(Raak) Not a sky in the cloud, as they say, here at the moment. We've had a bit of snow, not much.
sky
I'm pleasd to report the new house has great potential for skywatching. It's clear tonight and the sky is full of stars. But it's too bloomin' cold to stand out there and look. We have snow every two days and it's been hovering around freezing all week, but sunny, which is nice.
[penelope] That should have gone: "I'm pleased to report that the new house has great potential for skywatching ... on account of there being no roof to speak of on it. Handyman Special indeed."
great potential for skywatching suggests a real estate agent dictionary game.
Seconded
[Stevie] Yes!
Wish me luck.
I've got my annual appraisal in 10 minutes. The process is appalingly oblique and I think I'm supposed to want a promotion. Actually, I'd just like to get more skilled at the job I already do. I don't want to manage anyone. HR stinks.
I hope you came out feeling better than when you went in, penelope.
Managing your staff is fun. All the really difficult problems end up in your lap; lots of coffee (black two sugars) maintains your energy and keeps your brain sharp as well as causing palpitations; sleepless nights and constant worrying about everything and anything prepare you for the worst the world can throw at you; 80% of your time will be spent on trivial staff problems and internecine politics; 10% will involve pointless meetings - internal and external; that leaves 10% for 'proper' work, the stuff that matters. But wait, there's more. Managers don't get paid overtime so are expected to take work home for their attention at night and weekends.
Yes, penelope, I've lived in that world and it's not one which I would like to re-visit. Don't get me wrong though as it was exciting at the time. :)
Managing your staff is fun. All the really difficult problems end up in your lap; lots of coffee (black two sugars) maintains your energy and keeps your brain sharp as well as causing palpitations; sleepless nights and constant worrying about everything and anything prepare you for the worst the world can throw at you; 80% of your time will be spent on trivial staff problems and internecine politics; 10% will involve pointless meetings - internal and external; that leaves 10% for 'proper' work, the stuff that matters. But wait, there's more. Managers don't get paid overtime so are expected to take work home for their attention at night and weekends.
Yes, penelope, I've lived in that world and it's not one which I would like to re-visit. Don't get me wrong though as it was exciting at the time. :)
management schmanagement
[Duj] Thanks for that. In fact it went OK. He's 'pleased'. But it's just such a time-consuming process, and most of it seems to be to give the HR department something to do. (It was only last year that they gave us an online system for booking holiday time - until then we were crossing out squares on big sheets of brown card.)
On the plus side, I'm just about to send in a nomination for our alumni magazine (for what I am editor - not managing editor, mind - but editor - finding the pictures, making sure there's enough news to fill the empty pages left when one of the big star interviews pulls out etc) in the university marketing world's 'academy awards' (Oh how I laughed). I've written most of it already - quite impressed that I only have to add our names to it and get it in the post. Fingers crossed.
On the plus side, I'm just about to send in a nomination for our alumni magazine (for what I am editor - not managing editor, mind - but editor - finding the pictures, making sure there's enough news to fill the empty pages left when one of the big star interviews pulls out etc) in the university marketing world's 'academy awards' (Oh how I laughed). I've written most of it already - quite impressed that I only have to add our names to it and get it in the post. Fingers crossed.
Is it spring yet?
I'm still wearing thermal socks.
Not here it ain't
[penelope] Six inches of inconvenience all over the place again this morning. We went out to a friend's house for dinner yesterday and drove back through the snowstorm. I thought that was bad. Almost hit a car when the Steviemobile refused to stop and the car was accelerating between brake pulses - dunno why, could have been a mat caught on the gas pedal or I could have had my foot partially on it I guess, didn't feel like it but it has happened once before that my shoe has hung up on the velocitator and caused imminent trouser spoilage. Luckily I managed to shift into neutral so the brakes could stand a fighting chance of stopping us, which they did. Fortunately the Stevieling had shoveled out the drive before we got home, which is why you have kids in New York.
