The no kidding zone. It's a clue, guys.

A nearly very bad injury happened to a friend yesterday. She struck her head on the corner of a piece of furniture, was briefly stunned, bruised an arm, hurt a shoulder. A simple fall? No! According to her - at this stage I only have her version of events - she was THROWN by an individual who was supposedly giving a demonstration of a martial art, and a volunteer was called upon.

I am told that the demo-giver made some claim to be a practitioner, with perhaps an advanced grade in the sport, but the facts remain to be determined. I'm told, with no reason to doubt the teller, that there were no safety mats in place, and (obvious from the fact itself of injury) there was inadequate space for any "throwing", let alone that my friend is a lady of a certain age and has not confided to me that she has ever had training in safe falling, which is the number one requirement before anybody starts getting thrown around in martial arts practice.

There were many witnesses, since this particular piece of stupidity was performed to a group who meet regularly and who have no connection with the martial arts code which has been mentioned to me. This was meant to be, or should have been, simply a talk to some interested souls about another person's recreational sport. This morning I have made the initial moves which may see yesterday's event further investigated and referred to the national federation which governs the sport mentioned, which may be entirely innocent if the person in question is claiming wrongfully to be associated with it. We shall see.

At the very least, genuine practitioners deserve to be reminded of their code of ethics, their Federation's rules, and warned of possible severe consequences. For now, fact-finding is the name of the game.

Laptop limits, ladders, riots

At our group's musical practice today - a full house! - the astute Denis confirmed that his household's computer does indeed weigh under 1.5 tons (see yesterday's blog), and this is a satisfactory state of affairs.

At lunch we all enjoyed Gwenda's nectarines, relieved to hear that she had used a long fruit-picking pole and not climbed a precarious ladder, which she threatened to do.

We consider these pieces of news rather more important than various reported riots from middle east countries. Gotta get a sense of perspective.

1949 and Csirac

My ever reliable informants from Tasmania blog about their present visit to "the mainland" and tell of the exhibition in the Melbourne Museum, where, among so much else, they went all the way to the basement which houses .... Australia's own CSIRAC computer, built in 1949. It was only the fourth in the world (all experimenting with different technical design). For my friend it had special meaning, since one of the machine's team from those days was later Bill's professor in computing studies.

But why do I tell you this? Well, the blog sent me to the Wikipedia entry, online, for CSIRAC .... lots of good stuff for tech folk ... but what caught my eye was the parting shot. It was this quotation from a 1949 Popular Mechanics magazine, forecasting "the relentless march of science" as the museum says cheekily:

"Computers in the future may weigh no more than 1.5 tons"

The Kazakh Connection

Quiet week, warm then cooler since yesterday and substantial rain overnight (best time for it). The plums are getting steadily eaten. That's their job. I am happy to see a nice crop of them - on the sole tree - because last year in drought-like conditions the same tree shed all its fruit in protest.

I was going to buy a wireless mouse this morning but have put it off until Tuesday.

The most interesting thing, given the large number of uninteresting things around, was a modest editing job from Kazakhstan, technically a bit challenging, to render adequate the letters of support from a university's engineering department for a whiz engineer heading to Britain to undertake post-grad studies. No names, no pack drill. Another client wanted an explanation of some pompous bureaucratese; others typically are after re-writes of their copy - not editing at all, really.

Yet another was peeved because his returned document did not contain comments of what had been changed and why: he just received back a standard corrected text. If a "tracked changes" document was required, the client needed to say so and use a different format. It is all a lot for a bear of little brain. Not helped by "head office" going to bed in Copenhagen as I'm having breakfast in SA, while some eager client is submitting work in Chicago. This is called having different time zones. Fortunately most of the electronic exchanges happen without human actions.

And how many of you knew that Kazakh is where we get the word Cossack? A member of our song group mentioned that word this week in relation to a Russian song which the male voices are gearing up for. But of course the "Cossacks" from Tsarist times were about as 'Russian' as the British army's Nepalese Gurkha regiments are ... English.

Runes, Prunes and Mulberries

The stewed mulberries are doing well --- halfway through the week and they are holding out. I remembered to buy prunes with the shopping this morning, after a famous disaster of finding dates when I reached in the pantry cupboard expecting prunes, or was it vice versa? It's all a bit hazy.

