The really boring and totally pointless snippets thread IV

[Ex-Ascot]

Morning folks, just been cruising. Big problems with weed around the jetty. After the drought we seem to have many water lilies growing. Major plumbing job going on. All our outside plumbing was plastic and perishing in the sun. Copper going in.

[Wodrick]

Good morning,
Same really,14c high scattered cloud. The showers overnight from about 03,00 produced 3mm accumulation.
Terraces drying out.

Apart from ritual lunch and the night race, which I don't care for, I have no Idea what the day will bring.

Only one bathroom is a nuisance, I'm waiting for a shower. 45mins and counting.

[Magnus]

Odd. A Jet2 flight from Glasgow to Tenerife just landed in Edinburgh. Maybe it's an electric plane and has to recharge.

[handsfree]

G'day to you all.
Misty here but warmer, 7°C. Forecast for the rest of the day is mist/fog.
Hardly any wind so it's going nowhere and neither am I.

May pop down to the greenhouse after I've knocked some bread together
and tidy that up a bit so I can get more pots in there to shelter from the
weather and squirrels.

[OFSO]

Wife's LG TV has suffered a failure of the receiver stage. The inputs from laptop for internet TV, satellite receiver and DVD are all fine. Not sure failure justifies a new TV. And I really can't be bothered having a poke round inside.. (The TV).

[Undried Plum]

'Twas a cracking good evening of astro obs. Me student managed to wangle an extra hour and a half from her Mum on the grounds that it was a Saturday and she's done all her weekend homework and such good seeing conditions are actually rare.

We were both slightly hypothermic by the time we were finished, despite hourly revival mugs of steaming hot Bovril and hot lamb sandwiches. Mars was crystal clear through the max magnification eyepiece. My stude now wants to measure the size of the South polar icecap and see if it is reducing at the same rate as Earth's one!

Logged over a hundred general astro obs with the Meade and the Wild T3 and my Kelvin-Hughes sounding sextant in just under three and a half hours. Have already started the number crunching, starting with the easy stuff, ie simple position fixing. Leaving the complicated lunar distance stuff 'till later as I'm somewhat daunted by it. Rev Maskelyne had an army of 'computers' to mill the numbers for his lunar distance tables. I've got an electric adding machine at my fingertips, but my ancient software for astro-geodetic calcs is DOS 3.0 and I can't get Window10 to run it.

My student is planning to measure and calculate the two components, Eta and Xi, of the deviation of the Prime Vertical of the geoid at my observation location next time. Bloody impressive for an 11 year old! I doubt whether even 1% of Chartered Land Surveyors would know how to establish a LaPlace station nowadays. She wants to devise a spheroid and a geodetic datum for use in calcs local to central Scotland. She's not impressed by WGS84 as it's out by about 54 metres in spheroid-geoid height hereabouts. I've suggested that if she does, then she should name it the Somerville Spheroid. Now she's going to 'do a project' on who this Mary Somerville woman was and what she did.

She's in first year at secondary school and is already lobbying to be promoted to third year in Maths and Science. Next week I'm going to write a letter to the Head Teacher in support of her application. I'll send some examples of the work she's done with my theodolite and with the telescope, together with her subsequent calcs, and try to explain explain just how advanced she is. The lassie's ambition is to go to Edinburgh University at 16 and to be the first girl to start a PhD on her 21st birthday, though she hasn't yet decided what her subject will be.

[Undried Plum]

That Jet2 flight did the same thing yesterday. It seems to be one of those 'planned' diversions which never intended to go to the filed destination but which intended to fetch more pax to make the full trip financially viable.

It would be illegal to travel from Glescae to Embra under the Covid regs, so I guess they have to pretend to have some warning light or other and do a bogus diversion to investigate.

I prefer your explanation though.

[Pontius Navigator]

Odd. A Jet2 flight from Glasgow to Tenerife just landed in Edinburgh. Maybe it's an electric plane and has to recharge.

More likely to pick up pax who couldn't drive to Glasgow

[Woody]

Odd. A Jet2 flight from Glasgow to Tenerife just landed in Edinburgh. Maybe it's an electric plane and has to recharge.

Now on its way to TFS with a different flight number.

[Pontius Navigator]

Wife's LG TV has suffered a failure of the receiver stage. The inputs from laptop for internet TV, satellite receiver and DVD are all fine. Not sure failure justifies a new TV. And I really can't be bothered having a poke round inside.. (The TV).