But all that paled into insignificance next to the drive to work, when I was caught behind two count-em two Toyota RAV4 4x4 Osamamobiles which were such a great option for the snow the drivers wouldn't assay more than 18 miles an hour the entire trip. The Steviemobile is front wheel drive and has traction control and is - yesterday's little moment of terror notwithstanding - great in the snow. I honestly wonder why anyone would buy one of those ugly 4x4 gas-guzzling monstrosities when there is such a better option available that costs about half the price and comes with a SULEV engine to boot.
Bright sunshine here, when it isn't raining. 60 mile bike ride last Sunday. The crosswinds were murder, though.
Snowing. Again.
Scorcher
It's sunny, and 10C (50F). We might have to cut the grass soon.
Gardening
I looked out of the window today and thought "time to get mowing again". It's come round so quickly, but on the plus side: stripes :-)
Griped publicly on Twitter about all the ridiculous Friday the 13th twaddle on official Dutch motoring and weather Twitter accounts today. Then colleague shunts car on the way to work. I put it down to the Dutch being really shitty and impatient drivers who do not understand the wave mechanics of a column of slow-moving traffic. Science wins.
Crash course in quantum mechanics
(pen) If Dutch cars are governed by the laws of wave mechanics they must equally be subject to Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle and if they know where they are they've simply no idea how fast they're going. An accurate speedo though simply means the satnav won't work and they could be anywhere, Rotterdam, Novosibirsk, Betws-y-coed etc. Science doesn't just win, it tramples you to death.
Where am I, SatNav?
If the answer is 'I don't know', then you're still in the multi-storey carpark. Don't expect any clues about which exit to use to get out to get on the way to your destination. (By the way, don't call it a SatNav in the Netherlands. They have no idea what you're talking about. You have to call it a Tomtom.)
My starter for 10
SO how was everyone's weekend? And what does the week ahead have in store? (Me: deadlines, uncontrolled deadlines, and scheduled ones too)
I attended an online conference about virtual worlds, in a virtual world. I also filed a return for Corporation Tax, for a company that probably shouldn't be set up as the sort of company that pays CT.
There was lots of rugby excitement on Saturday. Three decent walks in the last 3 days (5, 7 and 5 miles respectively). I was given a deadline yesterday morning of "today", which I managed to push back to "tomorrow", which is now today. This is the first time the deadline has been mentioned for work I started 3 or 4 weeks ago. I still have probably 10-16 hours' processing time to complete this morning. Bloody stupid way to communicate deadlines, IMHO.
deaderlings
[Phi;] We've got something similar. We know they knew about it 10 days ago, but only approached us yesterday with incomplete information and a very short deadline during a week when we're trying to finish the alumni magazine. And it's for a commercially valuable product... that they have known about for 10 days. *headdesk*
I'd love the time to walk in the evenings. I managed it a lot last year (only half an hour three times a week and a bike ride on Saturdays) but haven't done it since we moved. Do you take a torch and the dog?
I'd love the time to walk in the evenings. I managed it a lot last year (only half an hour three times a week and a bike ride on Saturdays) but haven't done it since we moved. Do you take a torch and the dog?
Work Idiocy
Monday So this guy at work ccs me on an E-Mail about how he has gotten permission from one of my 3 bosses to task me to write a script to clean up a filesystem based on some XML that arrives in-theater. Easy-peasy, done.
Tuesday He ccs me on the tail end of an E-Mail chain, the bit where he volunteers me to start programming some ill-defined event-driven horseshirt fired up by a piece of software everyone hates. I point out that the script to be run from the time-based scheduler is simple and moreover, done, although I haven't actually been asked by the aforementioned boss to do the job, that I have no wish to become entwined in the ongoing trainwreck of the software he wants me to start looking at and perhaps I'll just hand off he script to the user department and let them worry the details.
Wednesday another e-mail claiming that whhat is equired is much more complex than a simple script. We do the pantomime "Oh yes/no it is/isn't" thing for a bit. He tells me that he wants a different filesystem cleaning than the one he asked for, and that since it is part of a system I help manage I should just do it.
I refer him to the original mail, point out that the filesystem he's now talking about *is* auto-managed by the software and that the filesystem that keeps filling up with crap and that the users cannot keep down to a managable size is external to our software, was set up by the user for some arcane purpose that even they don't really understand or have any sort of plan for and that's what I was asked to fix and what I have actually, indeed, fixed.