Truth to tell I have been distracted by some online edit jobs arriving at weird times. Several from Abu Dhabi the other day. Mind you, these mini-assignments tend to reach me via Denmark. Don't ask. Last week a couple were from Hawaii, but they were from a Dutchman, and I had supposed him to be in Canada. The interesting thing is that it seems not to matter.

Now, this afternoon I have just uploaded my latest, eighth, book, produced and published through CreateSpace.com, and hopefully to be on sale at Amazon.com in due course - a process which will take at least a month, since I need to receive a proof copy by snail mail from the States and only then can approve it for release, if I do. (If not, more delay etc). But it is speed itself compared with the old days of copy submission and letter-press printing technology. Yes, I myself do go back that far. In fact, somewhere, I have if I could find them, the old quill pens and monastic robes.

At Amazon, you can find my previous title (January 2011) Quiz Questions, by Will Smyth, and who knows, you may care to buy it if you fancy running a quiz/trivia fundraiser event. Or just want to kick back and be amused by some 50 pages of Q&A. I hate it when you have to look up cryptic answers at the back of books. These ones are right opposite; questions on the left-side page, their answers on the right. So you can cheat if you like. Check it out

The new book, that is, as of one hour ago, is called Runes and Rune Reading: An Introduction to the Runic Symbols of Northern Europe. Like I said, it will be weeks before it can be seen or ordered at Amazon, and because it has colour illustrations and because they charge heaps to ship overseas, I can't afford to buy it but perhaps you and your rich rellies can, at US$19.95.

Back in early January, Jenny Oldland of the YP Country Times (Thank you, Jenny) did a nice piece about the first six books that were available online, successively, between August and December 2010. It has been a little surprising. A tad experimental on my part - the more so since all eight titles have been in different areas. Only two, one on health food and one the pre-Christmas recipe book (Festive Favorites), could be said to be on related themes. Might list the titles here later, for the sake of completeness. I will wait until number 8 is approved.
P.S. Just had an  email to say the proof copy of Runes and Rune Reading has been sent on its way. Will it reach the Great South Land safely? And when?  Record to date is 12 days, longest 20.

More on Mulberries

They told me mulberries make a mess. I believed. Clad in mulberry-matching old  togs, I spent a productive hour this arvo with Gwenda at the Tree of Nola; not the tree of knowledge, although I came away with the knowledge that the tales (about the mess) are true. Washing the unforbidden fruit was essential, and apologies to all the small green caterpillers, plus the one ladybird which was escorted off the premises. This was unfair to the caterpillers but it was too inconvenient by then to return them to the tree - at the other end of  town. The berries (and any missed creepy crawlies) were stewed and delicious. Plenty left, in fridge, on the stove, and on the tree. Thank you, Nola.

Mulberries and Maui

I am eating mulberries for lunch. Thanks. The kind donor knows who it is!

Yesterday, thank goodness, the weather turned cooler after the two-day heatblast brought by the northerlies out of the continent's hot heartland. Fortunate, too, (but bad enough) the folk on Australia's north-east coast have suffered less devastation than was feared from Cyclone Yasi. Those meteorology charts showed lurid swirls the size of whole countries.

Our singers group performed its first concert for 2011 at one of the regular venues; appreciative audience. We enjoy it at least as much as they do. Once more, rumours of a pay rise. It's one of the huge benefits for all volunteer groups - a pay rise can be announced at any time, by anyone... doubling, even tripling, the usual rate, with frequent bonuses etc.

Did one edit job this morning which was amusing in one respect. The client - after some technical issues were straightened out in recent days by the source company in one European country, while the client was from a different European country - turned out to be based in Vancouver. And for some reason I had formed an opinion that he and his people were French Canadians in Quebec. (Good place to find lots of French Canadians, just in case you didn't know!) Oh well. None of that is a problem. I exchanged emails with the client directly (not typical in this sort of work as we don't normally have a clue who, or where, the other is!): "based in Vancouver" he'd said, only to hear back that he was currently kicking back in Maui, Hawaii.

It certainly opens a window on a different way of perceiving the "global cloud" e-world.

OK, back to the mulberries. They've gone! Aargh, I ate 'em somewhere in paragraph three.