© 2018 Greg & Sylvia RAY

Miscellaneous

Read more about the article Snakes and Ladders

Snakes and Ladders

Snakes will take you down, but ladders can lead you back up. The snakes are bad deeds and attitudes. The ladders are virtues and good behaviour. But, problematically, whether you encounter a snake or a ladder depends on the random roll of a die. I’m talking about Snakes and Ladders, of course, that old game some of us played when we were children. It’s a grid, like a bigger version of a chess board, and you roll a die to determine how many spaces you move your counter from square one to the top of the…

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Read more about the article On ya bike! A gallery of bicycle pictures

On ya bike! A gallery of bicycle pictures

Bicycles are a common motif in many collections of old photos. In the 1800s "velocipedes" were an exciting innovation, with inventors of all stripes applying their fertile brains to create a self-powered, non-polluting alternative to the horse for personal transport. After many strange experiments, the conventional bicycle emerged in, more or less, the form we know it today. Here are some examples of early ideas from inventive correspondents to 1860s issues of the magazine The English Mechanic and Mirror of Science (scanned from my collection). Many strange experiments with velocipedes. During the first half of the…

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Read more about the article Biden their time until whatever comes next . . .

Biden their time until whatever comes next . . .

Well, US Democrats: what did you honestly expect? You did away with the only inspiring candidate you’ve had in years – Bernie Sanders – and put up instead a doddering old warmonger with creepily wandering hands. Because deep down your party machine is happier to live with Trump in the White House than it would have been to face the risk of the political and social reforms your country sorely needs. Because the status quo is what feeds the army of careerists in your party, and the status quo is what your billionaire sponsors want to…

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