I tell him if he really wants to do what he's asking for today (as opposed to what he wanted on Monday) that the lead time will likely be months and moreover I'll need a proper requirements document stating definitively what needs doing to what for which reason. However, if he really needs his disk to stop overflowing because Irving cannot clean up the crap his team creates, I have a script to do that which has been running in emulation since Monday and even incorporates a bullshirt mail requirement that was snuck in Tuesday.
I'm out tomorrow so a doctor can electrocute me in the name of science. I wonder what Friday will bring?
[pen] I hear all your lights went out in a collapse of civilization in a World Gone Mad. Hope you are unaffected by the imminent breakdown of society and outbreak of cannibalism.
[penelop:] Walking in the dark is wonderful. Last night I went out at 8:50, got back at 10:10 after a 4 mile stroll. I should add that public roads do not a good night-time walk make. I do take a torch and dogs, but there was enough moonlight to render the torch unnecessary for half the walk. I am lucky that I live in the middle of a 'dark-sky' area, which makes night-time wandering more pleasant.
IN the dark
[Stevie] It was Amsterdam where the lights went out - we were fine in Rotterdam and the restaurant menus are still without human flesh.
[Phil] I've been planning my routes. I want some flashy lights for my sleeves, but there's a nice square route around the back of the house - around a complete polder, on dijks all the way - for long summer evenings, and a route around the village for winter ones. It comes back past the chip shop.
[Phil] I've been planning my routes. I want some flashy lights for my sleeves, but there's a nice square route around the back of the house - around a complete polder, on dijks all the way - for long summer evenings, and a route around the village for winter ones. It comes back past the chip shop.
[pen] "Chjip shop", surely?
(Stevie) You've got the i and j the wrong way round. You'd better hide from pen - she is mightier than the sword. I'm a bit pissed, actually, and had better go to bed before the bloody sun comes up.
Vampire beer, I presume?
[Rosie] How's the head? And what was the occasions?
[Stevie] Chips is patat in the Netherlands. Not a drop of malt vinegar to be seen anywhere near them, though (nor in the supermarket, come to think of it). But the chip shop is on the dijk, if that makes you happy to have the i-j-k all together in a word. And our address has 'dijk' in it - ours is the first house (a new one, on an old plot) on an old dijk.
[Stevie] Chips is patat in the Netherlands. Not a drop of malt vinegar to be seen anywhere near them, though (nor in the supermarket, come to think of it). But the chip shop is on the dijk, if that makes you happy to have the i-j-k all together in a word. And our address has 'dijk' in it - ours is the first house (a new one, on an old plot) on an old dijk.
The J
[pen, Rosie] No, I was riffing on the apparent fact that in Dutch the letter "j" is pronounced like a "y" (as in Esperanto) and on pen's use of the Dutch spelling of "dyke". In my head the pronunciation "chyip shop" (which is how most English speakers actually say the word in my hearing) became rendered as chjip shop for the 'Allo 'Allo Win.
Putting the j after the i would make the word "chiyp shop", which I can't pronounce yet after five minutes trying without it going "cheep shop", which would be right for Italy but not Holland.
By pure coincidence, I am less than an hour from departing to "The Chip Shop", a UK-style pub on Atlantic Avenue.
The Chip Shop
Which, since it is the heart of Brooklyn, should be spelled "da chip shop". If it were on Lon Gylund it would be "da chip shawp".
Sodding Chipbury
(Stevie) Ah, most erudite. In Scotland, of course, it would be "chups", possibly wuth a wee bi' a "fush" though more likely a Mars Bar.
Incipient alcoholism
(pen) Not really pissed, just a bit loose. Occasion? Hadn't been to the pub for three days, Boozing at home on your own is not actually all that fun.
Chups
Fush and chups in Scotland, or 'feesh and cheeps' according to an Iranian family friend many years ago. We still call them that now. Jeez, I miss feesh and cheeps.
You wanna da fresh an cheep?
