Stuff Happening Far Far Away

[Varley]

I doubt you could have launched an aerial farm with your Oceanspan that would give a sufficiently narrow beam width.

(That would not have prevented MIMCO from marketing it as the Cosmospan)

[Farmer John]

Didn't Isambard Brunel launch a steam powered projectile to the moon, reports expected soon?

Comms by throwing a cricket ball from one to the next.

[BobClay]

I daresay there's a few on here who have sailed pass this going up through the Sunda Strait. The sheer scale of the collapse is staggering, but then Anak Krakatau (Son of Krakatau) has been there before.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-46743362

[erimus]

.........and what about the Chinese, today 'On the dark side of the moon'?

geoff

[BobClay]

Pink Floyd did it first ….

[erimus]

....I was waiting for that response,pity I couldn't have got a bet on somewhere!

gf

[Varley]

Looks quieter on 30/12 than 2/1. Remember sailing past in early 70's. In those days 'The Pilot' was written with some style and I remember the entry included the more famous eruption finishing with "… and multitudes perished".

RIP the most recent multitude. Lucky us to be on less exciting geology.

[BobClay]

Absolutely. Much as we may moan about our northern temperate climate and unpredictable weather …. geologically this is the place to live.

[BobClay]

Total eclipse of a Super Moon in the early hours of the morning. (The Moon is closer to the Earth, i.e. perigee.) Not looking promising where I am weather wise.

http://shadowandsubstance.com/assets/gmt.png

[Varley]

It looks fine here but unless I shit the bed I will not be 'up' to observe it!

[BobClay]

It is a pretty horrific time for the event. I blame it on Theresa May.

[Varley]

I did see it twice after all. Full on dim and orange and then about half on its way out of shadow. Discourtesy of the bladder not the bowel.

[Harry Nicholson]

Originally Posted by Varley

I did see it twice after all. Full on dim and orange and then about half on its way out of shadow. Discourtesy of the bladder not the bowel.

Me too. There was a brief shooting star right next to it. Aged mariners get to witness more than most. London Calling (or whatever it is called these days) can be interesting in the small hours.

[BobClay]

Worra bummer !! They forecast cloud down here so I didn't bother. Got up at 7am to see a clear sky and a bright super moon on the western horizon.

Bloody missed it.

[BobClay]

Like Father, like Son.

[Harry Nicholson]

Originally Posted by BobClay

Like Father, like Son.

A new hot water lagoon. Dramatic! 1973 saw the eruption on the Westermann Islands, Iceland. Heimey was the eruption. The Open University geological group took twenty of us on a field trip 18 months after the disaster. The Fokker Friendship landed us on an ashfield - the old strip was lost. The ground was still hot. We walked across the roofs of buried houses and looked down chimneys. My boots rotted with the sulphur. A wonderful trip - apart from the weak Icelandic beer.

[BobClay]

Watching the NASA site today as the ISS astronauts prepare to come home, I was struck by how the style of the mission control room has changed since the days of the Apollo flights. All those boxy consoles filled with CRT's and covered in knobs, buttons and switches confined to the gashbin !! And paper everywhere ....
I have a few software defined radios all controlled from the screen but have found myself recently mapping some of those on screen controls (tuners and the like) to external boxes with knobs that I can play with.

[Dave McGouldrick]

As the AVO advert said on the inside cover of the PMG Handbook:
'OK so you're a knob twiddler'
We seem to be a dying breed.

[Engine Serang]

Never quite got the hang of the Track Ball.
Or a digital watch.
Or a Sky+ flicker (zapper).

[Dave McGouldrick]

Originally Posted by Engine Serang

Never quite got the hang of the Track Ball.
Or a digital watch.
Or a Sky+ flicker (zapper).

I was shocked when I saw an Engineer using a track ball attached to the ABB PC with greasy, mucky hands - but when ABB went to touch screens......Aaagh!!


(Sorry for thread drift)

[Engine Serang]

Honest to goodness grease would only lubricate the gearbox and help things along.

(Major drift. Is this the Elder Dempster thread?).

[Varley]

PDP11 series? The grease was needed to damp the ball otherwise it made it difficult to play golden shot in rough weather.

(By the time the microprocessor had made it to the control room E-S was far too senior to have dirty hands and far too much the gentleman in his younger days to have had anyone by the trackers without washing his hands first).

[BobClay]

Take my word for it having worked in a school looking after computers. Engineers have got nothing on school kids, the most destructive force on the planet. I've dragged things out of floppy disk drives and other computer case orifices that would keep archaeologists and pathologists happily writing papers for years to come.

[Engine Serang]

Read Adam Kay's book about doctors in A&E and the "Items" doctors and nurses have removed from bums and other sweaty nooks in the human body.

[Engine Serang]

Originally Posted by Varley

PDP11 series? The grease was needed to damp the ball otherwise it made it difficult to play golden shot in rough weather.

(By the time the microprocessor had made it to the control room E-S was far too senior to have dirty hands and far too much the gentleman in his younger days to have had anyone by the trackers without washing his hands first).

Wrong, wrong, wrong. (As Mrs T was oft to say).
I was too lazy, no more-no less.
As a Company Cadet it was drilled into me that all that expensive education was not focused on me having dirty nails. Such work was to be detailed to Junior Engineers who were "Time Served" in inner city shipyards and were not good enough to be retained.
Class Issues were not the total preserve of the RN and poncey regiments of the BA.