The Creamfields Festival is held on land owned by the Daresbury Estate, about half an hours drive from Liverpool. I read a blog about someone who has been to the festival four times and recommends it. It’s electronic dance music , House and Tech House, Techno and Trance.
The Daresbury Estate is quite an extensive area, however, in true Modern Day Pirate Fashion, the drug dealers who wanted to “supply” at the festival buried their various stashes in the land where the festival would be held, presumably in the middle of the night over a period of months before the festival started with the intention of unearthing them when the festival was running, thus getting by the strict security at the Festival.
They were foiled by the Police and presumably sniffer dogs who must have had a whale of the time running across the land and finding stashes of buried drugs. The Police with the usual dry humour have said that if anyone wants to reclaim their property to please contact them. The fact that these stashes have been found has probably saved someone’s life, drugs are so dangerous and unpredictable.
I am fascinated by boats in ancient times, let’s face it would you want to bob around the ocean in an over optimistic badly designed and put together ,wooden death trap that probably had the sails pointing in the wrong direction? Either that or had hordes of slaves tied together with manacles who powered the boat with oars. By no means luxury travel. A Roman wreck in Croatian Waters has been examined by Scientists using sophisticated methods and it tells the story of boat repairs.
There was lots of potential for leaks and rotting wood caused by organisms, is it no wonder that some “adventurers” decided it was safer to follow the coastline than go too far out to sea.
However, some waterproofing methods were utilised and modern researchers have identified locations where the boats were likely to have been built and repaired because of the materials and what they contain. Pine Tar( Pitch) and Beeswax protected the hull. The formula made from beeswax and tar. This mixture known to Greek shipbuilders as zopissa -improves the adhesive’s flexibility and is easier to apply when hot.
By identifying the pollen and the plants that the resins contained scientists were able to identify the various repairs that were done to the ship on it’s journey and thus more accurately record it’s path.
Thanks to Dan Sales and BBC Online News for the Headline.
A father and his two sons were on the ascent up to the summit of Mount Fuji when his 7 year old complained that he was tired.
The father in what he described “as a rash decision” decided to continue with his older son and leave the child sitting on a bench with some snacks and a soft drink. The bench was located at a height of 6500ft (over 2000metres) and conditions were foggy and rainy.
The father continued his hike and was three hours hike away when the Police caught up with him and after eight hours he was reunited with his “tired and fussy seven year old”.
The poor dad was probably coerced into going further by the elder son who was probably glad to see the back of the little “whiner”. The dad was caught between a stone and a hard place. Glad it all ended well though.
Thanks to Danielle Herbert and BBC News Online for the Headline
For one little boy a shoe box with gifts in it for Christmas , prepared and sent nearly 40 years ago helped him so much with the trauma of having to leave his home Country of Croatia and move to Sweden , because of the conflict in the Balkans. The boy never forgot that kindness.
All he had was a photo of the two children who had prepared the box and their location written on the back of the photograph, “Mold in Wales”. He put a message out on Facebook through a Mold Community Group and this time social media proved a positive influence and the family who had sent the box recognised their picture and got in touch with the boy who is 40 years old now. The children who sent the box have grown up now and it’s their children who want to keep the tradition of sending shoe box gifts going as they can see what a difference it can make.
Oh everything is so AI trendy now, we just don’t need people. However, I am intrigued about how a cheque (yes they still exist) is processed, if you are unlucky enough to get one through the post. I mean why can’t they just transfer it to your bank code by BACS. ( that would be just as secure). All you need is my account number and my sort code, and it would happen in a matter of hours.
Instead , the DVLA and the Tax People they send cheques. The nearest bank to us is about twenty miles away , to deposit they recommend using the mobile app.
Firstly I search how to deposit a cheque, I select deposit a cheque. It tells me to take a photo of the cheque.
“Hold the Camera flat” It tells me bossily.
The photo still wouldn’t work, and then it says try a dark background. What do you think I am a blooming photo studio. Frantically I search for something dark, but everything has print on it and I suspect will confuse the camera. I want it to read the barcode of the cheque , not the barcode to the latest bathroom suites from Wickes.
Anyway I found some light green paper which seemed to work, so after holding the camera flat and steady and hoping for the best. The app told me.
“Yes I can use the picture”
Well tickety boo! And then came the rather odd request.
“Can you check that you can read all the numbers?”
Well to be honest I had a John McEnroe senior moment.
“You cannot be serious! You are AI and you cannot read the numbers! I thought that was all you were interested in was numbers?” Needless to say I didn’t get an answer. Well to be honest I didn’t have my glasses and so I couldn’t read the numbers but decided to press send anyway as I was fed up.
The next instruction was don’t throw away the cheque as you won’t be able to upload another photo of it and will have to deposit at a bank if this is the case.
Well typical, so I put the cheque away somewhere safe , so if I need it I’ll probably forget where it is.
I really would have liked to spend the money , it was a small windfall really, I thought I’d just make sure it cleared before I did. So for three days I checked my app, and it was “in pending” and hadn’t cleared. After three days it cleared.
My suspicions were aroused. Computers don’t take three days to do anything, humans do, perhaps afterall AI needs a human to check things. Particularly when there is money involved. I think the Banks think so.
thenotsomightyom 