puppies, stinking Sprats, all drench'd in Mud,
Dead Cats and Turnip-Tops come tumbling down the Flood"
The surrounding area became undesirable and became notorious for its closely packed slum dwellings bad characters & diseases. Charles Dickens based Fagin’s Den in “Oliver Twist” in this area. The cheap land became a popular location to build prisons. Most of the prisons of old London including Newgate, Clerkenwell, Ludgate, Fleet & Bridewell prisons were in the Fleet Valley. The introduction of the cholera into Clerkenwell Prison, in 1832, was attributed to the effluvia of the Fleet,
Aside from the tales of pollution a more positive aspect of the Fleet is that a large number of wells were built along the banks of the Fleet and reputed to have healing qualities. These included Chalybeate Wells, St Chads, Clerks Well & Bagnigge Wells. As a result, the Fleet was often nicknamed the “River of Wells” with some of these wells surviving until the 19th century.
Following the Great Fire of London in 1666, extensive building work took place including St Paul's Cathedral by Christopher Wren. He went on to convert the lower reach of the Fleet into what was then known as the New Canal based on the elaborate Grand Canal in Venice. The mouth of the Fleet was broadened to a width of forty feet and flanked with great wharfs for unloading coal and traversed by four new decorative bridges, at Bridewell, Fleet Street, Fleet Lane, and Holborn. The torrent of pollution from upriver, which was still basically an open sewer, caused the canal to be a failure. It became choked with mud and was no longer navigable. Several people had fallen in and been suffocated in the mud resulting in sections being covered over from 1732. The development of the Regents Canal covered the river in King's Cross and Camden from 1812. The construction of the Metropolitan line in 1862 railway buried the Fleet along Farringdon Road although the river created problems later that year when the sewer burst causing a large section of the arches lining the tunnel to collapse. Over a hundred years later It almost gave its name to a tube line, but since its opening coincided with the Queen’s silver jubilee in 1977, the Fleet Line was named the Jubilee Line.
The final upper section of the river was covered when Hampstead was expanded in the 1870s. The Fleet now exists as a large underground sewer.
More pictures taken along the course of the River Fleet can be found on the Author's Guided Walks section on this website.
The River Fleet is the most well known of London’s subterranean rivers and is known to be used in Roman times as a major river with a tide mill in its estuary. The word "Fleet" is derived from an old Anglo-Saxon word flÄ“ot meaning "estuary, bay or inlet". The Fleet once was a broad tidal basin several hundred feet wide. The higher reaches of the rivers flow were known as the Holbourne (or Oldbourne), from the word Holburna (from where the name Holborn was derived from) meaning hollow stream, referring to its deep valley. A large iron bridge called The Holborn Viaduct ,opened by Queen Victoria in 1840, spans what is known as the Fleet Valley.
King's Cross was originally named Battle Bridge, referring to an ancient bridge over The Fleet where Queen Boudicca’s army is said to have fought an important battle against the Romans in 60 AD and 80,000 Britons are said to have been slaughtered here. Rumours are that Boudicca is buried undeneath a platform of Kings Cross railway station which is perhaps, no more than an urban myth….
The Fleet ran beside St Pancras Old Church nearby to the present day railway station of the same name. It was one of Europe’s most ancient sites of Christian worship possibly dating back to the early 4th century. The present church building has been here since the 11th or 12th Century. A board on the entrance railings the Church show a drawing of bathers in the Fleet in 1827. During 1865 an architect called Thomas Hardy, who later became famous as a novelist and poet, was overseeing the careful removal of bodies and tombs from part of the churchyard on which the Midland Railway line was being built. The headstones around this Ash Tree in the remainder of St Pancras Churchyard were placed by Hardy as part of that project and still exists in the churchyard to this day.