When I first came to the usa I lived in Westbury and often ate in The Harvest Diner. I noticed that during the summer all the waiters spoke with Brummie accents and asked one about it. He told me they were all relatives of the owner, who had started his life in the food service trade in a place I wouldn't have I heard of.
Which turned out to be a fish and chip shop less than a mile from my parent's house in Coventry.
Chips
[Stevie] Not Earlsdon, by any chance?
[Phil] No. We lived in Whitmore Park. About here. Track down Chesholme Road (north-wards, downhill) from Rotherham Road to that first cross, which is the rear access entry. We lived on the bottom right corner.
I think it's something to do with age and the approach of a milestone birthday (I was in my thirties when I started in here, y'know). I've sent more critical emails, tweets and FB messages this week than ever before in my life, and some of them were not received well. Too bad. You put it out there on social media , so don't be surprised when it gets a response. I ain't stopping now. That's why the fact that I'm consistently pissed off at someone who is relentlessly unfunny, unskilled and unrhyming and relentlessly sexist in the Limericks game has finally surfaced. I'm not sorry.
Big hug for penelope...
...because I know it will irk you to know that you mistyped "misogynistic".
never irked
[Phil] I'm merely pleased that I allowed you to exercise your inner pedant. :o)
[pen] Bit early in your span for a mid-life crisis innit? Carry on at this rate and you'll either be on serious medication or be in politics by the time you are 35. Nothing on the web is worth a ventricle or major blood-vessel in your head.
Phil has an inner pedant as well??
[CdM] Hahahahaaa! :)
Something that tickled me
I discovered this sentence in a discussion on ending sentences with prepositions. I hope to use it some day.
"What did you bring that book I didn't want to be read to out of up for? "
"What did you bring that book I didn't want to be read to out of up for? "
Can be improved on
(Phil) The book is about Australia, so between up and for insert about Down Under.
[Rosie] Applause.
correction?
[Rosie] shouldn't that go between of and up?
Erratum
(Phil) Yes.
Very nice, but...
...expect Phil's inner pedant to show up any day now to point out that, technically, "Down Under" is a noun phrase rather than a pair of prepositions.
Well, at first I was going to suggest that "down" isn't a preposition, but changed my mind. Both my inner and outer pedants are happily turning a blind eye to the capital letters of "Down" and "Under" too :)
(Phil) I didn't want to arouse the Wrath of Dujon or that of any other Strines.
(CdM) Course it's a noun phrase, my exopedant tells me. The medial- and endo- backups needed no invoking.
(CdM) Course it's a noun phrase, my exopedant tells me. The medial- and endo- backups needed no invoking.
The Wrath of Dujon sounds like a title of a Doctor Who from the early Pertwee era. :-)
The Wrath of Dujon
[CdM] I like it, hope they recover the tapes one day. Or it might have been a working title for the second Star Trek movie...
Kirk: "Duuuuuuuujonnnnnn!"
Kirk: "Duuuuuuuujonnnnnn!"
peers around the door
Anyone home?
Quick, while no-one's here...
Palindromes
Oh dear, thanks to the 8 word game, I have a new hobby. I didn't need another one. This morning's effort doesn't make a lot of sense, but I think it could, with a bit of work....
Re-vent some racist sin at a Syria hero. My latino gets EU quest, e.g. on Italy. More hairy satanists. I care most? Never!
Re-vent some racist sin at a Syria hero. My latino gets EU quest, e.g. on Italy. More hairy satanists. I care most? Never!
more....
I heard a tale recently that Drew Barrymore was asking Johnny Depp about the rumours that Nick Saban, the Alabama football coach, was a fully inducted member of the Mafia, and was operating under an assumed name.
"Drat! Saban a made man, eh? Depp? Answer!" Drew snapped.
He named a man. A bastard!
"Drat! Saban a made man, eh? Depp? Answer!" Drew snapped.
He named a man. A bastard!
Anyone rising to the challenge?
I may create a new game on another server in which to write palindromes, but in the meantime, here's another:
Pist now. It's a free beer. Fasting is a sign it's a free beer fast. I won't sip.
