The 3 Steps Tinnitus Cure
Jun. 1st, 2018 08:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
todayiamadaisyWhile I was waiting for my mother at the bank the other day, an old lady came in. The bank has a sort of greeter, an employee who lurks near the entrance to direct customers to the right counter. She asked the old lady how she could help. The old lady said, "I heard on the radio that there won't be any cash, it's going to be a cashless society, and I just wanted to know how I would know how much money was in my bank account if there's no cash."
The greeter said, "Well, you can always check your bank balance on our app on your phone."
"Oh, I don't have a phone, dear."
"Oh, well," said the greeter, "you can always pop in here to use the app on one of our terminals."
"Oh. Right." The old lady didn't seem convinced. "Oh, well, thank you." She shuffled out.
Of course, the greeter could have just told her the cashless society is quite a long way off yet, couldn't she? I think that would have reassured the old lady more.
Also, I saw a quiz show yesterday, with a cheerful teenage girl as the contestant. Question: What is added to a BLT to make a BLAT?
"An A," she said, and everyone had a good laugh. The host pressed her for an actual answer. She looked puzzled. "An A." She looked even more puzzled when the answer was revealed to be avocado. I hope someone explained it to her later.
May books read
Only two books this month. Only two books completed, that is. I hit a bad run of ones that I didn't finish.
* Plants: From Roots to Riches - Kathy Willis & Carolyn Fry (2015) ★ ★ ★
This book is ostensibly about the development of botany as a specific branch of science and how that related to contemporary economic developments. To that end, I found it quite frustrating for two reasons: one, it was biased towards the expansion of the British Empire's economy, and two, everything had to tie back to the development and work of Kew Gardens. Towards the end I decided that it would have been better as two separate books: one about botany's global impact on global politics and economics, and another about the history and current work at Kew Gardens. There are some interesting nuggets about both strands in here, but the need to switch between them means they both get short shrift.
* The Lie Tree - Frances Hardinge (2015) ★ ★ ★
This is an odd little YA bildungsroman set in Victorian England. Faith Sunderly's father is a clergyman naturalist, celebrated for finding a particularly special fossil. As the book begins, he moves his family to the island of Vane, ostensibly to take part in an excavation, but also, Faith finds out, to escape a looming scandal about his famous find. Faith herself wants to be a natural scientist and is chafing against the expectations put on her to be less clever. On Vane, the entire Sunderly family quickly manages to upset all the islanders, who respond by being mean to them.
About a third of the way through, Reverend Sunderly dies in mysterious circumstances. The islanders think it to be suicide, and respond by being even more awful than they were before. Faith, meanwhile, believes it to be murder, so she sets out to get revenge like an infant Count of Monte Cristo, with the help of a rare plant that feeds on lies and grows hallucinogenic fruit.
It's quite a slow-moving book, but things pick up once Faith's revenge plot gets going. Faith herself is interesting: a clever, grumpy little madam, who overcomes the patronising attitude of the scientists and villagers towards her, while also realising that she has internalised the same low opinion about all the other women on the island, ending up with a richer, more complex understanding of life.
The greeter said, "Well, you can always check your bank balance on our app on your phone."
"Oh, I don't have a phone, dear."
"Oh, well," said the greeter, "you can always pop in here to use the app on one of our terminals."
"Oh. Right." The old lady didn't seem convinced. "Oh, well, thank you." She shuffled out.
Of course, the greeter could have just told her the cashless society is quite a long way off yet, couldn't she? I think that would have reassured the old lady more.
Also, I saw a quiz show yesterday, with a cheerful teenage girl as the contestant. Question: What is added to a BLT to make a BLAT?
"An A," she said, and everyone had a good laugh. The host pressed her for an actual answer. She looked puzzled. "An A." She looked even more puzzled when the answer was revealed to be avocado. I hope someone explained it to her later.
May books read
Only two books this month. Only two books completed, that is. I hit a bad run of ones that I didn't finish.
* Plants: From Roots to Riches - Kathy Willis & Carolyn Fry (2015) ★ ★ ★
This book is ostensibly about the development of botany as a specific branch of science and how that related to contemporary economic developments. To that end, I found it quite frustrating for two reasons: one, it was biased towards the expansion of the British Empire's economy, and two, everything had to tie back to the development and work of Kew Gardens. Towards the end I decided that it would have been better as two separate books: one about botany's global impact on global politics and economics, and another about the history and current work at Kew Gardens. There are some interesting nuggets about both strands in here, but the need to switch between them means they both get short shrift.
* The Lie Tree - Frances Hardinge (2015) ★ ★ ★
This is an odd little YA bildungsroman set in Victorian England. Faith Sunderly's father is a clergyman naturalist, celebrated for finding a particularly special fossil. As the book begins, he moves his family to the island of Vane, ostensibly to take part in an excavation, but also, Faith finds out, to escape a looming scandal about his famous find. Faith herself wants to be a natural scientist and is chafing against the expectations put on her to be less clever. On Vane, the entire Sunderly family quickly manages to upset all the islanders, who respond by being mean to them.
About a third of the way through, Reverend Sunderly dies in mysterious circumstances. The islanders think it to be suicide, and respond by being even more awful than they were before. Faith, meanwhile, believes it to be murder, so she sets out to get revenge like an infant Count of Monte Cristo, with the help of a rare plant that feeds on lies and grows hallucinogenic fruit.
It's quite a slow-moving book, but things pick up once Faith's revenge plot gets going. Faith herself is interesting: a clever, grumpy little madam, who overcomes the patronising attitude of the scientists and villagers towards her, while also realising that she has internalised the same low opinion about all the other women on the island, ending up with a richer, more complex understanding of life.