In Roman & Anglo Saxon times the Fleet was a major river but the flow of the river was greatly reduced as London grew in population as local industry waste (such as remains of carcasses from the adjacent Smithfield Market) and human waste polluted the river by the 13th century. The lower section of the river was now known as the Fleet Ditch by this time and was little more than a large open sewer. In 1710 Jonathan Swift (author of "Gullivers Travels") mentioned the filth in the Fleet during a storm in a poem:
"Sweepings from Butchers Stalls, Dung, Guts and Blood,
Drown'd Puppies, stinking Sprats, all drench'd in Mud,
Dead Cats and Turnip-Tops come tumbling down the Flood"
The surrounding area became undesirable and became notorious for its closely packed slum dwellings bad characters & diseases. Charles Dickens based Fagin’s Den in “Oliver Twist” in this area. The cheap land became a popular location to build prisons. Most of the prisons of old London including Newgate, Clerkenwell, Ludgate, Fleet & Bridewell prisons were in the Fleet Valley. The introduction of the cholera into Clerkenwell Prison, in 1832, was attributed to the effluvia of the Fleet,
Aside from the tales of pollution a more positive aspect of the Fleet is that a large number of wells were built along the banks of the Fleet and reputed to have healing qualities. These included Chalybeate Wells, St Chads, Clerks Well & Bagnigge Wells. As a result, the Fleet was often nicknamed the “River of Wells” with some of these wells surviving until the 19th century.
Following the Great Fire of London in 1666, extensive building work took place including St Paul's Cathedral by Christopher Wren. He went on to convert the lower reach of the Fleet into what was then known as the New Canal based on the elaborate Grand Canal in Venice. The mouth of the Fleet was broadened to a width of forty feet and flanked with great wharfs for unloading coal and traversed by four new decorative bridges, at Bridewell, Fleet Street, Fleet Lane, and Holborn. The torrent of pollution from upriver, which was still basically an open sewer, caused the canal to be a failure. It became choked with mud and was no longer navigable. Several people had fallen in and been suffocated in the mud resulting in sections being covered over from 1732. The development of the Regents Canal covered the river in King's Cross and Camden from 1812. The construction of the Metropolitan line in 1862 railway buried the Fleet along Farringdon Road although the river created problems later that year when the sewer burst causing a large section of the arches lining the tunnel to collapse. Over a hundred years later It almost gave its name to a tube line, but since its opening coincided with the Queen’s silver jubilee in 1977, the Fleet Line was named the Jubilee Line.
The final upper section of the river was covered when Hampstead was expanded in the 1870s. The Fleet now exists as a large underground sewer.
More pictures taken along the course of the River Fleet can be found on the Author's Guided Walks section on this website.
The article below comes from a website of British History Online and is from an old book published in 1878. There are some page reference in the piece that are from the original book, so I haven't added the actual pages referenced in this article.
THE FLEET RIVER AND FLEET DITCH
The name of this ill-used stream, once fresh and
fleet, now a mere sluggish and plague-breeding
sewer, is traced by some to the Anglo-Saxon
fleotan, "to float;" and by others, to the Saxon
fleot, or flod, "a flood." The sources of the river
Fleet are on the high lands of Hampstead and
Highgate, and the chief of them rise near Caen
Wood. The Fleet was fed by the Oldborne, which
rose, says Stow, "where now the Bars do stand,"
and ran down to Old Borne Bridge, and into the
River of Wells or Turnmill Brook. The Fleet
was also fed by all the springs of Clerkenwell,
such as Clerkenwell itself, Skinner's Well, Fogg's
Well, Tod's Well, Loder's Well, Rad Well (near
the Charterhouse), and the Horse Pool, at Smithfield.
Friday, 26 July 2013
Quotes - Dorothy Parker
Dorothy Parker didn't really seem to have a happy life. Although she
had some success writing film scrips, living the time in a
hotel/live-in which was pretty popular during her time, she was unlucky
in love and suffered bady from depression. Her passion was poetry,
which didn't go very well for her either, being a fan of Sylvia Plath
wasn't exactly an uplifting style to follow.
There's a book I read on her which was pretty good, an biography called Dorothy Parker: What hell is this? by Marion Meade. There's a precis and what have you on it at Goodreads
“Beauty is only skin deep, but ugly goes clean to the bone."
