Fantastic lightweight introduction to bacteriophages and how they can potentially be our next best weapon against infection as
we approach the post-antibiotic age. Plus an interesting look at the history and the discovery of bacteriophages!
Possibly the most-spectacular and well-delivered magic routine I’ve ever seen. I’ve watched it about a dozen times so far, and loved it every single one of them.
I love to discover people who are hugely and deeply passionate about things that seem inconsequential to the rest of the world. Especially when they’re especially able to express that
passion and how exciting their special-thing is, to them. This video (and to a lesser extent the others in the Small Thing Big Idea series) really embodies that; man, this woman
really likes pencils.
Do you remember The Expert, that video from 2014 that had engineers around the world laughing and crying in equal
measure? Turns out that, earlier this year, a trio of sequels were made! This is the first of them.
Fundamentally, people haven’t changed much in tens of thousands of years. If ancient Egyptians had smartphones, you know full well that they’d have been posting cat pictures too. What
can we learn from this and how should we look at our role when developing front-end Web experiences?
From now on, when I try to engage junior programmers with the notion that they should make use of their general-purpose computers to answer questions for them… no matter how silly the
question?… I’ll show them this video. It’s a moderately-concise explanation of the thought processes and programming practice involved in solving a simple, theoretical problem, and it
does a great job at it.
My original plan to divert to the 2018-08-23 51 -1 hashpoint during my planned journey North-to-South along almost the entire length of the 51 -1 graticule was ruined somewhat by the
hashpoint turning out be farther North than my starting point! So I changed plans and overshot my destination in order to visit the 50 -1 hashpoint, instead (and find a couple of
geocaches on the way). Here’s how that went.
I’d originally planned on heading to 2018-08-23 51 -1 because I anticipated that it’d be on or
near my route travelling South along almost the entire length of the 51 -1 graticule, but I didn’t bargain on such a Northerly hashpoint so I’ve changed plans and am now aiming to get
to this one some time in the morning (I’m hoping to be in Winchester by lunch).
Expedition
The full story’s in vlog format, but here’s the summary:
Wasn’t originally planning to come to this graticule but instead was going to go to the 51 -1 graticule where I live ([2018-08-23 51 -1 see here]): I was going to be driving almost the entire length
of 51 -1 on a journey from Oxford to Winchester anyway, so I figured it’d be easy to divert to any hashpoint. But when the Dow numbers came out, it turned out that the hashpoints in
this quadrant of the Earth are all in the North-East corner, and so my journey would be in the opposite direction. Oh no! So instead I decided to “overshoot” and go for this
graticule instead, and thus (if successful) expand my Minesweeper Achievement level.
Hashpoint deep in woodland in the beautiful South Downs National Park.
Parked at The Sustainability Centre (and later made a donation via their website in thanks for
the use of their car park despite not using their other facilities) and walked initially through woodland they manage and use for natural burials: this was really cool – I’ve always
been a fan of body disposal in a low-environmental-impact, no-permanent-markers kind-of way, so I’m going to look more into what they offer. I was really interested to see that many
families had left “named” bird nesting boxes in memory of their loved ones, which is awesome too.
Found geocache GC2X5BJ just outside the burial area and close to a point that gave me a great view across a
valley towards the woods in which I believed I’d find the hashpoint.
Had to go some way off track to get to the hashpoint, but discovered a network of old, overgrown, long-abandoned (and not on any map I can find) trails in-between the thicket. In
fact, the hashpoint eventually turned out to be on the edge of such a track, which I was able to follow to help me find my way back to a road.
Found a sign pointing to “Droxford”. Oxford is so-named because its location coincides with the most-downstream point on the Thames at which it’s possible to ford the river
while driving cattle (i.e. “ox ford”) – incidentally, I’m told, the ford was at the point that Folly Bridge now stands. But what’s the etymology of Droxford, I wonder. What the hell is
a drox???
On the way back, diverted by geocache GC5P5KN and
found it: this was a great cache with the best-made
variant of the particular kind of container it used that I’ve ever seen.
Update: A little research later, it seems that the “ox” in each of Oxford and Droxford have completely different etymological roots! Droxford is derived from an ancient
name for the area from some time prior to the Middle Ages: Drocenesforda. “Drocen” means “dry”: the name means “dry ford”. The River Meon, which flows through the area, flows shallow
over a chalky bed and is easily forded in many places, as these motorcyclists show. The
things you learn!