-> G'morning David, 
  
It's just before midnight, here! 
  
-> The local supermarket put on its shelves some "organic sea salt"  
-> carrying on its label such claims as `certified organic',  
-> `unrefined', `unbleached', `chemical free'.  It cost $NZ5.23 for  
-> 200g - all of which I'd take with a 200g pinch of iodised sodium  
-> chloride priced at 20 cents from an adjacent shelf... 
 
-> A close-by section was offering bottled `organic water' at some  
-> $NZ4 a litre (that's compared with petrol at $NZ1.54 or tapwater  
-> costing $NZ0.00129 per litre). 
 
-> To-day's new product offering turned out to be "Diet Water" which  
-> can offer drinker 0 calories per serving.... 
 
-> Grrrrrrrrr... 
  
They put those items on the shelves because there are idiots who will 
buy them. There are other idiots who are into "homeopathic" medicine, 
which (I understand) involves giving people tiny doses of whatever ails 
them, in the hope that this will make them resistant. When I say 
"tiny", I mean that the stuff is diluted so much that there is 
negligible probability that a single molecule gets into the patient. 
And yet people pay good money for what is actually just water, and 
swear that it does them good. 
  
I don't think I belong on this planet. 
  
-> You put up some programmes for calculating gnonomic angles last  
-> October,  following some discussion about a disabled sundial here  
-> in Remuera,  a suburb of Auckland some 30kms away. 
 
-> By chance, I took someone to exams of the southern campus of  
-> Auckland University,  and have to report that the dial is still  
-> sitting gnomonless outside the Remuera Library. 
 
-> I'll try phoning the Team Leader at the Library for story updates  
-> and relay any story ... 
 
-> Miles.  
  
By now, people probably think that the sundial is supposed not to have 
a gnomon. It's function is a mystery. 
  
David 
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