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Written by: Rod Boyle

Category: Blog

Published: 13 February 2023

Hits: 574

So, apparently, as the story goes, at the original screening of "Snow White & The Seven Dwarves" in 1937 Walt Disney hired a bunch of real-life dwarves, put them in costumes and exhibited them above the Marquis on a little balcony, by way of drumming up business. Provided with free food and wine, they did what dwarves are expected to do, they stripped off their costumes (too hot!!) and got naked and quarrelsome with the audience and passers-by.

Now, I'd read this on reddit, and, rather thrilled at this piece of history trivia thought I'd do a bit of digging before sharing it with you.

There is something inherently comic and salacious about the thought of dwarves getting rowdy and naked.

And - you know it, the most trivial of research seems to disprove it, apparently it was the premier of Pinocchio, and there were 11 midgets (not dwarves), and, no, they just got hot, took off their costumes and went inside into the shade to play cards and dice and lie down.

Which kind of saddens me, it's one of those rare instances where the truth is far more boring than fiction, usually it's quite the other way around...

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Written by: Rod Boyle

Category: Blog

Published: 03 February 2023

Hits: 590

I've been lurking on reddit a couple of years, not saying nothing, merely doing the endless doom scroll. 

It's getting a little repetitive.

So I've started responding to posts - /whatisthisrock and /antiques and I'm building up my "Karma". WTF. Anyways, it's good to help people out when I know the answer. 

I'm already up to, like, almost 50 Karma for just answering PM's and identifying rocks. Is there way to cash-in or translate this Karma?

Anyways, I comment on a reddit post - /highstrangeness - about perfectly spherical rocks. And I identify a lot of them as concretions; 

And all of the sudden I'm a Karma Farm. Up to 500 Karma in 3, 4 days. Like bloody hell. And the worst thing is, I'm somewhat intrigued, how can I play this for more?

And Karma, it's worth nothing, in Reddit at least. There's no cashing out, I don't even know how to spend it. And I'm not sure I care enough to enquire how I should use it. 

anyways, life as of late...

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Written by: Rod Boyle

Category: Blog

Published: 17 January 2023

Hits: 698

Not in the mood for Nelson today, weather grey but warm, i headed out to Balfour to spend the day searching for flakes. 

Lots of flakes, not a lot of worthwhile other finds:

a flake in the sand, got me excited, it was big, but - on pulling it out - just a flake. 

The days take. Bottom left - a knife - flaked on one side only, above it a couple of worked flakes, a few of which may have been small arrowheads. In the center next column a worked bit of chert on both sides, but no sharp edges, presumably abandoned. The big pieces are "blanks", larger pieces of chert from which arrowheads & points would be knocked off as needed. And to the right, lots of flakes, many still razor sharp. Some show a bit of serrating along a particular edge, so were probably used for scraping, the rest, the natural detritus of tool creation. 

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Written by: Rod Boyle

Category: Blog

Published: 15 January 2023

Hits: 687

And, playing around with it more, it's "understanding" is not where you think it is initially, It fares well answering science based questions, but in the humanities it fails. 

Which is to be expected.

Still, a lot of good answers to a lot of questions and a heck of a lot quicker than Google.