There I was, putting some thoughts in order regarding some privacy policy stuff for work, and it occurred to me just how much of our interactions are governed by these policies. Getting someone to sign a bunch of things before you will even say hello to them seemed extreme and funny, but is perhaps just a glimpse into the future…
Mat
Bombshell – Meghan and Harry are ‘stepping back from their royal duties‘ to do other stuff, like work and charity. There must have been blue-blooded blue language at Buckingham Palace that day.
The Crown is going to have great material for decades to come.
Mat
At the time of writing, the 2019/2020 New Years bushfires have burned through more than 6.3 million hectares and are continuing to threaten towns all across the country.
I read about the recycling bin system in towns where resources were stretched thin and residents were planning on staying to fight at their home. If the fire fighters happened to see a home in danger, and there was a bin out the front, they would know that there may be someone in need of help at that property.
If you’re feeling like you want to help but don’t know how to go about it, you can donate to the various charities supporting bushfire relief:
NSW Rural Fire Service
https://www.rfs.nsw.gov.au/volunteer/support-your-local-brigade
Victorian Country Fire Authority
https://www.cfa.vic.gov.au/about/supporting-cfa
RSPCA
https://www.rspcansw.org.au/bushfire-appeal/
WIRES (NSW Wildlife Rescue)
https://www.wires.org.au/donate/emergency-fund
Red Cross Disaster Relief
https://www.redcross.org.au/campaigns/disaster-relief-and-recovery-new-years-eve
You can join up to the group Neighbours in Recovery, which has been set up to try an coordinate assistance directly to those affected by the fires.
Mat
Cats have facial expressions, just like people and dogs, but a recent study shows that most people are just terrible at reading them. If you fancy yourself as a possible cat whisperer, give their quiz a go. It’s a shortened version of the one they used in the study, showing short snippets of cat videos, cropped down to just the cat faces. People that do better tend to be those that work with cats (such as vets) and long-term cat owners.
Mat
It’s becoming increasingly hard for ScoMo’s Government to stick to their climate denial stance in the face of Australia’s unprecedented heatwaves and bushfires. The road melted in South Australia this week. And it’s not like this is a problem confined to the regional areas – Sydney has been blanketed in smoke for weeks, rated 11x the hazardous amount.
What are you going to believe – what you see, or what ScoMo tells us?
Mat
Letting your animals sleep in your bed is a contentious issue. A recently published study from the U.S. ended up saying that women sleep better when they share the bed with their dog, but that did not extend to cats (who tend to be more active in the Witching hours) and, surprisingly, guys. Draw your own conclusions from this.
Mat
I saw this article about an experiment where e. coli was able to start using carbon dioxide as a food source instead of sugar. Having one of these microbes write something about how great it was to quit sugar seemed like a natural progression.
My comic strip pokes fun at people that have quit sugar, but if you’ve managed to quit something like sugar in our world of highly-processed foods and mile-long ingredient lists, my hat is off to you.
Mat
We used to calculate how old a dog was in human years by just counting seven years for each actual year, but this doesn’t account for a few factors. One is that dogs reach physically maturity much faster than a human does, and they stay at ‘middle age’ for much longer than the 7 year rule allows.
Enter this new formula, based on a logarithmic scale, that accounts for fast ageing in the first two years then flattens out from there.
This new formula, based on Labradors, still does not account for the big lifespan differences between breeds, but it’s a much better rule of thumb (if your thumb can reach a scientific calculator).
Mat
Other than surrendering the whole car to the spider in question, everything else about the comic strip is based on fact. The nail file did temporarily become the property of the spider, but it was eventually returned to its’ rightful owner.
Mat
I was hoping to give you a brand new comic strip this week, but the time just was not available. What I have for you instead is an updated version of a comic strip I made 15 years ago. This comic strip was made back when the strip was black & white, and was drawn on paper and scanned into the computer. These days, the comic is drawn on a Surface in Clip Studio Paint (formerly Manga Studio).
I linked to this old comic strip when I posted last weeks’ strip, and I realised that the old Organic Lettuce strip was one of my favourites and seems to have stayed relevant.
In order to update the old strips like this one, the entire comic strip is redrawn and re-lettered, as I work in much higher resolution on the current comic strips.
Mat
