Donington Road Posted June 2, 2015 Share Posted June 2, 2015 It is when you throw in strangeness and charm John! (Cue Hawkwind). Over to you Jeff! :scratchhead: Just had my fix of Hawkwind, long time since I last listened to them. 4 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mythocentric Posted June 2, 2015 Share Posted June 2, 2015 Phew! That's a hard one on me! Is it something to do with the Viking speaking modern English? Whatever, that's a nice grey sky to go with the "grey"! On a slightly different tack, the old English short sword, possibly derived from a Viking sword, was called "Steadfast" - what a great name for a fighting ship! Cheers, John. Sorry John, Miles away although the Norse did contribute a good few words to the English language. Unfortunately most of them wouldn't make it past RMWebs censorship filter! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
jukebox Posted June 2, 2015 Share Posted June 2, 2015 Evening all, Shaun, a bit late on tonight, but I have to say that you do live in a most impressive part of the world! I use Google Earth/Maps a lot for all sorts of tasks - for instance, a couple of years ago, it was our eldest girl's turn to host the family Boxing Day bash, and she was a little short of sleeping space. This meant that Joanna and I volunteered to stay in the local Inn, and when madam asked me if it was far away I said no, I walked it earlier - she looked confused as it was still October. I then owned up that I'd 'walked' it on Google, and showed her how it worked much to her amazement. Because I've never been lost anywhere in the world, I tend to get asked to drive when the destination is awkward to reach. My youngest daughter had a medical procedure at a private clinic in the centre of Cambridge (paid for by the NHS as she's a nursing sister).I 'drove' the route a couple of times on line the evening before and it was then child's play to negotiate a route I'd experienced before. As long as you are good at memorising routes after using them once or twice (which I have always been lucky enough to do), it really is a great method! mick, thanks for the Windows 10 info, I took the advice of Rick Maybury, the Telegraph's computer expert, and decided to wait a few months until '10' has the wrinkles ironed out. Good advice by what you say! Thanks for an entertaining read through tonight folks - agree totally with Jeff's comments about the thread, it is a tremendous facility for keeping the brain working! Kind regards, Jock. Glad to see I'm not the only one who has done this, Jock. We came from Oz to Lapland for a family holiday a couple of years back, but were arriving at 4pm on the day before Xmas eve, and I had a 200km drive North from the airport that was on the Artic circle (Rovaneimi). Not for the faint hearted when you've never driven in snow. Google Earth let me preview the bits that seemed tricky, identify the turn-offs, and so even in the darkness of the winter solstice, I had no trouble finding our destination. Great help. Couldn't do much for the -23C temp though (on a flight that orginated in Singapore at 36C!) Scott 3 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium Sasquatch Posted June 2, 2015 RMweb Premium Share Posted June 2, 2015 Evening all, Shaun, a bit late on tonight, but I have to say that you do live in a most impressive part of the world! I use Google Earth/Maps a lot for all sorts of tasks - for instance, a couple of years ago, it was our eldest girl's turn to host the family Boxing Day bash, and she was a little short of sleeping space. This meant that Joanna and I volunteered to stay in the local Inn, and when madam asked me if it was far away I said no, I walked it earlier - she looked confused as it was still October. I then owned up that I'd 'walked' it on Google, and showed her how it worked much to her amazement. Because I've never been lost anywhere in the world, I tend to get asked to drive when the destination is awkward to reach. My youngest daughter had a medical procedure at a private clinic in the centre of Cambridge (paid for by the NHS as she's a nursing sister).I 'drove' the route a couple of times on line the evening before and it was then child's play to negotiate a route I'd experienced before. As long as you are good at memorising routes after using them once or twice (which I have always been lucky enough to do), it really is a great method! mick, thanks for the Windows 10 info, I took the advice of Rick Maybury, the Telegraph's computer expert, and decided to wait a few months until '10' has the wrinkles ironed out. Good advice by what you say! Thanks for an entertaining read through tonight folks - agree totally with Jeff's comments about the thread, it is a tremendous facility for keeping the brain working! Kind regards, Jock. Hi Jock. Yes the Pacific North West is beautiful, Oregon in particular. I never get lost either. The only time I did was on a trip to Budapest on my trusty P200 Vespa. On the way back heading towards Austria all the road signs were still in Russian and my map had Hungarian names! We drove through one Big city where all the inhabitants seemed to be out shopping in the high street but there wasn't anything in the shops! It might have been zombethley or some thing like that...Due to a bad accident I can't ride scooters any more otherwise I'd ride to Alaska or Peru or some where equally stupid. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Donington Road Posted June 2, 2015 Share Posted June 2, 2015 (edited) Glad to see I'm not the only one who has done this, Jock. We came from Oz to Lapland for a family holiday a couple of years back, but were arriving at 4pm on the day before Xmas eve, and I had a 200km drive North from the airport that was on the Artic circle (Rovaneimi). Not for the faint hearted when you've never driven in snow. Google Earth let me preview the bits that seemed tricky, identify the turn-offs, and so even in the darkness of the winter solstice, I had no trouble finding our destination. Great help. Couldn't do much for the -23C temp though (on a flight that orginated in Singapore at 36C!) Scott Brave man Those Scandinavians do fit the correct tyres for the conditions though, unlike us Brits that drive around on sunny weather tyres then complain when they slide around like bambi on ice as soon as we get snow Edited June 2, 2015 by Donington Road Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium Physicsman Posted June 2, 2015 Author RMweb Premium Share Posted June 2, 2015 Ah! oops! Sorry all, My iPad has a bit of a poor reception here at the hotel so I didn't think my earlier post had worked, hence my second post and subsequent editing. What I would like to ask about is this; in the "new Scientist" of the 23rd May (great airplane reading btw) there is a wonderful story about the blip at the start of the universe and how there should have been equal parts of matter and antimatter, thereby fizzling into light and energy. That's fine and dandy, I can pretty well understand that but what I really struggle with are the various types of quarks! Is this something I'd need to be a physicist in order to understand, please? Cheers, John. John, I wouldn't worry too much about the different types of quarks. To be honest, nobody has ever seen an individual quark, though they fit into the Standard MODEL of matter quite nicely, with most "stuff" (leptons, such as electrons excepted) being viewed as made from quark building blocks. It then begs the question "what's inside the quarks?" and therein lies the road to madness. Jeff 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium Physicsman Posted June 2, 2015 Author RMweb Premium Share Posted June 2, 2015 Just had my fix of Hawkwind, long time since I last listened to them. I'd forgotten about them! I remember my mate had a copy of "In Search of Space" and "Hall of the Mountain Grill" and you used to hear Silver Machine on the radio fairly frequently in the early 70s. I thought I might have had a compilation, but just checked - no. Bad Company also sprang to mind in the same "breath" - "Feel Like Makin' Love" is a frequent vdeo on Vintage TV. And, as I'm about to sign my name, 8-track cartridges sidle into my consciousness - dreadful things! Jeff Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andrew P Posted June 2, 2015 Share Posted June 2, 2015 I was attending a Sales seminar once and there were SILLY little games, (I HATE GAMES) anyway my challenge was to put a map of the United Kingdom together from jigsaw bits of individual counties. This I did in a few seconds and the Lecturer said that it was the quickest he had ever seen, butt hat I should have turned all the bits over as they were numbered with joining lines to make it easier. I said why? I know where all the Counties are, so it was easy, and although he had done it several times, he hadn't a clue where all the Counties were as he'd only ever done it from the back by numbers. You just cant get the Staff these days. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
emt_911 Posted June 2, 2015 Share Posted June 2, 2015 I have to admit to using a satnav,but, only for when I'm re-directed to a different job or have to attend a callout for somewhere that I've never been before. The rest of the time I don't bother. Currently listening to Hawkwind - Space Ritual 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andrew P Posted June 2, 2015 Share Posted June 2, 2015 About to go into the Potting Shed to finish off some weathering jobs and box up for postage and Planet Rock will be on. Catch you all later. 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Donw Posted June 2, 2015 RMweb Gold Share Posted June 2, 2015 I had a jigsaw of all the counties when I was a kid (no lines on the back) a great way to learn but they have changed it all now. Don Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
HeeleyBridge Posted June 2, 2015 Share Posted June 2, 2015 We built our first computer from a kit. Been programming ever since. I don't even want to think how much Visual Studio cost me, plus all the latest versions of Windows I've had to get in order to keep up to date / get ahead. Some of my stuff has been running since 3.11 for workgroups and has been updated/upgraded/completely rewritten over the years. The last updates were to fix what Windows 8 broke. All that has stopped now. I happily longer offer support and I haven't done any programming at all this year. Some of the web stuff I wrote 10 years ago is still going, found it by accident the other day. I always loved maps. My Grandad gave me a set of maps when I was about ten. Each map was about 8" x 10" double sided and about 80 were contained in a red leather wallet. The best thing was that they were from 1919 and showed pre grouping railways. I wish I knew what happened to them. I forgot to hit post before I went to answer the phone. Just found out that my last remaining aunt (Mum's sister) died last night, she hadn't been fighting fit for a while. Will have to check out arrangements for heading up to Bridlington for the funeral. I Just hope my cousin's son doesn't arrange it for Mum's 83rd birthday next week. So now I'm off to make sure mums all right. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
