Category Archives: unnecessary

A Punctual Little Fellow

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I’ve replaced the timekeeping battery in the trail cam and now the time stamp is accurate on these photos. The first thing I noticed: Mr. Hedgehog is a man of routine. He leaves his pad a little after 8pm and returns a little after 6am.

  • Leaving Sept 10, 20:07
  • Returning Sept 11, 06:14
  • Leaving Sept 11, 20:15
  • Returning Sept 12, 06:12
  • Leaving Sept 12, 20:17
  • Returning Sept 13, 06:15

Also, is it mere coincidence that two mice appear at 04:20 and a cat at 04:40? (Can you find both mice?)

  • Two mice
  • Where did they go?

More tales from the trail cam

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The hedgehog and other critters make appearances. I’ve since set the trail cam to photo and hope to get a few higher resolution pictures to share.

Our hedgehog heads out
A mouse zips around. Why does the mouse seem nervous?
Maybe because of this furry friend?
Or this one?
Never mind, I’m checking this place out!
Our still unnamed friend returns and finds a stick in the way!
Since most videos of him returning show his rump disappearing in the hole, I’ve skipped those. As a result, it looks like hedgehogs spawn in this hut.
This time, he heads the other way.
To finish it off, here’s a special guest.

Did you spot the spider going up and down right about under the “Watch later” icon in one of the videos? Is it a spider, or a video artifact?

National Paper Airplane Contest

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So, if you remember, I backed the PowerUp 3.0 project on Kickstarter and got myself a fancy motor for paper airplaine.  Shai, who ran the project, has sent out an e-mail that John Collins, the world record holder for distance flying, has launched a Kickstarter project for a National Paper Airplane Contest.  I dare you to look me in the eyes and tell me there isn’t a little kid inside you that would totally participate at the local preliminaries…

Scroll down on the Kickstarter page to see Conan O’Brien interview Mr. Collins, who demonstrates a few planes on the show.  They also show the world record throw.

As for my paper airplane propeller, I still don’t have a phone that can run the app, so I handed it to our apprentice for Christmas break.  He had some fun with it, though he recommends using it outside.  Relevant quote: “Minus two ornaments.”

Giant Pumpkins

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I’ve previously posted about my chemist’s brother’s giant pumpkins, for instance last year, when a tiny hole kept his pumpkin from being the first to make the metric ton.  Better luck this year: Beni Meier set a world record in Berlin, beat it in Jona, and beat it again in Ludwigsburg at the European championships, where his baby became the first official pumpkin to weigh over a metric ton.  Click through the pictures: the last two in front of the castle are quite impressive.

Health Care

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Just for kicks, I downloaded both the Swiss Krankenversicherungsgesetz (Health Care Insurance Law) and the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (a.k.a. ACA).

I stand in awe of US American lawyers.  The Swiss law checks in at 64 pages in fairly large print; the ACA at 906 pages.  A word count of one page each returns roughly the same amount of words per page.  USA vs. Switzerland: 15:1!