New Addition to the Family

LP said to  the other week:

"I have a hypothesis. It is that our family needs a cat. A hypothesis means I have an idea and that we need to test it..."

Thank you Dinosaur Train, for educating my child. But as hypotheses go, it's not one I want to test. However, on a visit to the pet shop at the weekend, just as a way of entertaining the kids for 5 minutes, we found a suitable replacement for a cat. So, may I now present to you, Don (the hypothesis).

He's a Netherland Dwarf, born on the 8th of Feb (so a little over 1 month old), and he weighs in at a miniscule 220grams. I was opting for Don the Dutch, or Don the Dwarf, but Don Hypothesis seems to have stuck.

I'll post some better pics with the kids soon.

Quote of the Week

I have been working through a whole bunch of books I've had on my wishlist for years on my kindle. Mostly because they're free. I've made it along the line to Machiavelli. I need go no further to defend the writing's modern day significance after I read the following:

It ought to be remembered that there is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things, because the innovator has for enemies all those who have done well under the old conditions, and lukewarm defenders in those who may do well under the new. This coolness arises partly from fear of the opponents, who have the laws on their side, and partly from the incredulity of men, who do not readily believe in new things until they have had a long experience of them.

Machiavelli "The Prince".
Chapter VI Concerning New Principalities which are acquired by one's own arms and ability.

I see Machiavelli tried to start a union too!

Festive update

The last few months have been rather hectic, and vacation free, so I was sorely in need of some time off come the Christmas break. We've managed to squeeze a lot into the time off, considering we've been dealing with gastro, and record breaking blizzards (45.6 cm in the city a record for snowfall in one day). All I can say is now that winter is here in earnest, my snowboard is primed and ready, although there has been a bit of a thaw the last day or two.

A video of Montreal after the snow storm here.

All this meant LP and I made a lazy igloo in the garden by blocking up the windows of the play house.

As always, pics under the cut. Click them to enlarge.

#overlyhonestmethods

I have never really been attracted to Twitter, but the hashtag #overlyhonestmethods has seriously got me thinking about it. Either way, I can see myself losing some time trawling through the posts made, and also those on the related #overlyhonestreviews.

Brought to my attention by this article on io9, with a selection of the better ones posted on this blog, and more here.

Cross posted from my new Science Blog. Yes really.

St Jean-Baptiste Camping weekend I: Wood-Peppers and Bleeches

The weekend before last was St Jean-Baptiste weekend, or Quebec's national holiday. K found a great way for us to go camping. It's called Huttopia, and it's basically pre-pitched tents. We went along to the site at Parc National de Plaisance, on the Ottawa river.  It was tremendous fun, the girls loved every minute, as did K and I. Definitely something we'll look into doing again.

The park is situated on a bunch of little islands, which is great for going on boats, wandering round the march, seeing beavers (although we missed them) and playing in the water. The only down side was the mosquitoes, although all our bites seem to be healed now.

I was rather thankful we got to see as much wildlife as we did. After multiple visits to zoos and nature centres, where you get to see all the animals all the time, I was a little worried it would be an anticlimax in terms of the number of animals we saw. As it turned out, there was no worry, as the park was rife with marmots (which both girls tried to sneak up on at different times). Some woodpeckers (or as LP called them, wood peppers) decided to peck on a tree just outside our tent, and we saw planty of other bird life. And during our walk in the marshes we saw frogs galore, some fish, and a turtle.

Pics after the cut, as always, click to enbiggen.

Apocalypse Cow

My good friend Michael has had his first book published. I have been aware of all the steps involved, as K was in on the first rounds of editting for him way back, but it didn't really strike me how proud I was of him till our copy of the book came through the post at the beginning of the week. So here's to you Michael, I'm super chuffed for you for what you have achieved.

As modelled by my beautiful assistant.

Buy it here on amazon.co.uk



Or here on amazon.ca

New Livejournal!

Ok, so for a while I have been looking for a place to host my Livejournal. This was not an easy decision to make, as I have had this blog for over 10 years. But, there have been increasing DOS attacks to the site, and I fear for losing all my posts there. I have them backed up, but not hosted elsewhere.

I hope to transfer them here, at least for the meantime. As to all the comments, I fear they may be lost, and this is a real disappointment to me, they are as much a part of the blog as the posts themselves.

As to Blogger, I have another blog, and  do think there are a great many things Blogger does better than Livejournal, but then again LJ has been around for a very long time, and has done little to update it's interface. I hope this is a move for the better, but I do fear I will have lost a lot of history in the move. 

Sasori is dead, long live Sasori!