Things you don't need to know...

I'm not out for Christmas just yet, another few days to go, but merry masses to all as they trickle off.

Well you don't really need to know this, but can you understand this?

I cnduo't bvleiee taht I culod aulaclty uesdtannrd waht I was rdnaieg. Unisg the icndeblire pweor of the hmuan mnid, aocdcrnig to rseecrah at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno't mttaer in waht oderr the lterets in a wrod are, the olny irpoamtnt tihng is taht the frsit and lsat ltteer be in the rhgit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it whoutit a pboerlm. Tihs is bucseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey ltteer by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Aaznmig, huh? Yaeh and I awlyas tghhuot slelinpg was ipmorantt! See if yuor fdreins can raed tihs too.

Here is what was said above.

This shows that proper grammar is not needed because of how we read letters.

Yeah, it is quite easy to read… but there are some words it'll not work for, because there can be several different options. Still amazing.

Ahh, yes. The brain's constant struggle to recognize patterns in everything.

it's mostly a good thing, but can be dangerous.

When I worked as a radiologist wannabe, it could easily lead me to overlook things. Especially if there was one very obvious find, like an enlarged heart, or a large lung tumor, I might focus on that and overlook more subtle things like a small but still significant perforation of the lung sac.

So I had to force myself to examine the images systematically. For a chest x-ray I would

1. Examine the soft tissues of the chest wall
2. Examine each rib
3. Examine the border of the lungs to detect small amounts of fluid and perforations
4. Examine the middle part of the image, the position and size and shape of the heart and the major vessels..
5. Examine the root of each lung and the large airways from there
6. ….
7. And finally, the rest of the picture like the upper part of the arms which are usually visible.

An experienced radiologist does this in seconds, I had to spend much longer time.

pibbur who to some degree misses looking at x-rays.

PS. BTW, an xray showing a perforation of the left lung sac with a slightly collapsed lung can be seen here: http://radiologymasterclass.co.uk/gallery/chest/pneumothorax/pneumothorax_d.html. ds.

We eat number 7 on christmas eve.

pibbur who has never eaten number 8 but wouldn't of course mind trying it.

Mele Kalikimaka: Why You Can't Say "Christmas" in Hawaiian

Merry Christmas!

We all know there are a lot of good reasons not to go down under. Despite what our dear swede says. I won't spend bandwith on going through the very long list now. But I'll give you yet another reason, especially for Norwegians.

Thing is, my youngest daughter is down there now. More specifically she's on a seismic ship, the PGS Apollo, currently about 100 km north of Barrow Island, but probably still within Australian ROI.

Including her, there are 7 Norwegians aboard, and since it's Christmas and all that, they were planning on eating a traditional Christmas dinner, number 7 in the video I showed you above. Problem is, that's meat, and Australia will have none of that. The goods were probably declared, afaik they didn't get the customary 220 AUD fine for not declaring, in the eyes of ozzies, dangerous food (imagine that, a country absolutely crowded with deadly beasts is afraid some dead, dried and smoked lamb ribs). Border control was, if not hostile, definitely uncooperative. So, sadly, no number 7 for Christmas this time.

pibbur who once again is in serious doubt about the wisdom of his intended visit there some time within the next 30 years.

PS. In order to make life worthwile for the Norwegians, the Cook decided to in stead make a traditional Christmas dessert: Norwegian Rice Cream With Strawberry Sauce. They got most of it right. But. They served it hot. Ugh! Say no more (and not a single nudge). DS.

We don't allow either live or dead meat into the country, just ask Johnny Depp!!

You're talking about the incident with his dogs?

That's a very serious issue. I think like Norway, Australia doesn't have rabies, and it IS important to keep it that way. If not, the the number of deadly species could go up to 73, rabid dogs. And as I'vr said before, untreated rabies is still my number one most deadly infection.

We have of course had our share of trespasseres as well. Today it's a bit easier, as only a vet. attest is required to pass, in stead of months in quaranteen. But a recent problem has arisees, due to tourists to a few eastern european continents, feeling sorry for dogs living on the streats and taking them home. A spontaneous act, and they probably don't know too much aboud the rabidness of this particular lyssavirus. For this reason and a few others, we currently have a small but not insignificant import of dogs which can carry the virus over the border.

There are of course also other reasons for keeping an eye on mr. Depp. According to Forbes, he is Hollywood's most overpaid actor, earning 1.2USD for the film for every dollar spent on him. I'm not sure how it's calculated, and of course I don't bother to check.

pibbur who has an rpg character called "Lyssa". And who thinks Depp does a good job on his earlier movies.

Yes my friend made my luggage before I left the Philippines last time and had forgotten some mangosteen fruits in it. The border agent opened it in Toronto's Lester B. Pearson airport and we noticed it. He didn't charge me a penalty though, just gave me a warning (since there is no chance in hell that this can grow here).

