1. New program will see pregnant mothers and babies protected from life-threatening virus  SBS
2. World-leading approach to protect babies from RSV  Department of Health
3. Government-funded RSV vaccines to protect infants from severe disease  Australian Pharmacist
4. 'Very scary': Wagga mum's plea for parents to protect babies through RSV jab  The Daily Advertiser
5. Guild backs free RSV vaccinations  Australian Journal of Pharmacy

Japanese encephalitis virus activity in the Kimberley  Government of Western Australia Department of Health

1. NSW Boosts Support for Severe Menopause Symptoms  Mirage News
2. How Reena found relief when GPs hesitated to treat her symptoms  Sydney Morning Herald
3. What you need to know about perimenopause  Kidspot

1. New Model Predicts Intelligent Life Odds in Universe  Mirage News
2. Formula for alien life: Drake Equation gets a dark energy update  Cosmos

1. North Melbourne announces three-year Western Australia agreement  North Melbourne Football Club
2. Roos end 14-year relationship amid bold new location for AFL games  Fox Sports
3. North Melbourne takes 'home' AFL matches to Western Australia  ABC News
4. Eagles set for extra WA game  West Coast Eagles

1. All-time reaction to coaching ‘disaster’; Steph’s stunning clutch moment: NBA Wrap  Fox Sports
2. Bike rides and Balkan music: Klay Thompson is embracing a fresh start with the Mavericks  ESPN Australia
3. 10 unforgettable Klay Thompson moments with Warriors ahead of return  NBA.com
4. Dub Hub: Warriors players share ‘welcome back’ messages for Klay Thompson’s return  Golden State of Mind

1. Kate Middleton sparks doubts whether she even had cancer?  Geo News
2. ‘Played us all’: Vicious Kate theory takes hold  news.com.au
3. Kate Middleton Yet Again Trapped In Conspiracy Theories While Battling Cancer? Find Out As Royal Reporter Questions Princess’ Diagnosis  PINKVILLA

McLaren 750S 2025 track review  Chasing Cars

1. Outback Queensland residents spend thousands on flights, grapple with Qantas service changes  ABC News
2. Airlines that love competition: Do you see pigs fly?  Sydney Morning Herald
3. Predictably, domestic airfares surged after the collapse of Rex. There aren’t many good solutions  The Conversation
4. Report finds just how much airfares spiked since end of Rex. One route doubled  The Canberra Times
5. Qantas’ single excuse for fare price hike  news.com.au

1. Germany to hold snap election in February after government's coalition collapse  ABC News
2. The briefcase, the Porsche and the collapse of the German government – podcast  The Guardian
3. Germany set for snap election following collapse of Olaf Scholz’s coalition  The Conversation
4. President calls German early election plan 'realistic'  DW (English)

1. NSW nurses strike heaps wage pressure on Minns government  The Australian Financial Review
2. Hundreds of elective surgeries cancelled as 10,000 nurses and midwives walk off job in NSW  ABC News
3. Nurses took to the streets after ‘insulting’ pay offer. Next stop, court  Sydney Morning Herald
4. Almost 700 surgeries cancelled as 12,000 NSW nurses strike for better pay  9News

1. As it happened: Donald Trump ally taunts Kevin Rudd; WiseTech shareholders launch class action  Sydney Morning Herald
2. Ditching Rudd over Trump insults would be ‘worst possible signal’: Turnbull  Sydney Morning Herald
3. Senior Liberal calls for Rudd to be sacked after Trump advisor suggests US ambassador is on thin ice  9News

1. Donald Trump picks Elon Musk to lead new government department  9News
2. Trump’s picks the clearest path yet to power consolidation  Sydney Morning Herald
3. Donald Trump announces key figures for 2025 administration after election victory  ABC News
4. Trump’s Cabinet: Here Are His Picks And Finalists For Key Roles—Mike Huckabee, Kristi Noem And More  Forbes
5. Trump rolls out his most MAGA picks for new White House term  CNN

1. Legitimacy of two Victorian local government elections in question after duplicate votes detected  ABC News
2. Victorian council election results 2024 LIVE updates: Suspected postal vote tampering in council elections  Sydney Morning Herald
3. VEC investigates potential vote tampering in two Melbourne councils  The Age

1. Kristian White trial: CCTV reveals final moments before Clare Nowland Tasering in Cooma nursing home  Sydney Morning Herald
2. Jury shown footage of 95yo getting stuck in tree in weeks before being tasered by police officer  ABC News
3. Elderly woman 'unable to comply' before cop Tasered her, court hears  9News

Some call centers are very strict about fundraisers reading directly from a script. Other call centers advise fundraisers to stick to the script, but add additional details when the call requires these extras. Still other fundraising call centers allow fundraisers a great deal of freedom as long as the fundraiser stays within the general parameters of the fundraising campaign. Each strategy has its own merits, however there are some common elements that should be included in all fundraising calls.

Getting a foot in the door.

The first step in most calls is the greeting. Usually the fundraiser identifies their self and the group which they are calling on behalf of. This step should be gotten through quickly but not rushed. The realities of the campaign will dictate how the fundraiser proceeds with the introduction. In some cases the introduction can be delayed until after the a basic description of the organization and its funding need is made. Promise to be brief with your call and stick to this promise./

Expressing gratitude.

