Month: September 2017

Autism, Disability, Mathematics, Religion, Politics

Various links as indicated by the title of this post, the solution to one problem and a new problem. All topped off with the some photographs.

INTRODUCTION

This post features links, puzzles and pictures. The title refers to the subjects officiallly covered within the post. 

A NEW AUTISM RESOURCE

The Neurodivergent Rebel has produced a post that could become a goldmine. Titled “Web Resources” she describes it as a growing list and ends the post with this:

This is a growing list. Please send suggestions to NeurodivergentRebel@gmail.com

If you can think of anything to help the Neurodivergent Rebel expand this list please use the quote out above, which if you click on it will open up an email message addressed to her which you can then complete.

DISABLED PEOPLE ON BUSES

I have two links in this section. Firstly to a piece from Transport For All about Transport for London’s rExcl: proof faithless council, not union, to blame for Birmingham bin strikeExcl: proof faithless council, not union, to blame for Birmingham bin strikeesponse to the Supreme Court’s ruling on wheelchair priority spaces on buses. This piece is titled “First steps from TfL in response to Supreme Court’s ruling over the Wheelchair priority space on buses” 

Secondly, from Buzzfeed, comes this piece with the self explanatory title “Disabled People Say They Are Still Being Denied Priority Spaces On Buses Despite A High Court Ruling”.

TWO FROM THE SKWAWKBOX

The Skwawkbox is a regular source of excellent material, and these two pieces are no exception:

  1. BHAM COUNCIL MUST NOT BE ALLOWED TO SCAPEGOAT CLANCY TO RENEGE ON BIN DEAL – A follow up to the story that I reblogged from this site recently about a dispute in Birmingham.

  2. The second piece concerns the make up of the Labour Party’s National Executive Committee – the detail contained in the title “EXCL: PRO-CORBYN ASLEF, FBU TO TAKE NEC SEATS” means that at least for the present, and for the very first time, the NEC will have a pro-Corbyn majority. Here is an ASLEF related picture:
    Autism Acceptance Month

SWETA OJHA ON RELIGION

Sweta has produced an excellent poem titled “If Religion Schools You To War” and from it I quote the all-important final verse:

And if –
Religion still schools you to war
I, an atheist deserve an applaud.

MATHEMATICS

This section will include two links, the solution to one puzzle and a second puzzle. Both the links come from the Robert Loves Pi blog, and they are:

  1. A Zonohedron with 7802 Faces –  another of his remarkable constructions using Stella 4D: Polyhedron Navigator.

  2. A Four-Color Flag – exactly what the title suggests, and here is said flag:
    a four-color flag

PUZZLES

On Thursday in a post titled “Links, Pics and Puzzles” I included this puzzle:

Q

The solution is 96% + 96% of 4%. 96% of 4 is (4 x 96)/100 = 3.84. 96 + 3.84 = 99.84, os the answer is that if the death rate in surviving species had been the same as the overall extinction rate then 99.84% of all living things would have died in that event.

For my next puzzle I turn once again to Brilliant and offer up the following:

Marble Q

I will probably provide a solution on Wednesday.

PHOTOGRAPHS

Moorhen in algae

Nar Valley Park
Nar Valley Park – this development is now approaching completion.

gulls3

Town Hall
The next four pictures were taken on Thursday night – I had been acting as stand-in host on my aunt;s behalf, welcoming an airbnb guest to her house, and it was getting dark as I returned.

Lumiere 3Lumiere2lumiere1GullsGlaucous GullFlying cormorantmoorhens

SBS

Some nature themed links and some of my own photographs. Snakes, butterflies and slugs feature prominently in this post, hence its title.

INTRODUCTION

Welcome to this nature themed post on aspi.blog. The title is formed from the initial letters of snakes, butterflies and slugs, all of which feature prominently. 

SOME SWEDISH STUFF

Of course when posting about nature and mentioning Sweden, Anna is going to feature prominently, but also featured here is the work of two Swedish photographers, Ingrid Benson who specialises in butterflies and John Jonasson who photographs reptiles.

