Space “Jaunts”

https://cosmosmagazine.com/space/astrophysics/greenhouse-gas-space-x/

This science article confirms what I have been thinking, that space flights adds a bunch of gases to the already warming atmosphere. If these three billionaires can’t keep themselves from adding fuel to the fire, maybe they should be banned from taking any trips out until they’ve proved that they’ve zero’ed all their emissions … Scope 1 and Scope 2 and Scope 3!

Only TWO (!) entities so far are saying they’ll zero all their emissions by 2030. Microsoft, a giant, and Canberra, a small state in Australia.

It’s not good enough to say space flight has a lot of positives. The money being thrown at making the space flights happen should be thrown at getting the emissions down.

I’d love to be reading or hearing some time in the near future that that list of billionaires and a few of their buddies have added themselves to the Zero-Emissions-by-2030 list, as well as a bunch of other entities. Let them compete about that.

Definitions of scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions

from … https://www.nationalgrid.com/stories/energy-explained/what-are-scope-1-2-3-carbon-emissions
Scope 1 emissions …. Scope 1 covers emissions from sources that an organisation owns or controls directly – for example from burning fuel in our fleet of vehicles (if they’re not electrically-powered).

Scope 2 emissions … Scope 2 are emissions that a company causes indirectly and come from where the energy it purchases and uses is produced. For example, the emissions caused when generating the electricity that we use in our buildings would fall into this category.

Scope 3 emissions … Scope 3 encompasses emissions that are not produced by the company itself and are not the result of activities from assets owned or controlled by them, but by those that it’s indirectly responsible for up and down its value chain. An example of this is when we buy, use and dispose of products from suppliers. Scope 3 emissions include all sources not within the scope 1 and 2 boundaries.

Cat Diary 14

We have a new thing in the garden. Ha ha, bet I tricked you there. It’s irony, of course. Of course you didn’t know cats do irony. I assure you I have no difficulty woth it.

Any way, the new thing. The boy brought it. I think he’s trying to soften me up.

After the man and the boy and the prancing foal-child left, the old woman brought the new thing inside. Set it on a dessert plate and on the home-made kindergarten chair.

Within easy reach, she said.

An invitation I could not resist.

The Build 5, Days 13 – 26 Sep

See what I did there? It’s the fifth post about The Build, and the post covers 13th-26th September, 2024. Any other way of counting will drive me crazy and probably you too.

In case you’re not convinced? Day 13 is four days after the events on Days 11 and 12. It’s tricky to decide how to count the days for this project. 1) Count only the days stuff is visibly happening? That made it Day 13 on Tuesday 17 September 2024. Or 2) Count calendar days, the easier option. I had to start numbering the posts to be able to keep track of the images as they’re being used.

The day after the first excavator went to another job, I walked to the main gate in Surbiton Court to see what I could see, and discovered the architectural company’s name and details posted at the entry. Note that the that little wall backing the sign was still there that day.

And that afternoon, Tuesday 17 September, a representative of that business (logo on their vehicle) parked in the middle of the great big empty place.

But, let me tell you, just because we in Vista couldn’t see anything happening in the big empty place in front of us, that doesn’t mean nothing was happening.

Another day and another walk, I discovered there was plenty of action down at the front gate.

The new boundary corner peg … between the subdivision and Aveo, I assume …

NBN’s Comm cables have been gathered up into their own ‘banks’ and showing above ground to prevent them being massacred accidentally …

New sewage pipes and other fixtures …

I don’t know what these shade-cloth fences are actually called. I’ve heard them referred to as ‘sediment containment barriers’, a fancy way of saying they’re to stop mud going where it shouldn’t.

Within the green and teal fence, there’s this red and yellow safety fence outlining a deep trench. The trench presumably to house the new sewage plumbing.

One thing that amazed me about the site from this angle, is the amount of vegetation still going strong. There is a flowering azalea in the back corner, and various other shrubs, and even the Grevillea at the front entrance was still there … being outlined by pegs which made me wonder if it was being invited to stay …

Trees, Eucalypts

This strange looking Eucalyptus sp is growing behind one of the local carparking buildings.

Strange because it’s so dimpled. Never seen a tree trunk like it. Don’t know whether it is natural or an attack by something like a virus.

It’s losing its bark rather early. In Sydney and environs that used to happen nearer to November.

The canopy, what there is of it, is rather statuesque.

Lol, Cat Litter

We definitely have not yet hit our goldilocks moment with cat litter!

Who knew there would be so many brands and types available. I started with my usual arrogant save-the-world attitude and bought a large 10kg bag of recycled newspaper pellets. This being possible because someone else was carrying it to the car and from the car to my apartment. Newspaper pellets go sludgy.

Second was hemp pellets, left overs from the process of producing hemp for rope, hemp-crete and other products, this was another product that was going to save the environment. Hemp pellets disintegrate into a fine dust difficult to clean up and very bad for my allergies.

Third was a gravelly product made of tofu and pea flour. It is meant to ‘clump’ and so be easier to keep the litter box clean. It does clump but is also easily transported into the rest of the house by sticking between the poor cat’s toes, and is nearly as bad as the proverbial Lego block to stand on when walking around on bare feet. And why wouldn’t I?

Fourth is a tiny vermicelli-like extruded pellet made of coconut fiber and charcoal. This was probably the worst purchase yet. Very sharp, and I soon picked up a piece in the sole of my foot. Have been wearing a big band aid for a week. Apart from that, the stuff ‘clumps’ only reluctantly. The one thing going for it, it does work wonders on odors.