Dorothy Parker (from Goodreads Quotes)
“Beauty is only skin deep, but ugly goes clean to the bone.”
― Dorothy Parker
“If you want to know what God thinks of money, just look at the people he gave it to.”
― Dorothy Parker
“The first thing I do in the morning is brush my teeth and sharpen my tongue.”
― Dorothy Parker
“This is not a novel to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force.”
― Dorothy Parker, The Algonquin Wits
“I like to have a martini,
Two at the very most.
After three I'm under the table,
after four I'm under my host.”
― Dorothy Parker, The Collected Dorothy Parker
“Men seldom make passes at girls who wear glasses.”
― Dorothy Parker
“It serves me right for putting all my eggs in one bastard.”
― Dorothy Parker, You Might as Well Live: The Life and Times of Dorothy Parker
“I require three things in a man: he must be handsome, ruthless, and stupid.”
― Dorothy Parker
“That woman speaks eighteen languages, and can't say 'No' in any of them.”
― Dorothy Parker, While Rome Burns
“Take me or leave me; or, as is the usual order of things, both.”
― Dorothy Parker
“That would be a good thing for them to cut on my tombstone: Wherever she went, including here, it was against her better judgment.”
― Dorothy Parker
“If I didn't care for fun and such,
I'd probably amount to much.
But I shall stay the way I am,
Because I do not give a damn.”
― Dorothy Parker, Enough Rope
There's a book I read on her which was pretty good, an biography called Dorothy Parker: What hell is this? by Marion Meade. There's a precis and what have you on it at Goodreads
“Beauty is only skin deep, but ugly goes clean to the bone."Dorothy Parker (from Goodreads Quotes)
“Beauty is only skin deep, but ugly goes clean to the bone.”
― Dorothy Parker
“If you want to know what God thinks of money, just look at the people he gave it to.”
― Dorothy Parker
“The first thing I do in the morning is brush my teeth and sharpen my tongue.”
― Dorothy Parker
“This is not a novel to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force.”
― Dorothy Parker, The Algonquin Wits
“I like to have a martini,
Two at the very most.
After three I'm under the table,
after four I'm under my host.”
― Dorothy Parker, The Collected Dorothy Parker
“Men seldom make passes at girls who wear glasses.”
― Dorothy Parker
“It serves me right for putting all my eggs in one bastard.”
― Dorothy Parker, You Might as Well Live: The Life and Times of Dorothy Parker
“If you wear a short enough skirt, the party will come to you.”
― Dorothy Parker
― Dorothy Parker
“I require three things in a man: he must be handsome, ruthless, and stupid.”
― Dorothy Parker
“That woman speaks eighteen languages, and can't say 'No' in any of them.”
― Dorothy Parker, While Rome Burns
“Take me or leave me; or, as is the usual order of things, both.”
― Dorothy Parker
“That would be a good thing for them to cut on my tombstone: Wherever she went, including here, it was against her better judgment.”
― Dorothy Parker
“If I didn't care for fun and such,
I'd probably amount to much.
But I shall stay the way I am,
Because I do not give a damn.”
― Dorothy Parker, Enough Rope
Tuesday, 23 July 2013
Bollox, I'm never going to get this undone
The essence of Knot Theory
Every time I get out my mp3 player, no matter how properly I've wound up the cord, I bugger it up. It unwind it, but the second I grab the other end to stick an earbud in, it's caught on something. A button, my collar, knotted on itself before I can even finish putting it back in my pocket, or just putting in an earbud. Same with the laptop cord, take it out of the bag, plug in one end, then I always, have to unravel it again. The conspiracy is true, everything I touch turns to pooh for a reason.Yep, you got it. Some mathematician has been as frustrated as me and worked it out. The theory is self explanatory Knot Theory, sometimes also referred to as Tangle Theory which seems to go much more into dealing with dimensions. This is not to be confused with String Theory (that I think is more like Tangle Theory, I'm getting confused here where they may be some cross-over?) which deals with extra dimensions, which, frustrated Einstein no end.