The next step is to thank the donor. Whether its a simple thank you for taking the call or a more elaborate thank you for past contributions and supporting the cause, this is an important step. Sincere and elaborate thank yous let the donor know that their help is appreciated. Thank yous also tend to extend the call; people rarely hang up on callers while the caller is praising their support and reaffirming their decision to support the cause. Additionally, the longer a donor stays on the phone, the more likely they are to make a contribution.

The reason for the call.

Next, quickly go into some of the current issues faced by the organization and what is being done about these issues. Don't skimp on the details but don't speak in a monotonous way either. Express some real interest in the cause. Listen for cues from the donor during this and all stages. If they agree with something you're saying; elaborate on the subject. Build rapport. Remember; men and women process information differently. Read other posts on this site to find out which language to use for each kind of donor. Alternatively, if the donor indicates that they're busy; acknowledge that. Repeat that you'll be brief or just get right into your first donation request.

Going for the donation.

The first ask. Given the reasons stated above make a solid ask for a minimum of 3 times highest past gift. Be assertive and let the donor respond. Don't laugh, don't whine. If the need is real, the request should be real as well. Defend your request if required to; don't just lower it. Defending the amount of the first ask gives instant credibility to the importance of the issue, In fact, state that the reason you're requesting a large donation is because of the serious nature of the issue, Only then begin to lower the amount that your'e requesting.

A second attempt.

The second ask. Quickly elaborate on the need. Acknowledge that the donor isn't able to give 3 times their highest past donation. Considering the need, ask for 2 times the past donation. Again defend your request. The more legitimate you sound, the more likely the donor is to give you money. For many fundraisers lowering ask amounts deteriorates into desperation. Although this is a negotiation the need is legitimates and as a fundraiser you want to get the highest possible donation,

One more try.

The third and, not necessarily, final ask, This is where the fundraiser asks the donor to meet the level of their last contribution. This is obviously the level that the donor has been comfortable giving at in the past. Again stress the need and elaborate on the potential consequences of not reaching an adequate level of funding for the campaign in question.

Taking no for an answer.

If stopping here, without securing a donation, take the time to sincerely thank the donor once more. This establishes that you, the fundraiser and the organization, respect the donor no matter what they can or cannot give at the moment. This also helps to reinforce an attitude of respect and gratitude which should be extended to all donors at all times.

The forth ask and so on.

Many times a donor who can't match a previous donation will express regret that they simply cant afford the same amount. If applicable, ask for an even lower amount down to the minimum level of donation that can be taken on a specific campaign. Remind the donor and yourself that every donation, no matter what size, counts. After all in most fundraising campaigns, the many small donations greatly out number the amount of money which is generated by the larger ones.

Get it on a credit card.

The credit card ask. Credit card donations fulfill instantly. There are no pledge cards to send out. Obviously securing a donation on a credit card is favorable to a mailed in pledge card. Credit cards on the phone are favorable to online donations as well; donors can easily be distracted and forget to make their donation.

Ease their mind.

Security is the main concern with credit card donations, Donors are rightfully fearful of identity theft. Every call center has methods in place to protect the credit card information of donors. Patiently explain these procedures as well as why credit card gifts are the best gifts that donors can make.

Be prepared to further explain  the value of credit card donations and their secure nature. Many donors will give by credit card once they have been properly assured of security measures. If not, follow your organization's standard pledge card procedure.

Wrapping up the call.

Again, take the time to sincerely thank the donor for their help. Answer any additional questions and then politely end the call. Following this method on every call improves dollars raised as well as the quality of each outbound call.

Below are two lists of nominations for Japanese buzzword of the year.  Each has 30 entries, and from each list one will be chosen as the respective winner.  Since the two lists are already quite long and rich, I will keep my own comments (mostly at the bottom and focusing on phoneticization) to a minimum. […]

[This is a guest post by Denis Mair]      Cai Xutie was a Taiwanese woman who ran a family farm with her husband in a village near Jiayi in central Taiwan. She was a rice farmer and had never attended a public school. After her husband died in middle age, she sold some of the land, […]

Today's xkcd: Mouseover title: "There's a maximum likelihood that I'm doing phylogenetics wrong." It's not that Randall is "doing phylogenetics wrong", but rather than he's applying it to an inappropriate problem. The OED's etymology for phylogeny is < German Phylogenie (E. Haeckel Gen. Morphol. der Organismen (1866) I. iii. 57) < Phylum phylum n. + […]

Registration is now open for National O.T.O. Conference XIV, to be held in Denver, Colorado, August 3-6 2023. NOTOCON is normally held every two years, but it was canceled in 2021 due to the pandemic, so this will be our first NOTOCON since 2019.

Here is the new content:

I've mentioned that I have been working on running a five-minute mile on the treadmill this year, a goal that at one point seemed in reach. I think I also complained that I got sick and that when I got back to it, they had swapped out all the treadmills for fancy treadmills with built-in Netflix and air conditioning and stuff like that, which I now refer to as "Bob's Tred Mill." There's some good things about these, and some things that make me crazy, but one thing that especially made me crazy is they felt significantly faster than the old Precor ones I was used to. It's definitely a real thing that treadmills are sometimes not calibrated correctly (or the tread stretches out or slips, etc.) but it was also possible that being sick set me back more than I thought. The important thing is to get The Data instead of just The Upset Feelings so I was shopping for things like those hand-held unicycles that you can wheel around to measure how long things (like streets) are, as it does seem like the kind of device that I would own, looking at like the world's most accurate hand-held unicycle thing, and then I noticed at the last thing that most of them have a MAX SPEED of something like 10mph, which would not do. I finally had the brain-stroke that I could use a laser tachometer to do it, since these have a max speed more like 99999 RPM. So I measured the tread length with some chalk marks and put reflective tape on there. The treadmill will go at different speeds when loaded (running on it) vs unloaded, which also depends on your weight and stride and stuff a little, so you also gotta engage in the dexterity-testing act of measuring while running on it, which looked like this:

