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Be yourself; Everyone else is already taken.
— Oscar Wilde.

Me and my occasional posts, mostly about the town of Gosport and occasionally my thoughts. So stay tuned for more. Subscribe below to get notified when I post new updates.

2089 – Letter to Steve XXXI – Ants, Bees & Star Trek

Dear Steve,

I really haven’t paid as much attention to letter XXXI this week as I should have done. I can’t give you a good reason.

Having just reread the letter and reviewed the discussions I have had with my assistant, I think the view that I am taking with regard to XXXI is that classic situation not so much of two naturalists disagreeing about something, but each providing observed evidence for their stance, for evaluation. I believe that the Monographer Scopoli, in his published leaflet, stated his position, which Gilbert disagrees with, in particular how a bird of a certain species manages its young when under threat (by carrying them away in their beak). But Gilbert has not seen this, and cannot categorically rule out that it happens. He is, though, very doubtful given the nature of the bird’s beak.

For me, it is a curiosity that arguments such as those must be conducted at a snail’s pace, instead of today’s ability to (all intents and purposes) communicate the issues instantaneously across the world. Are such arguments today more intense (especially if crowd-sourced)? Has the speed of modern communication improved scientific debate, or merely accelerated disagreement? And of course, there have always been people who like to stir things up – is that a colloquialism that Gilbert would recognise?

Gilbert had mentioned Monographers, people who focus on one species or type, and learn as much as they can about their chosen subject. Such was Scopoli.

I asked my assistant if she were aware of anyone who may be classed as a Monographer today. There were two names in particular that immediately grabbed my attention: Thomas Seeley, who wrote the book Honeybee Democracy, and Deborah M. Gordon and her book Ants at Work: How an insect society is organised. The latter is interesting, as it was reviewed by Seeley.

Since that has arisen, I have been trying to determine what my fascination is with both Ants and Bees. I’m not at all sure that I can answer that question. But there is something about both species that I think has always interested me; I couldn’t help but ask a potentially silly question;

How similar are Star Trek’s “The Borg” to Ants and Bees? It turns out, quite a bit. Not a perfect match, of course; after all, in science fiction anything can happen.

All The Best

Bill.

Link to Previous Letter XXX, 11 Oct 26, The Fruit if the Tree (or possibly bush)

Link to Index of Letters to Steve

2127 The Amateur Natursalist

I found another book, The Amatuer Naturalist, by Gerald Durrell. I’m rather pleased with it, although initially I thought it may take me away from Gilbert White. But I am learning that it has big potential to be a crucial supporter.

I am going to try and read a few pagers a week. In theory (at tthe moment) I hope that it will provide directions as to which way to go, in particular if I am writing explicitly about an aspect of one of Gilbert’s letters.

At the moment, I reading the section of the first chapter that discusses how the study of nature came about, and who was invilvewd in it’s development into what can, by some people, be classed as “The Hobby of Naturalism”.

2125 – Microscopes & Photography

Even though the magnification of this microscope is nowhere near enough to be able to see things like bacteria, it serves really well, for having a closer and yet wider view of the subject. Which is all well and good. But if I’m writing about it, it would be really nice to be able to capture a picture of what I am writing about.

To that end, getting a photo of a subject under the scope, I had a couple of choices; The first is to try and get the image through the eyepiece using my phone. Sounds straightforward enough. But I have to admit that every attempt I have made to get the phone to look through the eyepiece has ended miserably.

Time then to bite the bullet, and buy a dedicated camera, but which one, and how much to spend? It turns out that one of the main features I needed to look at was the pixel number. There are two main sizes; 2 & 5 Megapixel – that doesn’t sound like much given today’s cameras. But a 2M camera is capable of capturing an image that can be happily displayed on a high definition TV. There are cameras with resolution greater than 5MP, but they are also significantly more expensive.

I decided on a budget of £100-£150, and actually ended up buying a camera for £71, pretty much in hte middle of the range. And, it’s a 2MP camera. So, let’s see how that turns out. It’s not due to arrive for a week (frustration!), but I am hoping that you will get to see more pictures.

i need to get a book I bought recently down off the shelf – The Amateur Naturalist by Geral Durrell. I won’t follow everything in the book, but it will give me some ideas.

2124 – Office tidying

Several years ago, I purchased and read – to a point, the book Getting Things Done by David Allen. I can only remember bits of it (I can’t find my copy, I’d be surprised if I’d sent it to the charity shop).

The main thing is to have an inbox, which everything goes into. That includes not only electronic but physical documents and objects. But, you always know what is in the inbox, and there is a decision path that has to be followed.

The workflow for Getting Things Done (GTD) looks complex as a flow chart, but is in reality fairly straightforward. Looking at what to do, there are three main actions; Do it, Delegate it, Defer it. With some things, if the Do It action will take less than 5 minutes, the response is just do it!

It’s a bit more than that obviously, but I’mm not going to go into too much detail for now. I have to get this published. Except to say, that I have bit of clear desk space – for now!

2123 – Camera Club Night

Tonights Camera Club gave members an opportunity to show other members a few pieces of their work as projected images. The header picture was one of mine. It was an attempt to explore the macro capabilities of the iPhone. 17.