Apparently there are a couple of mathematical components which together bring all this together to emerge with this complete Tangle Theory. There's a pretzel link and a pretzel knot (you got, it is really called 'pretzel', although naming a mathematical theory as an item of food sounds intriguing).
One part of the theory is extracted from the Second Law of Thermodynamics, which simply put translates to the chaos thing where all order tends towards disorder. Sounds like a contradiction in terms to me. So, we're told the next bit is 'complicated'.
I found this vid from Youtube really good.
.
If you're keen, it carries on here in Part 2. I found it much more complicated, but having said that, I'm find dealing with dimensions really difficult to get my head around.
Not Knot (Part 2/2)
I've tried to find a couple of articles here which are for the untried mathematician or physicist, that would be me, so it's something I can comprehend.
Good luck with this, and happy reading! Below is an article from 'Bend Weekly'.
Dec 21,2007
More reading:
Sunday, 21 July 2013
Quirkathonic: Soprano Extraordinaire update
Fliegende Bauten
Character: Mischa.
Photographer: Velibor Lukic.
Please note: This photograph is copyrighted and not for distribution or public use.
Authorthonic
I have decided to put up cool quotes that come up from books I read. I generally note them down whilst I'm in the middle of a book, thinking, I'm going to be especially articulate and awesomely witty by dropping this into a conversation. Like you do, I never remember to drop them in the right places. But hey, I think about it. Of course, sometimes I just can't be bothered to pick up a pen and paper to get it together and jot one down, so there will be some sad (RIP) quips I've let drift away into the stratosphere.
I've tried to link these to the author's facebook or blog page.
If I really get it together, I'll come back and put a bit of a brief precis and comment beside the book.
"When the only tongue you're getting is from your cat...it's time to get out more."
Dannika Dark - #1 Sterling (Mageri Series)
"I shrieked incoherent made up swear words as the pain stopped messing around and bent me over and made me it's bitch."
Nicole Peeler - #2 Jane True Series
I added this cover, just for the aesthetics, love the manga look and the colours a great.
"Fashion is for the ugly and insecure. I am only interested in style, and of course, sex."
Tracey Sinclair - #2 Wolf Night (Dark Dates Series)
"...he looked great, in fact, the love child of Jesus and Jim Morrison."
Tracey Sinclair - #2 Wolf Night (Dark Dates Series)
"...hard to be perfect, but it's a burden I've learned to cope with."
Laurell K Hamilton - Anita Blake Series
I really can't remember where this ones comes from, I'll have to try and do a bit of research on it. For an insult, how does this one take you (pun intended):
"...why don't you go look it up on shoveitupyourarse.com."
I've tried to link these to the author's facebook or blog page.
If I really get it together, I'll come back and put a bit of a brief precis and comment beside the book.
"When the only tongue you're getting is from your cat...it's time to get out more."
Dannika Dark - #1 Sterling (Mageri Series)
"I shrieked incoherent made up swear words as the pain stopped messing around and bent me over and made me it's bitch."
Nicole Peeler - #2 Jane True Series
I added this cover, just for the aesthetics, love the manga look and the colours a great.
"Fashion is for the ugly and insecure. I am only interested in style, and of course, sex."
Tracey Sinclair - #2 Wolf Night (Dark Dates Series)
"...he looked great, in fact, the love child of Jesus and Jim Morrison."
Tracey Sinclair - #2 Wolf Night (Dark Dates Series)
"...hard to be perfect, but it's a burden I've learned to cope with."
Laurell K Hamilton - Anita Blake Series
I really can't remember where this ones comes from, I'll have to try and do a bit of research on it. For an insult, how does this one take you (pun intended):
"...why don't you go look it up on shoveitupyourarse.com."
Thursday, 18 July 2013
Australian Magpie-athonic
The morning calls of the maggies are awesome to wake up in the morning. Australia has the most singing birds on the planet and are thought to be where song birds originated from. Youtube has some really good stuff on them. Magpies are pretty clever and have been know to learn words, mimic sounds and when found damaged and adopted by people make quite good friends. Taronga Zoo have trained a couple of them and we have seen them taught to pick up paper and put it in the bin.