emt_911 Posted June 2, 2015 Share Posted June 2, 2015 All this talk of maps has me thinking. I was given a full set of RAF air maps of Europe from 1943 by a very good friend of the family many years ago. I really ought to find where I safely put them. 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
jukebox Posted June 2, 2015 Share Posted June 2, 2015 Yes, the Finns do come prepared: Rental car studded tyres Mind you, you needed them here: and here! 6 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium Physicsman Posted June 2, 2015 Author RMweb Premium Share Posted June 2, 2015 Yes, the Finns do come prepared: Snowtyres.jpg Rental car studded tyres Mind you, you needed them here: LeviMtTop.jpg and here! 185km to go.jpg Yes, Scott. And there is hysteria in the UK when the first flake of snow falls in London! Jeff Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
jukebox Posted June 2, 2015 Share Posted June 2, 2015 Well despite the stress levels - 3 kids 6-13, plus a wife all ohing and ahing at the scenery - and the 16 hour flight beforehand on Day 1, by the end of 10 days I'd almost gotten used to it. Sure as heck is nothing like we get in WA I can see why the Finns make such good rally car drivers! 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mythocentric Posted June 2, 2015 Share Posted June 2, 2015 (edited) Phew! That's a hard one on me! Is it something to do with the Viking speaking modern English? Whatever, that's a nice grey sky to go with the "grey"! On a slightly different tack, the old English short sword, possibly derived from a Viking sword, was called "Steadfast" - what a great name for a fighting ship! Cheers, John. Sorry John! I didn't respond to your comment. I'm pretty pleased with it myself to be honest considering that's a low-res, quick render. I wish I could claim the credit for them but they come from two guys called Eric Van Dyke and Syyd Raven and I have loads (all) of them. They are 360 degree HDR (High Dynamic Range) panorama's which means I can rotate them to get exactly the sky I want. They use a system called Parametric's (don't ask me, I haven't got a clue!) which gives them a lovely translucency and luminosity when they're rendered at high res. This is my favorite effort so far http://mythocentric.deviantart.com/art/By-The-Dawns-Early-Light-530664881 . Between them they practically make up a 101 guide to cloud types! In fact I've just finished downloading a set of night skies so I'm off to have a play with them. Thanks! Regards Bill. PS: A favorite English sword of mine is the two-handed broadsword used by mounted knights. 5 foot blade around 3 inches wide with a heavy corkscrew tip on the point to get right through the armour (and the soft bits inside) which you've just pierced. There's an example in the museum in Blackburn and I used to cringe as a kid every time I saw it! Regards Bill Edited June 2, 2015 by Mythocentric 4 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold ChrisN Posted June 2, 2015 RMweb Gold Share Posted June 2, 2015 Bill, The deliberate mistake? There were two actually. Vikings did not have pointy hats, I think the Victorians invented them for them. Also the Aileen appears to be flying a 56-4Da model which of course is only an interplanetary craft. I think you meant the 56-4Db model which has the extra tiny exhausts for the hyper-atomic space drive which is the standard inter- system or inter-galactic model. 4 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold ChrisN Posted June 2, 2015 RMweb Gold Share Posted June 2, 2015 We had a rep come to us who said he hated his Sat Nav as he never knew where he had been. The Sat Nav took him everywhere but as he did not look at the signs or a map he had no picture in his mind of how the places fitted together. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mythocentric Posted June 2, 2015 Share Posted June 2, 2015 (edited) Bill, The deliberate mistake? There were two actually. Vikings did not have pointy hats, I think the Victorians invented them for them. Also the Aileen appears to be flying a 56-4Da model which of course is only an interplanetary craft. I think you meant the 56-4Db model which has the extra tiny exhausts for the hyper-atomic space drive which is the standard inter- system or inter-galactic model. Well done that man for the correct answer! Vikings never wore horned (or winged) helmets for the simple reason that they could catch or impede their weapons. Not exactly helpful when you're battling it out with someone bent on turning you into a Viking kebab! They were a figment of 19th century Romantic imagination popularised by performances of Wagners 'Ring Cycle'. I can only assume they thought it made them look scarier! Don't know why! The sight of all those big girls playing the part of the Valkeries, belting it out at the top of their ample lungs is enough to frighten the life out of anybody! I must applaud your knowledge of ET vehicles but the craft depicted is in fact a 56-4Da model. The Mothership (a 56-Db) remained at a distance of 22,300 miles from Earth in geosychronous orbit because it was just far too big to fit into the picture! In fact if you look carefully at the one shown you will see a sticker reading "My other ship is bl**dy enormous"! And the prize? You will shortly be receiving a 200,000 word PM from Jeff giving