I slid on ice yesterday and fell on my right arm, severely hurting it. I thought it was broken, but at the emergency room yesterday it was determined that it was not. So it's not so bad but I probably have a week or so of my arm hurting. I must not fold it too much in the meanwhile.
.
Now we have a -12 temperature and 30cms of snow are expected. After a heat wave on Christmas, Winter is definitely back.

1. Ouch - for the arm, but good that nothing was broken. Feeling better?
2. Wish I were there - for the snow.

pibbur who very temporarily had snow on the 26th.

My great discoveries of last night:

1) Programmers shouldn't write software QA plans.
2) Lee Byung-Hun could play a piece of turf or a fire extinguisher and I would still get all googly-eyed.
3) I obviously wore my pants inside-out all day long, and nobody either noticed (or dared to tell me).

Jaz said:

My great discoveries of last night:

1) Programmers shouldn't write software QA plans.

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Programmers should write code. Some evil people also want us to write documentation.

2) Lee Byung-Hun could play a piece of turf or a fire extinguisher and I would still get all googly-eyed.

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One of many (yecchy) short-haired, unbearded men. Hah!

3) I obviously wore my pants inside-out all day long, and nobody either noticed (or dared to tell me).

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I have to admit I'm not good at detecting things like that on people (both myself and others). I'm even worse (frightened) at telling the affected person about it (both myself and others).

pibbur who goes back to doing something insignificant.

pibbur who said:

Programmers should write code. Some evil people also want us to write documentation.

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Oh, I love to write docs. I also love to do QA and I love to write test plans as well, but the test plan a programmer wrote for me was … well … somewhat weird. I had to reverse-engineer the plan, so to say, and redo it all from scratch until I could finally do my work. The plan contained gems like 'Step 1: test module A'. Err, well, yes, I would love to do just that, but as long as there's no doc and I don't know what module A is supposed to do it's more of a point-and-click adventure.

One of many (yecchy) short-haired, unbearded men. Hah!

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Pfft, my long-haired, hairy, bearded hubby looks like a cross between a wrestler and a Skyrim Nord. I'm all for diversity .

I have to admit I'm not good at detecting things like that on people (both myself and others). I'm even worse (frightened) at telling the affected person about it (both myself and others).

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A former workmate of mine was quite obese. One day he came to work with his breakfast still attached to the underside of his belly. Everything was there: the jam, butter, eggs … and I didn't have the heart to tell him about it, either. In fact, nobody did, so he walked around with the breakfast print shirt all day long.

pibbur who goes back to doing something insignificant.[/QUOTE]

Jaz said:

3) I obviously wore my pants inside-out all day long, and nobody either noticed (or dared to tell me).

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That could be the latest fashion…

Jaz said:

A former workmate of mine was quite obese. One day he came to work with his breakfast still attached to the underside of his belly. Everything was there: the jam, butter, eggs … and I didn't have the heart to tell him about it, either. In fact, nobody did, so he walked around with the breakfast print shirt all day long.

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That is awful!

I would have told him.
….
Probably accompanied with a joke. Otherwise I would not have been able to look myself in the eye.
…
On second thought…. I can be a bitch.

pibbur who said:

I LOVE IT!!!

pibbur who is weird, who honestly likes rain, and who thinks that the best feature of FO4 is that he can turn on raining.

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This is the thing you have in common with me. I love rain, storms, even tornadoes. I prefer nobody gets hurt in the latter though. I've never seen one in real life, though I've seen a funnel cloud going back up into the sky once. I would love to do a storm chaser type of vacation. However, my wife is petrified of storms and the barometric pressure change causes her anxiety attacks. I doubt I'll ever get to storm chase

I looked it up. St. Louis has had 49.75 inches of rain this year, so you had a lot more than us too, Pibbur.

The rainiest place in the world?:

The most rain in the United States and the world falls at Mt. Waialeale on Kauai in Hawaii. It rained an average of 460 inches (11,684 millimetres) a year from 1931 to 1960 on the tropical island mountain. That's over 38 feet (11 metres) of rain.

Pibbur can now plan his next vacation

pibbur who said:

1. Ouch - for the arm, but good that nothing was broken. Feeling better?
2. Wish I were there - for the snow.

pibbur who very temporarily had snow on the 26th.

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Yeah now we had two snowstorms in a row so it's back to normal.

And yes my arm is better but it's still stiff.

I'm thankful for having trained at the gym with a coach so much because I think that otherwise my arm would've been broken.

Skiing is one of my favourite things, but my country is mostly too soggy and flat, so I have to borrow someone else's.

pibbur who said:

3rd day of "Tour de ski" today. 5 Norwegians among the top 6 results on men's 10km.

I suppose there isn't that much interest for cross country skiing around the world (which is why I post this here). And this surely isn't helping. But what to do about it?

pibbur who thinks one solution might be to forcing Norway to only use skiers with little relevant training (like pibbur)

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You mean the Norwegian tour ?

Just for you pibbur

https://theconversation.com/health-check-what-should-you-do-if-youre-bitten-by-a-spider-49232

https://theconversation.com/are-australian-snakes-the-deadliest-in-the-world-not-even-close-50963