The latest addition to my “Trees in Transistion” series.
This is my fourth post in this series. The pictures were taken between Thursday and yesterday.
A mixed bag of a post, featuring autism, politics, mathematics and photography.
As well as the wide variety of ,links that give this post its title it will feature some of my own stuff, notably pictures.
I start with some stuff about Autism, beginning with…
Laina, guiding genius of thesilentwaveblog, has set up a new blog specifically for sharing stuff. Her announcement of this is here, while the new blog can be seen here.
I end this little section with what is a new find for me, stimtheline, with a post titled “Autism is Me“.
The four links in this section are links that form no natural groupings:
This refers to three related pieces that I have seen on robertlovespi. Fullerenes are spheroid carbon allotropes (also known in some circles as buckyballs – both the formal and informal deisgnation pay tribute to the architect Richard Buckminster Fuller who was particularly known for geodesic domes). The three pieces are:
This one comes from brilliant, though it has a little addition of my own as well:
This is an easy question, even without the multi-choice options given on the site. If the 51 under the dividing line was replaced by 53 it would become fiendishly difficult – can you work out why?
More on trees in transistion…
Both my original “Trees in Transistion” and the post I put up yesterday morning, “Trees in Transistion II” have proved popular, and I have some more tree pictures for you today.
These pictures were taken yesterday evening, and the light was fading as time passed. I did not use the flash for any of these pictures.
Links, puzzles and pictures. Public transport features, as does some general politics, and mathematics. The pictures are of course my own.
I have many links to share with you, and wilkl be setting a puzzle. I will be putting up another of my tree posts immediately after this one, so my pictures feature stuff other than trees.
This section comes in two parts, starting with…
Just before lunchtime today I received the following email:
Dear Thomas.
I am writing regarding http://www.londontu.be
My name is Andrew and I work for Nicola at Tour London. Nicola is a tour guide in London UK who takes individuals and groups to the most famous landmarks in London, as well as discovering hidden gems along the way! We were wondering if it were possible for us to appear on your “links” page in any way given that we share such a similar topic.
Alternatively would you be interested in content pieces? Nicola has a vast knowledge of London and would love to share it with your audience.
Finally, If not content, do you have any other advertising opportunities?
I look forward to hearing from you.
Kind Regards,
Andrew | Marketing Executive
Tour London
Tourlondon.org.uk
Naturally, I was delighted to receive such a communication, and I have since put in some links, done a special post about this site and ‘pressed’ a couple of their pieces. Please visit londontu.be to read about this in more detail, and then explore tourlondon to see what they have to offer.
The campaign group weownit have created a resource with the catchy title Privatisation Fails. Below is a screenshot of the homepage for this resource:
Of course, I followed up the bus and train links. Here is a paragraph from Privatisation Fails Buses:
30 years ago, our bus services were deregulated and privatised. This has been a disaster for our buses. Fares went up and routes that weren’t profitable were cut, meaning you now pay more for less. In 2017, the Bus Service Users Bill was passed, which included a clause which bans local councils from creating their own public bus companies.
On this page are the Big Five bus companies that grew out of deregulation and privatisation in the 1980s – together they control 70% of the bus travel industry in the UK. Many of these companies either own, or are owned by, rail companies as well.
Read more about bus services, and how and why we want to bring them into public ownership, here.
Next up comes Privatisation Fails Railways:
British Rail was broken up and privatised between 1994 and 1997, and since then rail services in the UK have been provided by private companies. There are 16 rail franchises in the UK, where the government gives train companies funding to run services for a certain period.
Many of the companies that run our trains are European state-owned companies who reinvest millions of pounds a year in dividends from their British operations into their own transport systems. As you’ll see, these companies often own franchises within franchises. You might be surprised to learn who owns your morning commute! We’ve also listed three ‘ROSCOs’ or rolling stock companies, who lease trains to rail companies.
Read more about the privatisation of rail and what we can do about it here.