Pist now. It's a free beer. Fasting is a sign it's a free beer fast. I won't sip.
Sorry, Phil. Not clever enough for that sort of thing. Well done, btw.
[Phil] O no. O no. O no. O no. Not on. O no. O no. O no. O no.
Sorry, CdM
Conversation between secret agent and Q, when the agent refuses to sign for his new vehicle:
"One man sub? Autogyro?"
"Mr Armory got u a bus. Name?"
"No!"
"One man sub? Autogyro?"
"Mr Armory got u a bus. Name?"
"No!"
Q now briefs by SMS?
[Stevie] Yes, m8.
Sorry
As I appear to have killed the chat with palindromes, I take them all back.
[Phil] That last one didn't work. It was gibberish when read backwards.
Scheming bitch
I've just bought a calculator, a rather posh quasi-vintage Hewlett-Packard with RPN, and along with a guide in English is one in French. A calculator in French is une calculatrice which makes the noun obviously feminine but makes the object itself sound feminine as well. To English ears the word sounds like "calculatress" cognate with words like actress, manageress, temptress, goddess etc. A computer though, is un ordinateur not une ordinatrice. Maybe that reflects its attraction for nerds, almost exclusively male.
A calculatrice suggests an intelligent cockatrice to me. Beware the hidden key combination that unleashes its deadly stare.
Briana is Giertrud
Briana: Once there was a sailor Who sailed the seven seas On a ship called the limburger Me: It was stinky cheese! (beat) What do you expect when you say something like that?
The deadly stare
(Raak) It already has one - the display. It's horrible, characters far too narrow and they've re-inserted the crossbar in the noughts which is simply taking retro too far. A bit like fitting coupling rods to an electric locomotive.
Shall we dance?
(Kagome Shuko) Looking at the Games list I'd say we were the only two people in the building.
*drops pin*
Oooooh! Something shiny!
Theatre, Theatre . . .
I have lots of stuff coming up . . . been busy with my theatre stuff mainly, BUT on Tuesday night (Central time) Giertrud and I will be seeing Weird Al in concert!!!
Here, though, game in here, why not?
Add, please . . . Inappropriate Audition Songs . . . Hi, I'll be auditioning for the part of Bruce the Shark in Finding Nemo and I'll be singing "Blood in the Water" from Legally Blonde: The Musical. Annnnd . . . go!!!
Procrastination was ever the thief of time
I am procrastinating like a pro this afternoon, even with a full list of tasks to complete at work. I think I blew all my brain's synapses this morning on a four-hour proof-reading blitz (which needed 10 hours but didn't get it. I guessed that if my eagle eyes didn't spot it on a speed-read, then Joe Average's eyes wouldn't spot it on a normal read-through either.)
Didn't I once read somewhere that fatty food is essential for brain function? Does that mean I can legitimately have cake and chips as part of my recovery?
(pen) You can have chips. Then you can have cake and a cuppa. But not cake and chips. Even I wouldn't do that.
I used to do proof-reading in the Met Office and quite often this would involve reading it out, with punctuation marks, font styles etc, to a colleague who would have another copy. You could put deliberate mistakes in to see if he was still awake. It was technical stuff, published by HMSO and had to be spot on.
I used to do proof-reading in the Met Office and quite often this would involve reading it out, with punctuation marks, font styles etc, to a colleague who would have another copy. You could put deliberate mistakes in to see if he was still awake. It was technical stuff, published by HMSO and had to be spot on.
Limericks
When I first found this place, everybody was so good at limericks. Have we really forgotten the rhyming pattern and rhythm of limericks? These are the general rules of limericks.
Limerick rules
[KS] That's a rather restrictive definition of Limericks, IMHO. One is not restricted to anapests. Iambs can also be used within a line, as well as in the first foot of each line.
I think it's nice, but not a necessity, that lines 1, 2 and 5 should match. Ditto for 3 and 4.
Also, their 2nd example ("the LIMerick packs LAUGHS anaTOmical") is appalling, as most people I know pronounce "Limerick" as three syllables.