Here's a bit of a feeding frenzy, most of these wild birds get used to you and regularly come back for a free feed.
They're also renowned for getting pretty aggressive in mating sason!
Monday, 15 July 2013
Sunday, 14 July 2013
Edgar Allan Poe-athonic
For a movie of one of Edgar's pieces, I didn't find this too bad, and if you love a bit of almost-goth, this is pretty good. It didn't actually get good reviews, but I liked it. There's one scene where Ligeia answers the door after getting out of the shower, and has a laugh at someone else's expense - the way she laughs, I just love it! There is an older version of this movie in black & white with Vincent Price.
Here is my favourite song through the beginning of the trailer with Sofya Skya, and then the video shows scenes from the movie.
The earlier version with Vincent Price.
Below is another movie with Vincent Price in. He did a few more Edgar Allan Poe movies. Here is The Fall of the House of Usher shown below.
And below we have The Raven.
And below The Pit and the Pendulum.
Here is my favourite song through the beginning of the trailer with Sofya Skya, and then the video shows scenes from the movie.
Below is another movie with Vincent Price in. He did a few more Edgar Allan Poe movies. Here is The Fall of the House of Usher shown below.
And below we have The Raven.
And below The Pit and the Pendulum.
Friday, 12 July 2013
Cave-athonic: Naica, Chihuahuan, Mexico & Jenolan Caves, Australia
Naica mountain in the Chihuahuan Desert
This has to be one of the most amazing, awesome-athonic things I have ever seen in my entire life. I haven't seen it in the flesh, although I have been to the World Heritage Jenolan Caves a couple of times. Great and a fair bit of Australian history there, with a whole bunch of caves. Incredible too, the total, complete absence of light in the caves, which stay at a pretty constant temperature all year around.This material comes from a National Geographic article, and the photos are marvellous.
This bit here with facts about the crystals in the caves comes from an article from Discovery
Interesting Facts about the Crystal Caves:
- The giant crystals found in the caves at Naica are softer than a human fingernail.
- The largest crystal found at Naica is 500,000 years old.
- The stunning crystal pillars are made from the same common mineral as drywall - it's called gypsum.
- The Naica cave's deadly heat comes from the depths of the Earth. Naica sits on a set of fault lines. A magma chamber a mile and a half down warms the water that flows throughout the mountain.
- The Naica principle cave "Cueva de Los Cristales" is 45 degrees Celsius and 100 per cent humidity.
- The Naica facility pumps 16,000 gallons of water per minute out of the mine and runs 24-7.
- The water pumped from the Naica mine formed a lake in the arid Chihuahua desert and is also used to irrigate a golf course.
- Naica is one of the most productive lead mines in the world, and a huge supplier of the world's silver as well.
At the very bottom, I've put up another piece regarding Australia's World Heritage Jenolan Caves.
Giant Crystal Cave Comes to Light
National Geographic, September 26, 2006
Four amateur explorers have discovered a giant, crystal-filled cave in California's Sequoia National Park that scientists are hailing as a major find.
Only a small portion of the cavern has been explored so far. But researchers say they have already found several large chambers with a variety of formations, including thin curtains of minerals several feet tall, slender "soda straws" up to six feet (two meters) long, and sheets of glimmering crystals on the cave's floors and walls.
Explorers have also found animal remains, including the skeleton of what resembles an ancient bear. That find inspired researchers to name the cave Ursa Minor—Latin for "small bear" and the name of the Little Dipper constellation.
The cavern was found on August 19 by members of the Kentucky-based nonprofit Cave Research Foundation, which has been surveying the park in search of new cave complexes.
Scientists don't yet know how large the Ursa Minor system is, but they say they have already seen enough to believe it could yield many new insights into the ancient past of the U.S. West.
"There are things in the cave that could really open windows into our knowledge of geologic history and the formation of caves throughout the West," park cave manager Joel Despain told the Associated Press.
"We're just beginning to understand the scientific ramifications of this."