Above, a mix of fresh litter containing all four of the recalcitrant litter types. As by then I’d been buying a new sort every time I went shopping, and since I can carry home only the stuff I can fit on my walker, the average bag of litter weighs 5 kg.

At the present we’re trying out the mix of sawdust and wood-splinters. And when I go shopping in a few minutes I will probably–out of sheer pernickety recalcitrance–buy yet another of the still untried possibilities.

Having to send untold bags of used cat litter to land-fill is also not ideal. Before, when I lived in freestanding houses, the used cat litter went into the compost bin, or was buried in the garden and helped to build up my low-lying yard. I’ll be asking Brisbane City Council why apartement blocks don’t get green bins. It’s not as if we don’t produce any organic waste!

There has got to be a better way!

Tagging My Fish aka Content

in this, part two of yesterday’s topic, I’ve been Tagged … I’ll be discussing the Questions to do with blog content.

On a totally different topic for a minute, Moggy and I have had a rough beginning to our morning, along with every other resident on Levels Two and Three of our building. No power from 7 a/m to 9.15 a/m. Though we were told beforehand and had prepared–with a thermos of hot water for example–nobody knew that the alarm units in every apartment would be telling us that … “mains supply is interrupted” … every ninety seconds for the duration. This to happen again on Friday. Not much of an imposition, I know. Especially when we were forewarned.

Moggy was so weirded out by this strange un-embodied voice spouting its refrain that she retired to the far corner under the bed and re-appeared only when the lights went back on and the voice was silenced.

What surprised me about this event was how ‘in the moment’ I had to be just because I couldn’t engage some of my early morning routines. At one point I realized that the ‘net’ metaphor I used in the previous post can definitely be applied to routines. Making in this case the routines the net, and the-new-and-interesting-things-to-do the fish. Something like that.

I’m chortling at this point. After last night’s success at ‘prompting’ (explaining to the resident AI to what pic I needed) I wanted to see what the AI (I’ll need to find out its name) made of this … “Smoky furred cat with white underside and white paws, black nose and black lower jaw.” Nothing is the answer. The message was the image could not be found due to network problems. Ri-i-ight. The AI is stumped?

Q2 If your blog was a person, fictional or real, who would it be? I’d have to say my blog would be a fictional person because she’s a digital entity, existing only in bits and bytes and only online. She’s a ghost in the works. One of millions. It’s as crowded in her world as it is in the consensual ‘real’ world.

It does actually surprise me sometimes that we–me and my digital identity–can connect pretty reliably. Part of the reason is probably that WordPress keeps her safe. She doesn’t have to wheel and deal out in the hot hard world of the world wide web.

Although, not too many entities are out there on their own anymore. I’ve certainly noticed a change in my online experiences from when I first got online in approx 1998, in that nearly everybody I want to talk to, is now in some kind of gated community. It’s difficult now to ‘surf the web’ in the free-wheeling and easy way we used to. All the gated communities still provide that for their members but anybody else first has to sign up and often pay down real money.

Q3 What helps you create new content when you need inspiration? This question follows naturally from the previous one. ‘Creating new content’ is writing or photographing, painting, sketching etc about new ideas I happen to trip over. New ideas provide the ‘inspirations’.

Having to pay everywhere makes it harder to find and produce new content. It’s not only $$$ that stop me finding good stuff. Substack, for example, has this full page thing that they flash at me every time I go to read some of my favorite commentators, where I’m supposed to mark three things that I like to read about, and they’ll be able to steer more of the same my way. I’ve been skipping out every time I see it. It’s such a creativity killer to be shunted into the same byways every time I get online.

WordPress, in contrast, has introduced a ‘discovery’ application that I’m happy with, as I’m able to range further into the domain, and have already got a few topics of interest in my stash. Eg, last week I stumbled across an article on ‘hypovolemia’ which is now sitting there brewing. When I find more info about it, I’ll copy and paste that in there too. With four or five points I’ll have plenty to write about.

My Drafts is where I keep my stash of topics I might post about some day. Usually I’ll copy a link and open a new post, and save it in there. I usually have five or six drafts on the go–waiting for more info, energy, and or time. Any that get too old and stale, I’ll delete. Recently, an Apple mobile phone update provided me with a ‘Journal’ app where I’ve also been noting interesting topics.

In my actual life I keep a bunch of journals. Health diary. Art Journal. Dream School. Bosley and Co’s stories. They also all provide me with grist for the inspiration mill. The picture following is from my art journal, it’s a sketch for a larger painting. A sketch is where I try out techniques, perspectives, colors, even the framing is an experiment. Washi tape. I’m showing it unedited.

Cat Diary 11

Me training the old woman is an ongoing project. My main drive is to get more food more often. The day after she went out for dinner was excellent. We had a new to me meat at lunchtime … when she fed me a couple of chunks … and at dinner time when I got some of the gravy as well as a few more scraps. Yum!

This is me the day before, cleaning the bag that the barbecued chook came in. Forgot to mention that delicacy. Seems to me she tries me on new things at lunchtimes.

So it’s very disappointing when there is nothing much in the middle of the day. Makes the day long and boring.

To my surprise the day she went shopping she brought home a thing she probably thought I’d love. Nothing is further from that feeling about the alien thing she expects me to interact with.