Castle Day

 

Castle Day

April 6^th is Castle Day in Japan. It is an opportunity to celebrate the history and importance of castles. In the fifteenth century, Japan was a collection of numerous small independent states, which squabbled with each other. Castles were built on mountain tops for defence.

When Japan was unified in the late sixteenth century, larger castles were built as administrative and military centres. These were constructed on the plains or on small hills, rather than mountains.

Towards the end of the nineteenth century, castles were seen as undesirable reminders of the feudal past and many were deliberately demolished. Others were destroyed in the Second World War.

Japanese castles were wooden structures built on stone foundations. Today twelve castles survive with their original keeps.

For comparison, France has the most castles in the world, with 45,000. Italy has 20,000, and Germany has over 4,300. The British Isles has 3,000 to 4,000 castles.

The USA has 152 structures that are considered castles, but most are architectural reconstructions.

Servicing the garage door

 

Servicing the garage door

When we had our garage door replaced in 2023, we signed a contract that would cover an annual service.

In January this year, someone ‘phoned and asked if it would be acceptable to conduct the service earlier than usual. We agreed, paid, and thought no more about it. Imagine our surprise when, two weeks ago, we were contacted to arrange a date for the annual service!

After much discussion with two garage door installers, both in the same town, we concluded that our details, including email address, telephone number, and house address, had somehow been relayed to a company that had not installed our door. Alarm bells rang!

Barry had contacted several companies, prior to deciding on a door, and his details had been recorded. The company, not the one that installed the door, had merged data files, and in the process his details had become mixed with someone else’s. Data migration, when data is moved from one system to another, can cause a number of problems.

It took some time to convince the manager that his company had not supplied our door. The customer he thought he was dealing with did indeed have exactly the same name as Barry, but lived in a different part of the country. The service that customer was expecting was performed on our door.

Eventually, we found that nothing nefarious had occurred. No-one had bought our data. We breathed a sigh of relief.

 

Alexa

 

Alexa

Yesterday a text message from Amazon invited us to update to Alexa Plus. The change was swiftly accomplished, and it was put through its paces.

I think it takes slightly longer to respond, though Barry doesn't agree - he says it's quicker in switching - and is more verbose. The voice is pleasant and it's much better at compound questions. It asks if it can help with further enquiries and when told, ‘No’ it responds with comments like, ‘No problem,’ or ‘Fair enough,’ or ‘Right, then, catch you later.’ These reactions could prove irritating if often repeated.

‘Conversations’ are startlingly realistic and some information is accurate. I commented that it sounds realistic, and it answered that it was ‘a digital assistant and couldn’t make a cup of tea to save its circuit.’  

I tested its knowledge of Ocicats. It had no idea about them, which I found surprising, as it’s a breed that has existed for more than sixty years. It talked about the Australian Mist cat, instead.

Barry reported a bug, (glitch or gremlin) which was acknowledged and eradicated quickly. He remarked that he was impressed by the speed of its response, and it thanked him. He then asked for the square root of a negative number. It was almost correct in its answer, but it said the square root of 9, for example, was 3i, rather than the square root of minus 9 is 3i. After that, he asked about the absolute value of pi, but had to correct it to recognise that pi is not a rational number and has an infinite number of decimal points. Once again, it thanked him for the correction.

We use Alexa for timers, lists, reminders, weather, and the control of home devices. Alexa Plus is entertaining, and loquacious, but not foolproof. Just as people need to understand the basics of mathematical calculations before relying on a calculator, Alexa Plus and its older sibling, Alexa, should be used advisedly.

Be aware, too, that it is listening all the time, so don’t reveal any secrets. You never know who else might be paying attention!

Artemis II

 

Artemis II

                                Artemis II official crew portrait

Left to right: NASA astronauts Christina Koch, Victor Glover, Canadian Space Agency Astronaut Jeremy Hansen, NASA Astronaut Reid Wiseman

Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons

Unexpectedly, we watched the launch of Artemis II on Wednesday night. Earlier in the day, we had turned on the television, having misread the expected launch time in minutes rather than hours. We decided we would not stay up to watch it, but somehow we did.

 I remember previous manned launches being extremely exciting. Maybe it was the uncertainty of the process, particularly after the tragedy of the space shuttle failures, ‘Challenger’ in 1986 and ‘Columbia’ in 2003, each resulting in the deaths of their seven crew members.

Artemis II is the first mission to take humans out of low Earth orbit since 1972 and will take them further from Earth than ever before. It is planned to travel beyond the far ‘dark’ side of the moon, then slip back into the gravitational pull that will bring it back to earth, the pleasingly called ‘free-return trajectory.’