an in-depth explanation of quarks, strangeness and charm (written in pentametric verse) together with a pair of earplugs to prevent your brain leaking out of said appendages as you read it! Congratulations! Regards Bill Edited June 2, 2015 by Mythocentric 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium Physicsman Posted June 2, 2015 Author RMweb Premium Share Posted June 2, 2015 Well done that man for the correct answer! Vikings never wore horned (or winged) helmets for the simple reason that they could catch or impede their weapons. Not exactly helpful when you're battling it out with someone bent on turning you into a Viking kebab! They were a figment of 19th century Romantic imagination popularised by performances of Wagners 'Ring Cycle'. I can only assume they thought it made them look scarier! Don't know why! The sight of all those big girls playing the part of the Valkeries, belting it out at the top of their ample lungs frightens the life out of me! I must applaud your knowledge of ET vehicles but the craft depicted is in fact a 56-4Da model. The Mothership (a 56-Db) remained at a distance of 22,300 miles from Earth in geosychronous orbit because it was just far too big to fit into the picture! In fact if you look carefully at the one shown you will see a sticker reading "My other ship is bl**dy enormous"! And the prize? You will shortly be receiving a 200,000 word PM from Jeff giving an in-depth explanation of quarks, strangeness and charm (written in pentametric verse) together with a pair of earplugs to prevent your brain leaking out of said appendages as you read it! Congratulations! Regards Bill Sorry Bill, I ran out of "juice" after 170,000 words so I made up the shortfall with a discussion on the Physics and Metallurgy of Viking broadswords. Btw, do you realise how long 200,000 words is? My PhD thesis only ran to 50,000 words - but it did contain hundreds of diagrams and data as well. And it took a year to write. Sorry Chris, had to cobble Bill's "prize" in a matter of minutes, so it may be unintelligible! Jeff Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mythocentric Posted June 2, 2015 Share Posted June 2, 2015 Sorry Bill, I ran out of "juice" after 170,000 words so I made up the shortfall with a discussion on the Physics and Metallurgy of Viking broadswords. Btw, do you realise how long 200,000 words is? My PhD thesis only ran to 50,000 words - but it did contain hundreds of diagrams and data as well. And it took a year to write. Sorry Chris, had to cobble Bill's "prize" in a matter of minutes, so it may be unintelligible! Jeff No problem Jeff. I'll throw in a copy of the Hawkwind song as covered by Kylie Minogue to make up the difference! Regards Bill Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jock67B Posted June 2, 2015 Share Posted June 2, 2015 Evening Lunesters, Just been out with Archie the Westie for his late night comfort break and my nightly check of the heavens - strange sight tonight, very few stars visible as the large number of clouds scudding by were brightly lit by the full moon! Very impressive sight none the less! Our earlier discussion on using Google Earth/Maps, various maps, dead reckoning all came together this evening as we were watching a programme on Discovery History about the last days of the Second World War- an Allied aircraft flew over Berlin in 1945 to show the devastation and passed low over the Brandenburg Gate and up Unter Den Linden, so I pointed out the the wrecked Reichstag, off to the left, the famous gate itself, the ruin that was to become the Russian Embassy during the Cold War, as well as that which is now the University, and of course, the most remarkable of all, Goering's Air Ministry building which was virtually untouched throughout all the bombing raids! Joanna looked at me in surprise (possibly disbelief!) so I re-wound the film and showed her again in slow motion on our fairly large flat screen TV. She asked how I could possibly know that, and I tried to explain that, when I first took her to that city, three months after the wall came down, we walked that route, using a map which I still have, and the information stuck in my mind. Can't remember what I had for dinner Saturday, but a lifetime use of maps, a study of navigation (sailing club!) and now Google Esrth and Maps has given me such ability! Is anyone else as sad as me, often going on Google Earth to re-visit places I've been to on holiday over the years? Hope your week is going according to plan, Kind regards, Jock. 6 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
emt_911 Posted June 2, 2015 Share Posted June 2, 2015 Jock, I'm just as bad. Tonight I had a look on Google earth at some of the places I served to see how they'd changed. A couple of places had hardly changed but parts of Bosnia have changed beyond recognition compared to when I was last there 3 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Donington Road Posted June 2, 2015 Share Posted June 2, 2015 Can't remember what I had for dinner Saturday, but a lifetime use of maps, a study of navigation (sailing club!) and now Google Esrth and Maps has given me such ability! Is anyone else as sad as me, often going on Google Earth to re-visit places I've been to on holiday over the years? Not at all Jock, I have a real interest in old maps. Google wants to rule the world, but I give them credit for their excellent mapping service and its all free. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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