—Blake de Pastino
Jenolan Caves, Blue Mountains, New South Wales, Australia
This is a pretty area, and the Caves are set down in a hollow between a couple of mountains, nice windy roads on the way down. These caves are the world's oldest, and there is a really extensive network. It's a really good place to go for a long week-end with plenty of walks and pretty scenery. There's a lot of caves there with a good many open for guided walk throughs. They also hold a few music concerts in the caves with easier access and good acoustics.
Wednesday, 10 July 2013
X-ray spex - Stockwellathonic
This vid is dedicated to my other half, to when we lived in Brixton, where we met going to a party. Go South London! And also to my friend Linda - excellentathonic.
Tuesday, 9 July 2013
Maruspialathonic - Australiana Faunathonic
The land of marsupials. Just so you know, marsupials are beasts that once they birth a minuscule live baby usually only the one. The baby claws it's way round to a pouch, where thy generally have teats are etc. Then they develop there, have their milk theirs, and grow up a little there. And, just to amuse you, a baby echidna is called a 'puggle'. How cool is that?
An puggle vid from Taronga Zoo in Sydney from Youtube. Totally cute as a button, awesome!
Here's a bit of an explanatory article from Australia Life.
Marsupials
Marsupials evolved in North America, found their way to South America, and then into Australia via Antarctica when the southern continents were joined as Gondwana. In Australia they diversified to fill many niches. Most of the 140 species of marsupials in Australia are found nowhere else in the world; some of them are also found in New Guinea which was connected to Australia in more recent geological times.A marsupium or pouch is one of the features that characterise marsupials although not all have a permanent pouch and a few have none at all.
Saturday, 6 July 2013
Wednesday, 3 July 2013
Koalariffic
Koala's are renowned for being that cute cuddly things from trees. A distinctive part of marsupials and Australia. Of course they can also be pretty vicious, and you've got to be pretty good to see one in the wild. They've got sharp claws, and particularly strong legs and arms to climb trees at a good clip.
To avoid predators, koalas generally try to stay in trees, susbsisting on particular types of leaves from eucalyptus trees. The point of trivia here is that koalas don't usually drink any water at all, getting all the sustenance they need merely from their leafy diet. Source: Koala Information
They're one of those beasts, that like the goanna, when threatened on the ground, that will run for the nearest thing that goes up. And if you're there and the closest thing they'll leave you well scratched and clawed up. Anyway, here's a pretty good love story from the Sydney Morning Herald.
To avoid predators, koalas generally try to stay in trees, susbsisting on particular types of leaves from eucalyptus trees. The point of trivia here is that koalas don't usually drink any water at all, getting all the sustenance they need merely from their leafy diet. Source: Koala Information
They're one of those beasts, that like the goanna, when threatened on the ground, that will run for the nearest thing that goes up. And if you're there and the closest thing they'll leave you well scratched and clawed up. Anyway, here's a pretty good love story from the Sydney Morning Herald.
Love in a time of bushfires: a koala's story
Thursday, 27 June 2013
Snakeorama & Catatonic
Truth is stranger they reckon - sometimes it seems truly strange and
truly awesome. I live in hope. This is an article from the Australian
ABC.
The cat's owner, Wendy Wallis, was playing with her children in the backyard when she noticed the cat was walking towards her with something around its neck.
At first Ms Wallis thought the cat was carrying a bird.
"Jelly was about half way up the backyard when I realised it was a snake, and then it was panic stations, because all the children were outside,' she said.
Snake collar for cat
December 12th, 2007
Cat recovering from snake collar
Updated
A Tasmanian cat has used up at least one life learning that it's not all right to attack native wildlife.
Usually,
Jelly the cat kills birds. But when Jelly bit a snake, the snake bit
back, twisting itself around the cat's neck like a necklace.The cat's owner, Wendy Wallis, was playing with her children in the backyard when she noticed the cat was walking towards her with something around its neck.
At first Ms Wallis thought the cat was carrying a bird.
"Jelly was about half way up the backyard when I realised it was a snake, and then it was panic stations, because all the children were outside,' she said.
