The best cat ever

RIP Smaug (2011?? – 9 Dec 2022)






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Happy Thought for 14 February 2025

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Ha ve a Happy Tho ught:     There is an old saying that you learn something new every day. (My college roommate added the corollary that once she learned something, that meant she could go back to bed – no matter how early in the day it was!)     Unfortunately, sometimes the new thing you learn is, in fact, not true. So fact-checking is always a good thing to do (yes, I very much try to fact-check these emails, but have and will miss things!). One way to reset yourself is to , every once in a while , chec k out Wikipedia’s List of common misconceptions page . Here are some of the things that caught my eye during my own recent visit there. I either learned these recently, or can vividly remember when I learned them. Words in italics are mine , everything else comes direct from Wikipedia:   1. Allspice is not a mix of spices. It is a single spice, so called because it seems to combine the flavours and scents of many spices, especially cinnamon , nu...
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Happy Thought for 25 July 2025

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Have a Happy Thought:  Reading truly is a way to explore other minds and other worlds. Science-fiction especially is a great way to explore possible futures. From Star Trek communicators inspiring the popularity (if not the development ) of flip phones... ...To the terrifyingly accurate description of American politics in the mid 2020’s in Octavia Butler’s The Parable of the Sower and sequels...     ...And then there is Roald Dahl foretelling ChatGPT. Yep, you read that right. The author of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and The BFG accurately described today’s “AI” language generators, in his 1953 short story “ The Great Automatic Grammatizator” . It’s a short read, and well worth it, here are the things that really impressed me. Dahl forecast: the over-use of strange or exceptionally long words real life : words like comprehend, boast, swift, meticulous, and delve Dahl: “For example, there’s a trick that nearly every writer uses, o...
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Happy Thought for 27 June 2025

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Have a Happy Thought:  If you’ve ever woken up from a weird dream, and had to say to yourself, “okay brain in the real world, foxes are not monks”... you are not alone. Apparently this was a very common problem throughout the middle ages in Europe, and beyond. Here’s a statuette from Denmark, made around the 1530’s: Image: Ivory figure, 6 cm tall,of penitent Reynhard fux, with a rosary between the paws. Dated to the time of the Reformation in Denmark (1530's) http://samlinger.natmus.dk/DMR/168006 And here is one from Japan: Image: a kitsune statuette. Source https://www.instagram.com/p/DKH2lvVMYnt/ In fact, this idea of foxes as monks was so common that there was a popular cartoon character called Reynard the Fox, dating from as far back as the 12 th century! Image: Reynard the Fox in British Library MS  Royal 10 E IV, late 13th/early 14th century https://i0.wp.com/streetsofsalem.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/fox-reynard-royal-10.jpg   Reynard appare...
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