POV: You are me

Pointing the laser at the reflective tape dot (visible right next to the laser dot here) as it flies by while running kinda fast is definitely tricky, although I must say that it was one of those times when I thought, "I've been training my whole life for this!" and you can see that I'm showing off a little bit here by also photographing it at the same time. But you are not impressed since it reports 0 RPM. The nice thing about the tachometer is that it only needs a pair of observations to give you a frequency, and you can easily tell if you missed the tape, which you do often on account of the shaking, because you get some integer multiple that's way off from the right answer. Anyway I dutifully took multiple readings unloaded and loaded at (nominally) 6mph, 7mph, ... 12mph and made a spreadsheet with all the results converted, and... found that the treadmill is just about 1% too fast loaded, all across the board. This would be just 3 seconds for a five-minute mile, which is not nothing, but it definitely does not vindicate my Upset Feelings (I was thinking it felt more like 10%). My best guess is that the old treadmills were (all?) actually too slow, which is annoying because now I doubt some of the unofficial 5k records I painfully set for myself during the summer. But, well, the thing about endeavoring to do challenging things is: No Cheating!

In project news, I feel I have a foothold now to get myself out of this math hole, as I've finally migrated this algorithm to work only with 64-bit integer arithmetic and so I can port it to GPU soon and then be out of ideas about how to make it faster. I have no idea if there's a good story to be told for this project, but I'll try (and also, it is okay if sometimes the hobby programming doesn't lead to a video or Sigbovik paper, you know?). And speaking of Sigbovik: Heroes have emerged quite on time this year, so it's certainly looking like there will be a proceedings and conference (perhaps with livestream), so start writing those papers now.

Aside from the math hole, I've been making some progress on two other concurrent projects. It's getting normal again (even quiet) at work and winter break is coming up, and I'm looking forward to having some several-day stretches to work on them.

I played through Golf Peaks (well, I haven't beat all the bonus levels yet but I've been working back to front so it's just a matter of a little time at this point), which was a very nice little puzzle game that does almost everything right. Other than the very irritating music in one world, I think my only disappointment was that it doesn't elegantly handle infinite-length puts. I'm also still working on Return to Monkey Island, which I do like, although it doesn't hold up to my memory of the first two. I think one of the problems with modern point-and-click adventure games is the voices, actually: Not because the voice acting bothers me, but because it goes so slow compared to reading. It's like when you just want to figure out the maximum speed of the hand-held unicycle and they're trying to get you to watch a video instead of just reading. Tears of the Kingdom (which I'm still savoring, but getting close to the end now) does a good job with this; you do hear snippets of voices, which helps with the characterization, but you can blow through the dialog at a pretty fast pace. Probably a lot cheaper, too!

Hello again,

This month I've been plugging away on the project I mentioned in the previous post which involves among other things a PDF generator and now an implementation of ML (as in Standard ML, but also the other one). This is probably the 10th "compiler" I've written in my life, and it's kind of fun to revisit these problems that you've done many times and try out different approaches, although this time one of the approaches is "Use C++" (for reasons of making good on a joke, but also for reasons of mlton doesn't work on my computer any more). And although C++ is a fine tool for many applications, it does have some deficiencies for the task of writing a compiler (one of the most irritating: a very modest limit on the stack depth? Like my computer has 256 Gigabytes of RAM and 2^64 virtual addresses and somehow it can only manage 1 megabyte for the stack and there's no standard way to increase it? Get off my lawn). But then you can also experience new ways of struggling with C++, like: A middle of the night power failure wrecked my computer's GPT (as in GUID Partition Table, but also the other one) and I was deep in the depths of taking the computer apart to reset its parts, its BIOS (its Basic In/Out System, which is where it stores its biography) and its hard drives were everywhere on the floor, and it could not be saved, and this after I already broke my computer this year by trying to put the world's biggest video card in it, too hard. And I could not merely perform recovery because of Unknown Error, so I had to begin anew again and restore from backups. But when you restore from backup and you're in the mood of "why is this so complicated and I don't understand how computers work any more?" it occurs to you (me) to also change your underlying development environment instead of reinstalling the devil you know. So I ended my friendship with Cygwin64 and switched to new best friend MSYS2. Both of these things are different ways of wishing that you were using Linux while you're using Windows. The main reason I tried this new way of struggling is that Cygwin is very behind on its version of x86_64 clang (C++ compiler), which I wanted to try because it supports AddressSanitizer and clangd on Windows, and I wanted to give LSP in emacs a shot (it's finally good!). There were a few growing pains, but I think MSYS2 is what I would recommend now. One of the nice things they did was create multiple different environments depending on what you want to do (e.g. "I want to use clang to compile x86_64 code" or "I want to do 32-bit cross compilation for ARM") and in that environment, you just say "g++" and it invokes the compiler you want, instead of the weird contortions I've been doing for years with manually invoking x86_64-w64-mingw32-g++. I was also able to get clblast working before being too filled with rage to continue, so that is nice for the ML inference on the world's biggest graphics card. I made these graphics to help me tune the correct settings of GPU layers (y axis) and number of threads (x axis):

tune-single
tune-batch

In some sense the results are obvious (more threads and more layers is faster) but it was interesting to me how the cliff of performance drops off at a different number of layers for single and batch mode (I guess because the batch needs some memory itself?) and how it's clearly better to use fewer threads than cores for batch as well. I was not surprised to see performance drop off for >32 threads (everybody knows that hyper-threads kinda suck) but I was very surprised to see performance pick up again when it gets back up to 64? And only for single mode? I wish I understood that better. But mostly I'm a sucker for the custom visualizations.

