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- Written by: Rod Boyle
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Sunday, out and about. The car, still parked where I left it, no new tickets, the daughter rejoiced in my trauma and made me track it down and verify it was still there.
And so off and about, near destinations as I can't afford the gas.
A river. Gold. No pans, no shovel, but I know it's there and I'm gonna go back.
A couple of higher altitude destinations, finds, some lamproite (I think) - crystals, up to a cm long. I don't know what they are. I have to ask some questions.
And, breaking rocks, breaking rocks, and another crystal, too small to tell by looking, and my USB microscope fails, there's no "in-between" magnification, you're either too close or too far away and so...
I have to get this checked. My imagination runs rampant.
You know. Why not?
Home, find on my sweater a tick.
And then another on my neck the next day.
Bloody hell. I'm going to have to slather the Off, Deet, switch to white linens, but I've discovered a couple of new localities, of necessity close by, and - by Jove, my fortune will soon be made...
***
And tonight, just after I write this, crawling upon my wall:
FML. Bloody hell, must have latched on to my moccasins. I hate these buggers.
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Playing with Chat GPT. I need to do this more.
Getting it to generate me JavaScript for Conway's Game of Life. It does so in 3 seconds.
Great. I want the same, but with hexagonal tiles, not squares. And again it does it.
Now, it's not always 100%, and - for example, the hexagonal tiles where not symmetrical or honeycombed like I'd presume. And the code never works the first time it gives it to me, no visual output, and so I have to paste it back with my complaints and it apologizes, corrects the code, then returns it to me. Still damned impressive. And so I make my complaints about the hexagons, again it returns it to me, this time corrected, but not working again, return the code, it apologizes, fixes, and so it's more a lively debate or coaching session with a very competent computer. But in the end I get results that would take dozens of hours were I to attempt this from scratch. Now to add in some more interesting parameters.
I mean, it's still a 'tool' - albeit a very impressive one. But I have to spend more time with this.
I need to start thinking a little bit bigger. The big questions.
So I start it on the lottery. I have a theory, a few theories, but now it's gotten cagey, shy, it's saving up the numbers, lecturing me on morality, how "tough" it is, and - tellingly, I know it's not going to give me nothing.
A few minutes in that direction and I have to abandon it. It's clearly not going to be of any help whatsoever.
Now to start thinking of yet bigger questions, and I have a pile, a whole list of things that could use solving, like my wallet, finances, etc - but - I have to limit myself to an hour a day.
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Meanwhile, on Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/fossils/comments/1c4hldl/found_a_mandible_in_the_travertin_floor_at_my/
Note the abundant comments on Reddit, many by "experts", all saying definitely hominid, most probably human, and - depending where quarried, from 200 - 300, 000 years to possibly millions of years old. And somewhere, somebody's walking over another cross-section of said person...
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Not much reading as of late, but scrolling through Youtube, a few prospecting videos (but it doesn't take me long to catch up there), then a couple of videos on Missing Persons Cases.
Now, I've watched all the Missing 411 Videos, which describe missing persons cases with a negligent lack of detail and salacious amount of speculation. Intriguing, if you're 8 years old and heading off to summer camp, otherwise I'm going to go with "Bigfoot and Flying Saucers Can't be THAT BUSY...".
But I find another channel, in which a reasonably intelligent person goes through missing persons files then discloses how in the end the victims are found. In every case there's a reasonable explanation, whether it be a landslide, a concealed abandoned well, mineshaft, or simply lost outside the search area.
This channel, it focuses on American Cases, largely desert environs where you think that the search would be relatively easy, given the low scrub and rocks. But they're not, and people frequently defy expectation, which is why they end up missing...
Anyways, it gets me curious about a few missing person cases closer to home. And here, in the mountains of BC or foothills and brush of Northern Alberta, well, it's pretty easy for people to go missing as well, and with a much less probable chance of recovery. In cases where they slip into a river - and end up in a lake, or the ocean, chances of recovery are low. Same with those suicidal people that jump off a bridge. Then there's those cases where clearly those missing were likely involved in criminal or gang activity, so no longer are you merely looking for a body, you're looking for a body that has been deliberately or purposely concealed. Then there are the cases where foul play is suspected, a "bad date" with a known violent offender who had access to a boat, a bitter divorce, custody battles, or last year the case of a certain missing person from Creston who, if you took the time to Google, had been charged with fraud the year prior, going to businesses door to door, and clearly I'd postulate the ill-will he generated caught up to him. There are quite a few like that, heartbreaking when the campaign to bring a mother's son home is renewed every couple of years, and when the only people who know what happened have themselves deceased, and there is no hope of closure. Despite the 'peaceable' nature of the Kootenays there are more than a few cases like that, where people don't trust the police to deal with matters in an efficient way and so take things upon themselves. These, find the right subreddit or Youtube video, will invariably unravel, the only thing left is to find the remains, which as I mentioned earlier can be nigh on impossible given the intentional or purposeful disposal of evidence.
And then there are those that simply disappear. Which is compelling, in that the mind (or mine at least) rebels against the mystery these cases present - think of the missing kid at Shambala a couple of years ago, who clearly had not recovered from the party, ran off into the woods, and was never seen of again. And too many more to list. The problem with these cases is that there's never enough information provided for you to make an accurate prediction as to what happened, or where they may be, people close to them/and the police rarely make public the victims state of mind, their associations, their possible motivations or intentions, etc. And so you're left with this indigestible mystery, not that's it in anyway a mystery, only you haven't been given enough information to figure it out.
***
So a dark media diet that does my soul no good whatsoever. But there was one story, very curious I thought, and it's not anecdotal - the Youtube host highlighted the relevant bits in the police report. About a hunter that had went missing, 1968, and after several search parties and thousands of hours of searching it was abandoned.
Fast forward almost 50 years and another hunter stumbles across a partial set of remains, beneath a cliff, the hunter had been crushed by a very large falling rock which left very little visible by way of remains, only the skull and femurs projecting beneath the rock. A proper Wyle-Coyote.
When the assigned deputy went to notify the next of kin he tracked down the grand-daughter, who put him in touch with the wife, now in a home with early dementia. And she advised him she knew, that her husband had come to her the night before, told her where he was (and she gave the location, the same as the deputy had) and that he was coming home and would be seeing her soon...only, she had understood he'd be coming home alive but now understood he wouldn't. The deputy noted it was the most extraordinary interview he'd ever conducted.
But that's a different blog post, and the nearer you get the thinner the veil...
Subcategories
Dating
OK. I've been on a few internet dates. I confess this with the same reluctance I would admitting to masturbating, adultery, or excessive drinking and drug use.
This is a list of some of my best -- AND WORST -- dates ever. Note that you gotta go on a lotta dates to get this kinda list, this kinda discouraged. And my online dating thing has been sporadic - an every few years kind of thing at best. Some of these dates go back 10 years, others are a little more recent. And to answer any people who might argue "It beats hooking up at the bar", well, you don't have to hook up at the bar, and at the bar you can see what your getting...
Anyways - apologies to the countless normal, decent dates that I went on but just didn't hit it off with. Memory is selective, it tends towards the extreme, and in this you will find the extremes...
Dear Osama
In which I write everyone's favorite advice columnist.
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