A.C. Flory's Blog, page 55

Warrandyte! No scheduled power outage today…grrrr!

By rights, I should be delighted that the power outage scheduled from 9am till 4pm is not going ahead today. Trust me, on any other day I would be. Today, however, I’m really ticked off because Ausnet Services, the electricity wholesaler that supplies electricity to a huge chunk of Melbourne, didn’t think to let us know the outage had been cancelled.

To be fair, we’ve had ferocious winds since Sunday, so a lot of areas have been without power…in an unscheduled way. Clearly, getting power to them has to be a first priority. But…it’s not the guys who go out and actually fix things that send us texts and letters about our electricity supply. It is…ta dah…the office types who do that. And…ta dah no. 2…not one of those office types had the mental capacity to go…”oh, hang on, didn’t we schedule a power outage for Tuesday? Maybe we should send a text out…”

Now it may well be that as a wholesaler, Ausnet Services only has the phone numbers of people like me – i.e. people who ring up and complain. So, still to be fair, maybe Ausnet Services doesn’t have the phone number of every person they supply. But. They must know who the retailers are in their area. Right?

How hard would it have been to ring up a few retailers and let them know? Then at least there would have been the possibility that the retailers could have diverted some resources to letting us know.

Or…! Failing all else, someone at Ausnet Services could have changed the automated message you get when you ring them about outages. You know, the one where you have to pick dinky numbers that never match the reason for your call…-cough-

Because I was expecting an outage today, I haven’t checked Twitter to see if Ausnet Services left a notice there. If you’ve seen such a notice, I’d love to hear about it in comments. Whether they did or didn’t though, I’d just like to point out that not everyone is on Twitter, or Facebook [makes the sign to ward off evil]. In fact, there are probably a lot of people who are on neither. So where does a large corporation’s responsibility end?

I could go on about how corporate culture has killed the concept of customer service, but I have to go mop the laundry floor again. Why? Because I was stupid. Thinking the power would be off any moment, I decided to fill the washing machine via a hose. While it was filling I thought I’d check with Ausnet Services because it was closer to 10am than 9am and we still had power. The rest I’m sure you can work out for yourselves.

-sigh-

Meeks

p.s. has anyone else noticed that WordPress is distorting images from the Media Library when you insert them into a post?

Music is life

Being on Twitter usually makes me angry. Today it made me cry with joy:

Watch her face as the music takes hold. For a few, precious moments, she’s young again and doing what she loves most in the world. This is the power of music.

Have a wonderful weekend,

love
Meeks

New Knees, using 3D printing

I’m not at the point of needing to get my knees fixed yet, but they definitely ain’t what they used to be, so I was fascinated by the idea of using 3D printing to build the implants. More importantly, I was thrilled by the idea that the bioinks used in the 3D printing process could actually encourage the body to create new cells itself:

‘…the researchers used several bioinks together to print the entire fibrocartilage tissue layer by layer, in an interleaved crosshatch pattern. The first was a composite gellan gum and fibrinogen ink, which encourages the body’s own cells to repopulate. The second bioink is a silk fibroin methacrylate, which helps keep the structure strong and flexible.’

Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine (WFIRM)

You can find the whole article on the New Atlas website. It’s quite short and not super technical, so if you’re like me and starting to creak, check it out.

I have to say I’m quite looking forward to becoming a ‘bionic’ woman in the years ahead.

Congratulations, America!

I’d like to wish all Americans the very best for the future under the leadership of the 46th President of the United States.

You have a lot to be proud of. You’ve broken voting records despite Covid-19. You’ve elected a Woman as your Vice President, and that woman is Asian-African-American. Most importantly, however, you’ve shown that democracy is not dead. The rest of the democratic world salutes you.

The road ahead won’t be easy, but I hope that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris really will care for all Americans, not just those who voted for them. Americans of both persuasions have to learn to like each other again. Or at the very least, to show compassion and justice towards each other. Without compassion and justice, there is no glue to hold society together.

