Nothing In Particular

[jack]

Wot he said ^

[shane]

Vacuum cleaners are brilliant for unwanted flying things (Crane flies are particularly satisfying) but I’ve not tried catching rodents yet. Don’t think my little battery vacuum would cope, and what do you do with a vole stuck in the pipe work?

I don’t have a cat, but I will recommend this to my brother. Recent live trophies brought home by his cat include rabbits, a mole and an adder, not to mention the heads of two Guinea pigs. Presumably they were sufficiently tasty to be consumed when caught rather than being brought home for sport.

[andrew Ivimey]

Crikey- what kinda cats do you have down there!?

[jack]

Crikey- what kinda cats do you have down there!?

Domestic cats are serial killers - terrible for wildlife.

Having said that, we have three fairly elderly-but-still-very-active cats; one had only three legs (lost a front one in a snare).

In the past they've bought in slow worms & grass snakes (no adders/vipers here), loads of mice & rabbits, the occasional dove and a fair few small birds etc. There are a lot of things that you can't identify as they only left some internal organs, some feathers or maybe a foot. They didn't eat the slow worms/grass snakes - we just found them in the sitting room. The rather surreal bloodied white dove was flying around in the sitting room - we captured that and at night quietly put it back over the neighbour's fence as it was probably one of theirs (they have a dovecot).

Not many rabbits these days - in the past we had absolutely loads, but there's been a lot of myxomatosis and haemorrhagic virus here that has drastically reduced the populations. Only in the last year have we started seeing them in the garden again. We do have several large and very healthy looking foxes around, so they may also be predating the rabbits. When the cats were at them, we'd find just a few fluffy feet or maybe a nose on the mat, that a some very fat cats....

Only one rat in the 30+ years we've been here - didn't eat that, just left it dead on the mat. Big one too. Chucked that in the septic tank (it's the traditional thing to do).

[Morgan Jones]

...and what do you do with a vole stuck in the pipe work?

They don't stick. There's a bang when they hit the bend where the pipe goes into the whizzy circulating spinny bit, but that's all.

Younger cat has brought in three pigeons so far; two alive. Older cat is too fat and lazy. Years ago, I had a cat who (on Christmas Day) brought me a pheasant wing (still warm) and an instalment of rabbit. Frogs used to be brought in (very noisy) and we once had a mole that really didn't want to be rescued. Old-fashioned oven mitts are good for rescuing bouncy things like frogs and strong things with sharp claws like moles.

[jack]

Just saw my first Starlink chain in the sky!

No wonder optical astronomers are so cross!

Bright as anything, moving at a pace from SW to NE, about 20 or 30 of them...

[andrew Ivimey]

I'm in Northern Italy and Orion is lying on his back - don't understand why.

[chris661]

Different latitude, I expect.



In unrelated news, for the first time in years, I've bought a pair of off-the-shelf finished speakers. I looked at everything they do, everything I might be able to do, and realised that I might (might) be able to get pretty close in some ways, but I'd never outright beat them:
- Cast aluminium cabinets, with a tweeter waveguide, nicely rounded edges and a pleasingly-not-quite-cuboid shape.
- Built-in amplification, including switches for boundary effects, in-room HF balance, and LF rolloff to tame the primary room mode
- Very compact, considering the amplification etc.

They arrived around an hour ago, and have been playing music for 57 minutes. The boxes arrived stapled shut, or I'd've had them playing quicker.

Brief listening impressions:
- Useful LF extension, but nothing below 40Hz.
- Very flat/neutral
- The centre image is much stronger and less prone to collapsing-back-to-the-two-speakers than anything I can remember hearing
- Impressive detail

The speakers are Genelec 8030C, and I'm very impressed so far.

Chris

[Cressy Snr]

Different latitude, I expect.
In unrelated news, for the first time in years, I've bought a pair of off-the-shelf finished speakers...

...Chris

Interesting: about a month ago I bought a pair of Q Acoustics 3010i. These are a small, passive speaker, meant for small rooms and I just love them to bits. Similar to your Genelecs they don't go much below 40Hz, but they seem to suit my 12' x 12' living room to a tee.

I also bought a Denon DM41 DAB tuner/amp with CD player and no longer feel the need to look further for good sound. Using the tone controls, I upped the treble by 2dB to suit my age-related HF impaired hearing, and because I don't sit in the middle of the speakers when listening, I moved the balance a couple of degrees towards the right speaker. I get neutrality, plenty of detail and a good stereo image, with voices locked in the centre, if that is where they have been placed by the engineer.

It's a lovely sound, for not a lot of money.

[chris661]

Yep, it seems like there are some gems to be had in the commercial world. I haven't heard your Q-Acoustics speakers, Steve, but I'm glad you're enjoying them.


Chris

[jack]

Grim. What have they done.

[andrew Ivimey]

I'm tired of living in 'interesting times'.

[Daniel Quinn]

There are 330 million Americans . That's a large section of the electorate who are stupid .

It's hardly a ringing endorsement

[Nick]

There are 330 million Americans . That's a large section of the electorate who are stupid .

If only it was that simple. Its the venn diagram with an overlap of stupid, gullible and can't vote for a woman. Its as much a problem caused by those that didn't vote for Harris as those that voted for Trump.

But you know, Brexit was a thing.

[Daniel Quinn]

It is that simple. In our house we have a sign which says "fuck the tories" it's next a sign by the door which tells everyone in the house going out in the world to " be good , do good "

It's guaranteed to spot a Tory and know they aren' welcome here .

The world is full of stupid people who I do not like . I don't need a venn diagram for that , just their voting intention