Woohoo!

Okay... fans of Science On The Edge will appreciate exactly why this represents a "woohoo"! moment. Those of you who aren't such fans -- jeez, you don't know what you're missing. A superconducting material that works at -19C? That's totally bloody amazing. Your goddam home deep freeze gets down to that level!

Of course, it still requires Thallium, which isn't exactly the most common element on the planet - but it's not super-rare, either. And of course, -19C is still pretty cold. But... shit! They could just about wire up the Antarctic facilities with this stuff as is!

And the fact that they're still climbing the temperature scale with these new superconducting substances is even more fantastic. If the day comes when we get decent room-temperature superconduction.... hot damn!

I'd like to see further tests from other labs to confirm this one, but they seem pretty sure of themselves, and it fits with the pattern of the other complex superconductors they've been discovering. Fantastic!

Right. Okay. Enough geeking out. On the home front:

Weekend was pretty good. Natalie took the kids to Launceston on Saturday, leaving me a day on my own. Unfortunately, it takes me a good half-day to decompress these days, so I didn't write nearly as much as I should. But I watched some Robot Chicken, and I ate lazily, and I read a bunch of stuff I've been meaning to read.

And I did sword training. And some archery. And a good session with the kickbag. So that was all good. Got the sword grading coming up in a few very short weeks - still got plenty of work to do there.

Come Sunday, John E flew back in from Queensland, where he's been propping up his indigent brothers for the last five or six weeks. I zipped into Launceston and met Nat and the kids. Then we all took off to the Evandale markets, not too far from the airport. I found a nifty secondhand recurve bow for Younger Son, and Natalie got a great pair of boots for the daughter, and there were all kinds of interesting movies to buy... and I found an orange seedling, and a nice-looking apple seedling, so by the time I went to collect John E from the airport, I had to use Natalie's car 'cos mine was full of Stuff.

John didn't seem to think that hanging around Launceston with the Flinthart Family was the Key to Happiness, so I took him back to Scottsdale and dumped him... the ungrateful swine! What kind of chap DOESN'T leap at the opportunity to spend an afternoon with three noisy children just because he had to get up at sparrowfart to take a two-hour flight on DeathStar Airways? Ha! The man's got no stamina.

Anyway, I turned around and went back into Launceston, and hung out at the new Aquatic Centre with Nat and the kids for an hour or two. The Aquatic Centre is pretty cool. There's a humongous splash-pool complete with water playground -- slides, hoses, showers, climbing tower, and giant bucket that periodically dumps a metric shitload of water from about five metres up -- plus a range of kid-friendly pools, plus two whacking great lap pools for training proper. I did a quick kilometre, and decided I definitely need to factor more swimming in this summer, even if it is a bastard of a thing to timetable.

After the splashy afternoon, the kids were properly tired, so I took 'em home while Natalie stayed in Launceston for her weekly dose of the folky stuff. The Younger Son and I tried out his new recurve... bit of tech-talk for archery types here: the new recurve is a simple fibreglass job, but it's a little shorter than the cheap-ass springy red beginner's bow he's been using, and it's also a good deal stiffer. This means that Younger Son can actually get a decent flight by drawing to his chin. With the red bow, his arms were just that bit too short... the bow required too much draw to really put any power behind the arrows. This new one is just what the doctor ordered.

So, yeah -- then we had toasty sandwiches and salads, and watched an interesting and rather clever "Batman Reunion" sort of movie, with Adam West and Burt Ward not quite reprising their famous roles. Actually... for any fans of the old 60s Batman, the movie is well worth the effort. It's kind of a weird retrospective on the series, with West and Ward playing their modern selves but camping it up in the fashion of their iconic roles as they try to track a stolen Batmobile... while at the same time, an ensemble of very decent actors tells the story of the Making Of The Series as a sequence of flashbacks.

