Jamie123

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Everything posted by Jamie123

  1. No idea if you sing this hymn, but... I vow to thee, my country All earthly things above Entire and whole and perfect The service of my love The love that asks no questions The love that stands the test That lays upon the altar The dearest and the best The love that never falters The love that pays the price The love that makes undaunted The final sacrifice And there's another country I've heard of long ago Most dear to them that love her Most great to them that know We may not count her armies We may not see her King Her fortress is a faithful heart Her pride is suffering And soul by soul and silently Her shining bounds increase And her ways are ways of gentleness And all her paths are peace (Sung to the tune of Jupiter from Holst's The Planets)
  2. I don't know very much about him other than what I've read. And this happened in Glasgow, a long way from me! Perhaps I should be a bit more cautious in what I say...
  3. I suspect the latter. He's a bit of a fantasist. He's self-published about a dozen novels, which are largely believed to be AI-generated. If he was a cynical swindler he'd have run off with the money instead of stopping around to take the abuse, and giving refunds. I wonder how much out of pocket he is. Quite a lot I'm betting! P.S. I read somewhere the girl who played "The Unknown" has now been hired by London Dungeon to do a regular performance there!
  4. I love karate. I just wish I was better at it. (Balance was always my biggest problem.)
  5. A while ago I posted about Elizabeth Holmes, the queen of unsuccessful "fake-it-till-you-make-it". The cautionary tale of Billy Coull is not dissimilar. It's probably funnier too - because nothing life-and-death (such as blood testing) was ever at stake - but also quite heart-rending when you think of the poor little kiddywinks expecting to see Wonka's factory in it's glory... ...and actually getting this... Wonka: The Scandal that Rocked Britain review – a whole hour of TV on the chocolate disaster that went viral | Television | The Guardian Coull was an idiot of course. He used AI to create a wonderful website, and a lot of people bought into it. (Just as they bought into Elizabeth Holmes' pretty face and Steve Jobs demeanour.) Could he create such a thing in real life? Well I believe he thought he could, and when real life caught up with him, he was the first to admit his own stupidity. He did blame some of it on being "let down by suppliers" (which could be true - who knows?) but at least he didn't skip off to the Bahamas. He was there in the thick of it, taking the flack from enraged parents who called him a "scammer". (And if you don't know what angry Scotsman - or Scotswoman - is like, think Groundskeeper Willie times a hundred!) A true scammer would have been long gone, leaving his hapless employees to pick up the pieces. It reminds me of this verse (don't know the author, but it's about bricklayers):
  6. Not being a Mormon, General Discussion is my usual go-to, since Current Affairs is mostly about America (though I do check it out sometimes). I do check out the other forums though, so if you make fun of my Owl costume there, I'll cry! 😭
  7. I was talking about the General Discussion forum - not the site as a whole.
  8. I know it's not as lively as it's been in the past, but since New Year it's slowed almost to a stop. It's almost the end of Tuesday, and the last time anyone posted was Saturday. Has the party moved somewhere else?
  9. There is no doubt about this, but we don't win at sport by modifying our environment, but by building up our strength, speed and stamina. No one ever won a marathon by inventing the bicycle.
  10. Interesting. According to this article, https://www.quora.com/Do-humans-actually-rank-high-in-the-animal-kingdom-as-long-distance-runners humans do beat horses for persistence running, but sled dogs, ostriches, camels and pronghorns (yes, I had to look that one up too) do better. A pronghorn.
  11. A normal house cat (felis catus) can run at 30mph, considerably faster than a wombat, and faster even than Usain Bolt's record of 27.5mph. It seems to me that athletics is all about humans achieving things as best they can with their limited bodies which are no mean feats at all for animals in general. Human sport is the paralympics of the animal kingdom.
  12. He does look a bit peaky. Maybe he has a virus.
  13. It is illegal to keep wombats as pets, but you can have a virtual one. This is mine. His name is Willie the Wombat.
  14. Joey looking backwards out of pouch.
  15. Another thing about wombats is that the pouch faces backwards, so that it doesn't get filled with soil when the wombat is digging. It also must make it easier for the joey to get into after it is born.
