Alternative super power

Another super power that would be good to have is the power to universally heal.

I'm thinking that, as long as you can touch the person's skin, look them in the eye, and say "It will be all right", then in exactly one year the person will have completely healed whatever physical, cognitive or psychological disability the person had.

The recovery would be fairly linear, and incremental, such that for the first week the person wouldn't notice the improvement.

An awkward implication of this ability is that you wouldn't be able to go public with it, because people would be hounding you to heal them.  So you'd have to do things like wander around the hospital wards, secretly healing people.


--GG

My chosen super power

When I was younger, I thought that if I could choose any super-power, I'd want flight, or super-strength, or invulnerability.

Now that I'm older, I'd want the power that anyone I touch on the shoulder or arm will have a good life.  A good, long life.


And that's the difference, I think, between a teenager and a forty-year-old:  you think about these things from a different perspective; your sense of what's important, and how you can help people, changes.


--GG

Slushieriffic

I like slushies, smoothies, frappies, milkshakes, and the like.  I'm also relatively frugal.

We were at the Ekka (state fair) yesterday, and we wanted to buy some slushies.  But the frozen Coke vendors had massively marked up the cost -- basically double what it costs at the 7-11.  On the other hand, the fruit smoothie folks were basically charging what they charge ''on the outside''.  So for 50c more, I could have a regular-priced fruit smoothie rather than a same-sized frozen Coke.  Also, the largest size was not much more than the medium.  So, I bought four larges, for me and the kids (The Lady didn't want one).

But -- there was frozen yogurt mixed in, which has a slight sourness to it -- so the kids didn't like their smoothies.  So I had to drink mine, plus theirs.  So, that's four.

About an hour later, I bought another one:  that's five.

And on the way home, I picked up a frozen Coke.  That's six.  Although this time it was a medium.


I'm pretty sure that six frozen drinks in one day is a personal record.


--GG

Buddy check ego check

At work my team analyzes data -- usually upon request.  These data requests involve people asking us things like the age breakdown or gender breakdown for certain offences, or the typical sentences (punishments) the courts give for certain offences -- or other more complicated things.

The practice in our team is to perform a ''buddy-check'' of all the results:  basically, a teammate tries to replicate the results.  If they match, then we send the client the results.

Usually the match on the first attempt; occasionally they don't match, but the reason is obvious. And -- if I may be so immodest -- I'm usually the one who's correct.

For some reason, though, I and two of my colleagues had an unusual amount of difficulty matching our results yesterday and today.  I was involved in two reasonably straightforward data requests, both of which had four components.  For each we had two points of contradiction.  And, for each of them, my co-worker made an error on one component, and I made an error on another:  so, equitable.

Even though I'm good at what I do, it's minor setbacks like these which keep me humble:  I'm apparently not infallable after all.


--GG 

User-made handplane

Stopped by an antique shop today, and picked up this obviously user-made handplane.  I don't **need** another handplane -- but this one appealed to me.

It's a simple, but clever design:  it works. The handle is just a pipe, welded to the base.  The front tote is a truncated wooden cone, with a bolt running down the centre.  The blade is a fairly hefty slab of metal, with a removable bolt with a wingnut holding it in place.

I do wonder, though, why the maker bothered to make it.  It seems like you could buy a used Stanley of a similar size for the amount of labor it took -- rustic though it is! -- to build this one.

Maybe it was built just because it seemed like an interesting thing to do.

I gave it a quick try, and it seems good:  flat sole, sturdy blade.  Reasonably sharp (although it could use a sharpen).

I'm contem-plating flipping the blade so that it's bevel-up, then using this as a high-angle plane:  I don't have one of **those** yet.


--GG

How did I not notice

As you should know by now, I like green.

So, tonight I was idly browsing gumtree.com.au, which is the Australian version of Craigslist (but with a nicer interface), and I came across this photo:

...and I thought (of course), "Hey!  A green and black bass amp!  Neat-o!"

My second thought was, "Is this the standard Trace Elliot color scheme?"  A further search within Gumtree shows that it apparently is:

I **like** the above amp. Not only is it green and black, but it looks solid and muscle-y.  Someday I'll buy one -- but for now, I have nowhere to put it.

A nifty discovery, though.

--GG