Monday's random mutterings - March 30th 2015

#gnuterrypratchett

Terry Pratchett will live on in the clax, thanks to fans' programming code.

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Which Roald Dahl book are you? Matilda Your smart sensitive, and unapretiated. But your actually really cool. Facebook quizzes & Blog quizzes by

Works for me... And it's right up at the top of my list of favourite Roald Dahl books too! OK, so the rest are right behind it, fighting each other for the top spot. I mean, I have a lot of favourite books, and nearly all of Roald Dahl's are among them. But, if I absolutely had to pick one favourite Roald Dahl book, it would be "Matilda" for sure. Though "Matilda" would miss out on the top spot if I was forced to pick an all time favourite from any author, because "A Little Princess" by Frances Hodgson Burnett has that honour.

Anyway, both Matilda Wormwood and Sarah Crew made it on to the 25 of childhood literature's most beloved female characters - ranked by coolness list. As did Hermione Granger, and a few others who are in books I would list among my favourites.

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The reading challenge for the first quarter of this year on one of the groups I'm on over on Goodreads was to read 6 to 12 books that have been on your to-read shelf for at least three months when you read them.

They don't usually put a maximum number on these, but they did this time. I can't help but wonder if it was because of my constantly reading so many more than required to complete the challenge? Funny thing is, this time I only just managed the 12, because I was reading so many books I heard about more recently. LOL!

Anyway, here are the books I read for this challenge:

1. A Horse Called September by Anne Digby ~ marked as to read on January 14th 2014; read on January 2nd 2015.
2. Mrs. Frisby And The Rats Of NIMH (Rats Of NIMH, #1) by Robert C. O'Brien ~ marked as to read on January 14th 2014; read on January 10th 2015.
3. Little Women (Little Women, #1) by Louisa May Alcott ~ marked as to read on December 29th 2012; read on January 16th 2015.
4. Little Men (Little Women, #2) by Louisa May Alcott ~ marked as to read on December 29th 2012; read on January 18th 2015.
5. Jo's Boys (Little Women, #3) by Louisa May Alcott ~ marked as to read on December 29th 2012; read on January 20th 2015.
6. The Great Ghost Rescue by Eva Ibbotson ~ marked as to read on January 4th 2013; read on January 24th 2015.
7. Bleak House by Charles Dickens ~ marked as to read on January 7th 2013; read on January 28th 2015.
8. Pathfinder #6—Rise of the Runelords Chapter 6: "Spires of Xin-Shalast" by Greg A. Vaughan & James L. Sutter ~ marked as to read on April 17th 2014; read on January 30th 2015.
9. Villainous Vic (Bogamus And Friends, #2) by Nathan A. Jones ~ marked as to read on March 14th 2014; read on February 18th 2015.
10. Victorian Short Stories: Stories Of Courtship by W.S. Gilbert, Anthony Trollope, Hubert Crackanthorpe, George Egerton & Israel Zangwill ~ marked as to read on January 12th 2013; read on February 19th 2015.
11. Darkness Devouring (The Cry Of Havoc, #2) by John Hennessy ~ marked as to read on January 11th 2013; read on March 13th 2015.
12. Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe ~ marked as to read on January 12th 2013; read on March 20th 2015.

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Saturday was Rita's birthday. So, a very happy belated birthday wish to you, Rita!

I did say happy birthday to Rita last week, so got it in early... I just forgot to mention it on my blog with all the excitement over the attempt at seeing the eclipse, and concerns about being a robot.

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Here are a couple of photos taken by Kelly on March 13th of the mist rolling in over the ocean, as seen from our living room:


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While listening to the ocean the other night before going to sleep, I wondered why the waves crashed against the shore.

Now, I know the tides are to do with the moon's gravitational pull, but what I wanted to know was why the waves exist like they do. Why doesn't the ocean just move one way or the other, depending on where the moon is? Also, since the orbits of the moon and the Earth stay basically the same, why do waves vary in size and shape? Because this doesn't just depend on the weather or moon phase; the waves can be different along different parts of the beach, and water is rougher or smoother in different parts of the ocean sometimes too. I knew it had something to do with science, but I wanted the details.

When I asked him, Kelly said he didn't know. Well, actually, he told me to "look it up later, now shut up and go to sleep." But I'm taking that as an "I don't know," because I'm pretty sure he'd have told me the answer if he knew it just to get me to stop wondering about it and go to sleep (translation: he'd have told me so I'd shut up and let him go to sleep).

So, I looked it up.

Basically, waves are created by the energies in the water reacting to one another, and to the energies around them. This means that there's a combination of factors at play, including the pull of the tide, the steepness of the particular spot along the shoreline (or the ocean floor, if far out to sea), the amount of space available for the water to distribute itself, and the energies of the elements.

I can't find the links I was looking at now; I didn't keep them, and don't feel like going looking for them at the moment. But if you want it in more detail, just type "why do waves crash against the shore?" in to your favourite search engine. You'll probably get a bunch of ocean sound clips among the results, which you can either skip while you keep looking for the articles, or take some time to listen to; it's entirely up to you.

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Always remember... As someone said on Twitter recently...

"Never trust an atom; they make up everything."