Kind regards from Australia,
Meeks

ESO and my digital house

I’m trying hard not to think about what’s happening in the US at the moment so here’s my version of a distraction – in-game house building, with pics!

But first, a bit of info. about what I mean by ‘in-game housing’. Probably the best way to describe it is to say it’s like playing with a 3D dolls house except that your digital character is the ‘doll’.

The motivation for wanting such a 3D house is similar to what drives us to buy houses in the real world. My character may not be able to ‘live’ in this house, but she can still enjoy it. Plus, let’s be honest, having a house is a bit of a status symbol because you have to work for it. The same applies to in-game housing. You have to pay for it by performing ‘work’ in the game. The house can also be filled with ‘special’ things that can only be gained by performing some hard-to-do task or event. And finally, players like me who love crafting can also do a lot of DIY to personalise their ‘home’.

My in-game character[s] aren’t rich by player standards, but because I’m a Master Crafter and gather most of the materials I need, I can ‘build’ things I would otherwise not be able to afford. So think of me as a DIY-er.

The US election

I’d just like to wish all the thoughtful, caring citizens of the United States of America a thoughtful and caring President. Humans are never perfect, but those given the greatest power should at least aspire to wield that power for the betterment of their people. All of their people, not just some.

Good luck, America. -hugs-

Meeks

The Morning Sun – by composer Brock Hewitt

Soundcloud strikes again! I fell in love with this track first thing this morning and have been playing it on repeat ever since. To hear the track for yourself, simply click the orange ‘play’ button below:

The Morning Sun – a track from ‘Stories in Sound’ by composer Brock Hewitt

If you want to place Soundcloud tracks in your posts, ignore the confusing instructions about embedding etc and just start a new paragraph [in block editor]. Next, copy the URL shown under the Share option in Soundcloud. It’ll look something like this:

[image error]

To copy the URL [web address] circled in red above, simply click inside the address box. The whole URL will be highlighted in blue.

Now, press the CTRL C keys on your keyboard [this will ‘copy’ the URL to your Clipboard].

Finally, go back into your WordPress post, click inside a new paragraph and press the CTRL V keys on your keyboard [this will copy the URL from your Clipboard into WordPress.

Note: these two keyboard shortcuts will work on any computer running a Windows operating system – e.g. Windows 7 or 10 etc.

After WordPress does its magic, you should see the track displayed with the background image and the Play button. Click Play and away you go!

Hope you like this track as much as I do.

cheers
Meeks

Best Day Ever

Social media seems to be full of people asking why we should all be locked down during this pandemic. The answer is Sam, Sam and his wonderful, inspiring family who demonstrate each day what courage and love truly mean. Meeks

My OBT

Photo: Allyson Buck

View original post 1,343 more words

And one more for The Egg!

The Vintage Egg is my one and only foray into short stories, and it just received a fabulous 5/5 star review:

acflory writes some great sci-fi, and though I’ve read her novels, this was my first experience with her short stories. Her imagination and polished writing skills never disappoint, and these six stories are original and entertaining. My favorite tale was broken into two parts—The Vintage Egg and Egg Run—which bookend the other offerings. I also thoroughly enjoyed The Christmas Roast. I read this collection in under an hour and highly recommend it. A great peek at acflory’s writing talent.

I’m happy-dancing my way to the kitchen now for some lunch. Have a great day or evening.

Where did all the [ABC] investigative journalists go?

Have you heard of the ‘Friendly Jordies’?

I hadn’t until the Offspring started talking about this daring exposé of National Party shenanigans in the small country town of Narrandera.

I watched the youtube podcast, and my first thought was “Why isn’t Four Corners investigating this?” Why is it being left to a young man and his mates to ask the tough questions?

I don’t want to be accused of being a conspiracy theorist so I won’t answer those questions. Instead I’ll post the youtube video I just watched and let you make up your own mind.

To quote the Bard, “Something is rotten in the state of Denmark”.

Meeks