I think it's nice, but not a necessity, that lines 1, 2 and 5 should match. Ditto for 3 and 4.
Also, their 2nd example ("the LIMerick packs LAUGHS anaTOmical") is appalling, as most people I know pronounce "Limerick" as three syllables.
It's worse than that
If you accept that site's made-up rule that 1, 2, and 5 must match in structure, then you have to read the first line of that first limerick as "The LiMErick packs LAUGHS anaTOmical". The second limerick they quote also violates the rule that same rule, while the third limerick rhymes details with emails and females, thus revealing that they don't understand feminine rhymes. All in all, that page is a total fail.
And now...
So does anyone have any news? I've got a university friend + partner coming for the weekend. From England to the Netherlands. On motorbikes. We met in 1985. :o)
News? You want news?!
Ummm, not a lot really, other than what has been declared in "another place". A friend of mine is very p***ed off that today's Tilehurst Festival has been cancelled, due to bad weather. He found out today, despite the decision being made yesterday. He had taken on extra staff to run his cider bar there, and had loaded all the cider on his van at 6am. It's not even raining here, 10 miles away.
Rainy Day Decider.
Bummer, Phil. Here, it's getting clammier and more overcast as we anticipate another humdinger of a belt of thunderstorms passing over at about 4 o'clock (which reminds me - I need to get the washing in). Last night's four-hour lightning and thunder display was incredible - flashes every second or so from all around, torrential rain and hailstorms (although no golf-ball-sized hailstones here to damage the cars as there were in other places in NL). I'm working from home today. It's sluggish, frankly.
three weeks later...
Morning all. Was that heat really three weeks ago? I'm waiting for the thermostat to ping the central heating into action - and making a mental note to get some warmer clothes out of storage. Anyone doing anything interesting this weekend?
[pen] Mrs Phil is planning to watch Dr Who with our grandson on Saturday - which depends on him being permitted to come home from the neonatal unit tomorrow! *fingers crossed*
[pen] After spending today driving a quad bike around Paros, I'll be travelling home over the weekend after a week and a half in the Cyclades. I had a round-numbered birthday in the process.
[Raak] A good friend of mine is in Paros right now. Did you see her?
[CdM] That is quite possible. How would I tell? In the next twenty minutes, before my ferry leaves.
My weekenderation is galleryficating the new house
After 10 months in the new house, we finally put up the first picture rail last night. Today, I'm going to unpack the prints, maps, photographs and paintings I have been collecting over the past 6+ years (some of them were secret purchases and I have spent a ruddy fortune on mounting and framing) in anticipation of having a nice house to hang them in, and the time has come!
Identification problem
[Raak] Well, I assume that she would have been wearing a locket containing a photograph of me, because I assume that is true of all of my female acquaintances.* You know, something along these lines.
*
*
Hidden text
(Actually, I suppose that should be more like 98% of my female acquaintances and 5% of my male acquaintances.)I must be back in England
I have just seen a gentleman wearing a tweed jacket and a deerstalker cycle past my house. Santorini and Paros were wonderful.
I must be in the Netherlands
A truck pulled into the university just in front of me this morning, but stopped in advance of the car-park barrier. I drove around him, and in my rear view mirror I saw the driver's legs emerge as he jumped down from the cab - he was wearing yellow wooden clogs.
I must be Bill Tidy
(pen) Did he then do a dance?
Do you think it's time to choose a vice-winner in AVMA?
How I spent last night
Photographing this:
Click for bigger.
(Raak) V good. What instrument did you use and at what point in the eclipse was it?
Pentax K-50, with a Russian-made 1000mm catadioptric lens. This was at 03:27, shortly before the most total coverage. I have a few more pics on Facebook. I bought the camera in rather a hurry for this — on Sunday, in fact. It was the only one in the shop that would attach to the Pentax mount on the lens without an adaptor. The body is pillar box red. At least I'll always know which camera is mine. I previously used the lens with a Ricoh film camera for the total eclipse in 1999.
This is what I saw
[Raak] This was precisely the time I woke up and went for a pee and peered out through the bedroom curtains (although it was 04.27 here). I saw this! I stared long and hard, fixing the image in my mind's eye. Over the farmland at the back of our house, it was so still, so starry, so other-worldly. Beautiful photo.
