Diana Was At Work,

so again I spent some of the day looking through old photographs, 

sorting them into themes, this one from a steam rally we attended, 

the image with its background removed,

and black background inserted, 

this image from Fun Fairs, 

a merry go-round, 

with the same result, 

from flowers, foxglove, 

or digitalis as it is known, 

which is often used in medication for heart condition, as it contains Digoxin, after Diana arrived home and our evening meal, 

it was feet up for Kindig Customs, looking at the amount of time and materials used in any of their projects I hate to think of what the final cost would be to their customers, but there is no denying it, the results are spectacular, 

we then started a new series, again based on Scandinavian culture, The Last Kingdom, we watched the first episode and found it quite enjoyable so we watched a second, which did not disappoint, after which as Diana had a early start tomorrow she was off to bed, for myself, 

 Total Recall, the 1990 version, we had both watched it before, after which I too was off to bed.

I Guess At The Time,

it seemed such a good idea, 

photograph PA Media via BBC, replace a diesel ferry with one that uses liquified natural gas (LNG) as its fuel, to reduce its carbon footprint, it was also made bigger to accommodate 127 cars instead of 90, at its launch in 2017, the then first minister Nicola Sturgeon said it would contribute to "Scotland's world-leading climate change goals", it enters service next month in its service to the Caledonian Isles, by now the green tree huggers reading this must be in ecstasy, but, someone did not do the math, the new vessel will leave a bigger footprint than the old diesel one! Prof Tristan Smith, from University College London's Energy Institute, said: "In a best case scenario there's a negligible benefit of using LNG, and at worst there would be a deterioration." One expert on transport emissions told BBC News that if the "upstream" carbon cost of importing LNG from Qatar is included in the emissions calculation, it might be better to run the new ship on diesel! 

the route LPG takes to reach the new vessel, so much for contributing to "Scotland's world-leading climate change goals" and there is worse to come, the ship was delivered last month, years late and over budget, I mentioned someone forgot to do the math, that is measure the new ship, the size of the ship means it cannot berth at the usual mainland harbour at Ardrossan until a major redevelopment takes place! the increased fuel consumption of the heavier ship means its overall carbon footprint is about 35% larger than Caledonian Isles, the diesel vessel it is replacing!  I wonder who is paying for all of this green nonsense? Oh, I just remembered we are, the UK tax payers! the full article is here.

Last Week We Made A Few Post About Drone Shows,

a few days ago there was another one over Hong Kong, 

photograph Chan Long Hei/AP above, crowds gather to watch the show, the 10-minute drone show featured 1,000 drones, some of which were equipped with fireworks, flying over Hong Kong’s Victoria Harbour and forming images of the city’s giant pandas, the show was a part of a campaign to raise support and awareness of panda conservation, 

 Beijing gifted Hong Kong with a pair of giant pandas, named An An and Ke Ke, the arrival of the pair takes the total number of giant pandas in Hong Kong to six, all of which reside at the city’s Ocean Park, a theme park comprising amusement park rides and animal exhibits, the full article is here, I have to say the more I watch videos like this, the more I am amazed at the complexity of not having drones collide!

Time For A Sunday Read,

and a sherry, 

before our Sunday lunch, 

duck spring rolls for our starters, 

eyes down and tuck in, 

for our main course, gammon ham, with lashings of gravy for Diana, sans gravy for myself, 

'Cheers!', after lunch we normally watch Columbo, but today the ones that were being shown we watched only a month or two ago, 

so Jumanji: The Next Level it was great family fun, after our evening snack it was time, 

for more family fun, so next MouseHunt, a modern take on Laurel and Hardy by two brothers as they desperately try to outwit a mouse, after which as Diana had an early start she was off to bed, for myself, 

Monster of the Deep, with Steve Backshall, a fascinating program featuring the Megalodon, and to round off my evening, 

 Hannibal, no not the one that went over the Alps! a great film for me, strangely enough the music was even better than the film, I enjoyed the music so much I actually bought the soundtrack to it, I can count the number of times I have done that with my thumbs! then it was late so for me, I too was off to bed.

