For what it is worth, the first real snowstorm of the season just started here. It is only likely to amount to two or so inches though. The snow shovel is at ready for tomorrow morning.
Still, it was enough that I finally fired up the snow blower to make sure it would be OK later. As a test run, I used the snow blower to blow the leaves off my back sidewalk. It worked pretty well for that.
Most of those leaves were from my neighbor's trees, as most of them have nice maple trees. I have a stupid boxelder tree in my back yard that will be destroyed in the fullness of time.
Inauguration to the "AI cancel-culture" fraternity 1997...
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It would have been around 39deg Cel (102F)high humidity here yesterday so the wife informs me. The missus an I come from the country originally where its not uncommon to reach 45 deg cel (113F)mid summer out in the central western regions. The heat is dry with low humidty though.
We now live nearer the coast around a valley of mountains but we don't get the cooler sea breeze like those in outer regions.
Just checked the BOM site it was 38deg C, humidity 28% at 3pm this arvo. Add another 1,2 deg C to that for those of us who live in the mountain area away from the breeze.
Last edited by NeoMatrix; 11-16-2014 at 08:36 AM.
Inauguration to the "AI cancel-culture" fraternity 1997...
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1994's MOST BIZARRE SUICIDE
At the 1994 annual awards dinner given by the American Association for Forensic Science, AAFS President Don Harper Mills astounded his audience in San Diego with the legal complications of a bizarre death. Here is the story. "On 23 March 1994, the medical examiner viewed the body of Ronald Opus and concluded that he died from a shotgun wound of the head. The decedent had jumped from the top of a ten- story building intending to commit suicide (he left a note indicating his despondency). As he fell past the ninth floor, his life was interrupted by a shotgun blast through a window, which killed him instantly. Neither the shooter nor the decedent was aware that a safety net had been erected at the eighth floor level to protect some window washers and that Opus would not have been able to complete his suicide anyway because of this." >>"Ordinarily," Dr. Mills continued, "a person who sets out to commit suicide ultimately succeeds, even though the mechanism might not be what he intended. That Opus was shot on the way to certain death nine stories below probably would not have changed his mode of death from suicide to homicide. But the fact that his suicidal intent would not have been successful caused the medical examiner to feel that he had homicide on his hands. "The room on the ninth floor whence the shotgun blast emanated was occupied by an elderly man and his wife. They were arguing and he was threatening her with the shotgun. He was so upset that, when he pulled the trigger, he completely missed his wife and the pellets went through the a window striking Opus.
"When one intends to kill subject A but kills subject B in the attempt, one is guilty of the murder of subject B. When confronted with this charge, the old man and his wife were both adamant that neither knew that the shotgun was loaded. The old man said it was his long-standing habit to threaten his wife with the unloaded shotgun. He had no intention to murder her - therefore, the killing of Opus appeared to be an accident. That is, the gun had been accidentally loaded.
"The continuing investigation turned up a witness who saw the old couple's son loading the shotgun approximately six weeks prior to the fatal incident. It transpired that the old lady had cut off her son's financial support and the son, knowing the propensity of his father to use the shotgun threateningly, loaded the gun with the expectation that his father would shoot his mother. The case now becomes one of murder on the part of the son for the death of Ronald Opus.
There was an exquisite twist. "Further investigation revealed that the son [Ronald Opus] had become increasingly despondent over the failure of his attempt to engineer his mother's murder. This led him to jump off the ten-story building on March 23, only to be killed by a shotgun blast through a ninth story window.
"The medical examiner closed the case as a suicide."
The greatest enemy of knowledge isn't ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge. Stephen Hawking
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