Comments for Confessions of a (former) Lab Rat

Comment on Keep on running by rpg

rpg — Mon, 06 May 2013 22:07:33 +0000

Mais non. Sadly.

Comment on Keep on running by alejandro

alejandro — Mon, 06 May 2013 21:54:13 +0000

Richard P.G.-, you ran the marathon?

Comment on Keep on running by cromercrox

cromercrox — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 17:08:01 +0000

Interesting, isn’t it? That the effect of terrorism seems to have the opposite effect to what’s intended. Keeping Calm, and Carrying On. It somehow bolsters my ~~theory~~ hypothesis that terrorists are basically young men with tiny willies who can’t get a girlfriend, and perhaps because of that, they hate women. http://www.policymic.com/articles/36945/afghan-girls-school-poisoning-74-girls-poisoned-in-suspected-taliban-gas-attack

Comment on Keep on running by Richard Wintle

Richard Wintle — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 16:13:46 +0000

Ah, that British resolve. Wonderful stuff. If only you could bottle it and export it around the world.

Thanks for the post Richard, as Anna said it brightened up my day. And the black ribbons were a nice idea, well done those runners.

Comment on Keep on running by Anna

Anna — Sun, 21 Apr 2013 22:10:04 +0000

Thanks for posting this, Richard. This makes me happy. I too ran a road race today, outfitted in my Boston gear, thinking of my Boston friends and supporting the running community that I have been a part of for years. Like you said, what happened in Boston only made me want to run more races, cheer at more races and not cower. Though my race today did make modifications to the security procedures, there were still tons of spectators and I even set a personal record for the distance. In other words, the Boston bombers and all who support them can suck it.

Comment on Broken Teeth by CK

CK — Mon, 08 Apr 2013 00:49:20 +0000

That’s a very nice specimen. Assuming the left side is the root then it looks more juvenile Diplodocus/camarasaurus-y than predator, though [notanexpert]

Comment on Broken Teeth by cromercrox

cromercrox — Sun, 07 Apr 2013 22:36:55 +0000

Probably shark.

Comment on Parklife by Richard Wintle

Richard Wintle — Mon, 01 Apr 2013 23:59:47 +0000

Nice photos. That first one is unbelievably cute.

We have a conventional “barn” style feeder with a trick, counter-balanced perch. You set it so that it will tip and shut off access to the seed if anything too heavy sits on it. We have ours set roughly for one and a half Common Grackles, but it’s effective for pigeons too.

It’s very similar to the fifth one down on this page:
http://www.birdwatchersgeneralstore.com/spf.htm

Might be the same thing, now that I look at it again.

I quite like pigeons though – they are smarter than they look, and real urban survivors. But I get why others dislike them.

Comment on Parklife by Philip Strange

Philip Strange — Mon, 01 Apr 2013 13:27:02 +0000

Here the problem is jackdaws and magpies and we get round it by using a caged feeder or a conventional one hung within the branches of a tree so that the larger birds can’t approach.

Your story reminded me of when I was a teenager and we lived next door to a young naval officer and his family. The pride and joy of the naval neighbour was his front lawn and he was very upset when a mole took up residence under it. He tried various means to stop the mole from creating neat heaps of soil on the lawn but was unsuccessful. Eventually he appeared on his front step with a shotgun. When one of the mole heaps twitched he discharged the shotgun in to the heap.
I didn’t think much of this at the time but now, many years later, I see how seriously weird he must have been.

By the way, this story has no relation to today’s date.

Comment on Parklife by Laurence Cox

Laurence Cox — Fri, 29 Mar 2013 11:35:23 +0000

I “solved” the squirrel problem slightly differently. I have some thin plastic-coated wire that I hang the feeders from. If the wire is long enough that the sqirrel cannot reach the top of the feeder, while hanging from the branch by its back legs, I have found that squirrels are reluctant to try to reach it by climbing down the wire. It is also necessary that the feeder is high enough (above head height) to discourage the squirrel from trying to jump from the feeder directly to the ground. The other approach that I have found to work with squirrels is to go to the back door of the house (so that they can see me) and clap. A single clap gets their attention and another clap a few seconds later usually has them running for next door’s garden and beyond. Repeat a few times and their behaviour is quite Pavlovian.