The photo looks markedly different from what I saw at the time through 12 x 40 binocs and with the naked eye. The contrast in the photo is much greater and the moon far redder. I saw a dull yellow-orange moon that was just a little brighter on one side. The eclipse was some way off symmetrical.
It would be interesting to know the exposure, f-number and ISO setting. It would be even more interesting to be on the moon and see the earth with its bright ring.
It would be interesting to know the exposure, f-number and ISO setting. It would be even more interesting to be on the moon and see the earth with its bright ring.
[Rosie] 1 second exposure, ISO 800. The exif data reports the f-number as 0, which probably means it doesn't know. There's no aperture adjustment or designation on the lens. The lens is 1000mm, but the image is substantially larger on this camera than on my Ricoh KR-10, so the effective focal length may be longer. The original picture is very dim, and the above was derived from the RAW+ file by level correction. The exif reports that auto white balance was on, but I'm not sure if that applies to RAW data or just the JPG, which was too noisy to be useful. Also, the eye doesn't see colours so intensely in the dark, so even a perfectly accurate photograph may look more intense than the reality in the light of day. What would you have seen through binoculars of the same magnification but much larger aperture?
Optical aids
I've looked at a lunar eclipse through my telescope in the past and the moon looks a gloomy translucent orange. The focal length of this home-made contraption is 1276 mm (50.24 in.) and the mirror diameter is 8.3 in. so it's about f/6. With a one-inch eyepiece the magnification is about 50. The moon's diameter was 1776 arcsec which would give an image at the prime focus of 0.43" or 11 mm but it's not adapted for photography so I didn't get it out this time.
If the aperture of the binocs were greatly increased there would be little improvement because then the size of the exit pupil would exceed that of the eye pupil and light would be wasted. You can't increase the surface brightness (per unit area) of any extended object whatever telescope you use visually, but photgraphically that's obviously not the case. The binocs make the moon bigger and easier to study but the surface light variations are the same as with the naked eye.
If the aperture of the binocs were greatly increased there would be little improvement because then the size of the exit pupil would exceed that of the eye pupil and light would be wasted. You can't increase the surface brightness (per unit area) of any extended object whatever telescope you use visually, but photgraphically that's obviously not the case. The binocs make the moon bigger and easier to study but the surface light variations are the same as with the naked eye.
moonstruck
Innit autumnal?
Autumnatic response.
(pen) Yeah. Trouble is, it's autumn.
[Raak] Dropping in here for the first time in a few weeks, so only just saw your picture. That's stunning.
Anyone about?
Very quiet, innit? Weekend a mere two days away - so what's everyone doing?
Somnolence
(pen) Good question. Both MCiOS and this place seem to have gone to sleep. Where's Gusset Login? I reckon I've won AVMA.
I've just remembered I have a three day weekend. I booked Monday off to use up my annual leave allowance. I'll probably just catch up on toilet cleaning.
(Pen) You sure know how to enjoy yourself...
[Knobbers] Actually it wasn't so bad. The toilets still need cleaning, because instead I went for a long bike ride in the still and sunny weather. We live in the countryside and there are no hills here in the Netherlands so it was lovely.
Cherrapunji Schmerrapunji
Some place in the Lake District has had 358 mm (just over 14") of rain in the last 24 hrs. Provisionally this is a British record. More later!
Floods etc.
Record confirmed. It was at Honister Pass or thereabouts, an Environment Agency gauge.
Sogginess
[Rosie] Cripes. *moves clothes upstairs from below-dijk-level-bedroom*
Happy Parsnips
So it turns out that a risotto is quite a common solution to the post-Christmas veg surplus problem.
Hello, everyone, by the way. Glad to see this place is still going, and that nothing's broken. I've had to do some behind-the-scenes tweaking as it turns out the venerable database library that this whole thing sits on will disappear when I come to upgrade the server OS, so perhaps things will break now. I'm a bit scared when I discover files that haven't been touched for nearly 10 years...
