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Fun Stuff Things that interested and amused us |
Go to: Artistic Licence • Ten easy questions • Why parents go grey • Tradition • More fun stuff . . . • ‘Notes From St Helena’ • Achievement • Is slpeling ipmorantt? • Go Sooty! • A poem on the pronunciation of English • Content from thefreelibrary.com • Random Thoughts • Learn something at random • A cat can purr its way out of anything . . .
Quick question: How many people do you need to create a Country & Western Song?
(Answer at the bottom of the page)
| Artistic Licence ∧
According to the Museo Napoleonico (in Rome), Napoleon’s Tomb on St Helena looks like this:… We can assure you that it doesn’t! Must be artistic licence…
Ten easy questions ∧
Why parents go grey ∧A man called his best friend’s number and was greeted with a child’s whisper, “Hello.” Recognising the voice as that of his friend’s daughter he said “Is your daddy home?” “Yes,” whispered the small voice. “May I talk with him?” The child whispered, “No.” Surprised, and wanting to talk with an adult, the man asked, “Is your mummy there?” “Yes.” “May I talk with her?” Again the small voice whispered, “No.” Hoping there was somebody with whom he could leave a message, the man asked, “Is anybody else there?” “Yes,” whispered the child, “a policeman.” Wondering what the police would be doing at his friend’s home, the man asked, “May I speak with the policeman?” “No, he’s busy,” whispered the child. “Busy doing what?” “Talking to daddy and mummy and the fireman,” came the whispered answer. Growing concerned and even worried as he heard what sounded like a helicopter through the phone the man asked, “What’s that noise?” “A hello-copper,” answered the whispering voice. “What’s going on there?” asked the man, now alarmed. In an awed whispering voice the child answered, “The search team has just landed in the hello-copper.” Alarmed, concerned, and even more than just a little frustrated the man asked, “What are they searching for?” Still whispering, the young voice replied along with a muffled giggle: “Me.” Tradition ∧
More fun stuff . . . ∧
There’s more fun stuff on our Burgh House Media Productions website.
‘Notes From St Helena’ ∧During most of the first year we were here I kept a weblog recording some of the odder aspects of life here. It’s still available and makes interesting reading. Our ‘Contact The Turner Family’ page contains a list of current family weblogs. Achievement ∧
Is slpeling ipmorantt? ∧Aoccdrnig to rscheach, it deosn’t mttaer inwaht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. (But if you spot any mistakes on this site please contact us and we’ll correct them.) |
| Go Sooty! ∧
A poem on the pronunciation of English ∧Dearest creature in creation, |
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The content below is provided by www.thefreelibrary.com
Please note that these items do not necessarily represent the views of The Turner Family.
| A dog thinks: A cat thinks: |
| Boys fall in love with what they see; That’s why girls wear makeup and boys lie. |
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The following is abridged from a report on the BBC website but we already knew it was true.
Who, me? Exploit? Never!
Cat owners may have suspected as much, but it seems our feline friends have found a way to manipulate us humans.
Researchers at the University of Sussex have discovered that cats use a ‘soliciting purr’ to overpower their owners and garner attention and food. Unlike regular purring, this sound incorporates a ‘cry’, with a similar frequency to a human baby’s. The team said cats have ‘tapped into’ a human bias - producing a sound that humans find very difficult to ignore.
Dr Karen McComb, the lead author of the study that was published in the journal Current Biology, said the research was inspired by her own cat, Pepo.
“He would wake me up in the morning with this insistent purr that was really rather annoying,” Dr McComb told BBC News.
“After a little bit of investigation, I discovered that there are other cat owners who are similarly bombarded early in the morning.”
While meowing might get a cat expelled from the bedroom, Dr McComb said that this pestering purr often convinced beleaguered pet lovers to get up and fill their cat’s bowl. To find out why, her team had to train cat owners to make recordings of their own cats’ vocal tactics - recording both their ‘soliciting purrs’ and regular, ‘non-soliciting’ purrs.
“When we played the recordings to human volunteers, even those people with no experience of cats found the soliciting purrs more urgent and less pleasant,” said Dr McComb.
She and her team also asked the volunteers to rate the different purrs - giving them a score based on how urgent and pleasant they perceived them to be.
“We could then relate the scores back to the specific purrs,” explained Dr McComb.
“The key thing (that made the purrs more unpleasant and difficult to ignore) was the relative level of this embedded high-frequency sound. When an animal vocalises, the vocal folds (or cords) held across the stream of air snap shut at a particular frequency,” explained Dr McComb.
The perceived pitch of that sound depends on the size, length and tension of the vocal folds.
“But cats are able to produce a low frequency purr by activating the muscles of their vocal folds - stimulating them to vibrate,” explained Dr McComb.
Since each of these sounds is produced by a different mechanism, cats are able to embed a high-pitched cry in an otherwise relaxing purr.
“How urgent and unpleasant the purr is seems to depend on how much energy the cat puts into producing that cry,” said Dr McComb.
Previous studies have found similarities between a domestic cat’s cry and the cry of a human baby - a sound that humans are highly sensitive to. Dr McComb said that the cry occurs at a low level in cats’ normal purring.
“But we think that (they) learn to dramatically exaggerate it when it proves effective in generating a response from humans.”
She added that the trait seemed to most often develop in cats that have a one-on-one relationship with their owners.
“Obviously we don’t know what’s going on inside their minds,” said Dr McComb, “but they learn how to do this, and then they do it quite deliberately.”
So how does Dr McComb feel about Pepo now she knows he has been manipulating her all these years?
“He’s been the inspiration for this whole study, so I’ll forgive him - credit where credit’s due.”
So: How many people do you need to create a Country & Western Song?
Answer: Five. One to steal your truck, one to run over your dog, one to run off with your partner, and two to drag you off to prison.
The Turner Family, Island of St Helena • Fun Stuff |
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For more about the extraordinary island of St Helena see sainthelenaisland.infoPlease note that content featured below is not provided by The Turner Family, | ||
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