What is writer’s block exactly?

blank-page

This post was originally just a quick visual joke, a play on the often printed phrase seen in books and documents that states “This page deliberately left blank”. My joke was then to allude to writer’s block by displaying a page that states instead that “This page not deliberately left blank”. Hahah. Funny.

Writer’s block is a condition that occurs when a writer is unable to produce new written material, despite their desire or need to do so. Writer’s block can be caused by a variety of factors, including self-doubt, anxiety, lack of inspiration, fatigue, and distractions.

To overcome writer’s block, there are several strategies that a writer can use. One effective strategy is to set aside a regular time and place for writing. This helps to establish a routine and allows the writer to focus on the task at hand.

Another strategy is to take a break from writing and engage in other activities that can help to stimulate creativity, such as reading, listening to music, or taking a walk. Engaging in these activities can help to refresh the mind and provide new ideas and perspectives.

Other strategies include breaking down the writing process into smaller, more manageable tasks, setting achievable goals, and seeking feedback from others. Additionally, it can be helpful to reframe the way one thinks about writer’s block and to view it as a normal part of the creative process rather than a personal failure.

Overall, the key to overcoming writer’s block is to find what works best for each individual writer and to persist in the face of challenges. With time, patience, and perseverance, any writer can overcome writer’s block and produce their best work.

But, to quote Neil Peart in the Rush song Losing It:

“The writer stare with glassy eyes
Defies the empty page
His beard is white, his face is lined
And streaked with tears of rage”

Cheery stuff!

The conspiracy theory conspiracy theory

Climate change denialist Malcolm Roberts told Brian Cox that NASA had fiddled the data on the graph he showed on a TV debate. Cox was dumbfounded, if NASA had fiddled the data than the Australian Academy of Sciences and the UK’s Met Office would all have to be complicit.

Of course, nobody has fiddled the data. That’s just a conspiracy theory, like the idea that someone is controlling our minds with so-called chemtrails or that we didn’t put astronauts on the Moon or that vaccines cause autism and Big Pharma is to blame or that Obama started ISIS and is also to blame for September 11, that we have illuminated lizard overlords, covered up Roswell aliens, and that Dan Brown is a great author etc etc etc. All BS.

It’s tragic. There are almost as many conspiracy theories as there are people claiming to be affected. But, perhaps there’s an overarching conspiracy theory at work here. They are spreading all this BS to confuse us as a decoy from the real conspiracy…if we’re all battling against these tiny conspiracy theories then we’re not going to notice the primary conspiracy, the big deal, the major manipulation……whatever that might be…

Now, where’d I put my tinfoil hat?

What are Olympic medals actually made of?

That Olympic “gold” medal? Mostly silver…just 1.2% gold, plated (6 grams of the half kilo medal), but at least it’s mercury free, which is rare.

The silver medal is 100% silver (though actually 92.5% purity, 30% recycled from X-ray plates, mirrors etc), too right.

The bronze medal is 95% copper and 5% zinc, which makes it brass, rather than bronze (bronze is strictly speaking copper and tin…although any copper alloy is a bronze.

The bronze medals would be worth about $2 scrap metal, the silver medal about $300 and the “gold”, about $565. If it were solid gold it would be worth more than $21000, reports Compound Interest.

olympic-medals

Compositions have varied year to year…

Green Olympic pool update

TUESDAY MORNING UPDATE: FFS. I’ve summarised the latest stir the pool in a follow-up for Chemistry World here.

SUNDAY MORNING UPDATE: Apparently, they’ve drained the pool and are now admitting, finally, that it’s algae, like I said from day 1! Blaming hydrogen peroxide levels “neutralising” the chlorine and allowing algae to grow.

UPDATE to the update: Apparently, the pool smells of farts now, so sulfur compounds, most likely hydrogen sulfide, a product of rotting bio…so once again a hint of it having been an algal problem all along…like I said from the start…

The waters are still murky as are the explanations. I stand by my initial diagnosis that it was algae all along despite all the obfuscating claims for chemical levels, alkalinity, inks and the like. An interesting comment on my recent Chemistry World news story about the pool had this to say:

An overshock of copper sulfate (as algacide) may have been done. With high level of “chlorine” (as oxidizing agent) also done. The chlorine oxidized the copper and formed the greenish colour. The cloudiness could be formed because of algae after oxidizing and also phosphate (which is formed in open pools) can make water cloudy.”

