Hello? Is The Caller There?

Ever have one of those mornings? Can't pull any of the threads together?

This one's mine. So, hey, life gives you lint, make dust bunnies, right?

"Dust bunnies" is the word of the day: Turk Turon is rumored to be arriving tonight and Roseholme Cottage is in its usual state, looking something like a post-apocalyptic library. I'm tellin' ya, if Civilization does go "Thud" all of a sudden? Tam and I will have plenty to read between fighting off the hordes and/or trying to contact other survivors via radio. And we'll be able to knit warm, comfy sweaters from dust bunnies for the winter. Simulating any degree of organization is...a struggle.

Steven Hawking's latest pronouncement on The Afterlife has riled some folks. I'm not sure why -- it's right up there with the Pope's opinions about particle physics: interesting but not Expert Opinion. (This is Fame Syndrome: just 'cos someone is well-known for something, even if it is major cleverness, they're still only qualified to make sweeping statements in a few areas -- if even that many; anything else they comment on, it's just another unwashed opinion. But their public tends to forget. In many cases, so does the Famous Person).

Scooter repair parts have begun to arrive. Two of the best sources have proven to be Pride of Cleveland and Javacycles; with Bajaj out of the motor scooter business, these (and other) former dealers, along with the former importer, still provide parts support. (Java is still selling Bajaj Scooters, even!) Highly recommended. I doubt I'll have time to fix my scooter this week -- planning on it for next week.

Y'know that "image enhancement" trick in crime shows, where grainy, low-rez security footage is "enhanced" into readability via Cheap Storytelling Shortcut Tricks? It's mostly nonsense; video doesn't work that way. You can only read things a little past the smallest-original-pixel level and doing that takes the human eye and human guesswork. --Except astronomers now have a version of this kind of enhancement that really works! "Lucky imaging" lets them back out atmospheric scattering and "stack the deck" to extract information buried below the noise. There are still pixel-size limits but it's an interesting technique and has probably already come home to roost in ways we won't soon be hearing about (other than in heavily-redacted responses to FOIA requests).

Those are only the loose ends I had time for. Y'all be good, now. No pogroms against the infidel without you followin' WWE rules, okay? And no foreign objects; if it's not U.S.-made, you can't hit one another with it.