Random Pickings

Just a few things, as it’s Friday and I have The Beast sat on me.

1. Yesterday we had a big storm pass over, which knocked out my desktop computer – it had switched off and wouldn’t turn on again. So today I emailed the our sysadmin, who came in to fix it. The first thing he did was reach round the back and turn it off and on from there. Of course it worked perfectly. Apparently the storm had given it such a shock it needed a severe rebooting rather than a normal rebooting. I did feel a bit silly, though.
2. On the way home I saw a motorbike with the registration 33rd. I suspect it wasn’t Kimi Raikkonen’s.
3. The Beast was happy to see that a story with the headline Treasury chief on ‘wombat leave’, until I explained that the guy wasn’t going to hunt them.
4. The US supreme court has decided that Americans have the constitutional right to shoot themselves in the foot. This whole second amendment thing is strange – all the fuss is over a poorly worded sentence. My own extensive hysterical historical research has shown that the amendment originated when the New England militias were so upset at the possibility that they might have to march south where it was hot, they demanded that arrangements be made so they didn’t have to wear their normal uniform. After much negotiation, they ended up agreeing on a constitutional right to bear arms.
5. The big science news this week is a new avian phylogeny. Fans of male British vernacular will be delighted to learn that the three lead authors, and more than half of all the authors, are women. Even better, this was revealed by Grrlscientist, who herself has also been described as a bird¹.

1. OK, OK. I know why you’re all really reading this blog. I’ll succumb and give you the feline porn you’re here for:

¹ a Strigiforme no less