Royal Mail workers have voted by a huge margin to take strike action. The official voting figures are:
Turnout 73.7%
Yes 89%
No 11%
This means that 65.593% of all those eligible to vote cast their vote in favour of strike action. I did this calculation myself, entirely in my head, but here for the record is how to get there…
Calling Turnout T and Yes votes Y and Overall Percent Yes as O we have O = TY/100. Putting the known figures into this we have O = (73.7 x 89)/100. To avoid decimals until absolutely necessary we change this to O = (737 x 89)/1000. To calculate 737 x 89 we can reduce to single figure calculations as follows:
737 x 89 = (700 x 89) + (30 x 89) + (7 x 89), and then splitting these up 700 x 89 = (700 x 80) + (700 x 9), 30 x 89 = (30 x 80) + (30 x 9) and 7 x 89 = (7 x 80) + (7 x 9). We now have a series of multiplications which can all be treated as single figure multiplications, with in some cases zeroes to be stuck on the end. Multiplying them out gives us 56,000 + 6,300 + 2,400 + 270 +560 + 63. Adding these together we get 65,593, and dividing by 1,000 requires a decimal point to go between the first and second five, giving us 65.593%. PS It took a lot longer writing this out than performing the calculations in my head!
I have two links for you about this vote:
The Skwawkbox, one of the best new media sites around, has had several particularly outstanding pieces recently:
From Monday and yesterday:
This puzzle comes courtesy of brilliant:
After the success that made original “Trees in Transistion” post has had I am back with another. As in the first one all the trees featured are within walking distance of central King’s Lynn, though there is no overlap between the two.
These trees are all in the area between the town end of Bawsey Drain and the junction of Littleport Street, Blackfriars Street and Norfolk Street.
Some links, some pictures and solutuons to a few puzzles I had posed earlier.
I have a number of interesting links to share, along with thoughts and photographs of my own and solutions to my last set of puzzles.
My first link in this section is to a post titled “Why Is It Necessary To Intervene With The Natural Course Of Being Autistic” published on THE BULLSHIT FAIRY. Here is the most important section of the piece:
“Early” implies that there is a need to “catch” things early, before it progresses.
Autism is not a disease. It is not progressive. It just IS.
It is disrespectful because it ignores our own timing. Autism is a developmental disability and respecting that is important, instead of applying a neurotypical timeline of neurotypical milestones to neurodivergent children.
And while some aspects of occupational therapy and life skills can be beneficial, if there is no respect for each child’s timing, and if it is done in a manner that is compliance based/reward based, and if this is called “Early Intervention”, then it is just another name for ABA”
My next link is to thge early stages of wbhat looks set to be an excellent series of posts. Blogging Astrid is writing a series of posts about autism under the banner #Write31Days. I have two links for you:
My next two links come from firebrightstarsoul and both concern education and autism:
This section concludes with…
My last two pieces in this section are at the intersect of autism and public transport. First, from the i newspaper comes a piece titled “Travelling as a disabled person: I have autism – it takes me days to recover from one Tube journey“, one of a series a pieces by members of campaigning group Transport for All being published there this week. Here is the image which heads the article:
Finally, a petition on the official site for petitioning the UK Parliament, which means that it is only open to UK citizens, calling for a necessary change to the PIP rules. Below is a screenshot link:
Please visit, sign and share.
My first link in this section is to a piece on Vox Political titled “McDonnell States Labour Will Take Back Rail, Water, Energy and Royal Mail | Beastrabban\’s weblog” This excellent piece sets the stage for the rest of this section. Below is the single most important paragraph, by way of a tempter:
And if Labour does, as I fervently hope, renationalize those industries, I would very much like a form of workers’ control implemented in them. One reason why the Tories were able to privatize these industries was because, when Labour nationalized them after the Second World War, the party was too timid in the form nationalization took. The state took over the ownership of these industries, but otherwise left the existing management structures intact. This disappointed many trade unionists and socialists, who hoped that nationalization would mean that the people, who actually worked in these industries would also play a part in their management.
