The page that was not available, the address found in a search engine, is for paper that has been made with wildflower seeds added into it during manufacture.

It can be used to print upon and the result can be planted and the seeds germinate and the paper compost away leaving growing flowers.

William

On a side issue some events have in the rules that the winner has to agree to their photograph being published.

Why? If the competition is about what the person has produced, whether science, poetry, or whatever, why a photograph?

William

I used punched cards a couple of times but I never typed them myself.

This was in the early 1970s.

Computer users had to write the desired text on forms that had 80 cells per row, and about 20 lines, and produce a collection of sheets numbered 1 of (total number), 2 of (total number), and so on.

These were handed in at a reception desk and staff keyboard operators keyed the text.

One got back a deck of cards and one's sheets all together with an elastic band around them together with the lineprinter output of a run of the program.

If I remember correctly that included a listing of the program.

I think the computer was an ICL 1900 series mainframe computer.

There were no lowercase characters.

A zero had to be written with a diagonal line through it to distinguish from a letter O.

There was a facility to resubmit a deck of cards, possibly with some removed, and folded coding sheets for extra cards placed within the deck at one or more places, all held together with elastic bands.

The staff member would then produce an updated deck of cards and the program run, and the cards, the coding sheet and any output returned to the user.

William

Thank you for posting.

The concept of replacements for the bodies of birds and animals for food is a topic that has various views from vegans.

There seem to be three broad possibilities.

1. Cultures made from cells of birds and animals. So potentially getting the same stuff without killing living creatures.

2. Items made from plants yet textured and presented to look like and taste like the bodies of fish, birds and animals and of products derived from them, such as pies and fish fingers.

3. Items made from plants that have not been made to look like faux omnivore products because many vegans do not want their food to look like that as they want nothing to do with the cruelty.

The topic of group 1 above is new. I know that views among vegans about group 2 are very mixed. Some take the view that if those sort of look similar taste similar products are available and it helps people convert to becoming vegan then that is good, yet as committed vegans they do not want to eat that type of food themselves.

These days the number of vegans is increasing dramatically from what it was a few years ago. People have various reasons for being vegan. Some because of compassion for animals, some because of the wish to reduce global warming, some for health issues.

Mainstream still braggs about things that vegans reject. For example, some items like cars and furniture are advertised as if it is the best possible to have leather upholstery, yet I would never buy leather covered furniture, ugh, ooh, shudder!

Nor wear clothing or socks made from wool.

William

Indeed.

It was a brand new council house built in 1950, with a front garden and a 120 foot long back garden. Basically because a field had been converted by having a road up the middle and with houses each side, so the gardens that length just because of the size of the field.

Right into the 1970s a lot of council houses in this area that had been built in the 1930s only had an outside toilet.

I was very fortunate, though not realizing it at the time as it was just how it was.

The media image these days of "growing up on a council estate" is always very bleak, as in their image of what a council estate is like.

But it was not like that at all.

I think that a lot of the housing problem could be solved by building in the green belt and insisting that the building be no more than under 20% of the area of the house and garden. That way at least 80% of the green belt would still be green area and gardens could have trees and children have space to play.

This could be done by legislation. At present there is agricultural land and there is building land. If what is agricultural land gets planning permission to be built upon, the value of the land increases. Pokey little gardens have become common because of maximizing profit. If a third category of land such that dwellings can be built on them, but on no more than 20% of each plot were to become introduced by legislation, then the value of that land would be more than it was when it was agricultural land, yet less than it would be as pokey sized gardens housing land, and so it could all work satisfactorily, and people would have decent housing and the land would probably end up with more trees than it did before. And it would be good for the environment because if being 80% green would be conserved.

William

Thank you, GB, for explaining.

William

I have never known of that being available. Please say where that happened.

We are discussing inflation, we are discussing what items are needs as contrasted with what are not needs but perhaps desired.

There is, as far as I aware, no restriction about the discussion only being related to people with very limited income.

But in relation to Joe's list there is nothing on there apart from a computer that I would buy even if my income were much larger than it is.

I tend to buy relatively low-priced things that have some sort of special interest for me, such as what is notionally a custom photo greetings card that is in fact a print of my artwork that I produced on my computer, then I framed it in an oak effect frame delivered with the grocery. Total cost under £10. That, as it is a print of my own art, is of more interest to me than buying an expensive framed print by someone else. During the last two years I have bought several such custom greetings cards and frames. But it is a very low cost compared to the electricity bill, but i do like a warm house. Though I suppose those framed cards could be said to not be needs.

I suppose Joe's list could be extended by adding framed artist's prints and framed original paintings and things like ornate glass vases and so on. Yet not only expensive items like those.

William

The printed sheet of paper needs to include the front end the rear end as well as the length of the vehicle, preferably so that when cut out it is all in one piece.

So for some models that could possibly not all fit on a sheet of size A4.

The width of the A4 sheet needs to include two heights, a width between them, a half-width at each side to fold underneath and sticking tabs, so that is fine.

The box cars displaying the localizable sentences, the shunters and probably the main line locomotive should all fit on the A4 sheet.

But something like a sort-of Pullman-like coach with a name on the side might not.

So a shortened version to fit on an A4 sheet could be produced and an A3 full length version.

If I can get the other computer to start alright then I hope to try a test locomotive to get started, which could perhaps be the design for one or both of the shunters.

You are welcome to have a go too if you want to do so.

You are, of course, welcome to design such a model to your own size specification, but if designs from you, me and anybody else who wants to have a go are all to the same height and width specifications, then that would be good.

I am assuming that the sides go almost down to ground level and that therefore the wheels are imagined as being hidden from view.

Thought experiment.

One smartphone.

One vlogging kit.

Place the train in the view of the smartphone camera.

Place the scenery (half a dozen sheets of A3 sellotaped together) behind.

Start recording video.

Move scenery in reverse direction of train slowly at first, then increasing speed then slowing down to a stop.

Stop recording video.

Scenery effect like a little after the start of this video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RqMGVuxgpkQ

Except the train is to appear as moving to the left.

William

I suppose that it depends what one classes as very exceptional circumstances.

Without a computer I would have a big problem obtaining a food supply.

William