Tag Archives: cat

Devonport and the West Coast

We got these cool lunchboxes at the midway point of the trip.

We got these cool lunchboxes at the midway point of the trip.

A few friends and I went to Devonport and the West Coast earlier this year, just before Uni started again for the year. Like other times, we took all our computer gear up with us, travelling in a convoy of three cars, and like previous years, played games for most of it.

Most of it, that is, besides that one day that we took out to travel to the west coast of Tasmania to experience the West Coast Wilderness Railway — after learning of its planned demise, we decided it would be a great idea to do it before it went away for good. It just so happened that one of my friends had previously done his placement up there, which meant he knew all the people and whatnot.

The WCWR experience is definitely a tourist attraction rather than anything else. We took the steam train from Queenstown to Strahan, and bussed it back to Queenstown after. I’m glad I’ve done it (especially since it’s about to be shut down), but I’m not sure I’d be so hasty to do it again. Still, not a bad experience, by any means.

Random photos from the trip follow, in no particular order.

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How Your Cat Is Making You Crazy

The subjects who tested positive for the parasite had significantly delayed reaction times. Flegr was especially surprised to learn, though, that the protozoan appeared to cause many sex-specific changes in personality. Compared with uninfected men, males who had the parasite were more introverted, suspicious, oblivious to other people’s opinions of them, and inclined to disregard rules. Infected women, on the other hand, presented in exactly the opposite way: they were more outgoing, trusting, image-conscious, and rule-abiding than uninfected women.

via How Your Cat Is Making You Crazy – Magazine – The Atlantic.

Long, but fascinating, article on cats and a little parasite called Toxoplasma gondii.