Since that piece was produced Richard Murphy of Tax Research UK has put up a post titled “The public want nationalisation because nationalisation makes sense” in response to a hand-wringing editorial in The Observer, which started from noting that a recent study had revealed the full extent of public support for renationalisation (water – 83% in favour, electricity and gas – 77% in favour andr railways – 76% in favour – leading the way) and went full-on Tory from there, regarding renationalisation as a bad thing and coming with ideas for how this ‘threat’ might be dealt with. Professor Murphy, like me, takes the opposite stand-point, and points out how flawed the Observer piece is.
This set of photographs is of Lot 553 from the auction of Monday September 25th (see this post):
The first of three puzzles I set that I have not yet provided answers to was a question from Triva Hive:
In which country is Europe’s only desert located?
a)Italy
b)Greece
c)Poland
d)Spain
I am sufficiently well informed about Italy, Greece and Spain that I was fairly sure that none of them is the answer. Thus, having ruled out the impossibles I was left withe one answer that however improbable must be the true one – Poland. The screenshot below shows that my Sherlockian approach to the question bore fruit:
The second puzzle was Abbot Fox‘s “street scramble”:
Unscrambling this gives “Pilling Park Road”, and the map below shows the location of said street:
The third problem came from brilliant and featured a treasure hunt. Below is the answer:
Just before I publish this and head out for a spot of ecotherapy and to top up the photo collection here are some non-tree pics from yesterday:
The trees take centre stage – this is the most interesting time of year for observing trees (at least in the northern hemisphere).
Ir is October, and the leaves on the trees here in Norfolk are starting to change colour. This is the first of several posts that I envisage putting up to documenting this process by way of photographs.
I am presenting these pictures as a tiled mosaic – a left click or equivalent on each image will enable you to view it at full size, while a right-click or equivalent will give you a menu that includes various options including opening the image in a new tab. Enjoy…
An account of the three James and Sons auctions that started this week.
This week started for me with three auctions on successive days, the first two at our premises in Fakenham and the third at The Maids Head Hotel, Norwich. This post covers the three days in order.
Reorganising the shop to look like an auction venue and setting out the stock for this auction had been done on Friday by myself and a colleague. Thus, when I arrived on Monday morning the only set up work that was required was the electronics and IT stuff.
I managed to get everything set up before anyone else arrived and to verify that the sound and video were working. Here are some photos from this period:
There was a hitch after the first few lots when the master computer decided to install a load of updates, but we got back up and running again without too much fuss. The military RP postcards that started the auction fared OK, the ephemera and cigarette cards fared poorly (although lot 341 found a buyer – me).
The maps which finished the auction off fared well at first, with several going for big money, but the ex-atlas maps that formed lots 538-600 did not do so well. Lot 553 fell to me.
This was always going to be the quietest of the three auctions, since it featured postal history, stamps and first-day covers, none of which fare particularly well. However that did not make my day any less busy since by the end of it the shop needed to look more like a shop and less like an auction room, and the van had to be loaded with all the stuff that was going to Norwich the following day.
The last item went under the hammer just after 12:00, and by the end of the day the van was loaded and with the sole exception of the big screen still being downstairs the shop was as it had been on Friday morning before I got to work on it. Here are some pictures from this second day:
The cost of a single fare on the X1 (I had a week’s ticket for Stagecoach buses) having been obtained on Tuesday I duly caught the 5:30AM bus for Norwich, and arrived at the venue at about 7:30. My colleague who had the IT/ electronics stuff (bar my computer, being used today as we needed three and it was the only portable computer bar the two we regularly to use to which we had access) arrived a few minutes later and we did that side of the setup. The auctioneer arrived with the van full of stock some time later, and we did the rest of the setup.
The day went very well. The first big sale was lot 1,159, which fetched £80, but many other lots had sold for small amounts by then (this sale started from lot 1,051).
