Ruin hath taught me thus to ruminate,
That Time will come and take my love away.
This thought is as a death, which cannot choose
But weep to have that which it fears to lose.

–William Shakespeare – last four lines of Sonnet 64

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Something strikes me as odd about the announcement of the latest missile firing by North Korea yesterday. The N. Korean madmen said it had risen to a height of 3,000Km, and all the ABC news bulletins have repeated this figure.

But hang on. The mean radius of the Earth is 6,371Km.

That means this missile rose half an Earth radius above sea level. That puts it way above low Earth orbit and above many satellite heights. Notice in the diagram above, on the horizontal scale on the right, 3,000Km above sea level places the missile way, way above the ISS and the Hubble Telescope and in the Van Allen belts. It’s way above being in orbit, in other words.

I think someone’s out by a factor of ten here. I think the missile may have risen to 300Km, not 3,000Km. Other wise it would have stayed up and not returned to Earth. The North Koreans and their Dear Leader with the stupid haircut may be clever, but they’re not able to go that high.  I’m open to argument on this, if anyone knows better.

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I was drying myself off after my shower this morning using a freshly laundered towel, when I felt something drop onto my right arm. I glanced down and saw something black which slid down my arm and fell onto the floor.

I jumped! I don’t have my glasses on, remember. Then I saw it was a bundle of black cotton. It must have been on the towel from the wash. Ugh!

Considering last night while I was lying there in the dark, unsuccessfully trying to get to sleep, I thought I felt something crawling down my right arm which was above the covers …  I had to hurriedly brush that off too. I have no idea what it was, whether it was just my imagination.

It was yet another almost sleepless night last night and I felt very slow and tired on rising at about 7.30am. I had a carbs loaded breakfast and felt very sleepy again by 9.30am, so it was back on the bed for sleep until 11.30am.  That means I only got about three hours total sleep last night, yet again.

Diabetes, heart disease, obesity are all consequences of insomnia. I’ve got ’em all already.

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I’m geeing myself up to do the UK trip, but as I said, if I have this sort of problem while travelling, it could actually be dangerous if I’m driving. Problem.