Resistance

 Putting a resistive element in your circuit - easy.

Putting a resistive elephant in your circus - very difficult.

Weird and disturbing fact: One of the first motion pictures was of a "rogue" elephant being electrocuted.  Accounts vary about "Topsy".  She was something of a problem, though the one recorded death she almost certainly was responsible for, was of a drunken and stupid spectator taunting and hurting her.  That said, the electrocution wasn't retribution, but basically a PR stunt by the circus owner.

It was 1906 - the past is a foreign country, they do things differently there.

An MIT open course on Film History relates this incident.  MIT open course Youtube videos are a great way to spend time (there are no commercials).  Also - Lillian Gish was a dish.

Modern City Living 

When you decide to have a couple of beers with your wife on the deck, to chat and watch the moon play hide and seek in the clouds, neighbourhood skunk will come around and let you know that it is time to go in. It’s probably true in the country as well.

 Fortunately it was just a gentle reminder, not an odoriferous assertion, on the part of the skunk.

You might say that the beer almost went skunky. Or the skunk almost went beery.

A Precognitive Dream?

Posted just because a lot of people find this sort of thing interesting (obviously I am among that group)

A Precognitive Dream?

Sept 2024:

On night of Sept 7-8, I dreamt about going out to my car (a rental from a car share) and seeing that the driver’s door was dented. I mentioned to my companion (friend or son, not sure which):

“I didn’t do this, I don’t know how it happened.”

Then I noticed a brick on the ground and surmised that the dent was caused by the brick.

“Now who would do this for no good reason?”

The next morning, I went out to the car that I actually was renting from a car share, for the day. I noticed some bird splatter on the driver’s door, and remembered the dream. Interesting, I thought, but not exactly dispositive of precognitive dreaming.

Later that morning, after my son and I finished a shopping trip to a local farmer’s market, I was hit by a truck as I attempted to leave the parking lot. It was a very low-speed incident, caused when he backed up to leave his parking spot and hit me. It caused a dent in the door, at about the same spot as the dream. However, it was the passenger door rather than the driver’s door.

I should note that I can’t recall dreaming of car accidents before this, so it is not a common theme or anything like that. Plus, previous to that I had only been in two car accidents, both of which were many years in the past.