Food, Ivan Arnoldovich, is a subtle thing. One must know how to eat, yet just think – most people don’t know how to eat at all. One must not only know what to eat, but when and how.’ (Philip Philipovich waved his fork meaningfully.) ‘And what to say while you’re eating. Yes, my dear sir. If you care about your digestion, my advice is – don’t talk about bolshevism or medicine at table. And, God forbid – never read Soviet newspapers before dinner.’ ‘M’mm . . . But there are no other newspapers.’ ‘In that case don’t read any at all. Do you know I once made thirty tests in my clinic. And what do you think? The patients who never read newspapers felt excellent. Those whom I specially made read Pravda all lost weight.” ― Mikhail Bulgakov, Heart of a Dog

I stumbled across a very interesting blog: Messy Nessy. The story, that brought me to it was the one about open-air classrooms. Highly recommended, the whole thing is fascinating. Sound like an awesome solution for the post-pandemic world!

It took me a long time, but I have finally learned how to see hidden shapes in autostereograms. Once it clicked in my brain I spent a whole evening looking at Magic Eye pictures. What fun!

As a hobbyist-astrophotographer I’ve been photographing the Milky Way for quite some time, with mixed result, since most of my shooting takes place in London (Bortle scale: 8). Recently I was talking to some friends about it, which reminded me about a fantastic page about Verifying Natural Color in Night Sky Images and Understanding Good Versus Bad Post Processing. A must-read for anybody taking astro photos!

It’s probably the pandemic, but I have got a whole new appreciation for open-world games. Not being able to freely leave the house without a mask and a supply of anti-bacterial hand wash makes me enjoy the open-world possibilities more than usual, but also reduces the guilt felt for spending so much time in front of the TV. After buying GTA5 in 2015 and trying to finish it multiple times over the years, I’ve finally done it today. The ending wasn’t super exciting, but it was good enough, and it left me wanting more. I tried joining the online version, but got repeatedly shot by a drone (?) of some kind right after a respawn and ended up not really enjoying it that much. To satiate my open-world-game appetite, I’m installing Red Dead Redemption 2 instead. Hey, I was born in the 80s, I’ll take a good single player campaign over multiplayer any time.

I learned about an Ant Mill (also known an The Ant Spiral of Death): An ant mill is an observed phenomenon in which a group of army ants, which are blind, are separated from the main foraging party, lose the pheromone track and begin to follow one another, forming a continuously rotating circle. The ants will eventually die of exhaustion. Freaky!

A rat decided to move in to our garden. I knew that I would some day need all of those NEST cameras that I’ve accumulated over the years. I set up traps and started 24/7 surveillance to catch the bastard. So far I’ve failed. Will keep you posted.

I dropped my iPhone and broke the back glass. Ouch. The silver lining is that I still have my AppleCare+, which means only £79 out of pocket as opposed to £500. Unfortunately, to fix the glass, one have to go to the Apple Store. Since we try to social distance as much as possible, we decided against taking a bus, and walked there instead. It was a nice walk, about 5km each way. The closest Apple Store from my flat is in a shopping centre. I took a FPP2 face mask, to make sure I don’t get the virus and went to the shopping centre in the middle of the day. Well, any hope of there not being too many people there was lost as soon as I saw the parking lot, totally full of cars.

What can I say, on the Apple’s part - great work. There were separate queues with clear signs on the floor to show people where to stand. There were free masks, free hand sanitiser, and a temperature check when you entered. They also counted people to not let too many in.

Some people are dicks though. In the 10 minutes I spent in the queue I witnessed:

  • some people (a family) who tried to jump the queue
  • a couple who refused to wear a mask
  • and one person with a TEMPERATURE who was insisting on entering

I really have no words, I am just so sorry for anybody that has to deal with that on a daily basis.