Category: learning curve

Night shot

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Actually: Night Shot (And Some Thoughts About ‘Togging On A Game Reserve)

Sifting through the several million photos we took at Sanbona, I think I’ve managed to kraal a significant but reasonable number of them into a Flickr album. Some were easy to include, some less so. But I use Flickr so that I’ve got a record and a memory of what happened, rather than to show off my photographic prowess. Using that second method would have taken a whole lot less time. What the group ends up with is a combination of the best shots and the best of the rest – it’s not always easy to photograph uncooperative wildlife. For an example, only 1 out of every 100 birds of prey that I see is facing me. Unless I don’t have a camera with me, of course. Then they all face me. Bastards.
That said, we were lucky enough to get very close to a lot of stuff, including cheetah, elephants (twice), rhinos and lions (and even a semi-cooperative bird of prey at one stage), amongst other things. So there are plenty of them.

But while you’re out and about looking at these things, you have to remember to make a decision: do you want to experience the animal there and then, or do you just want photo memories of it?
For me it was a bit of both, and so once I’d grabbed a couple of shots, I stopped and just watched, observed and listened (albeit with the camera ready to shoot again).

Obviously, you can take a bit more time over the shots of things that don’t move.

We also used our phone cameras while we were away. Firstly, so that we could email the kids something each evening and secondly (and photography snobs may want to look away now) because you can actually grab a decent shot every now and again. Oh, and it enables you to do things like this while someone else is using the “real” camera.

The place we stayed at was amazing. The setting was amazing. The staff were amazing. The food was amazing. The ranger was particularly amazing. It was, as you might expect, having read the previous five sentences – an amazing experience.

You can endure enjoy the full Flickr album here.

EGS

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It’s May, and we all know what happens in May. EGS happens in May.

Incoming via Polo Times:

Grass Sickness cases show a spike in May.
Polo ponies that are kept out at grass could be affected this spring by Equine Grass Sickness.

Yep. EGS = Equine Grass Sickness: a sickness of equines that is caused by guess what?

The main risk factor for grass sickness, as the name may suggest, is grass.

Thanks wikipedia. No Jimmy, I’m not donating for stuff like this.

I’m not into ponies and horses (those allegations never even went to court), but I am into microbiology and this does have a microbiological side because the sickness is believed to be caused by a toxin produced by Clostridium botulinum. Yes, what’s killing horses left, right and centre is the same stuff Helen Zille injects into her face.

And it is killing horses. Almost invariably. Let’s look at the mortality rates for a few human diseases:

Influenza A (and by this, I mean actual Influenza, not “‘flu”) kills about 0.1% of people who get it.
Bubonic plague (the “Black Death”) kills about 5% of those it infects.
Mortality in those affected by the recent West African Ebola Epidemic was around 53% (although, it’s complicated).

EGS kills 95% of the horses that get it. Ninety-five!

I’m pretty happy that I’m not a horse right now. Or… in fact… ever.

Brilliantly, according to Polo Times, one of the best ways to limit the chances of your equine getting EGS is not letting your equine eat grass. Who knew? (I bet wikipedia knew.)

PT is equally insightful in their “What to look out for” section on EGS:

  • Peracute: The horse is found dead in the field having presumably ingested large amounts of the bacteria.

That’s hugely helpful. I’ll be sure to keep an eye out for that. Thanks.

Anyway, if you have horses (and I suspect this is mainly aimed at the Northern hemisphere), then apparently it’s well worth your while to be careful what you let them eat in the Springtime.

Is It Ever OK to Drink Wine From Tumblers?

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This is the “Are You Beach Body Ready?” question of wine-drinking circles. And, much as some argue that all you have to do to make your body beach ready is go to the beach (and not threaten to bomb the offices of a nutritional supplement company), I would argue that it’s ok to drink wine out of whatever vessel you like.

In fact, I drink all my red wine out of a tumbler. Really.
And it seems that other people also think that’s absolutely fine:

Contrary to what you might expect, wine served in a tumbler isn’t a sign of bad wine or bad service — it’s a sign of tradition. According to chef Matteo Clivati, a Milanese native, currently the chef de partie at A16, and SF’s newest pop-up restaurateur, it’s common to see wine served in short tumblers in Italy, especially if the cuisine is rustic and traditional and if the owner makes his or her own wine. Some might also say that because wine is a part of every meal in the Old Country, serving wine in such a casual way only enforces its impact on Italian culture — wine isn’t as much of a “special occasion” drink as it is here in America.

I’m no hipster. I just prefer drinking wine from a tumbler, so I do. In summer, sometimes I even put it in the fridge first. Purists would spit at me in the street if they only knew.

So let’s leave it our little secret, ok?

Musical Mid-Life Crisis

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No. Not me. Not specifically, anyway. Given the way that the data below are interpreted, I’ve been having a MMLC for possibly forever already. Nothing will change if I ever make it as far as 42.

data

But this is very interesting for a number of different reasons. And before we go any further, the first of those reasons is that we can even look at this data. People have been buying and listening to popular music for decades, but while we’ve known what they’ve been buying (through the charts), we don’t actually know who’s  been buying it. Now, although these data are for a single music streaming service – just one of the many ways of accessing music these days – the ease and simplicity of correlating musical tastes with age, gender etc are still things that we never had before.

Secondly, I love the way that study author Ajay Kalia has devised a benchmark “Artist Popularity Rank” to measure stuff against. Any data analysis is utterly pointless unless you have a means of comparison. In this case, he used “artist hotttnesss” [sic] to see what was currently popular (Taylor Swift) and what was not (Natasha Bedingfield) which could then be cross-matched with who was listening to it.

To give you an idea of how popularity rank scales, as of January 2015:

  • Taylor Swift had a popularity rank of #1

  • Eminem had a popularity rank of about #50

  • Muse had a popularity rank of about #250

  • Alan Jackson had a popularity rank of about #500

  • Norah Jones had a popularity rank of about #1000

  • Natasha Bedingfield had a current-popularity rank of about #3000

Admission: I have no idea who Alan Jackson is. But, you know, #500. So, whatevs.

Next up, I’m suspicious of data that looks this good. I mean, I’m not really suspicious, (but I am a bit). How perfect are those curves? (careful now). Look at it through the thirties: gorgeous. And then, yes, that dip – a definite kink – at 42:

Around age 42, music taste briefly curves back to the popular charts — a musical midlife crisis and attempt to harken back to our youth, perhaps?

I’m not on Spotify, nor am I in the US, so I won’t be skewing their pretty data when I look at the last five songs I’ve shared on here – those being from 2015, 1987, 2013, 1949 (oops) and 2015 again. As I suggested earlier, I’m continually right in the middle of a MMLC.

Fortunately, looking at their spiralling graph, we’re all back onto the straight, narrow and distinctly uncool by the time we’re 45. Definitely something to look forward to.

There is that other point on there which I’m conveniently ignoring :

Sorry, fellow parents. We may be word-perfect on dozens of nursery rhymes and pre-school TV themes, but our pop savviness is in question. “Becoming a parent has an equivalent impact on your ‘music relevancy’ as ageing about four years,” writes Kalia.

That’s fine by me. I never claimed to be relevant anyway.

If you want more detail, here’s the full blog post on the study.

No more swimming problems

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It’s autumn. The pool heating has been switched off (the local equivalent of your UK central heating going on) and it’ll be a few months before it goes back on.
Still, at least there won’t be any issues like this for a while:
image

Obviously, whales can’t do that, so surely all aquatic mammals should be dead by now? Cause of death: “Drowned, after getting a stitch.”

(Or not.)