buttermilkdiary.blogspot.com
Mr Buttermilk's Diary: Raging Against The Light
http://buttermilkdiary.blogspot.com/2013/01/raging-against-light.html
Tuesday, 29 January 2013. Raging Against The Light. And how bulbs fitted lamps, whereas now you might not be able to fit the base of the bulb into the opening in your old lamps. It used to be a fiat lux moment when you turned on a light switch: illumination was up and running in a fraction of second. The bulb whose packaging is shown here has a start-up time of less than 30 seconds (well, to help you get over that shock, they call it 'Quick-start'). Posted by Chris Maslanka. How many have been here before.
buttermilkdiary.blogspot.com
Mr Buttermilk's Diary: Ah!—the caducity of time...
http://buttermilkdiary.blogspot.com/2012/08/ah-caduicity-of-time.html
Tuesday, 14 August 2012. 8212;the caducity of time. Of course most things fall apart eventually, but in my experience they crumble in clusters. When sorrows come, they come not single spies, but in battalions. 8212; as the bard has it. The Horsemen of the Apocalypse ride around in fours, and the plagues of Egypt visit in sevens, so breakages. 8212; a phenomenon admittedly on a far smaller scale. 8212; might well be susceptible to clustering. Or would I be spoilt for choice? Replacement, which I took as a...
buttermilkdiary.blogspot.com
Mr Buttermilk's Diary
http://buttermilkdiary.blogspot.com/2012/08/blog-post.html
Tuesday, 7 August 2012. Studying Latin at school was stimulating. Structure evokes creativity, exploration and play, just as the rules of tennis or chess make you itch to see what is possible. We also decided that the illustrations of the Cambridge Latin Course were not good, but could be much improved if they were fitted with better captions, and we were best placed to provide them. In this unintended way our thwarted creativity found natural if disrespectful expression. At last a use for Messalina's.
pyrgic.blogspot.com
Pyrgic: A Picture Poser
http://pyrgic.blogspot.com/2012/08/a-picture-poser.html
Thursday, 16 August 2012. This picture (taken in The Missing Bean, in Oxford. 8212; coffee and service both good, and it's just across the way from Lincoln College) enables you to imagine I don't have a beard. Our perceptual experience of objects leads us to 'construe' what we see (so much for 'objective' reality'! This phenomenon of 'filling-in' —. Or 'perceptual completion' as it is called in the trade —i. Posted by Chris Maslanka. Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom). View my complete profile.
pyrgic.blogspot.com
Pyrgic: Spot The Leopard
http://pyrgic.blogspot.com/2013/02/spot-leopard.html
Monday, 4 February 2013. Even a puzzle at the humble level of a wordsearch demonstrates interesting enigmatic features. First of all, because it involves a finite search space, effort— particularly if undertaken in a systematic way— is bound to be rewarded (Seek and ye shall find). If you want to be systematic, it raises the strategic question: what might an efficient searching procedure be? In this case, as you need to find LEOPARD you might, for example, first locate the Ls). Finally notice that the sq...
pyrgic.blogspot.com
Pyrgic: ¡No pasarán!
http://pyrgic.blogspot.com/2013/01/no-pasaran.html
Wednesday, 2 January 2013. Assume this sign is for the sighted as the PC say. What's wrong with the punctuation? Posted by Chris Maslanka. Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom). The Pyrgic Puzzles column has appeared on Saturdays in The Guardian since 1988. View my complete profile. You Might Have Shaved First!
buttermilkdiary.blogspot.com
Mr Buttermilk's Diary: Passing through
http://buttermilkdiary.blogspot.com/2013/01/passing-through.html
Saturday, 12 January 2013. It is the 150th anniversary of the London tube, a section of which constitutes the first subterranean railway in the world. I am a fan of tubes, including the. And, more recently, the. The idea of a nether world beneath the bustling of the streets above reminds me of Greek myth; the way you enter by one hole and pop up somewhere else reminds me of the topological shortcuts implicit in the Einstein-Rosen bridge. No wonder the fares are astronomical. Posted by Chris Maslanka.
buttermilkdiary.blogspot.com
Mr Buttermilk's Diary: You Might Have Shaved First!
http://buttermilkdiary.blogspot.com/2013/02/you-might-have-shaved-first.html
Sunday, 17 February 2013. You Might Have Shaved First! Product awaiting development: a "spray on" designer stubble. At present you have to rub your chin and upper lip with pritstick and then dust your face with clippings from an electric shaver. To blow away excess hair dust, stand in a draught or use an electric hair-dryer. If you win the Dyson advertised on the packaging of the kitchen roll advertised you could put it on blow. Further exercise: Close your eyes and see whether you can think even bigger!