Right but when writing this compiler I realized that I wanted to use some Greek letters, and I can't handle it when some characters are in a different font in my source code, so I finally made some space for those in my programming font FixederSys. These certainly still need some tweaks, but it's already better than just being in some other weird font:


{{{caption}}}

You can also see that I have been adding some "useful" emoji at the top. It is an interesting puzzle to try to make these things recognizable (especially for the 1x version, whose charboxes are 8x16 pixels). I am pretty sure I will not try to do all of the emoji (like, the flags are totally hopeless at 8x16), but it is tempting to round out the Unicode support somewhat. Like I was trying to make a ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ today and had to settle for ~\_( :) )_/~ which is pretty much (ノಠ益ಠ)ノ彡┻━┻.

Also: Adam revived our old game jam game Headcat, which I described in post 927, now over 16 years ago. You can play it online at Headcat.org. It is harder than I remember, perhaps explaining why it did not reach #1 on the One Appstore Per Child charts.

Also: I started and finished (true ending, but just with one character) Slay the Spire. Good game, but you don't need me to tell you that. Same for Alwa's Legacy, which is the sequel to Alwa's Awakening. Both of these are very true-to-form "8-bit" and "16-bit" platformers that I enjoyed and would recommend for genre fans, though I did not try to 100% them. The graphics are the highlight and I thought it was very cute how these could easily have been a pair of games from the NES and SNES. The good old days. And speaking of good-old days, I am now playing Katamari Damacy, which I had played at a friend's house many years ago, and always wanted to spend more time with. It totally holds up (aside from stuff like: You have to play through the tutorial and first level before you can access the menus at all, like to make the game fullscreen?) and it's honestly inspiring how unhinged the game design and writing are, and how fun it manages to be. What an accomplishment!

In a fashion that's thematically appropriate for the project, I'm "taking my time" with this video (e.g. I am still writing new code for it today??). It mostly means that I feel behind a lot. But I think I am truly close now to being done. I got all my new gear working together, 3D-printing rig pieces and so on. This has been generally fun. I'm also enjoying the occasion to experiment with new approaches and video editing techniques. I even cleaned out a significant section of my basement for a temporary studio:

Green scream

I think I have about 120 seconds of finished video here, which is far worse than my usual bad pace of about an hour a minute. Fortunately the rest should be much more straightforward, and I hope to just record the audio and be done with it this weekend. Pro tip, though: Don't install the new version of Adobe Premiere Pro while you're knee-deep in a complicated edit. Why would you press that button?

My procrastination: I fully beat Teardown and all the stakes in Balatro (but I may try to finish the last few challenges). Both good games, recommended. For light procrastination I have been playing Grapple Dog which has cute graphics and writing and is getting better as the levels get more challenging, but I probably wouldn't fully recommend. It's a stage-by-stage linear platformer with three irritations: The controls are a little too "snap-to-nearest" (like you will often initiate an unwelcome wall jump just because you jump near a wall) for me, the music is annoying, and I really want to get all the purple gems, but I can never tell whether I'm going the "right" way or the "wrong" way, and so I will often miss them just because of that. But I do basically like the game. I also started, for procrastination purposes, Humanity, which was recommended to me a while ago. It is good. The Steam videos do not do justice to how slick the game's graphics are (especially the UI has all these fluid little touches and impressive continuity as you transition between levels); I think it needs to run on a big monitor with a high frame rate. At its core it's mostly a puzzle game, with many things you have seen before, but also some new clever stuff (and I am only on the 2nd world, so I presume they have more surprises in store for me).

I believe this is all.

Hello team!

I turned 45! It happens every year (not the same age, but the same feeling, of time marching forward, with me along with it) so no big surprise. This weekend was the Great Race, also every year, but I unsubscribed from their e-mail list at some point months ago because they seem to operate this list under the misconception that subscribers want to think about Great Race 24/7 all year round. I thought: It should be easy to just remember when the Great Race is, as it always falls on the weekend near my birthday, and I do not need a list constantly mailing me reminders. Easy. But then I forgot about the Great Race, so I didn't run it.

I did take the day off for my birthday despite this being the busy time of year at work, which was worth it: I made some good progress on some projects that had been backed up in my anxiety-brain for some time. Of course they are confidential, but here is a graphic of some significant progress:

Minusweeper

I forgot to mention this one when I did it, but did you know that you can "buy" a Unicode codepoint, by making a donation to the Unicode consortium? So of course I bought ASCII 0x37, which is the digit 7.