Most If Not All Skyscrapers We Have featured On The Blog,

take months if not years to build, 

photograph: Peng Peng/AP but not this one, this 57-storey skyscraper was erected in 19 working days in central China, the rectangular, glass and steel building has 19 atriums, 800 apartments and office space for 4,000 people, Broad Sustainable Building, a prefab construction firm, put up the rectangular, glass and steel Mini Sky City in the Hunan provincial capital of Changsha, assembling three floors a day using a modular method, the vice-president, Xiao Changgeng, said,

the company now has ambitions to assemble the world’s tallest skyscraper, at 220 floors, in only three months, “With the traditional method they have to build a skyscraper brick by brick, but with our method we just need to assemble the blocks,” the company engineer Chen Xiangqian said, Liu Peng, the associate director of the engineering consulting firm Arup Beijing, said the method was worth developing because it could become a safe and reliable way to build skyscrapers quickly, “But it is not perfect, and it does not meet all kinds of personalised demands,” Liu said. “People nowadays want more personalised architecture.” the story is here, or for a much more detailed article have a look here, 57 stories erected in 19 days, and that was 9 years ago, imagine how quickly they erect a building now that they have had 9 years practise!

Most Of Us know,

that eventually the Roman Empire was overrun and Rome sacked, 

detail of The Sacking of Rome, Karl Bryullov, 1833-1836, in the State Tretyakov Gallery, Russia, the city has been in existence for over 2,000 years, and following the Roman Empires expansion picked up a few enemies on the way, leading to its eventual downfall, but the city was not sacked just once, as it happens it was overrun eight times, the city was taken by the Galls, the Visigoths, the Vandals, Germanic barbarians, the Ostrogoths, Arab raiders, the Normans, and the Holy Roman Empire, if the last one seems like a civil war, it sort of was but it included most of Europe marching against Rome, it appears that to be a successful invader it pays not to upset the locals you invade! for the full rundown on these events and indeed as to how Rome rose again after them have a look here.

I Had Another Day Sorting Through So Many Photographs,

in the afternoon I took a break and watched, 

Ravenous, set in the early pioneer days of the west, a stranger who has spent three months lost in the mountains arrives at the fort, the stranger, played superbly well by Robert Carlyle steals the show, which descends into murder and cannibalism, as the fort they are staying and the subsequent march has a viper in it's party, also worth a mention is the great atmospheric music that played in the movie, after which Diana arrived home, 

so a sherry and a read before our evening meal,

tonight spicy prawns with a small salad,

 

eyes down and tuck in,

then a turkey casserole, with minted new potatoes and dumplings,

 

'Cheers!', after which we decided on a film, a Bond it was, 

Spectre, which had it all, after which Diana was off to bed, she was tired from her early start, for myself a Have I Got More News For You, before I too was off to bed.

I Am Guessing Many Of Us Will Have Seen This,

throw boiling water into the air and it freezes, faster than it would if you used cold water!

photograph YouTube, well it does pay to plan the event, Jiang Nu travelled with her boyfriend to Northeastern China’s Heilongjiang Province and, one night, she grabbed an electric kettle full of hot water, stepped out into the cold, and had her partner record her while she attempted a popular trick she had seen online, alas although it was -20 degrees Celsius outside as she flung the kettle in a circular pattern, as she was supposed to in order to get the desired effect, the hot water didn’t freeze, instead, some of it landed on her exposed head,

Her boyfriend rushed to help her and later took her to a local hospital for treatment. Luckily, Jiang was smart enough to apply a cold compress to her head to prevent further damage, but she still suffered second-degree burns, so the very next night, Jiang Nu attempted the hot-water-to-ice trick again. However, this time around she wore a thick hood to protect her head, so even though she failed again, she didn’t suffer any more burns, back to the first night, a few stills,

kettle in hand, 

the boiling water went up, 

and then down, Mr. Gravity at work, the effect of boiling water freezing before cold water is called The Mpemba Effect, a bit of a long post but here it is:

In 1963, a Tanzanian schoolboy Erasto Bartholomeo Mpemba was doing a simple school physics experiment and discovered that hot water freezes faster than cold water.