Our LG had a similar failure. Only found out when we moved it from our fully wired system running through a Talktalk box. If you can continue with the other inputs why bother. In our case it was under warranty 4yrs 9 months of a 5 Yr guarantee. No parts available and replaced with a Panasonic and 6 Yr guarantee.

[Pinky the pilot]

The word must be getting around, later this evening a couple of galahs were thrashing around in the seed bowl. Heck I only put the seed and water bowls out yesterday for the first time since moving here.

Better watch out M'Lady, or you might find that you will be spending just as much on feeding the local wildlife as you do on yourself!

Says PtP who once years ago, found himself spending heaps feeding about a dozen Magpies at the Waikerie Gliding Club. And they would only eat prime minced steak!

[1DC]

Cool,dull,damp and misty on the Humber,it ain't a glorious day in paradise.. Good sleeping weather though, Mrs 1DC didn't awake until 0700 about 2 hours past her normal time and she then put me on the shake at 0900. I got about 10 hours. Bin day today. So endeth todays excitement.

[Ex-Ascot]

UP, Mary Somerville, a relative I guess? Thunderstorm, pissing it down. Just at the safari camp it was really building up and a local asked us if we thought that it was going to rain, thick or what? It is getting bad there loads of NRs using it as a river side park bringing their own booze and grub. Told them that they have to charge an entrance fee.

Mrs Ex-Ascot just tried to blow herself up with the oven. Bit of an airlock in the gas I think after the plumbing job. No waxing required for some time all we can smell is burnt hair.

[OFSO]

I see the Government is going to ask Netflix to preface episodes of "The Crown" with a statement that it's all fiction. Whatever next! Is it possible that Daenerys isn't dead, that there never was One Ring to Bind us All, and that Shrek didn't have a lobotomy and is Prime Minister of the U. K. ? I think we should be told...

[belfrybat]

UP:

but my ancient software for astro-geodetic calcs is DOS 3.0 and I can't get Window10 to run it.

https://www.dosbox.com/

[4mastacker]

Christmas tree successfully lodged in its stand... and is upright(ish).

Mrs 4ma is in charge of the decorations which will be hung on the branches once the tree has dried off after standing outside.

Watching the T20 cricket from South Africa - nice and sunny there.

[ian16th]

Watching the T20 cricket from South Africa - nice and sunny there.

A bit cloudy with thunder here, but I'm about 1000Km miles from Paarl.
Sorry a elderly moment.

[Undried Plum]

UP, Mary Somerville, a relative I guess?

No, not at all. Neither of mine, nor of me stude's.

Somerville was a truly brilliant scientist and mathematician from Scotland. The eponymous College is named after her, specifically.

I'm convinced that this kid from my local village will rise to greatness in Science somehow. Comparable to Mary Somerville, I think.

I've made a provision in my Will that she shall be fully funded in all her further education expenses and any research grant that she may subsequently seek. She doesn't know that yet, and neither do her parents, but I have hinted to them that her Uni education will not be a financial burden to them in any way. They know that I've got a coupla quid to spare to help pay the cost of a student living in a garret in Embra surviving on a diet of baked beans on toast, so I hope that they will give her every encouragement to pursue her non-monetary ambitions.

[ian16th]

UP, Mary Somerville, a relative I guess?

No, not at all. Neither of mine, nor of me stude's.

Somerville was a truly brilliant scientist and mathematician from Scotland. The eponymous College is named after her, specifically.

I'm convinced that this kid from my local village will rise to greatness in Science somehow. Comparable to Mary Somerville, I think.

I've made a provision in my Will that she shall be fully funded in all her further education expenses and any research grant that she may subsequently seek. She doesn't know that yet, and neither do her parents, but I have hinted to them that her Uni education will not be a financial burden to them in any way. They know that I've got a coupla quid to spare to help pay the cost of a student living in a garret in Embra surviving on a diet of baked beans on toast, so I hope that they will give her every encouragement to pursue her non-monetary ambitions.

UP

I admire your generous philanthropic attitude and hope that the young lady appreciates it and uses the gift wisely.

[TheGreenGoblin]

Just undertaken a 10 mile walk with my better half around the salt marshes near Tollesbury Wick in the fog. Quite a place in the gloom with just the sound of the seabirds and the gentle lap of the water. A magical place adorned with battered old yachts and decaying boats covered with brine and verdigris. I feel somewhat rusty myself after the walk. Spotted two open water swimmers in wet suits in the water. Quite mad but I salute them. A number of half submerged gun emplacements from the war are to be found on the path near the Marina. It must have been a grisly posting for some poor conscript on a cold winter's night.