old man emu

When you are pushing a lawn mower around, there's not much need to be givingh all your attention to the task, so your mind can wander off to strange topics which raise interesting, but not often considered, questions. 1. If the oveernight temperatur gets to 0C or less and ice forms on things, why doesn't the freeze kill plants that grow in the winter? 2. If The Romans were in control of Judea at the time of Christ, and Roman currency was the currency of the Empire, why did they need money changers at the temple in Jerusalum?

I feel happy! I finished mowing. Not like mowing a suburban lawn, but more like slashing a paddock of lucerne. But it's done and now I can sleep innocently.

Are we afraid that someone has let AI out of the bottle and it will turn into something like the water-bearing brooms of the Sorcerer's Apprentice? Are we afraid that AI will self-replicate and eventually create bodies for itself and we will be under attack from Dalek-like machines?

Only because the British reneged on a deal to supply the Ottomans with a battleship they had paid for. It is ironic that the Ottomans sided with Germany/Austro-Hungaria since the Ottomans and Austro-Hungarians had been at war for centuries.

Why was only one company prepared to insure a young pilot? Because their perceived risk of a claim was higher than for the average non-pilot of the same age. The company calculated its risk and from that set an amount for the premium. Whether or not that premium amount changes over the years depends mainly on the increasing age of the client. There are two classes of product that are sold by insurance companies. The first is "insurance". This product returns an agreed sum to the insurer if, and only if, an specified event occurs. Your house, car and CTP policies are insurance policies. These policies have a fixed period for which loss from a stated event occurs. There are so many events that an be insured against that I could not hope to list them all here. However there is another type of product. The other product is "assurance". This is a product that pays out for a specific reason based on the life of the insured. One product is "Whole of Life". With this type of product, the insurer agrees to pay a set amount upon the death of the insured. Since this product will have a life of many years, the premiums are based on the expected life span of the insured and the sum to be paid out. Basically, teh insurer hopes that the insured will live to an old age, by which time the total of premiums will equal the amount insured. The insurer takes a hit if the insured dies young. Meanwhile, the insurer is receiving money regularly which can be invested and the profits of those investments taken by the insurer. Assurance policies can also be taken out by companies on the lives of employees whose death would adversely affect the company's operations A similar product is an Endowment" policy. This type of policy is an agreement to pay the insured an agreed amount at the end of a specified period, say ten to twenty years. The annual premium is simply the amount agreed upon divided by the number of years. There is also a bit tacked on to cover a death benefit if the insured dies within the period. This type of policy was popular with grandparents to provide a gift to grandchildren when th child reached adulthood. Superannuation policies are a sort of assurance policy in which the premium mainly goes into investment, but there is a bit used for death and disability events. The proceds of superannuation are paid out as a lump sum which can be used to puchase an annuity (pension), or not. But most of you are well aware of that.

I figure if I keep cutting they'll I think Jerry put a curse, not a cursor, on my keyboard.

Now that I have cut them to ground level, igure thf I keep cuttick theill not flower and that will get rid of them over time. Because they are so leafy, cutting them down will let the light get to the grasses and clover that I don't mind having.

After the rain finally came a month or so ago, the earth burst forth with mallow weed which took over where I would have liked to have had a lawn, save for two years of drought. It had grown to shin-deep in thick patches, and I knew I had to cut it down. Unfortunately, my lawn mower hasn't been used for two years, either. I pulled it out of the shed, and put in some fuel, which had been in the can for two years as well. You knop already that teh mower would not start. So I had been thinking for a while that the mower had probably had it, and I done some looking around at the price of a new one - about $400. As a last resort, I tipped out the old fuel and oput in some freash stuff. I rejoiced when the mower fired up. I set about attacking one section of my yard and will knock over teh rest of it tomorrow. Eight bucks worth of fresh fuel save me a coulple of hundred bucks, abd gave me a bit of satisfaction for finally starting a job that was high on the To Do list.

Seems that a passport is no loinger ameans of identification, but a tool to restrict entry into a country.

With the excise coming off fuel on Sunday, I topped up my tank this morning. The price was already 10 cents higher than on last Monday. As I was pumping fuel, I watched the price counter change. If the price of fuel keeps going up, the figures in that price counter will be a blur.

To get an Ausie passport, my grandson who was born in 2012 had to supply my birth certificate to show that I was born in Australia. My kids could get British passports becasue thier mother was born in Blighty. I suppose that applies to their kids as well.

I think I just swore at the Pope.

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Bubba-Loo???? Isn't that what Ricky Ricardo sang?

Here's a literary gripe. I'm reading, and enjoying, a series of fiction books set in modern Edinburgh about the lives of people living in a small, middle class area of the city. The writing is good and make for good bedtime reading. However my gripe concerns the practice of the author to have his characters include either Latin or foreign phrases in their speches. Sometimes I know the phrase, but very often I have no idea. Of course, since the characters are Scots and the setting is Scotland, some of those unique Gaelic words sometime appear, but that is what is called "atmosphere'. What gripes me is that these phrases cause me to stumble, losing the otherwise free flow of the writing. I have to pause and wonder if my interpretation of the phrase makes sense. Frotunately, the words are printed in Bold, so I can see them coming and can decisde whether to pause at them, or ignore them and leap over them like a gazelle.