I flew down to Rio to get a closer look at the diving pool
I flew down to Rio to get a closer look at the diving pool

It’s almost as if anything seems a plausible explanation now. Yes, they may have done chemical stuff to the pool, but I am convinced they spotted an algal bloom start and were trying to avert a complete aquatic infection with that stuff. they knew from the start. The team hasn’t officially mentioned using copper sulfate though…if they had used it at the start and that was why it first turned green and cloudy they would’ve known. They could have released that as the explanation rather than stringing the world along that they didn’t know and claiming it was safe even when they supposedly didn’t know. This reinforces my trivial conspiracy theory that they’ve known all along (that it was algae) but they didn’t want to fess up and were opting for chemical being not as bad as biological, which makes a change!

Either way, that diver’s hair is definitely green and not light blue, no matter what he says…

Olympic algal bloom

THURSDAY UPDATE: It’s 07h35 in Rio and they’re saying things should be resolved soon, but apparently the swimming pool next to the diving pool is taking on a green cast now as well…if they knew it was about chemicals, shouldn’t they have been on top of it for that one?

NEW UPDATE: Now, they’re claiming it’s a drop in alkalinity due to the treatment system running out of chemicals..hmmm…that still doesn’t explain the cloudiness, I don’t think. Here’s my story in Chemistry World on this, I will attempt to keep abreast (no pun intended) of matters.

UPDATE: It was algae. They just made an announcement. Vindicated. I can’t believe it’s taken them this long. We saw this happen with our lido several times over the years…

There’s a lot of debate about how and why the diving pool at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games has turned from a lovely, crystal clear blue to a cloudy, murky, uninviting pea/pee green. It’s definitely not an additive they put in to show whether anyone was urinating and it’s definitely not Tom Daley’s moisturiser that’s to blame.

diving-green
We used to run an open air swimming pool, lido, here in our village. If the sun was out and it actually got hot and the prescribed “chlorine” and pH levels were off, it would take a matter of a couple of days for an algal bloom to start. But that was in Cambridge not Rio where atmospheric conditions and climate are somewhat different.

People are pointing to the fact that the diving pool has turned but not the adjacent swimming and events pool which remains lovely and clear. Perhaps it’s the smaller volume of water in the diving pool that and the fact it might be held at a higher temperature for comfort. Maybe it also gets more sunlight on it than the other pool? It may well be that the staff looking after the bigger pool were quicker to up the “chlorine” in response to what they saw happening with the diving pool but were too late with latter. The filters may have been contaminated in one and acting as reservoirs of spores, the violent aquatic activity of diving disturbed spores significantly and triggered the bloom.

It’s very hard to get on top of an algal bloom and clear the waters again and admitting that’s what the problem is would probably mean the pool would have to be closed and properly rebalanced and filters cleaned and that might delay subsequent events. Either way, it’s rather embarrassing for the organisers and rather offputting for the divers. That said, I read that one diver said having a more solid colour to dive into is easier in terms of perspective and depth, although I suspect that was PR puff rather than an actual desire.

The main problem in terms of safety for swimming pools that suffer a green algal bloom aside from the toxicity is that lifeguards can no longer see swimmers under water and so there’s a serious risk of drowning if someone sinks or has problems while submerged. Of course, most accidents at pools involve people running and slipping while out of the water or just heart attacks poolside.

There is another theory that they overshocked the diving pool with “chlorine” and this reacts with copper and iron in the water to generate the colour, that would, apparently fit better the timescale of the change and explain why the swimming pool is unaffected. But, that leaves the cloudiness unexplained, not sure whether insoluble copper and iron oxides would form colloidal particles. Moreover, I’ve seen a clear pool go from “colourless/clear blue” to green in a couple of days in a much cooler, less humid UK. So who knows…the Olympic pool people will know…surely?

Classic Chords #14 Who is Townshend?