A SERIES OF BUTTERFLY POSTS

Some of you may remember that I reblogged a post from fargaregardsanna about butterflies in and around Trosa that was marked as the first of a series. Well that series now runs to six posts, four posts based on the work of Ingrid Benson and two more featuring some of Anna’s own photographs. I now provide links to all of them:

  1. Fjärilar i Trosa – Butterflies in Trosa Sweden part 1 – the series opener – as all posts in this series are titled in this way the remaining links will only contain the part number at the end of the title.

  2. Part 2 – more from Ingrid Benson.
  3. Part 3 – more from Ingrid’s collection.
  4. Part 4 – the last of these posts to feature Ingrid’s work.
  5. Part 5 – the first of the two posts featuring Anna’s own photographs – I include two rather than the regular one as I could not decide between them.

  6. Part 6 – the last post (to date) in the series.

SNAKES

Anna put up a post titled “Snake day” featuring some pictures of snakes near where she lives…

…at the end of it she included a link to the site run by John Jonasson and featuring pictures and information about snakes.

A COUPLE MORE
NATURE RELATED LINKS

Firstly, from A New Nature Blog comes a post titled “Guest Blog: Agri-environment – a need for detailed scrutiny, by Steve Peel” which is quite a long post but well worth reading.

Secondly, from Mitch Teemley, comes a piece titled “Caterpillars Don’t Become Butterflies!” which explains the process of metamorphosis.
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MY PHOTOGRAPHS

We end as usual with some of my own photographs:

butterfly1
The first four of the six butterfly pics that open this set of photos were taken yesterday.

Butterfly2Butterfly3Butterfly4

Butterfly 1
This was taken today, and I thought even at the time that it was out of focus, but luckily…
Butterfly 2
I then got this.

moorhen and chickCorvid

small water creature
This was floating along the Gaywood river too rapidly for its progress to be down to the flow of the river (which is sluggish).
Slug 1
The slugs (three pics) – today is warm and just a bit damp – and the slugs love it that way.

Slug 2Slug 3

Swimming cormorants
Two swimming cormorants in one shot – a first for me.
Diving cormorant
This cormorant went into a dive as I was clicking the shutter…
Cormorant
…but then came up again not much later.

 

 

Excl: proof faithless council, not union, to blame for Birmingham bin strike

An excellent piece from the Skwawkbox that is absolutely damning of Brimingham City Council…

SKWAWKBOX

Coverage of the ‘Birmingham bin strike’ – the strike by Unite members of the city’s refuse collection workforce – in television news has been largely limited to footage of bin bags and soundbites from Tory MPs condemning the industrial action and trying to exploit the situation to attack Labour leader jeremy Corbyn.

bham bins.pngOnline coverage has, just occasionally, gone into slightly more depth, but has presented a story of a financially-squeezed council with little choice but to impose changes in order to save over five million pounds a year – with the implication that Unite and its people are being obstructive and unreasonable.

Both versions of the coverage are deeply misleading.

The SKWAWKBOX has spoken to both Birmingham City Council, to Howard Beckett, Unite’s assistant General Secretary who is co-ordinating Unite’s response to the situation in Birmingham – and to mediation service ACAS – to get to the truth of…

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Fjärilar i Trosa – Butterflies in Trosa Sweden part 1

In thios post Anna focuses on butterflies in and around Trosa and alomng the way gives me an honourable mention…

Annas Art - FärgaregårdsAnna

I västra Trosatrakten och Tureholmshalvön går det fortfarande att beskåda ett rikt fjärilsliv. Ingrid Benson har lånat ut några av sina fjärilsbilder, som hon tagit på alla möjliga slags fjärilar som dykt upp framför kameran.

Det är roligt att fotografera och gå på fjärilsjakt. Har du väl börjat går det inte att sluta låta ögonen scanna efter fjärilar. Lite som att gå i svampskogen, fast med fjärilar som sökobjekt istället. Prova får ni se. Öppna ögonen och försök att zooma in fjärilarna med kameran. Det går att stå ganska långt ifrån och ändå få tydliga bilder. Se till att försöka fånga både över- och undersida på fjärilsvingarna. En mängd arter avslöjar sin tillhörighet endast genom en kombination av över- och undersida. Många arter är mycket lika varandra och då kan över eller undersida skilja dem åt.

In west Trosa and Tureholm peninsula there´s lots of butterflies to discover. Ingrid Benson

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