It’s not perfect, but it isn’t bad, even Jon (one of the top A group) was quite impressed by it. Focus isn’t quite right. But, when the ants are back, I’ll have another go.

A few weeks ago, our window cleaner, Bob, came into the charity shop where I volunteer on a Friday afternoon. He was carrying what lookked like a rather good camera. We got talking about photography. I suggested that he might like to come to the Camera Club. As it happens, he turned up tonight, and given the activity, I thought it was quite a good one for him,, as it gave him an opportunity to see members work.

I got the impression that he quite enjoyed it. It’d be really nice if he joined

2122 – Astronomy Course Week 4 – The Sun & Moon

I’m fairly confident that this was close to “peak eclipse” (93%-ish) for us here, in Gosport on the 12th of August. So it seems entirely appropriate as a picture for tonights blog.

Tonights session was split in to two parts. The first half was about the sun, which I can’t deny is fascinating. But It’s not something that I would ever consider studying, my focus is in the second half, and to be honest is much easier to study – The Moon.

The Lunar Reconnaisance Orbiter provides an incredible service for looking at the moon. The frustrating thing is that Steve, the lecturer showed us part of the lunar surface that looks unusual. At home, I’m trying to find the same area, but it isn’t as easy as I thought it would be.

I’m still looking for it.

2121 – Letter to Steve XXX – The fruit of the tree (or possibly bush).

Dear Steve,

I read Gilbert’s Letter XXX with a little bit of bemusement. It was, to put it simply, a bit all over the place.

In reality, there is no way I could produce a letter that was in line with his.

This week, then, we will talk about the passion fruit bush that sits between us and our neighbour in our front-of-house area. What I want to do with this.

Preparing the bird feeders for autumn and winter.r

When you look at it, the bush (actually, I think there are probably two or three of them) is in a pretty poor state. It looks like it is dying (I’ll be very sad if it is), but much more likely is that it is coming towards the end of the season.

I had hoped to be able to pick up a passion fruit that was in a healthy condition and had dropped naturally of its own accord. It really looks like it isn’t going to happen. From the looks of it, most, if not all, of the remaining passion fruit is rotting on the bush. None have, as far as I can tell, fallen of their own accord.

I wanted to get a fruit that had dropped naturally so that I could take it apart to see what was happening inside. If you remember, I have had a couple of healthy pods with the seeds at various stages of development, and dissecting them was fascinating. Taking it to a conclusion, of taking apart a pod that was about to open naturally, was the obvious thing to do.

I’m less inclined to take a pod that is actively rotting. I am a little bit concerned about breathing in some spores from the rotting fruit, so I’m probably not going to do that. Next year, I shall be looking out not just for passion fruit, but horse chestnut, if I can reach one, and beech nuts, and any other fruit that is developing, to follow their progress. Then, of course, I want to be able to photograph the results, so I need a space for that. This is why i am really trying to tidy my office – and at the moment, making such a hash of it.

In reading Gilbert’s letter XXX, I learnt a new word; Prolix – never heard of that one before. It. is the tendency to use too many words to explain something. I think that probably describes me to a T.

All the very Best

Bill

Link to previous letter

Link to Index of Letters to Steve

Link to next letter XXXI, 18 Oct 26: Ants, Bees & Star Trek

2120 – How casual can it get?

I was stood in the kitchen, and notoced some movement at the bottom of the garden. The fox had come ever the sheds and was quite calmly strolling down the garden path.

I was at the sink, and made no attempt to hide myself. It was coming towards me, not in the least bit bothered. I can’t believe it hadn’t seen me. I was curious as to how far down it would come.

I guess at trhis point, in the picture, it’s about six feet from the back door. It went up over the fence into next door. Iwanted to get a picture of it going over the fence, but it was just too quick.

Apart from a trip too the shops as I needed to get some dreamies treets for Misty, I’ve stayed in today. I’m not sure what’s going on, but I have had some quite strong cold symptoms all day. I’m assuming that it’s an after effect of Wednesday’s flue jab. I’m sure it will be fine.

2119 – An Astronomy Lecture

On the 2nd Friday of each month, the Hampshire Astronomy Group hosts a lecture in the Clanfield Memorial Hall. The lectures have an astronomy theme. I attended my first one tonight.

The topic for tonight was radio cosmology, as opposed to radio astronomy.looks at the nature of the universe using radio waves.

The lecture was very well supported, there was as technical team I think it was recorded, and was transmitted via zoom.

The subject is fascinating. Whilst there were a couple of times where I felt very drowsy, I pretty much did make it through.

Afterwards, there was a raffle. Of course,, I was the last ticket drawn and down a box of chocolates.

I have to publish this as it is close to midnight.

Because I didn’t have access to the car, last Monday, I asked if anybody on the course lived in Gosport and would be able to give me a lift. Luckily, Matt, very kindly stepped up to the plate.

He picked me up, and then went to Titchfield to pick up a friend, we then went to Clanfield via the back lanes. It seems that Matt & Louise do this deliberately. I kind of get it But, it’s not for me.