The thread of learning something new every day
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@taniwharugby said in The thread of learning something new every day:
I learned that there is something called a Kumara Moth (aka the Convolvulus hawk moth) which is a big old moth with a big old proboscis (similar species overseas are called a Hummingbird moth) one was having a good old feed of nectar from some flowers we have at home last night...never seen one before.
Absolutely Triggered. Hate moths, hate giant moths even more! Especially when you are asleep in the night an hear something tapping around the room in the dark, only ever seen one about an inch big but even that's big enough for me. Horrible horrible things.
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@NTA said in The thread of learning something new every day:
Today I learned there is a fuckload to Google Cloud Platform. This is the benefit/burden of working from home during COVID-19 and spending hours trying to find ways to do shit I'd have otherwise knocked off in minutes on SQL Server.
/nerdchat
Massive citrix farm here is coping (barely). At one point yesterday scrolling emails was like loading gifs over dial up
internet. -
@antipodean said in The thread of learning something new every day:
@NTA said in The thread of learning something new every day:
Today I learned there is a fuckload to Google Cloud Platform. This is the benefit/burden of working from home during COVID-19 and spending hours trying to find ways to do shit I'd have otherwise knocked off in minutes on SQL Server.
/nerdchat
Massive citrix farm here is coping (barely). At one point yesterday scrolling emails was like loading gifs over dial up
internet.One of our farms shit the bed earlier today, taking down some of the remote access stuff with it. Inconvenient for me but showstopper for others.
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In the absence of Radio Sport I've taken to other recorded content.
Found the following quite good but specifically the bit (fairly late in the interview - dont ask me a time) about the correlation (note, not causation), between cyano bacteria (blue green algae) and MND.
. Available now through the ABC listen App - http://bit.ly/ABCradioApp
Unlocking the mystery of Motor Neurone Disease - ABC listen
Dominic Rowe is asking how common degenerative brain diseases begin (R)
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Also, on the back of having borrowed a number of books form the library in advance of the WuFlu shutdown I've got a book called 'Pandora's Lab'.
About various scientific discoveries that were thought to be miracle breakthroughs, but ... kinda ... like weren't.
Two chapters on I hate my parents* for making me eat margarine.
Let me rephrase that: I hate my parents even more for making me eat margarine. The stuff was foul, and was guaranteed to give you heart disease.
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- I don't really hate my parents ...
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I have been doing a 'on this day in history' message to my work colleagues each day (in our Whatsapp group)...it is greatly appreciated, I know this cos the day I was late sending, it was asked for
Today was interesting;
Julius Caesar was assassiated in 43BC
John WIlkes Booth shot Abraham Lincoln in 1865
The Titanic hit the iceberg 1912 -
@taniwharugby One of the advantages of still reading a newspaper is that there is a Today in History section in my local.
Amongst other facts on today:
- The 1st Edition of the Webster's English dictionary was published in 1828.
- The vaccine against typhoid was also discovered in 1903 by Dr Harry Plotz.
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@Bovidae said in The thread of learning something new every day:
ts on today:
The 1st Edition of the Webster's English dictionary was published in 1828.
The vaccine against typhoid was also discovered in 1903 by Dr Harry Plotz.yeah I saw both those on the page I was looking at...some of the younger generation probably would never have picked up a dictionary!
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Assassination of Julius Caesar (Famous Painting)
By the time of his assassination on 15 March (the Ides of March) 44BC, Julius Caesar was at the height of his power, having recently been declared dictator perpetuo by the Roman Senate. This kind of power made many senators nervous that Caesar would overthrow the senate and establish one-man...
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Given the Titanic mention above, and today being the anniversary of the sinking itself:
- four thoughts from the authors of "On a Sea of Glass" - which is probably the best and most comprehensive/thoughtful single volume there will ever be on Titanic."Dead men tell no tales" is an overlooked part of the Titanic story. Of the crew, the survivors tend to be portrayed as the energetic ones. Sometimes the dead get unironically painted as curiously quiet (see: the Chief Officer, also James Cameron throwing Captain Smith under the bus during his portrayal of the sinking itself). When mainly it's that their stories were much harder to reconstruct....
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@Godder said in Coronavirus - Overall:
@Baron-Silas-Greenback said in Coronavirus - Overall:
@Godder said in Coronavirus - Overall:
@Paekakboyz said in Coronavirus - Overall:
@MajorRage have we seen the nz govt say it's an eradication goal? I haven't caught that anywhere as yet.
I think the NZ goal is elimination, not eradication, as people will still travel here with it from time to time (and be quarantined on arrival).
Those 2 words are synonyms, I even went to the dictionary to check.
Your post sounds like govt PR spin. Swap elimination with eradication in your sentence and vice versa and nothing changes.In epidemiology, eliminate means to have no cases in a region, and eradicate means to have no cases anywhere in the world.
An example of a disease which NZ has eliminated is rabies - can't get it here other than from overseas sources, but obviously it's still around in other parts of the world.
Smallpox is the only disease to be eradicated under the epidemiological definition.
No spin, just science.
