Happy Friday.
These black-eyed Susans must be looking out to the skies for a little rain.
It’s the 25th of the month, and there has been none so far.
The average for July in Seattle is 0.78 in.

a weblog of whereabouts & interests, since 2010
Cade Metz reports from San Francisco for the New York Times:
An artificial intelligence system built by Google DeepMind, the tech giant’s primary artificial intelligence lab, has achieved “gold medal” status in the annual International Mathematical Olympiad, a premier math competition for high school students.
It was the first time a machine — which solved five of the six problems at the 2025 competition, held in Australia this month — reached that level of success, Google said in a blog post on Monday.
Google said Deep Think had spent the same amount of time with the I.M.O. as human participants did: 4½ hours. But the company declined to say how much money, processing power or electricity had been used to complete the test.
I looked up the problems online, and here they are.
Oof. Should I give it a go, and put in two sessions of 4½ hours each?
I think I’d better not. I might damage my self-esteem. 😆
The lilies in the community garden at Republican St and 20th Ave E here on Seattle’s Capitol Hill are gorgeous.
As part of the ever-expanding scope of my collection of South African stamps, I have started to collect revenue stamps of the South African colonies.
(Before the establishment of the Union of South Africa in 1910, South Africa consisted of four British colonies: the Cape Colony, Natal, Transvaal, and the Orange Free State.)
*A suzerain is a person, state or polity who has supremacy and dominant influence over the foreign policy and economic relations of another subordinate party or polity, but allows internal autonomy to that subordinate.
This yellow revenue stamp with green ink from the Cape Colony is affixed to a checque (using the queen’s English— Queen Victoria) that was issued in 1897 by the Harrismith branch of the National Bank of the Orange Free State.
The Cheque
Written by the treasurer (Charles Truter) of the Dutch Reformed Church on Nov. 9, 1897 to Esquire J. Theron. (Esquire here is the title of a young nobleman).
The cheque is from the Harrismith branch of the National Bank of the Orange Free State, written for an amount of 11 Orange Free State pounds*, 8 shillings, 6 pennies.
*Like the South African pound, it was divided into 20 shillings, and a shilling into 12 pennies.
On the far left of the check is the coat of arms of the Orange Free State.
The cheque was printed by William Brown & Co. of Old Broad Street in London.
Security features at the time included the fine print at the bottom of the check, and so-called fugitive printing, that would use ink that would change, fade, or disappear under specific conditions, if it was tampered with.
The revenue stamp was affixed to the cheque on Nov. 15.
The check was stamped ‘Paid’ on Nov. 19. It seems Esquire Theron had the amount of the check paid into his account at the African Banking Corporation Ltd. in the town of Worcester in the Cape Colony.
A hole was punched in the check to also indicate it has been cashed.
We are having a run of beautiful and mild sunny days here in Seattle.
The high today was 77°F (25°C).
I walked down to the fountain and texture pool in Cal Anderson Park just before sunset.
Sunset is now at 8.56 pm and there were beautiful soft blues, pinks and oranges on the horizon, looking out towards the Olympic Mountains behind the Space Needle.
Whether you are pro or anti
Or could not care less
We are here to tell you
We are here to sell you chess
Not a chance of you escaping
From our wiles
We’ve locked the doors
We’ve blocked the aisles
We’ve a franchise worth exploiting
And we will (yes we will!)
When it comes to merchandising
We could kill
When you get up
When you get up in the morning
‘Til your bedtime book
You will have to live your life
With bishop, knight, and rook
Clean your teeth with checkered toothpaste
Wear our vests
Our kings and queens
On bouncing breasts
You could even buy a set
And learn to play
We don’t mind
We’ll sell you something anyway
We’ve done all our market research
And our findings show
That this game of chess
Will be around a month or so
Maybe it’s a bit confusing
For a game
But Rubik’s cubes
Were much the same
In the end the whole world bought one
All were gone
By which time we merchandisers
Had moved on!
By which time
We had moved on!
– The merchandisers, singing a raucous interlude in the introductory song “Merano” of the 1984 double LP “Chess”.
The music was composed by Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus, with lyrics by Tim Rice and Björn Ulvaeus (the Swedish translation)
Happy International Chess Day.
International Chess Day is annually celebrated on 20 July, the day the International Chess Federation was founded in 1924.
A reader sent in this set of photos to the South African newspaper Die Burger (The Citizen).
Happy Friday.
It is Nelson Mandela International Day— the annual international day in honor of Nelson Mandela, celebrated each year on 18 July, his birthday.
Researchers at Cocha Cashu Biological Station in southeastern Peru set up a camera trap to study bird behavior, but they got a surprise guest appearance instead: an ocelot trailing an opossum through the jungle at night.
The ocelot, a wild cat slightly larger than a house cat, and the common opossum, a marsupial, are usually predator and prey. But in this video, they moved in tandem— like two old friends walking home from a bar.
Intrigued, they contacted researchers in other parts of the Amazon who turned up three additional, nearly identical videos from different locations and years.
…
Opossums’ attraction to ocelots remains a mystery, but Dr. Damas-Moreira and her colleagues suspect there’s something that draws both animals. One hypothesis is “chemical camouflage.”
