Marilyn's Photos - Dec 28 2025 - Just in Time

 

I wonder how many people wrote down and/or published their New Year’s Resolutions for 2025.  Are they evaluating their year gone by? Not so fast. There are a few more days to get them fulfilled and check that box.   One site asks the question this way:  “How many New Year’s Resolutions come true?” Sounds more like a fairy tale wish, or buying a lottery ticket.  Look at the resolutions - all kinds of very demanding things:  Exercise more, eat healthier, lose weight, save money/spend less, mental well-being, learning new skills, improving relationships and cutting back on unhealthy habits like smoking or excessive screen time. That’s 2025’s resolutions. For 2024 they were health (exercise, diet, weight loss) and finances (saving more, managing money), alongside improving mental well-being and relationships with family and friends. Seems like a Ditto moment.  What about 2023? Another Ditto moment.  I wouldn’t want to survey back to Babylonian times when resolutions likely started to find out if this is consistent every year. There is a survey at education.casio.co.uk with statistics for 2018. That’s far enough in the past for me: Save money – 53% Lose weight or get into shape – 45% Travel more – 24% Read more books – 23% Learn a new skill or hobby – 22% Buy a house – 21 % Looks like mental health has moved up the ladder, and travel, reading, buying a house have probably dropped way down. This comparison of resolutions might be digging too far into the details.  It could be that after these thousands of years we are moving away from New Year’s Resolutions.  One article called them “good intentions” - seems more realistic.  On the other hand, there’s a trend to even more resolutions - one article has the top 150 examples of New Year’s Resolutions.   And ha ha! In there is the best resolution in the world - it is 7680 x 4320 pixels.  Something I think is very funny as I hadn’t been looking for a joke at that point. Aren’t bubbles a most amazing thing.  I took this picture recently at the Good Earth.

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Sep 20 2024 - Looking for jokes

 

Jokes can be classified many ways.  The most common on the internet is by theme or subject area.  And the one that pops up a lot is "Dad Jokes".  That got me wondering whether there is a formal subject classification of jokes. I checked out Wikipedia as it includes an index of joke types.  The list is less than 80 items long, so I don't think it would be considered comprehensive.  And it seems so specific at times - what make Romanian humour its own topic compared to every other country?  I liked this one - Monsieur et Madame jokes.  A Monsieur et Madame joke is originally a French type of joke, which takes the form of a riddle. It involves providing the surname of a husband and wife and asking for their child's given name, with the answer forming a pun. For example, Monsier and Madame Mauve are said to have a son called Guy, where his name is a homophone for guimauve ("marshmallow"). And then I was surprised by how unpleasant this type of joke is - Cruel Jokes would be renamed Macabre in my view - Mommy why is Daddy still sleeping.   Shut up and keep digging.  Things seem incomplete and more complicated than I imagined.  Maybe more work is needed.  So I went to The Onion's article which claims all jokes fall into one of 11 categories: Irony Character Reference Shock Parody Hyperbole Wordplay Analogy Madcap Meta-humour Misplaced focus You can read the example jokes HERE.

I took this picture at the Phipps Conservatory in Pittsburgh.  It was a narrow tall water tank of bubbles rising.  Some sort of interest at the entrance. The effect was achieved with multiple exposures and a slow shutter speed.

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Feb 8 2022 - Bubbles are Bouncy

 

Bubbles are very bouncy things.  They bounce in the air, they bounce on water.  They usually burst when you try to catch them.  So elusive.   Here's the kitchen experiment that uses sugar and gloves to bounce bubbles and catch them with your hands.  Even bubbles have enemies: They are oil, dirt and gravity.   Ingredients Small bowl for mixing Spoon for stirring Cotton or wool socks or gloves Drinking Straw 60ml (4 Tbsp) Water 30ml (2 Tbsp) sugar 15ml (1 Tbsp) Dishwashing Liquid Instructions Mix all the ingredients together in the bowl and stir until the sugar dissolves Dip the end of the straw into the solution until a film forms on the end Gently blow into the other end of the straw to form a bubble Cover your hand with a sock or glove and hold your palm out flat Blow a bubble in the air and use your covered hand to gently bounce the bubble without it bursting The Science Behind Bouncing Bubbles Bubbles are simply air trapped inside a thin film of liquid – the bigger the bubble, the more air is inside. The liquid film that makes up the outside of a bubble is mostly water. Water molecules are attracted to each other by intermolecular forces – these are electromagnetic forces which act between molecules. The intermolecular forces draw the water molecules together, creating something called surface tension. Dishwashing liquid lowers the surface tension of the water, making it stretchy enough to stretch around a sphere of air to form a bubble. Bubbles, though, are prone to popping when the film is pierced or if too much water in the film evaporates, leaving too thin a layer. The sugar binds to the water molecules. This helps to stop the bubbles from drying out so they last longer and don’t pop as quickly. Usually, if you touch a bubble it bursts – this is because the natural oil on your hands breaks the surface tension of the water around the bubble. By wearing gloves or socks on your hands you create a barrier between the oil and the bubble, making it possible to bounce a bubble without bursting. All of this directly from:  The Kitchen Science Cookbook by Michelle Dickinson See Steve Spangler's science in action with his bouncing bubble video HERE.    Today's picture was taken at Longwood Gardens at the Orchid Festival a few years ago.  There is so much to admire in this beautiful tree and display.

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Oct 9 2021 - Singing like Sweet Adelines

 

Choirs are returning to practice.  There are special masks for singing. The website choralcanada.org has information on them.  There is a mask on the Broadway relief project website and it is available there.  The Singer’s Mask was developed by singers FOR singers by Broadway professionals to help contain droplets while allowing space around the mouth to sing comfortably. There's information on the mask HERE. You can buy music and masks from the same sites now - JWpepper.com has lots of masks.  There are also masks for various wind instrument players.   So this seems extremely encouraging - as though choir singing can begin again this Fall.  But that doesn't seem to be the case - there's a very cautious set of guidelines in Ontario. The Region of Halton published this update of Ontario COVID guidelines/requirements on September 17th: Adapt or suspend singing, choirs, and the playing of wind or brass instruments. Consider audio or video recordings instead of live singing or wind or brass instrumental music.  Group singing is strongly discouraged. The number of persons singing should be limited to the fewest possible. Anyone singing or playing wind or brass instruments should be separated from others by a barrier and should maintain two metres (six feet) distance from others. The conclusion seems to be that safe masks for singers will be for professionals, and us amateurs have a while to wait. The important key indicator of when singing would be safer is having fully vaccinated singers.  Canada has over 80% of the eligible population fully vaccinated, but that isn't the case in the US at all.  So websites that are dominantly US are negative on singing. Our image today is titled "Bubble Up".

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