The Who’s Pete Townshend was by turns a maestro on the acoustic guitar and a wall-of-sound man on the electric. Stacks of amps and speakers, his windmilling right arm, the leaps and kicks and, of course, the smashing up the guitars and hotel rooms in equal measure, allegedly. On the acoustic there was the high-speed percussive, expansive rhythmic strumming, the big sus4 chords of “Pinball Wizard”. On the louder than loud live rockers like “My Generation” it was power and distortion that mattered. I seem to recall reading the it was Townshend who not only was first to use a stack of 4×12 speaker cabinets, which became the staple of heavy rock from its definition in the late 60s of the increasingly loud British Blues Explosion but also the inventor of the power chord (the hard attack, heavily distorted, long sustained, major triads missing their third not, the 5th chords in other words. But, some would say Link Wray invented the power chord in “Rumble”, but that’s not a power chord to my ear!

Classic-Chords-Who

One of Townshend’s tricks, when pitting his wits against the massive power of John Entwistle’s pounding and intricate bass licks was to play the part of a more conventional bass guitar line but on his six-string. So, we have the opening of “My Generation”, which nominally just goes from G to F. But in reality he was tuned down a tone and playing the bottom notes of an Amaj shape and then adding the descending bass with the thumb to take him from A to A/G (by pitch it was actually the G to G/F). A similar pattern was used on other songs and by other bands, not least Rush, who were/are massive Who fans (hear the that A to A/G trick in the likes of “Natural Science” from Permanent Waves and elsewhere.

Here’s a snippet of me doing some of that kind of stuff. First playing an actual G to G/F at pitch in standard EADBGe six-string tuning, and then in the same tuning A to A/G with some bending on that bottom string and then ascending through C-C/B to D-D/C and back to riffing on the A chord with the thumbed G note on the sixth string. To be honest the B string doesn’t necessarily come into play.

More Classic Guitar Chords here.

Wriggly fly caterpillars

When the man said, “a rose by any other name”…the reverse isn’t necessarily true, giving something nasty a new name doesn’t make it any less nasty…Windscale to Sellafield, global warming to climate change, total and utter economic and social disaster to Brexit…see what I mean?

Although fly larvae are analogous to butterfly caterpillars, fundamentally they’re still rank when you find them oozing around the lid of your kitche and waste green wheely bin…

maggots

The thing with no name

A newly discovered Western Australian nudibranch needs a name and just like Boaty McBoatface and that British Airways Olympic aeroplane they’re trying to name, somebody had the bright idea of asking the public to come up with a monicker.

Horny-O-Swirlybutt

Well,  I name this creature Horny O’Swirlybutt or to give it its scientific binomial Helicoposteria capabicornea, Bradliensis. Although, of course, there are rulez and you only get to come up with the second half and the first half is actually Moridilla, so it would have to be Moridilla capabicornea or Moridilla helicoposteria or similar. BUT the competition is open only if you live in Australia anyway. WTF?

 

Two fingers to Michael Buerk

Two fingers to Michael Buerk! You may have heard Buerk on BBC R4 Today this morning today trot out that #DeceivedWisdom about the British expletive V-sign (not the Winston Churchill victory version) being something to do with chopping off the fingers of French archers during the Battle of Agincourt. It is #DW = #BS.

For a start, Mediaevel longbows required more than two fingers to draw back, but more to the point, archers were the lowest of the low, common men, they were never taken prisoner to merely have their fingers chopped off as punishment, they would have been slaughtered on the spot. There’s more about the myth here from the BS Historian.

two-fingers

The DW has been debunked endlessly, e.g. in David Wilton’s “Word Myths: Debunking Linguistic Urban Legends”, Oxford University Press, 2008, but it persists because the likes of Buerk use it again and again.

I remember a book on body language and visual expletives got shown around when were were in junior school (aged 10). It discussed various gestures, including the V-sign, the two-finger salute mentioned above, and the Amercun flipping the bird. The erect middle finger Americans use is so obviously a phallic symbol meaning FO, but the uniquely British two-finger salute, which means the same thing is perhaps a little more subtle, perhaps alluding to legs akimbo. However, there are some people who don’t separate their index and middle finger in this gesture perhaps mimicking female external genitalia.

Incidentally, it was around about that age when I first saw the Ken Loach film Kes in which the actor David Bradley (not that one) sticks two fingers up to show his disdain of authority, and in particular his brother who [SPOILERS] kills the eponymous bird.

To be frank, there is no known etymology for the two-finger salute, just as the origin of the F word, is also unknown. Either way, if he keeps on with the deceived wisdom, Mr Buerk can go forth and multiply…