Merry Christmas rab. I hope all is well with Mrs rab and the rabling.
Happy 28th December from me too. BTW, a pilgrimage has been mooted - see the Dunxatorium for the proposed dates.
Happy New Year all. Hope you all have a happy, healthy and peaceful 2016. Got a houseful just settling into the first of the 'Back to the Future' trilogy (I won the box set and a hoodie from the University of Lincoln Facebook page - the big imposter that I am). Hoping for volunteer potato peelers in an hour or so - they will be rewarded with garlic bread, because it's a long time until dinner.
Astonishment
(pen) You won a hoodie? New toyboy then. :-)
Happy New Year, even though I am some hours behind!
Hoodie you think you are?
[Rosie] Nah, just the garment. I don't think the yobbish type wear university hoodies do they?
Depends. Red or blue brick?
Here at the university where where I work, they have made a feature of grey concrete tower blocks. Two buildings of 17 floors and a bunch of others averaging 10 floors clad in concrete biscuit, concrete flaps and concrete-and-glass. It makes looking out nice. Looking in, it looks horrid.
Made it to Thursday
Only more sodding morning 40km commute on wet and windy Dutch motorways bothered by tailgating idiots (which have been Belgian over the past two mornings) and hindered by crashes between those who are too selfish to use indicators or too self-absorbed to keep a packed column of traffic moving by driving SLOWLY and steadily (not by speeding to the back of the queue and stopping dead) or to realise that to join a column of traffic you have to match its speed - it doesn't have to let you in. Out of the seven drives either to or from work this week, only one has been smooth and approximately on time. Every other journey has been held up by stupid accidents. *whinge whinge whinge*
Traffic
[penelope] The moronic desire to get up to highway speed after merging into heavy traffic rates as my number one road rage inducer. I was, of course, spoiled by learning to do high speed merges on the excellently provisioned motorway entrance ramps, and vaguely remember public information commercials on how to merge on motorways. I firmly belive that whatever good road habits my generation have were inculcated by such ubiquitous repetitive TV-served indoctrination.
Dip, don't dazzle. Wear something white at night. Remember to use the Green Cross Code. Regginald Molehusband.
Breaking news
I live south of Rotterdam. One of two motorways heading south from Rotterdam (to Breda and Antwerp, respectively) is, this afternoon, sodding closed again because of a sodding accident. Therefore everyone uses the other sodding motorway. Therefore I can't get on either route south at all, therefore I can't go home until about 7pm when the road is opened again and the jams have dispersed. That makes 87% of journeys this week hindered by idiot drivers crashing into one another. My rage levels are approaching critical.
All white on the night
We had snow here Saturday night, not a lot, an inch and a half and all gone by Sunday afternoon. In beautiful downtown Carshalton it was rain because of the altitude difference, about 450 ft.
Is it okay if I write things like this?
Is it okay
to write like
this?
to write like
this?
[Rosie] Ditto. Our village had a sprinkling of snow. Next village east had none, but they're on the Thames, and we're 340ft above them.
@Gietrud
If rtl text works (doesn't here, I admit), that's probably easier.
[Giertrud] I cracked my head on the wall behind the monitor trying to read that. What are you trying to say, dear?
siht ekil gnitirw
!t'nia ti ylreporp pu ti kram nac uoy sselnu toN .oN
Well thank goodness January is nearly over. We've* had miserable news, miserable things have happened, and the weather's been miserable. February is a change, a lot shorter, and comes immediately before March. And I'm heading back to England at the end of Feb for a week with my mum. We're going to explore for grave goods, old things, shopping, good food and wine in Gloucestershire & Monmouthshire. Any recommendations?
* I mean 'we the public of whatever country you're in'
recommendations
[pen] When exploring for grave goods, you need to make sure there is not too much moonlight, that you have good shovels, and the cemetery does not have CCTV security.
(Also, my January was excellent. Perhaps that's the Southern Hemisphere for you. Doing almost no work definitely helped as well.)
(Also, my January was excellent. Perhaps that's the Southern Hemisphere for you. Doing almost no work definitely helped as well.)