Ransen's Blog

"If a tree falls in a forest, and there is nobody there to hear it, does it make a sound?" Of course it fucking does you plonker. If you define sound as wavelike movement of air within a certain range of frequencies, then of course the movement exists whether there is an observer or not. (You could define sound as perception of audio waves by a human being , and in that case the sound does not exist if nobody is there to percieve the air movement. But the philosophers I heard talking about this did not do that simple thing of defining what they meant by sound. They just played with words. A History Of Ideas is a BBC Radio podcast)

There I was, slightly full, a bit overweight, and in front of me a quarter of a luvvverrly pizza. It was practically screaming: "Eat Me!" Nobody else in the restaurant wanted it. It would be a waste not to eat it. But when we ordered too much food we'd already wasted it. If I ate that bit of pizza I would be contributing to my own over-weight , the fuel consumption of my car, the fuel consumption of any planes or trains I took, and the average health of the nation would go down. Once too much food has been prepared, and if it cannot be saved for later, the waste has already happened. It is an excuse for me to say "I hate waste!" and then add to my own belly fat. I have to throw the food away, that is the less wasteful option. (Unless of course I am undernourished. But I'm not.)

I was listening to the BBC Start The Week podcast a few weeks ago. It was called "Dissecting Death", and was about approaches to death. Halfway through this bloke, introduced as a "philospher", Raymond Tallis came on. I've heard him waffle on other programs before. He just published a 700 page (yes seven hundred page ) book about time and lamentation. The other guests on the program were intelligent informative and interesting: Mark O'Connell talked about transhumanists, Carla Valentine talked about life and death behind mortuary doors, and Laura Yunbridge spoke about late works of artists. But all Tallis could say was: "Physicists have shrunk time to little 't'. So it can be squared or used as a denominator in an equation. Well you'd never do that to an afternoon..." Now why did a "philospher" say such stupid things? I can think of only answers: Answer 1) He is ignorant of how time is still

Crime dramas on ITV1 are currently sponsored by SEAT. But who was the marketing genius who persuaded SEAT to associate their good looking cars with death, crime, missing persons and drug dealing? Take Vera for example. Just before the start of an episode, and at the end of each commercial break, there is an ad which associates a SEAT car with a crime scene. All the ads are shot at nighttime. Some examples I can remember: A woman in white walking in the middle of the road picked out by the SEAT's headlights. A message to a missing mother (really? a missing mother?) on the smartphone (presumably connected to the SEAT's electronics system). A nasty looking package lying in the dark near a white SEAT car. A man who drops something as he closes the boot of his SEAT car, probably a clue after his murder in a few minutes time. Surely they could have come up with something more reassuring. Something which suggests that SEAT cars are solidly reliable and will keep you safe even

Usually the cat doesn't get to sleep in the bedroom, but one evening he snuck in and arranged himself on my pillow, near my head. I could hear his purring quite loud. I like gentle sounds when I go to sleep, distant trains, planes, dogs barking, even cars. So I enjoyed listening, in the dark, to his purrs. Then slowly they faded away and all I could hear was him breathing deeply. I'd heard him fall asleep, it was wonderful feeling.

I don't mind other people cooking for me, as long as I don't have to clean the messy pans with sticky sauces, congealed cheese etc. Apart from the fact that I dont' eat fish or meat, the most important thing is that I don't have to do much washing up. I've developed a dish which means that I only have a single bowl and a single spoon to clean.  Here are the ingredients: Apart from the vegetables (which you can vary according to what you have on hand) and the beans, there's olive oil, turmeric, cumin seeds and balsamic vinegar. Chop up the vegetables, add the other ingredients and... Yummmmmmy!  (My family have given up and now allow me to eat my salad with spoon.)

A few nights ago I went onto the balcony to have a look at the loverrrly sky to the east: Then I looked behind me, over the roof, to the west. And there was my favourite constellation, Orion. His belt is made of the three stars in an almost horizontal line you can see in the center of the photo: It is not a great photo, but you can see the real thing these days if you live in the northern hemisphere and look east. And the real thing is a real wonder. In the photo Rigel is the star, below the belt, which is almost touching the roof. And Betelgeuse is the one above the belt and in line with Rigel. When you look at the constellation for real you'll be amazed at how these two stars have definite colours, Rigel is blue and Betelgeuse is orange.  Follow the line of the belt leftwards and you'll find Sirius, the Dog star, the brightest star in the sky. In the photo is is near the end of an antenna. Go back to the belt and extrapolate along it to the right, you'll f