Monday, November the 2nd, 2009
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Two unrelated matters of note to draw to your attention. I was going to write “two unrelated headlines”, but “headline” suggests news, and one of these is not only three years old but was not a “news headline” even then.
Though having said they are unrelated it now occurs to me that one could in fact connect the two, or imagine a scenario in which they were jammed together, for example, by using the contraption in (A) to view the incident in (B).
(A), then, is Build Your Own Dobsonian Telescope. Tragically—and I am quite clear about the usage of that word—the Dobson in question is not our beloved out of print pamphleteer, but another Dobson entirely. Still, to discover that such a thing as a Dobsonian telescope exists, and that its creator might, every now and then, be mistaken for our Dobson, is most pleasing.
(B) is news that a Japanese fishing trawler has been sunk by giant jellyfish. Unfortunately, the details of the story are rather prosaic. You might want to skip them, and instead imagine you are standing upon a promontory on the coast of Japan, peering through your Dobsonian telescope at the terrible sight of a fishing boat being attacked by a hideous semi-transparent sea monster with flailing tentacles.