It's quite clever, and actually succeeds in being deliberately funny in a lot of places. And of course, some of the stories from the original series are pretty cool. Who knew that poor old Burt Ward had so much trouble controlling his wedding tackle as "Robin"?

Monday: I planted my orange and my apple, and the heavens obliged with rain. I did a lot of editing and reading, and a little writing. I tried out my nifty new charcoal gorilla around dinner time, and then took off for an evening of sword training. Long day.

And today will be just as long.

Northern Territory: It's A Special Kind Of Place

For those of you in far-off countries who occasionally look in on this blog for a bit of amusement, I offer this rather funny article.

It's funny on several levels. First, I think it's marvellous that the news-outlet should give so much space to a woman making a denial that she was committing oral sex on the driver of the ute she was in when it crashed. Seriously: they quote this woman at length, and apart from reducing "offensive" words to mere f***s and s****s and so forth, they let her speak in what appears to be the authentic vernacular.

And that's the second reason it's funny: her command of the good old Australian language. It's gorgeous. It's not laden with cliched Australianism. It's just blunt, and clear, and remarkably effective at conveying her feelings on the matter.

And those feelings are the final level of humour, for me. In her forthright approach and her choice of priorities here, her absolute candour is endearingly funny. This isn't a woman permitting herself to become any kind of victim, nor bewailing her situation. Nope. Read for yourself. She'd definitely want you to do so!

Dinnertable History With The Boys

"So what would a hundred be scared of? A trillion!" And that would be Younger Son, expounding over his chicken and sweet corn soup and green salad. He was busily explaining what he thought it might take to frighten a hundred... errr... somethings. I figured it was time to weigh in.

"Depends on the hundred," I said. "I mean -- what if they were a hundred Spartans?"

Well, I got puzzled looks from both boys, so I launched into a thumbnail version of Thermopylae: three hundred Spartans (backed up by a lazy few thousand Athenians, admittedly) parking their arses in a narrow pass, holding off a hundred thousand or so Persians.

"So did they win?" said Elder Son. As if that was the point, given that we were discussing "scared".

"Depends on what you mean by 'win'," I told him. And I explained that even though the Spartans were slaughtered, it took the Persians several days to manage it, and they took drastic losses, and in the meantime, the Athenians evacuated their city, and set up for the decisive sea battle at Salamis. "So the Spartans all got killed, but they held the pass long enough to make sure the Persians couldn't achieve their victory."

There's a pause as both boys digest this. And then Younger Son lifts his chin, and nods gravely. "So -- basically, the Germans won," he says, with the absolute confidence of an oracle.

Once I picked myself up off the floor and managed to get my breathing back under control, I tried to do the rational thing. I explained that there weren't any Germans as such for two thousand-odd years afterwards. And, questioned by Elder Son, I explain a bit about the Persian Empire, and Xerxes, and imperial ambitions, and the first invasion of the Greek states by the Persians.... and somewhere in the middle, Elder Son wants to know about the Big Wooden Horse.

Right.

I change tracks, and deliver a thumbnail sketch of Homer's account of the ten year siege, and then outline Oddyseus' Cunning Plan. And I mention that they've found the remains of a big, walled city in the place where Troy was supposed to be, and that it was burned at roughly the right time (and other times!), so perhaps there was something to Homer's account after all.

"Did they find the remains of a Big Wooden Horse?" asked Natalie... of all people.

"Not after three thousand years and all that arson," I said.

"Why didn't they just rebuild the horse?" asked Younger Son.

I thought about it. "Who? And why would they rebuild it?"

Immediately, an all-too-familiar expression of fiendish glee swept over his face. I knew I shouldn't have asked. "Because it was big!" he said, and after that, dinner-table history was dead.

That's the Younger Son all over. Why would you rebuild the famed Wooden Horse? Because it was big.

Maybe he's right. Maybe the Germans did win after all, and I just didn't notice. That would probably explain a lot.

