Lego to help Greenland
Daily Dad Jokes Podcast
Thursday, February 5, 2026
10 Short Videos #6036
Can you rip Duct Tape in half with the Jaws Of Life?
Life on a submarine
How much I made working in fifo (Fly-In, Fly-Out) offshore at sea
Crate Climbing
This worker CAN'T be replaced
Talented STREET Artist Paints Incredible Art on a Vintage Truck
Look how perfect layed this gravel road!
Old diesel tractors really said starting is your problem not mine
When speed kicks in and the ears go wild
শুধু ডান্স দেখো আর দেখো [ Just watch the dance and keep watching. ]
Wednesday, February 4, 2026
The City Who Fought - Anne McCaffrey & S. M. Stirling
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| The City Who Fought - Anne McCaffrey & S. M. Stirling |
Goodreads
Google summary:
. . . a 1993 science fiction novel, part of the "Brainships" series, about a "shellperson" (a disembodied brain) named Simeon who runs a space station and must use his hobby of wargaming to defend it and refugees from brutal pirates. The story follows Simeon and his new, strong-willed human partner, Channa Hap, as they work together to save the station and its inhabitants from the invading Kolnari.
Not the greatest book, but the exploration of the psychological aspects of the characters in the middle section was pretty good. There is a weak attempt at fitting Faster-Than-Light (FTL) travel with local space travel, but why do you need cold-sleep if you have FTL? Yeah, and when you start looking at tactics, you really need details on how this flavor of FTL works, and that is pretty much completely missing. Never mind, all the important characters and important action are going on on the space station.
Some items that caught my eye:
Page 164 paragraph 3 new-to-me word: sicatooth - "... and I want you to start pulling together those tasty goods we're going to use to tempt the ... sicatooth ." Google can't find it. I suspect it means something like a wolf-like attacker, a pirate, for instance.Page 184 new-to-me word: antiphonally - in a manner characterized by the alternation of musical parts in a responsive manner between two groups of singers or musicians
Page 184 also a sex scene without using any sexual terms. Clever.
Page 202 paragraph 6 - a new-to-me term: stranger'n - contraction of 'stranger than' I expect.
Page 203 paragraph 9 - new-to-me word: chatelaine - the mistress of a household or of a large establishmentPage 234 "lost her rag" - all the good people say it means she has lost her temper, but I like this explanation I found on English Language & Usage Stack Exchange
Men have always dismissed women who have lost their temper as losing their rags meaning they were only in a bad mood/short tempered because of their period.
Page 237 paragraph 3 - Another unknown word: precocity - it is just the noun version of the adjective 'precocious' which means 'exceptionally early in development or occurrence'.
Page 249 paragraph 10 - In the last sentence we get some clever invented slang from Joat, a renegade girl, describing crawling around in the station's maintenance access tunnels: "Some of the places pinch grudly but they're in-able if you're sveltsome."
Page 276 paragraph 2 - Hebrides Suite. Hmm, there is The Hebrides, a concert overture that was composed by Felix Mendelssohn in 1830, but there is also Clare Grundman's Hebrides Suite (1962), a popular four-movement concert band work based on Scottish folk songs from the Hebrides Islands.
Page 276 last paragraph - whipped Jersey - Jersey cow cream is so rich that you can thicken it with a few good shakes (as used on an Irish Coffee), and whip it in no time at all. - Foodie Pilgrim
Page 287 and Page 288 fragments of three poems
Page 293 paragraph 8 - Carmina Burana could be a medieval collection of poetry or it might be the a cantata composed in 1935 and 1936 by Carl Orff. Video. Includes O Fortuna. I suspect the cantata is the correct one here.
Page 313 top, fragment of a poem - The Quest by Rudyard Kipling
Lockheed T-33 Shooting Star
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| Lockheed T-33 Shooting Star |
Jet trainer, first flown in 1948. Over 6,000 were built.
Some T-33s retained two machine guns for gunnery training, and in some countries, the T-33 was even used in combat: the Cuban Air Force used them during the Bay of Pigs Invasion, scoring several kills including sinking two transport ships.
Castle Jindřichův Hradec
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| Castle Jindřichův Hradec |
An old building
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| Interior of the Rotunda in Adam's Building |
with a fancy interior.
Stanislaus von Prowazek (1875 – 1915) was a Czech biologist, zoologist and parasitologist, who along with pathologist Henrique da Rocha Lima (1879-1956) discovered the pathogen of epidemic typhus.
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| Castle Jindřichův Hradec |
The jigsaw puzzle page incorrectly identifies this building complex as Castle Český Krumlov. Castle Český Krumlov is 40 miles southwest of Castle Jindřichův Hradec. 3D map of Castle Jindřichův Hradec is not available, all you get is the 2D satellite image.
HIS & HERS - Netflix Series
HIS & HERS | Official Trailer | Netflix
Netflix
Kind of a stupid show, full of catty women being catty. All the evidence for the murder points to the lead detective, Jack, and so far (3 episodes in) he has managed to conceal his total involvement with the victim. Did he kill her? Don't know but he's such a jerk that I don't really care. But now we've got a second murder victim, so go ahead and place your bets on who's the killer. That's the only reason to keep watching it is to find out who dunnit. Also, my wife seems to be enjoying it, and a couple of hours of Netflix does sooth my addled mind.
The ending almost makes it worthwhile. At the end our list of suspects has narrowed down to two women, and it kind of looks like one of them is the killer. But then the real killer is unveiled, and it's a person who has been there all along, but just kind of in the background, floating around the edges.
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