“Opossums have a strong smell, and a close-by ocelot might help hide the opossum’s scent from bigger predators, or the opossum’s odor might mask the ocelot’s presence from prey,” said Ettore Camerlenghi, an evolutionary biologist and ecologist at ETH Zurich and an author of the study.
Opossums are also resistant to the venom of pit vipers, a snake that lives in the Amazon. Ocelots lack that defense, and teaming up could give both animals an edge when hunting, Dr. Camerlenghi said. In North America, a similar alliance exists between coyotes and badgers, who buddy up to hunt squirrels.
We did have the hottest day so far this year here in Seattle, with a high of 91°F (33°C). I waited until it was almost dark before I ventured out for a walk.
Sunset is now at 9.02 pm.
We had 88°F (31°C) here in Seattle today.
The National Weather Service issued a Heat Advisory for today and tomorrow for the Seattle area— with potential for temperatures in the mid-90s (35°C) on Wednesday.
The stamps of last of the four South African homelands that issued stamps, made it into my album: those of Venda. (A sample below).
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa’s parents were of the Venda ethnicity. The Venda people reside primarily in the Limpopo province of South Africa, near the border with Zimbabwe. They have a rich and distinctive culture, including a unique language called Tshivenda or LuVenda (I see it is simply called ‘Venda’ on Google Translate).
Three amigos ran out to Marymoor Park by Redmond this morning— the site for the Electrify Expo Seattle 2025.
Poor Amanda Anisimova (age 23, ) suffered a ‘double bagel’ defeat against Iga Świątek (24,
) in today’s Wimbledon Women’s Singles final.
Anisimova struggled with her serve, and made way too many unforced errors. She skipped practice on Friday because of fatigue and felt pain in her right shoulder while warming up before the match.
From BBC.com/ sport:
The rarity of a 6-0 6-0 score line in a final underlines Swiatek’s dominance.
This is the first 6-0 6-0 win in a Grand Slam final since Steffi Graff (19, ) beat Natasha Zvereva (17) in just 34 minutes at the 1988 French Open.
It is the first time it has been done in a Wimbledon final in the Open era, which is when tennis became professional (1968).
In 1911, Dorothea Lambert Chambers (32, ) beat Dora Boothby (29,
) by the same score line— but that was in the challenge match era, where the defending champion played just once.
Happy Friday.
The stock markets in the US closed the week out with the world’s first four trillion dollar company: Nvidia (NVDA), listed on the NASDAQ stock exchange.
Here’s Tripp Mickle reporting for the New York Times from San Francisco:
Nvidia spent three decades building a business worth $1 trillion. It spent two years turning itself into a $4 trillion company.
On Thursday, the world’s leading provider of computer chips for artificial intelligence became the first public company worth $4 trillion, after its stock ended the day trading just above $164 a share. It achieved the milestone before an array of better-known tech heavyweights, including Apple and Microsoft.
Nvidia’s rise is among the fastest in Wall Street history, and a testament to investors’ belief that artificial intelligence will deliver an economic transformation that rivals the Industrial Revolution’s.
Funny— that these two stamps were on the envelope from Great Britain containing my Ebay stamps, yesterday.
Paul McCartney (83) announced yesterday that his “Got Back” concert tour later this year in the USA is a go.
(He’s not coming to Seattle).
Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell posted this picture on X today, of new US citizens and Seattle officials who attended the 40th annual Independence Day (July 4) Naturalization Ceremony held at Seattle Center.
Over 500 new US citizens were sworn in.
The officials in the picture are:
–David G. Estudillo (fourth from the left), Chief US District Judge for the Western District of Washington: Judge Estudillo presided over the ceremony and administered the oath of allegiance to the new citizens.
–Maria Cantwell, US Senator for Washington State (to his right): Senator Cantwell gave the congratulatory address to the new citizens.
–Miss Washington is Hermona Girmay, who was crowned in July 2024. She is also a University of Washington School of Public Health alumna and is using her platform as Miss Washington to champion health equity.
–Bruce Harrell, Mayor of Seattle: Bruce Harrell delivered welcome remarks at the ceremony.
Alma Franulović Plancich, the ceremony’s long-time coordinator, was recognized for her 40 years of dedication to the event.
South African newspaper Die Burger (‘The Citizen’) reports that Cape Town has had a very successful 2024/25 cruise season. A total of 83 cruise ships visited the cruise terminal at the V&A Waterfront , of which 11 were there for the first time.
The cruise terminal saw an increase of 16% in terms of passengers and crew numbers over last year. (The 2023/24 season generated US$ 67.4 million for the regional economy and supported 2,000 jobs. The numbers for 2024/25 are still being compiled).
Day 7 at Wimbledon is done.
Defending champion Carlos Alcaraz (22, ) is still on track, with a great win today over Andrey Rublev (27): 6-7 (5-7), 6-3, 6-4, 6-4.
Alcaraz will play Cameron Norrie in the quarterfinals on Tuesday.
Norrie (29, ) is British, and was born in Johannesburg, South Africa.