Rock your lobster

I've moved jobs, and that's all well and good, but the best thing is meeting the new people. One of whom suggested I read 12 Rules for Life by Jordan Peterson (thanks, Gorka). It's an interesting read/listen, not least because his first rule is all to do with standing up straight... and something to do with lobsters...

The thing is, my back is borked with my vertebrae all on the way to being fused together (bloody AS). Thus I'm unable to even look behind me unless I turn around (got to love mirrors in cars).

And don't get me started on Yoga! I've tried it, and I thought it was a lovely idea (I even bought a mat on offer in Sainsbury's), but I lasted all of 5 and a half sessions until I knocked it on the head. The straw that broke the camels back was the instructor's insistence that we gradually curve our backs from sitting up until we were lying flat on our backs, at which point there was an almighty slap! There was no gradual curving involved; I just crashed back because I can't gradually curve my back as it's a solid lump. Unless that is, Maria's has expanded all of her strength pummeling it once a month, at that point it sort of moves freely for a little while (or it feels as if it does anyway, or I don't care because I'm too relaxed to notice).

So never put off a decent massage (thanks, Maria) and don't worry too much about standing up straight. He, Mr Peterson, does suggest other things. If you can't stand up straight, you can do other things like looking someone squarely in the face and putting your shoulders back... he even trots out the old adage about smiling making you feel better, even if you're not feeling all that chipper to start with (It's true as well).

One line NHS Number checker

I didn't know this until recently, but the UK's NHS number is a rather smart device, and I ended up spending a few minutes looking at this page and then generating this checker:

const chechNhsNum = num => {
  let multiplier = 10;
  return num.split("").reduce((a, c) => {
    if(multiplier > 1){
      const semiTotal = ~~c * multiplier;
      multiplier--;
      return a + semiTotal;
    }else{
      return 11 - a % 11 > 9 ? false : ~~c === 11 - a % 11
    }
  }, 0);
};

Then I got to thinking how small I could make the checker and worked this up:

const validNHSnum=num=>num.split("").reduce((a,c)=>a.m>1?{a:a.a+~~c*a.m,m:a.m-1}:11-a.a%11>9?false:~~c===11-a.a%11,{a:0,m:10});

Which is sort of like the puzzles Mr Monks and I used to beat ourselves up with when we played Empire of Code. Running it through Babel produces this, which I guess is more readable:

var validNHSnum = function validNHSnum(num) {
  return num.split("").reduce(function (a, c) {
    return a.m > 1 ? { a: a.a + ~~c * a.m, m: a.m - 1 } : 11 - a.a % 11 > 9 ? false : ~~c === 11 - a.a % 11;
  }, { a: 0, m: 10 });
};

Contagious nausea

A friend and I were discussing the most humorous bodily functions, and we got into a disagreement over whether farting of vomiting was the funniest.

I'm pretty sure that farting is the one most likely to make me guffaw, but she told a rather good story about sick that made me chortle.

The main reason why I think vomit is no laughing matter is that for me at least, it's contagious. I see someone being sick and I automatically get the gag reflex as well. And it doesn't even have to be a person.

Once-upon-a-time, when we lived afloat, I was quietly sitting working on my laptop in the galley when the cat went mental! Eddie was a bruiser of a cat with a face that only his mother, god rest her diseased soul, could love. He looked and acted like a thug, and I'm pretty sure he thought he was a dog.

He'd found a moth you see, and not just any old moth but one the size of Mothra. It was huge! He thought it was immense fun to chase around after the poor bugger dragging considerable tears in its wings. To such an extent that it was no longer able to keep itself aloft and fell to the floor, still waving it's enormous wings - though to no avail. It just lay there waving it's broken wings until, that is, Eddie pounced.

He batted it around a wee bit until he got bored and then chomp, down it went.

His table manners were as brutish as everything else about him, and he didn't bother to chew so down the poor moth went, still flapping.

The flapping must've tickled something in his withered innards as, not 10 seconds after he'd swallowed dear old Mothra, he threw it back up.

"Ah, bloody cat", says I and I gentle step over it to grab some kitchen roll to wipe up the mess. Crouching down after gently moving the cat out of the way (he was cleaning his claws and looking disinterested now that he's murdered his plaything) I bent to my task. But, looking down at the forlorn once-giant, I noticed that s/he was still vainly trying to escape and was gently waving those tattered wings while being slightly crushed and covered with Eddie's digestive juices and the odd semi-digested cat biscuit.

That was it! Thankfully I was close to the oven, so I grabbed the largest pan I could and threw up in it while, through streaming eyes, I cleaned up the mess before putting the whole sorry lot into the fire for a decent cremation.