This seems impossible because logically you’d say that as the hot water cools, it would take some amount of time to reach the same temperature as the cold water - and from that moment, take the same time as the cold water did. Therefore, you’d argue, there is no way for the hot water to freeze faster.

But Mpemba very definitely found that hot water freezes faster than cold water IN SOME CIRCUMSTANCES.

His odd finding was initially ignored - but a few years later, Mpemba asked a visiting physicist (Dr Denis Osborne) in question time after a lecture - and while everyone (students and teachers) in the classroom laughed at him, Osborne actually took him seriously - tried to repeat the experiment and found that Mpemba was correct!

Osborne and Mpemba collaborated to write a paper - which was published in Physics Education, Volume 4, Issue 3, pp. 172-175 (1969). The paper goes a little deeper into the problem and eliminates the two most common explanations (dissolved air and evaporation).

It turns out that there are a huge range of subtle effects going on here - and it’s not ALWAYS the case that the hot water freezes first - it’s sensitive to initial conditions…but if you follow the steps in the paper, it is quite repeatable.

However, the reason for this weird behavior had sparked off complicated discussions and there are at least ten alternative explanations - and to this day, no single one of those possible explanations are the single, widely accepted, cause.

There is a related paradoxical claim - the “inverse Mpemba” in which heating warm water to a specific temperature can take more time than heating cold water to that exact same temperature.

The best answer to both phenomena seems to be “Water Is Complicated!”

A Classic Case Of:

it does what it says on the package!

photograph Wikimedia Commons, Jawbreaker candies, or as we call them in the UK Gobstoppers, a Canadian student, 19 year old Javeria Wasim, had seen videos of people biting into small jawbreaker candies, but she had never seen anyone successfully bite through a big three-inch jawbreaker, so she decided to try it, I think you can see where this is going!

well the jawbreaker did what it said on the packet, after trying to bite through the sweet, the young woman’s friend then pointed out that one of her teeth was chipped and when Javeria checked it herself, she realized that another tooth felt wiggly when touched. At this point, the 19-year-old student could barely open her mouth without screaming in pain, so her friend called an ambulance,

which resulted in this procedure, “I used to have them as a little kid, I’ve seen videos of people biting into the small ones but I’d never seen anyone bite into the big ones,” Javeria told Kennedy News. “I bit into it and only made a hole and my jaw started to hurt. My friend looked over and said my tooth was chipped. It hurt bad, I was crying a lot when the ambulance came and everything was blurry.” Javeria was rushed into surgery to have her broken jaw set back into place and then wired shut using a metal wire inserted into her top and bottom gums, the student has been on an all-liquid diet of shakes and soups since the incident and says that she constantly thinks about eating solid food again, “It was such a stupid thing, people break their jaws in car accidents and fights, this was such an avoidable way to break your jaw,” Javeria said, the two above photographs found here.

Diana Was At Work,

so I spent most of the day sorting old photographs, 

and then played with a few removing the backgrounds, 

like this, 

and then replacing it with a black background, 

all of these photograph we took when we were in Venice, 

back in 2018, 

we were there for the Venice masked carnival, 

some of the masks were more than just flamboyant!

like this one,

adorned with peacock feathers, great fun, 

in the evening time for a sandwich,

before I was out, onto a number 54, changing buses at the war memorial,

a look up the street at the High Street Christmas decorations,

then a 227 to Penge, I was meeting Steve as usual in the Moon & Stars, we charted the night away, after saying our farewells, 

I caught a 227 to the church, 

and walked past it and then home, Diana was already asleep, another early start tomorrow, for myself a Bangers & Cash, followed by a Have I Got A Bit More News For You, before I too was off to bed.