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The night sky

By That's life

Back on 21 June 2020 (shortest day in the southern hemisphere) I participated in a new Guinness world record attempt for the ‘most number of people participating in an online sustainability lesson’…And guess what? We succeeded!

I can now claim to be a Guinness world record holder – I thought I might add it to my CV 🙂

The 30 minute lesson was on light pollution and ended by participants recording the number of stars to be seen in the night sky to help in the ongoing collection of light pollution data across the globe. If you want to find out more, visit the Australasian Dark Sky Alliance, the not for profit charity which ran the event and initially formed to educate the public and policymakers about night environment conservation.

July 11, 2020
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Not everything has changed

By That's life

Of course this wouldn’t be one my my teenagers – one’s a brunette, the other a red head.

And as for the eagle eye readers, pre COVID is series 1 and during COVID is series 10 and counting.

April 21, 2020
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Covid shopping

By That's life

I heard on the news yesterday that supermarket shelves are getting back to usual stock levels …and that means back to normal supply and demand balance for toilet paper – small cheer of ‘hooray.’

Interestingly, Australians seem to have a thing for toilet paper. When other countries in lockdown focused on eating essentials such as pasta and tinned tomatoes, the first thing to run out on the supermarket shelves was toilet paper. According to the Statista market outlook, the (estimated) toilet paper revenue rose by 140% in Italy (#1), followed by Australia at 98% (#2). Considering Italy’s early coronavirus hit versus Australia, it makes you think there’s something more to it for the Aussies.

From now on, we’ll be known as the nation who values sun, surf, bbq, beer and toilet paper.

April 21, 2020
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Social distancing inventions

By That's life

There are some pretty creative solutions people are resorting to in response to protecting themselves from the coronavirus.  Mixed messaging continues around the need for the public to wear face masks. However, in one area there appears to be alignment – masks are not a substitute for social distancing and staying inside. I think my invention has potential merrit.

April 7, 2020
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Chinese whispers

By That's life

google translate

Google translate is a wonderful tool,

…especially when travelling or simply having a bit of cartoon fun.

I used Google translate to see what would happen if I entered a simple english sentence into Google translate and then take it through the 103 languages on offer.

I started with the cartoon whisper of, “What would happen if we were to put this whisper into Google translate?” and then translated it in alphabetical order, starting with Afrikaans and ending in Zulu. I checked the english translation each time so I could see the jump for each language and took the best ones for cartooning purposes – English, Arabic, Dutch, Lithuanian and Zulu.

If you’re feeling inspired as to what else Google translate can come up with, why not watch YouTuber Google translate sings, singing Africa by Toto. Enjoy!

January 28, 2020
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A discartoon

By That's life

Opposite cartoon

If I succeeded in my discartoon,

you should have fallen asleep from boredom before you reached this sentence. But if you’re still awake, let’s discuss prefixes, shall we?

English is a funny language that is full of rules that seem to work about 80% of the time. Take prefixes for example.

A prefix as defined by the Oxford dictionary is “a letter or group of letters added to the beginning of a word to change its meaning.” So dis means not and by placing it in front of say like, changes the meaning to not like. The key thing to note here is that when you remove the dis from dislike, you end up with a recognisable word – like. But here’s the 20% catch – you can’t take this approach to all words starting with dis. Take the following:

  • Discreet – What I’m about to tell you is no secret. Please be creet about this information and share with everyone you meet”
  • Disrupt – The dogs stopped barking allowing me to sleep rupted all night long.

Can you think of any other prefix anomalies?

October 25, 2019
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Fabulous freebies are back! Halloween wrapper

By Freebies

Yes, the fabulous freebie is back…

and just in time for those last minute Halloween treat creations.

Why not spruce up a Cadbury Freddo frog or Furry friend with a ghoulish witch wrapper?

This template is fun and easy. Simply print, cut, wrap around a chocolate treat and glue to secure (it has been specifically sized for Freddos and Furry friends, but depending in your chocolate, it might work on other treats as well).

What are you waiting for? Get started by clicking here.

October 8, 2019
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The Devil’s wheel

By That's life

In creating this cartoon I explored all those little things in day to day life that drive you crazy or simply make you feel that things could be better.

Obviously, my life is rather tough (not) when the first thing that comes to mind is to list decaf instant coffee as a day breaker. However, I do think that the ‘no data and no wifi’ is a breaker when I reflect on my children’s response to the internet being down.

What’s you’re breaker?

Fear not – no breaker is too small!

 

September 17, 2019
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A watched pot

By That's life

Boiling pot…especially a cartoon gif

You’re probably familiar with this proverb, but did you know its origin stems back to Benjamin Franklin?

Yes, rather surprising, as Franklin was known for his contributions to science and pot staring neither hastens nor slows the boiling process. But as you are probably aware, Franklin had many bows to his cap, including the publishing of an almanac under the pseudonym of Poor Richard. Filled with improving proverbs, below are a snippet of some sayings from the Almanacks that were published from 1732 and 1758.

  • Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise.
  • Three may keep a secret, if two of them are dead.
  • Lost Time is never found again.
  • Death takes no bribes.
  • Act uprightly, and despise Calumny; Dirt may stick to a Mud Wall, but not to polish’d Marble.
  • Fish and Visitors stink in 3 days.
  • Tis easy to see, hard to foresee.

And if you want to read more, click here to visit wiki for the full listing.

Do you have a favourite quote?

September 7, 2019
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Fatal error

By IT and Computer Stuff, That's life

Blue screen of death

The ‘blue screen of death’…

We probably have all experienced that gut wrenching moment when the computer unexpectedly freezes right smack bang in the middle of something you really can’t afford to lose. And no matter what quirky computer freeze image the coders come up with to dull that pain – the latest Microsoft blue screen with sideway old school unhappy face emoji in font size 160 pt (no Microsoft, size of emoji does not express greater empathy for the predicament) or the Apple ‘happy’ rainbow spinning wheel (no Apple, there is no happy pot of gold at the end of this rainbow) – there are those few seconds of dread as you fully absorb the impact of the crash and no imagery will soften the blow.

So, can there ever be a funny ending to a computer crash? Well, possibly when you can see it from an even worse outcome beyond the loss of time and data.

I recall the time at work (over 15 years ago now – Eek – has it been that long?!) when I was confronted with the blue screen of death. In despair I called the IT Helpdesk, which had recently been moved to an offshore service provider who spoke english as their second language. The story went a bit like this…

  • Me “Hello, I want to report a blue screen of death.”
  • Voice on telephone “Um ma’am, can you please repeat?”
  • Me “I wish to report a blue screen of death. It’s completely dead and nothing I have tried has fixed the situation.”
  • Voice on telephone “Ma’am, this is most alarming. Who is it? Are you sure they are not breathing? I think you need to call an ambulance immediately.”

Do you have a blue screen story? Let me know.

August 30, 2019
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