True story: I did a lot of film photography when I was younger, and although I do miss film, I'll admit that the saddest thing I feel about its obsolescence is actually that those little black plastic film canisters are no longer all over the place to be repurposed to hold little objects. I found them very satisfying and useful! Fortunately now that I'm old I found another similar ubiquitous shape, which is these orange prescription medicine bottles. I've been using those for a while to "organize" small parts like screws (e.g. when I take something apart that I might want to put back together, I put the screws in the medicine bottle and label it) but then they just roll around in the drawer of crap. So this:


RxBox, Unpopulated
RxBox, Populated

A very simple part, of course, but what could be more satisfying than 3d printing your own holder for canisters for fasteners that goes in a drawer in a cabinet?

And speaking of satisfying, I finally finished Chippy (regular difficulty) which was really quite hard. Several of the last bosses I had to practice over several evenings before I beat them! It was a good and creative game, though. I'm mid-way through Solar Ash, which is good (but it's no Hyper Light Drifter IMO!) and just started playing Satisfactory, since they finally put out a 1.0 version of that. It's quite well done, but I'm not sure if I actually like it (seems a bit heavy on the cookie crafting; in fact I'm letting it craft in the background as I write this). I am getting a kick out of allowing thinking about my messy design as the "saddest factory," a joke which I'm sure occurs to everyone, but that's Game Design!

OMG. I can't believe October is over already. I blame Satisfactory which, okay, I do get it now, and it did destroy my body and mind. I am inches from being done now; I just want to make sure that I finish it with enough force that I do actually put it away, as I could imagine tinkering with my saddest factory forever.

The game isn't without flaw, but I think most of those flaws are not interesting to talk about. I do have one petty but important criticism, which is mildly spoilerful and anyway will only be interesting if you played the game. There is an object called the Somersloop ("cool S") which allows you to double the output of a machine. Canonically this item is some kind of "loop" and the flavor text talks about how it is able to create more energy than you put into it. So when I'm out hunting for Korok seeds I have this thought that maybe I could create a loop of factories whereby it would create infinite resources by repeatedly doubling. And I'm thinking about it but the crafting tree doesn't have any notable loops in it, but I remember the "packager" which allows you to put a fluid in a container or the converse, and I'm like: Yes, that's great! So I get back to base and I am doing this, just for fun to create an infinite fuel factory or whatever, and I realize that the packager just doesn't have a slot for a Somersloop. They must just hate fun, elegant twists. It would not break the game to allow this (you can always get infinite resources lots of other ways) or cause any other problem I can think of. Hmph!

The thing about constructing a factory and watching it churn is that it's basically the same thing as a programming project that you invented for yourself, and it's probably better to do the programming project. Here's progress on my mysterious rectangle:

Minusweeper 2

It's good progress if I do say so myself! Anything but black here is a Satisfactory result, which is 90.55% of them at this point. I may need heavy machinery for the remaining 9.45%, but that is part of the fun.

I think that's really it for this month! Please vote in the US Elections if you can (but I guess also vote in any important elections. And obviously, vote for the good guys???). And happy Halloween!

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow Tarot: Headless Horseman edition Nick Lawyer REDFeather (October 28, 2023) Reviewed by N. Richards What a wonderful way to honour the Irving Washington classic gothic story of 1822, “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” and the season of autumn as well as the art of Tarot all in one hit of […]

The post Card Deck Review: THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW TAROT first appeared on Hellnotes.

This is not a political blog, although politics inevitably creep in to discussions of matters legal. I have followed politics since I was at school, although I was never elected to anything. The current situation beggars belief, and I imagine that today's crop of journalists will shake their heads in their old age, and say "but you should have been there in the summer of 2016; everything seemed to happen at once. " I am now even more convinced that my belief in the iron Law of Unintended consequences is the right one.

I have had to cut back on my sittings of late, as I am awaiting an operation to give me a new knee joint, and although I can get around in the courthouse it isn't always easy. As I am due to retire from the Bench in late October I have excused myself from getting to grips with some of the more complex innovations that have recently been introduced, such as iPads on the bench. I own a couple of iPads and I am comfortable with using them, but inevitably any government-issued software is over-engineered and the last thing from user-friendly.

My court has a few boxes that contain the iPads as well as charging them overnight, but those JPs who wish to use them have to submit to training as well as an elaborate procedure to keep them secure. It is worse for judges of course, but then they are paid £130k and more to cope.

Given my impending retirement, I cannot summon up the enthusiasm to get stuck in to this 21st century stuff  (albeit the technology is a decade old).

I am trying to avoid becoming what old Army types call demob-happy so I shall concentrate on justice before bureaucracy.

I sat in my crumbling courthouse a couple of months ago, having edged past the permanently-stuck gate on the justices' car park, and made my way up the nearly-new lift to the assembly room. It is a handsome room, built in 1907 but has sadly not seen a lick of paint in the last decade-and-a-half and more.

Everywhere are signs of decay and neglect - but no matter. I understand the desperate need for the government to bring expenditure under control, even if that means denying resources to the public service that I have served unpaid these thirty years. There are still biscuits (amazingly) and most of the lights come on when you press a switch. There is some mysterious  kit that we think might be for use in the new all-electronic courthouse. It still bears the protective film that we see on expensive audio visual stuff to protect it on its long journey from a Chinese sweatshop.

I have recently received an email from  www.gov.uk/annual-tax-summary setting out the tax that I paid in the last fiscal year setting out the tax that I paid (direct tax only, so forget the taxes on consumption such as liquor duties and Council Tax (fifty quid a week on my modest Thames Valley bungalow).