It continued to the case that most lots sold albeit not for huge amounts. Lot 1,301 achieved the biggest sale price of any individual lot over the three days – £450.
Lot 1357 was a collection of masonic regalia, and it so happened that a high ranking mason was present in the auction room and bought it.
Lot 1439 was of personal interest but the asking price was too high for me, so I had to let it go.
However, a few moments later I saw a more satisfactory outcome. Lots 1449 and 1450 were military history reference books put in by me (I had only intended to put one lot in, but I was persuaded to try both). I was prepared for these items not to sell, so when the lots went for £12 each (to a room bidder who had looked at them in the flesh) I regarded this as unequivocally good news.
There were few more moments of note before the auction ended at lot 1543:
Once the van had been loaded I was able to take my leave, and headed for the Norwich Millennium Library to see what books I could borrow.
It was an exhausting three days, but quite satisfying. Monday was a bit quiet and Tuesday exceedingly so, but enough good things happened on Wednesday to make up for this.
Some solutions and some new problems/ questions. Also details a thank you card for TFL and some photos.
I have solutions/ answers to some problems and a few new problems for you. I was going to be blogging about my activities on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday but that will have to wait until tomorrow now.
In my post “Coming Up – A Trip To Cornwall“ I set this juicy little puzzle:
Each of the three filled in columns contains one large number and several smaller numbers. In each case the big number is the sum of all the smaller numbers – 6 = 3+2+1, 28 = 14 + 7 + 4 + 2 + 1 and 496 = 248 + 124 + 62 + 31 + 16 +8 + 4 + 2 + 1. In each case the smaller numbers listed below the large number turn out to be all of that number’s factors. A number that is equal to the sum of all its factors is called a perfect number. Looking closer still we that 6 = 3 x 2, 28 = 7 x 4 and 496 = 31 x 16. In each case these multiplications consist of a larger number that can be expressed in the form (2 ^ n)-1 and the smaller number is equal to 2 ^ (n-1). Further, the larger multiplier is in each case a prime number. Investigation reveals that the next prime number of the form (2 ^ n)-1 is 127, and the other multiplier must therefore by 64. Multiplying these two numbers gives 8,128. Thus the final panel will consist of 8128, with vertically below it the numbers 4064, 2032, 1016, 508, 254, 127, 64, 32, 16, 8, 4, 2 and 1. This was a tough puzzle but it would have been downright vicious had I made the door’s mechanism consist of five panels, these four and the fifth for you to work out – for a bonus can you explain why?
I also asked if anyone could identify to the real life door that I had used as the basis for the “Door of Death”. It is one of the doors to King’s Lynn Town Hall and in reality of course it is not remotely deadly (indeed barring dying of boredom during a council meeting there I can think of no risk of death anywhere in that building).
This one appeared in my post “The Gaywood River”. The answers are below:
I have three problems for you. The first comes from Trivia Hive. Unfortunately I cannot present it to you in their format without giving away the answer, so instead I present in plain text:
In which country is Europe’s only desert located?
a)Italy
b)Greece
c)Poland
d)Spain
Puzzle number two comes by way of the twitter feed of estate agents Abbot Fox:
Can you reveal the street name?
My third and final problem comes courtesy of the mathematical website brilliant and sends you on a treasure hunt:
I was delighted to receive an email from campaigning organisation sumofus inviting me to sign a thank you card to TFL for having given Uber the boot. I have already shared this invitation on facebook and twitter and ‘pressed’ it to my London transport themed website. I now invite my followers here to add their names to this thank you card:
These photographs were taken in Norwich…
A whole post to make a correction? Yes – this error is important enough to warrant such treatment as far as I am concerned.
In the first published version of the post I put up earlier today I misattributed the exhibits that included living creatures from the Gaywood River to the Gaywood Valley Conservation Group. It was in fact put on by the Norfolk Rivers Trust, and I have just corrected the original (I realised my error while on the bus to Norwich and have been waiting for access to a computer to correct it).