Two Bloglinks In A Row? Yeah... But You Really Need To See This.

A talking piano. No, really. It's a piano. It can only make the range of noises a piano makes. Except that some SuperNerd has done a frequency analysis on the voice of a child, and then rigged a mechanical device to play the keys of the piano so it returns those proper frequencies.

The freakin' piano talks. And it is deeply, deeply bloody unnerving.

Is It Still Schadenfreude If The Idiot Deserved It?

You want a decent chuckle? Check out this link. Yeah, sure, it hooks to "The Sun" in England, which is almost as reliable as a Swiss Cheese condom... but the article in question includes some very telling, very entertaining CCTV footage.

Seems a couple of lads went out on a tear in Swansea. They got pissed, and started harassing passers-by. Eventually, they ran across a pair of very dodgy-looking transvestites, and decided that the "girls" would make good targets.

Bad move. The "transvestites" were professional cage fighters, out for a bucks' night.

Heh.

Sweeeeeet.

Slogging Along

No, I don't have much to report. Frankly, I'm not even up to date with the news. It feels like I'm wading through knee-deep mud -- something I did for fun as a kid, as I recall.

Everybody in the house saving yours truly has been sick of late. Even the Iron Immune System himself, Elder Son. Admittedly, for him it was two days of sore throat and one day of general tiredness and cough... whereas it knocked his brother and sister down for a week apiece. And of course, his mother has now been a sack of fertilizer for a couple days.

I hate times like that. I'd almost rather be sick myself.

Last night, as I sat up trying to work, the coughing started from Younger Son. Okay, he's not sick any more, but we suspect him of asthma. Once he gets any kind of cough, it lingers like... no, I'm in a bad mood. The simile I was considering would only get me smacked. So I'll just say this: Younger Son gets a cough, it sticks around like something deeply unwanted that simply refuses to go away.

Right. I got up, got my torch, and started the medications. A puff of this. A puff of that. Half an hour later - no effect. So it's up again, and this time he gets a dose of cough suppressant.

About the time the cough suppressant starts to work on Younger Son, the Mau-Mau starts to cry in her bedroom. Fucking great. I get up, and I start the interrogation process. The Mau-Mau is only four, and she sleeps like a brick would, if brick's weren't such goddam tetchy and irritable things. Even when she's crying, she's still asleep. But she can cry loudly, and if I don't do something she'll wake up Natalie, who is exhausted after delivering babies over the weekend and coming down with this stupid fucking cold.

After a while, the Mau-Mau reveals that she has 'aches'. Yeah, fine. Ever heard of 'growing pains'? Well, the research is long since in: they're real. I'm not interested in arguing with anyone on it, because I grew up with 'em myself, and I recall the sleepless nights. Elder Son used to get 'em something fierce, and now, apparently, the Mau-Mau is in the same boat.

I'm too tired to fuck around with placebos. She gets a dose of painkillers.

About the time the drugs start to work on the Mau-Mau, the fucking dog starts barking. Why? He never barks at night! What's up his goddam arse?

So I grab the torch and head out the back door. Oh... it's started to rain. And the goddam kids have left the poor bastard chained to the back deck for the last four hours. Better let him off the hook.

Let's see: that's Younger Son, the Mau-Mau, and the dog. Elder Son? Quiet. Natalie? Ahhh, yes.... better fetch the cough meds upstairs for her.

Plod, plod, plod.

This morning, Natalie wasn't up to much so the breakfast bullshit fell to me. Okay, fine. But of course, I'll be back down the hill to Scottsdale before eleven to collect Elder Son... we've got a day of home learning to do. And meanwhile, the Mau-Mau is stretched out on the couch, coughing wetly.

Plod, plod, plod.

Canadians: So Much Weirder Than We Give Them Credit

In Australia, it would be too embarrassing to mention -- and almost certainly illegal.

...but in Canada, they advertise it on the side of bus stops. O, Canada!