Much more interesting is the breakdown of where it went, revealing how little our fellow citizens know of what is done with the country's collective cash.

Not that much goes on the justice system.

I have just had a letter on lovely thick straw-coloured letterhead from the Royal Courts of Justice in which a Rt.Hon.Lord Justice thanks me for my 31 years' service on the bench. 

That's nice, and I shall pass it on to my granddaughters in due course. Both of their parents are solicitors. My impending third grandchild will have two journalists as parents, so that's nice too.

The Supreme Court is now considering a crucial case that will clarify the power of the judiciary vis a vis that of Parliament. Many of the country's finest legal minds will focus on this matter, and a verdict will be handed down. In the long tradition of European matters dividing our nation, some unscrupulous parties are attempting to discredit the Courts, in particular by focusing on individual judges and any perceived bias they may have. This is an appalling piece of vandalism, the worst offender being the Daily Mail. Recently that paper has given space to the risible Ian Duncan Smith, a failed Tory leader.  IDS' opinion reminds us how lucky we were to be spared his presence in Downing Street.

He repeats the now-customary jibe that judges are unelected. Of course they are, but then so are brain surgeons and airline captains, and we expect and receive a professional and disciplined service from them. Electing judges would fatally damage the public's confidence in the judiciary's utter impartiality.

We are blessed with a judiciary that is incorruptible, and that is why many foreign litigants choose to have their cases heard in London.

All judges and magistrates take the same judicial oath:-

 “I, _________ , do swear by Almighty God that I will well and truly serve our Sovereign Lady Queen Elizabeth the Second in the office of ________ , and I will do right to all manner of people after the laws and usages of this realm, without fear or favour, affection or ill will.”

That's good enough for me.

UK Sport announces a large investment in British Ski and Snowboarding to be spent in the run-up to the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics.

Canadian skier Nick Zoricic dies from head injuries after crashing heavily in a World Cup skicross race in Switzerland.

This is a post I originally put only on Facebook in January 2015.  Click here for background.

And the first pizza of the January 2015 #PizzaADayDiet comes from Hoboken Pie! A thin crust sausage, mushroom, and green pepper -- all the ingredients were fresh and in abundance. The sausage and sauce were slightly spicy and the crust was really thin. It could have had a tad more body, but I liked the fact that it didn't feel like I was filling up on bread. Delivery was prompt and the pizza was warm out of the box. I will definitely order from them again.

Today's pizza a day diet pizza came from the Austin Beer Garden Brewing Co. at 1305 W. Oltorf (right next to the train tracks).

I hit the place in mid-afternoon, so it was pretty empty (Happy hour is from 3 pm to 7 pm, though, so it filled quickly :-)).  You order food and beer at the bar and they bring it to your table.  Inside are long wooden tables with benches, for social/communal beer-gardening in the Bavarian tradition.  Outside are round tables under the live oaks for beer gardening in the Austin tradition. :-).

I ordered a sausage pizza (boring, I know :-), but I like to try new places out on the basics).  It was delivered hot and fresh; the crust was somewhat soft but firmed up after I let it cool a little.  It had a nice chew and stood up to the ingredients.  The sausage had a more subtle flavor than I was expecting, but I really liked it and its freshness.  The cheese and sauce were also quite good.


One of their "by the slice" choices had also caught my eye, so I ordered it as well.  This was venison, spinach, pesto, white bean, roasted tomato, roasted garlic, and ricotta.  This one was amazing (not that the sausage was bad).  The crust had just the right amount of crispness and chew, but the combination of toppings really made it.  It had a richness from the venison without being gamy or overwhelming, and the remaining ingredients provided a terrifically contrasting texture in every bite.


Oh, and the beer was darn good, too. :-).

Just back from the Texas Library Association Conference in Houston! 

As always, it was great to see fellow authors and illustrators, as well as the librarians who've supported our books through the years.  And I always enjoy seeing what's new at the publisher booths.

We had a great time for my panel Tuesday afternoon, "What's New with Texas Middle Grade and YA Authors," organized by Susie Kralovansky, featuring Jessica Lee Anderson moderating, and fellow panelists Paige Britt, Cory Putnam Oakes, P.J. Hoover, Cynthia Levinson, Liz Garton Scanlon, Jennifer Mckissack, and Joy Preble.  Conversation was entertaining and enlightening.  

Many thanks to everyone who puts in the work to make TLA the best state library conference in the country!

Here are some pics:

Hitting the road

Rainy Houston from the hotel

Me, Cynthia Levinson, PJ Hoover

Carmen Oliver signs

Jennifer McKissack, Jennifer Ziegler, Joy Preble

Paige Britt and Donna Janell Bowman

Me and the world in the lobby of the Hilton

Signing BORROWED TIME

Janet Fox and Jennifer Ziegler

PJ, Jessica, and Joy

Me and Elaine Scott

Buffalo Bayou on my early morning run

Back in Austin!

The famous Distance Challenge fridge magnets

It's been a few months, but I finally have some time to sit down and blog my having completed the Austin Distance Challenge (long course), sponsored by the Austin Runners Club.  I'd done most of the events before, but decided to do the challenge itself (six races, culminating in the Austin Marathon), because I wanted to put more structure into my training for the marathon. I'd done several in the 90s, but this was my second of the century and I wanted to do better than my last one (2013).