Sunday, 23 June 2013
Australia the great outdoors - our toothy friend the crocodile
The world is full of many weird and wonderful things. And I'm not talking about Ivan Milat.
In defence of the crocodile, let me mention that crocodile porosis, native to Australia, is the only reptile to take care of its' young.
In defence of the crocodile, let me mention that crocodile porosis, native to Australia, is the only reptile to take care of its' young.
Latest Crocodile Attacks stories on ABC Darwin
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Friday 3 May 2013
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Tuesday 23 April 2013
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A Top End teenager is lucky to be alive after a three-metre saltwater crocodile exploded out of the water at a popular fishing spot on the outskirts of Darwin and charged at him before changing direction to snatch a pitbull terrier standing next to him. ...Tuesday 23 April 2013
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A French worker in the Top End had a brush with death yesterday, when he fought off a crocodile in shallow water after it bit his head....Monday 22 April 2013
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A man was bitten on the head by a saltwater crocodile and had to punch it in the snout to escape....Monday 22 April 2013
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Northern Territory Parks and Wildlife rangers have removed a big saltwater crocodile from the Top End's Fogg Dam Conservation Reserve....Wednesday 10 April 2013
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Tuesday 9 April 2013
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A small crocodile has been rescued after wandering on to a busy highway about 10 kilometres from Darwin's central business district. Northern Territory Police say the metre-long crocodile was first sighted near a service station on the Stuart Highway at suburban Berrimah. ...Tuesday 9 April 2013
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The local primary school at Daly River (Nauiyu) has probably had more crocodiles than students through it over the last couple of days....Tuesday 9 April 2013
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Tuesday 2 April 2013
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A problem crocodile that had been menacing children at a remote Territory community has been shot. Rangers say the big saltie was captured at the Palumpa community in the Daly River Reserve, about 240 kilometres south-west of Darwin....Tuesday 19 March 2013
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A monster 4.5 metre saltwater crocodile that had attacked a horse has been caught near Borroloola in Arnhem Land....Friday 15 March 2013
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Wildlife rangers have removed a 3.8 metre crocodile from a trap near the Inpex project site in Darwin Harbour....Tuesday 12 March 2013
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The world's biggest crocodile in captivity has died, meaning the title has been reclaimed by a crocodile originally from the Northern Territory....Monday 11 February 2013
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A crocodile that took a nine-year-old boy at a remote Northern Territory community near Nhulunbuy has been caught and killed....Tuesday 29 January 2013
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Thursday 10 January 2013
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Thursday 10 January 2013
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A record number of saltwater crocodiles were removed from Top End waters during 2012. A total of 314 salties were captured and moved as part of a Northern Territory Parks and Wildlife management plan. Of those, 215 were taken from Darwin Harbour, including a 4.26m male in May. ...Monday 31 December 2012
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A record number of saltwater crocodiles have been captured and removed from Northern Territory waters this year. ...Monday 31 December 2012
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Friday 7 December 2012
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Police expect a crocodile that killed a young Northern Territory boy will return because people from a nearby community used to feed it....Tuesday 4 December 2012
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A search is continuing for a nine-year-old boy in the Northern Territory who was taken by a crocodile as he swam at a beach near the eastern tip of Arnhem Land. It follows a similar crocodile attack on a young girl in Arnhem Land three weeks ago....Monday 3 December 2012
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Sunday 2 December 2012
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The Northern Territory Government says the threat of crocodiles exists in any waterway in the Top End....Monday 19 November 2012
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Wildlife rangers are warning Northern Territory golfers they could lose more than their balls if they venture into the water at a Top End golf course....Friday 16 November 2012
![A saltwater crocodile in the Northern Territory. [File image]](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_u_AR4Lit-Ar5EE72XbSW6VuoD3oCslM7pZcJviBLuk-NA3dF31XaiSlgP7oButWKWG6RIlWdJF_DL95LCvOENMHy5g5i73UdxO1bSBEVT6GejjpHNq1uxB4g=s0-d "A saltwater crocodile in the Northern Territory. [File image]")
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