  16. The elderly couple don't look too alarmed by Mr Crocky!
  17. Was this out in the wild, or was it in some kind of park? It must be wonderful to see these exotic animals living with nature. We do have wild deer and ponies here in the uk*, and I did once see a moose in Maine. I never saw a bear though. (Except in the zoo.) Oh and I once saw a wild alligator when I was on a swamp tour from New Orleans. It wasn't as big as I'd expected though. The guide was making it jump out of the water by dangling a chicken leg over it on the end of a string. The lady sitting beside me in the boat told me he was being very stupid. * We do of course have plenty of smaller wild animals like foxes, badgers, rabbits, weasels etc. Foxes are a nuisance. They get into your rubbish and scatter it all over your lawn.
  18. OK let's see that we can do. During the 90 seconds of the wombat's 25mph sprint it covers 25*1.5/60=15/24 mile. If the force impeding its progress is proportional to its speed then the energy it expends can be expressed 25*15/24 (bespoke unit system). Now if it travels at only 15mph, we can divide the "energy" by 15 to get 25/24=1 1/24 miles. So it just about beats Roger Bannister. However this is a very simplistic model and I haven't taken account of the wombat's kinetic energy.
  19. I've been thinking all the way home. A very fast runner (like Roger Bannister) can run a four minute mile. Four minutes go into one hour 15 times, so that's 15 miles per hour. Quite a lot slower than a wombat. Now if a wombat runs at 25mph, it covers a mile in 1/25 hours which is 60/25=12/5=2.4 minutes. However, it can only run at 25mph for about 90 seconds at a time, but could no doubt run for longer at a slower speed So the question remains: can a wombat run a 4 minute mile? Let's ask ChatGPT... Could a wombat run a 4 minute mile? No, it's highly unlikely. Wombats are not built for speed, as they have short legs and a stocky build, which is more suited for burrowing and digging rather than running long distances at high speeds. Are you sure? Wombats can run quite fast! While wombats can reach speeds of up to 25 miles per hour (40 kilometers per hour) over short distances, they are not built for sustained speed or endurance. Running a 4-minute mile, which requires maintaining an average speed of 15 miles per hour (24 kilometers per hour) for four consecutive minutes, would be highly unlikely for a wombat due to their physiology and energy reserves. I'm not convinced. What do you think? (Another picture of a wombat)
  20. The collective noun for wombats is a "wisdom". So Hammerton Zoo has a wisdom of wombats. Wombats can run 25mph, which is only slightly slower than a galloping horse.
  21. Happy St. David's Day! The daddodils are coming into bloom too!
  22. I just discovered that the only wombats in the UK are in Hammerton Zoo in Cambridgeshire. London Zoo is massive, and you'd think they'd have any animal you can think of, but no, they have no wombats. No wombats today. Or any other day. I've half a mind to go to Hammerton just to see the wombats. I like wombats. Though an adult wombat can do you quite an injury if you annoy it (which apparently is not all that difficult). They are big and heavy and can run fast, and getting hit by one would not be pleasant at all. And the oddest thing about them is that they poo cubes. I remember reading that in Physics World a few years back This is a good video about wombats:
  23. Many, many years ago a very good friend of mine had an abortion. She was a girl i used to hang out with a lot (not a girlfriend) and we used to watch movies together and eat pizza, and I'd go to her apartment to keep her company when she was feeling down. (And no I wasn't the father, in case you were wondering.) She didn't tell me about the abortion until afterwards, which in some ways was a good thing, because had I known I would have pulled out every stop to talk her out of it - including offering to pay for the child's upbringing myself. My own family would have then called me an idiot, but I know what I'd have told them: "All death diminishes me for I am involved in mankind" (which I've probably misquoted). As it was, all I could do was try to be supportive of her. Anything else would not have brought the baby back.
  24. I may not know much about bears, but one thing I have learned from the good people of Maine: you do not interfere with a mother bear's cubs, unless you want your bodily appendages seriously rearranged. So what was Walt Disney thinking of with the bear scene from Pocahontas? John Smith is about to shoot the bear, but Pocahontas stops him and leads him into the bears' den. There she picks up one of the cubs and hands it to Smith. The cub playfully pulls Smith's helmet down over his eyes. Meanwhile mummy bear is standing peacefully by, not ripping anyone's arms and legs off. The moral is, if you want to know what to do when you meet a bear, don't ask Mr Disney.