The first race was the Run Free Texas 80s 8k (for those who don't think in metric, that's about five miles) up in Cedar Park.  Naturally enough, there were a couple of DeLoreans, each outfitted with a flux capacitor.  Time travel being what it is, they were obviously the same car but from different time periods. :-).  The course was through residential neighborhoods and parks and had some rolling hills -- nice for a beginning of the season race.

Back to the Future!

The second race of the Challenge was the Run for the Water Ten Miler.  The course was along Lady Bird Lake and up through Tarrytown and then back downtown, There were some great hills on this course and let me know I needed more hill work...And, ironically enough, it was raining. :-)

Rain and hills

Race three was the Decker Challenge, a half marathon in early December with a course around Decker Lake.  It's notorious for hills and really bad weather.  (The last time I ran it, it was in the 40s and pouring rain).  If anything, last year, it was a bit too warm.  The hills were pretty brutal, though. 

My face when attacking the hills

But Santa was there!
After that, we had a month break until the Rogue Distance Festival 30k (about 18.6 miles) in early January.  This one was fairly cold and probably my least favorite of the events.  It was up in Cedar Park again and ran through residential neighborhoods which was fine.  There was an issue with marking the course, though, so most of us got off track, which meant the mile markers were out of order so it was impossible to figure out a pace. (I think at some point, we were going in circles -- and ended up going about a mile farther than we should've.).  Still, it was my longest run before the marathon and I was kind of glad it happened that way. 

Yay!  I'm done! :-)

With four events done, it was all downhill from there.  Literally.  The 3M Half Marathon starts up in the Great Hills area and runs a straight line down to downtown. It also has a swag bag filled with useful (and not so useful) 3M products.:-)

Leo checks out the swag bag

This one also started out pretty cold and way too early :-). 

Before dawn, in the warm car before the cold race.

I really enjoyed this one, though, and it was a nice preview of many of the neighborhoods on the marathon route.

Finisher!

The piece de resistance, of course, was the Austin Marathon in mid-February.  I like the course, but the first time I ran the Austin Marathon, it was all downhill, starting up north and snaking its way downtown.  Now, there's a good bit of uphill until around mile 18.  I still like the course, though, and it's not like the hills from the Decker Challenge or the Run for the Water races.

I was pretty happy with my time -- my second fastest of the century!  I did it in under 4 hours, which had been my goal.  Next year, I'll work more on speed, but this time, I just wanted to not have my quads seize up in the last two miles :-).

Running through UT campus

Made it! Best time of the century!

Anyway, thanks to everyone involved in putting on the races and the challenge itself: organizers, volunteers, emergency personnel, and all the rest!  You keep Austin running!

This past year, I signed up for the Austin Distance Challenge again, because it was intrinsically fun, but also to ensure that I would get enough running in for the Austin Marathon. The Distance Challenge, sponsored by the Austin Runners Club, involved five races: The Run Free 8k, the Run for the Water 10 miler, the Decker Challenge half marathon, the 3M Half Marathon, and the Austin Marathon.

The Run Free 8K is out in Cedar Park, a considerable distance from downtown.  It leaves from one of the high school football stadiums and winds through residential neighborhoods before returning to the starting line. It's a nice start to the fall training season.

The first piece of the puzzle

Run for the Water goes through downtown and along the lakefront. It's one of the prettiest routes in the challenge and much of it is along routes I train on.

Starting line on Cesar Chavez

The drum group at the finish line

A friend got this shot of me at the starting line.

After that came the Decker Challenge -- a hilly route just east of Austin in Decker, and notorious for terrible weather.  This year, it wasn't bad --- a bit misty with a steady drizzle. By the finish line, my glasses were so fogged up I had to take them off to see anything at all. Which made it difficult to see things like potholes...

Glasses fogging up as I climb the hills

Blindly crossing the finish line

 Not on the Challenge, but still an Austin staple was the Turkey Trot!  One of the more fun races, it usually features a good number of costumes and a large helping of whimsy.



After the holidays, the next race was the 3M Half Marathon. It's almost the exact opposite to the Decker Challenge, because it's all downhill. It starts up in the Great Hills area and winds its way downtown. This year it was a particularly fast run because there was an incredible wind out of the north. Several folks, including myself, were nearly blown over as we ran past the UT football stadium.

A selfie at the starting line

the 3M photographer got a shot of me taking my selfie

After the finish in sight of the Capitol

And the last race was the Austin Marathon!

But. About three weeks before the race, in the middle of the night, I slipped and came down on the edge of my entertainment console and tile floors. Result? A nice set of bruised ribs and a strangely linear scar on my right side.

By race day, I could still feel it a bit but had gone on short runs with only minor discomfort, so I decided to go for it.  The first half went pretty well, but the second was less pleasant.  But I'm still glad I did it...

Looking all chipper and optimistic before the race starts

Vulcan salute for the photographer

Gritting it out with a hundred yards to go

Finished!

So my time for the marathon ended up being a personal worst, although I did make it under five hours :-).

Anyway, thanks to all the organizers, volunteers, emergency personnel, and everyone else involved in putting on these races! You keep Austin running!
Next up? The Capital of Texas Triathlon! Hopefully there won't be rain...

Okay, it's been a while, but I thought I'd finally post about the 2017 Austin Ironman 70.3 race weekend. :-). Like I mentioned in my last post, I felt fairly optimistic -- if anything I was a bit burned out on training.