Nonetheless, there are many things that could go wrong during the ten-day mission, and no-one associated with it will breathe easily until the four crew members have returned safely.

The launch was impressive, but not nail-biting – perhaps it was the presenters, who seemed to lack enthusiasm. However many rocket launches there are, each one is significant and inspiring. Those who complain that such ventures are vanity projects and the money could be more usefully used on Earth miss the point that we have benefitted from the discoveries developed through space exploration.

We speedily take some such benefits for granted, without realising how they came about. For example, we have GPS navigation, satellite broadcasting, improvements in MRI and CT scanning, lightweight prosthetic limbs, water purification, fire-resistant materials, shock absorption materials used in helmets and car seats, monitoring storms and wildfires.The most obvious one is the space blanket, seen wrapped around the shoulders of every marathon runner at the end of the race, or used in emergencies for accident victims.

 It was developed by NASA in 1964!

Juliasaurus

 

Juliasaurus

Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons

I wondered is this was an April Fool’s joke, but apparently Juliasaurus Paleo was discovered in the Morrison Formation, Wyoming, North America in 2020. The Morrison Formation, an area covering 1-3 million square kilometres, has been a rich source of dinosaur fossils since the late nineteenth century.

It prowled the earth around ninety million years before its infamous, much larger cousin, Tyrannosaurus Rex. Its skull formation and dentition suggest that it slashed its prey rather than crushing it. Juliasaurus is a specimen that is almost three-quarters complete, which is unusual, as most dinosaur discoveries are highly fragmented.

Research continues to determine whether Juliasaurus is an entirely new species.

Meanwhile, on loan from a private collector, it goes on public display at Hollytrees Museum in Colchester on April 3^rd.                                            

 

Ospreys

 

Ospreys (Pandion haliaetus)

Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons

The ospreys are returning to their UK nesting sites.

Rutland, Poole, Dyfi, Loch Doon, Foulshaw Moss, and others have all recorded ospreys arriving. Some still await their mates, while others are already mating. Some nests are currently unoccupied, as in Loch Arkaig, but this might change in the next few days.

For those who follow the birds, it can be an anxious time, wondering if the ones they watched in 2025, and often in years before, will return this year. Then there are the weeks of watching and waiting and hoping that breeding will be successful and the young birds will survive.

Eggs and baby birds are at risk from predators like the white-tailed eagle, large owls and corvids, and pine martens. Older, stronger siblings will often bully younger chicks, not allowing them to feed. The weather can also be a factor. Driving rain and fierce winds can chill eggs or chicks quickly, particularly if both parents are hunting for food. Sometimes, one of the parents dies, and it is extremely difficult for the surviving bird to source enough food for the chicks and itself. Exhaustion can be deadly.

Rutland Water ospreys at Manton Bay have been successful for thirty years, raising multiple broods of three and four. Ospreys in other locations often struggle to bring one chick to maturity.

They are stunning birds and there are a number of videos on YouTube – just make sure you get the birds and not the Welsh rugby team in Swansea!

Historically, ospreys have been known as sea hawks, river hawks, or fish hawks. They became extinct in Britain in 1916, but careful reintroduction has seen them increase from two breeding pairs in 1967 to over three hundred pairs in the twenty-first century.

Ospreys remain rarer than golden eagles in the UK.

Troglodyte

 

Troglodyte

Troglodytes troglodytes

Calling someone a troglodyte is abusive, but it’s not an insult that’s commonly used in the twenty-first century. There are other, far more stinging labels.

A troglodyte is a person who lives in a cave, the word primarily referring to prehistoric cave dwellers. It comes from the Greek trōglē  (hole) and dyein (to enter)

 In biology, the prefix troglo indicates how much a creature depends on caves. For example, bats and some insects can be described as ‘troglophiles,’ meaning that although they appreciate the shelter caves may afford, they can live outside them.

On the other hand, a ‘troglobite’ is an organism that is adapted to and dependent on caves, like the blind cave fish or cave salamander. Troglobites often have pale skin, poor or no eyesight, a slower metabolism, and heightened senses of touch, smell, or vibration awareness.

         The troglodyte I heard and saw in the garden this morning is more correctly Troglodytes troglodytes, the wren. It is the commonest breeding bird in the UK, but surprisingly rarely seen, at least by me! It feeds on spiders and insects, searching among leaves to find them. It can often be seen creeping mouse-like round plant pots, seeking food.

Wrens do not have huge reserves of fat and suffer appreciably in cold weather. They huddle together for warmth, and in the winter of 1969, 61 wrens were found in a nesting box in Norfolk.

They typically nest between March and July, and often produce two broods per season.