The big kicker, though, was that the weather was forecast to be 38 degrees race morning, which resulted in a bit of last-minute anxiety, mostly due to the mantra, "Don't do anything different on race day." That is, it is unwise in the extreme to test out new equipment or clothing on race day. Unfortunately, faced with the prospect of a 38 degree swim and bike ride (and the fact that it would warm up quickly), we had to make some last minute adjustments.

The week before the race, I picked up a triathlon jersey that had sleeves, and borrowed some arm warmers from one of my training partners.  Saturday morning, I went for a five mile test ride and realized I needed gloves, which necessitated a trip to Austin Tri-Cyclist, where I was not the only one making such a purchase :-). 

I was still a bit concerned about the swim, but I had a wetsuit, so I figured I'd done all I could do. Still, I was coveting one with sleeves...
I next headed over to the Travis County Expo Center to pick up my swag bag, drop off my bicycle and gear, and check out the transition areas.

Our happy faces before we get out of the car into the cold...

 Next morning, three of us drove out together and arrived in the cold dark of the Travis County Expo. Center at around 5:30. Did I mention that it was cold? Eventually, we got on the bus to take us to the staging area at Walter Long (Decker) Lake. There, we put on wetsuits, met up with our other training partners, and shivered a lot.

Eventually, though, as the sun started to peak above the horizon, we lined up according to our projected swim times and prepared for the start of the race. I was still worried about the swim and the cold -- even though I was wearing socks (to be discarded just before start), my feet were starting to go numb and my arms were not happy either.

But then it was time! I ran into the water and dived in as soon as I could. To my surprise, it was actually pleasant -- the water itself was around 68-72 degrees, so compared to the air temperature, it was balmy.  The only real problem was that fog on the water and the glare of the sun were making it hard to see the buoys. About halfway through the swim I began thinking that the temperature really wasn't bad -- if anything, it was a bit too warm. 

Emerging from the water...

But then I finished the swim and stood and was confronted by the reality of confronting an air temp of around 40 while being soaking wet.  I grabbed my glasses from the special needs table and a nice man helped me get the wetsuit off. (This basically involved lying back on the wet ground, sticking my feet in the air and having him pull. Thank you, sir.). My time was a little slower than I would've liked, but I was fairly happy with it.

I made it to transition, took a big swig of water, swallowed the contents of an energy gel pack, and put on my winter cycling garb. Then I was off!

And it was frickin' cold.

Contemplating that wind chill...

 It was this weird Catch-22 where you want to go as fast as possible (for the race, of course, but also so you warm up), but also kind of are thinking that if you slowed down a touch the wind chill wouldn't be quite so bad.  I ended up spending the next hour shivering until the ambient temperature and I warmed up.
Now, I actually kind of like the bike route -- it's mostly country roads with little traffic, and I rode the route about a half-dozen times in training. The problem with it is that a number of the roads are not exactly well=paved. Bumps and potholes and patches proliferate, especially on Monkey Road. In fact, the dip where it crosses a creek is so bumpy that by the time I got there, there were at least a dozen water bottle scattered on the ground.

There were way too many hills, however :-).

Beyond that, the ride felt fine, although my back began to hurt about halfway through -- I wasn't used to spending that much time in the aero position, so most of the second half of my ride was with hands on the brake hoods. I made sure to stick with my hydration and nutrition plan, so I felt pretty good by the end of it.

Again, my time wasn't quite what I wanted it to be, but I was not displeased.

By the time I finished the ride, it was around noon and fairly warm, so I took the time to change from my sleeved singlet to a sleeveless one (Ironman rules require that you wear a shirt). 

Starting to feel the legs...

The run wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, although there were again too many hills :-).  I was pleased at the number and size of the aid stations -- water, electrolyte drink (Gatorade, iirc), Clif energy gels, Coca-Cola, and Red Bull were all available.  

I was definitely feeling my legs, but my quads didn't feel like they were going to seize up like they had when I did triathlons in the 90s -- all that training paid off, I guess :-). I managed to make it through without slowing to a walk (other than at aid stations, because I can't drink and run at the same time) and ended up with a run time that was comparable to my stand-alone half-marathon times.

At the finish line!

My final time was 5:50:36, which I'm pretty happy about. My goal had been 6:00:00, although I did think that 5:45:00 was not out of the question. :-).

Finisher photo! And medal!

The gang...

All in all, it was a great experience. I got out of my comfort zone, made some terrific friends, learned how to most efficiently change a bike tube, and never once thought, "I can't believe I'm paying to do this." (Okay, maybe once...).

After the race!

Celebrating the next day with Coach Peri!

This was a big week in space, from Curiosity stumbling upon sulfur crystals to an exoplanet discovery and a major advocacy effort.

An analysis of the U.S. Senate's FY 2025 budget request for NASA.

A single 3.5 billion-year-old rock shows signs of all the conditions life needs to thrive.

Knowing that you've found signs of life beyond Earth may not be as clear-cut and simple as one might think.

With all the advances in private space exploration, why do taxpayers still pay for space science missions?

Detonating a nuclear weapon on or near an asteroid is one of several options for defending the Earth from an impact. Here's what nuking an asteroid might actually do, and why it isn't always the best option.

Looking at life on Earth from another perspective.

Looking to the past to guide the search for life.

Life thrives on Earth, and we even send evidence of our presence out into the Solar System. Is anyone out there looking for us?