The high temperature in Canton, Georgia, USA today was 91°F (32.8°C) but with humidity at 60% it felt like 97°F (36.1°C). This is known locally as "a beautifuly summer day."
It's too hot to post anything else.
How do you stay cool when the weather is hot?
Readers for whom it is now winter may answer the question "How do you stay warm when the weather is cold?" instead, if you like.
Extra credit will be given if both types of readers answer both questions.
If it's too hot or cold to answer any questions, I will try to understand.
But it won't be easy.
Thursday, July 16, 2020
Monday, July 13, 2020
Test from phone
Now is the time for all good men to blah blah blah
Well, what do you know! I did it! From my phone! For the first time!
Live and learn, necessity is the mother of invention, you CAN teach an old dog new tricks, and other trite expressions.
Maybe there's hope for the old guy yet.
Maybe we'll all learn to use New Blogger.
Maybe I'd better quit while I'm ahead.
Well, what do you know! I did it! From my phone! For the first time!
Live and learn, necessity is the mother of invention, you CAN teach an old dog new tricks, and other trite expressions.
Maybe there's hope for the old guy yet.
Maybe we'll all learn to use New Blogger.
Maybe I'd better quit while I'm ahead.
Friday, July 10, 2020
I will be laboring (British, labouring) under a handicap for the next couple of weeks (British, fortnight)
More about that below.
First, though, I want to add an addendum (what else would you do with an addendum?) to my previous post about phonetic alphabets. I really don't have a single set of words that I use. They're different every time. I just pick one on the fly as the need arises. One day I might say P as in pusillanimous and the next day I might say P as in pteradactyl. On Tuesday I might say B as in bituminous and on Thursday I might say B as in Bunsen burner. I might say E as in embarrassing in June and E as in ectoplasm in July
I am nothing if not inconsistent.
I am unpredictable, not satisfied with a single answer, mercurial (M as in marsupial, E as in edamame, R as in rhododendron,....)
But getting back to the mystery expressed in the title of this post, I am getting a new pair of glasses with a stronger prescription and I decided to have the lenses put into my existing frames, which cost a bundle and are downright excellent. They will be ready in "about 10 business days" according to the optician. Until then, I can't see very well, which puts a cramp in my blogging and replying to comments because Apple is wholly inadequate to the task. What I mean by that is this: I cannot create a post or reply to comments using my wonderful and expensive iPhone11, and no, I don't know why. I have to be at my desktop computer, as I am at this moment, to create a post or reply to your comments.
Normally, this would not be a problem (except that it takes me away from the room where Mrs. RWP usually is), but without glasses I must hunch over to be very close to the screen and will get a crick in my neck if I do it for very long. Hence, this is my notice to the world of my possible impending absence temporarily. I know the world is devastated at the thought.
A prescription for new eyeglasses is a marvelous thing. Mine says on the first line "O.D. Sphere -8.25, Cyl. +2.25, Axis 155°" and on the seond line it says "O.S. Sphere -9.25, Cyl. +1.25, Axis 180°". Someone who can interpret this strange language will magically produce a new set of lenses and return them to me in my beloved frames. At that point, I expect that God will be in His heaven and all will be right with the world except if Antifa and the Marxists behind BLM have anything to say about it. Until then, I am, as they used to say in the military, SOL (the clean version of which is simply out of luck).
Your trivia fact for today is downright educational. The O.D. and O.S. in my prescription from the ophthalmologist are easily explained. O.D. is an abbreviation of the Latin phrase ocula dexter (which means right eye) and O.S. is an abbreviation of the Latin phrase ocula sinister (which means left eye).
You're welcome.
I'll be back in a jif. In the meantime, talk amongst yourselves.
First, though, I want to add an addendum (what else would you do with an addendum?) to my previous post about phonetic alphabets. I really don't have a single set of words that I use. They're different every time. I just pick one on the fly as the need arises. One day I might say P as in pusillanimous and the next day I might say P as in pteradactyl. On Tuesday I might say B as in bituminous and on Thursday I might say B as in Bunsen burner. I might say E as in embarrassing in June and E as in ectoplasm in July
I am nothing if not inconsistent.
I am unpredictable, not satisfied with a single answer, mercurial (M as in marsupial, E as in edamame, R as in rhododendron,....)
But getting back to the mystery expressed in the title of this post, I am getting a new pair of glasses with a stronger prescription and I decided to have the lenses put into my existing frames, which cost a bundle and are downright excellent. They will be ready in "about 10 business days" according to the optician. Until then, I can't see very well, which puts a cramp in my blogging and replying to comments because Apple is wholly inadequate to the task. What I mean by that is this: I cannot create a post or reply to comments using my wonderful and expensive iPhone11, and no, I don't know why. I have to be at my desktop computer, as I am at this moment, to create a post or reply to your comments.
Normally, this would not be a problem (except that it takes me away from the room where Mrs. RWP usually is), but without glasses I must hunch over to be very close to the screen and will get a crick in my neck if I do it for very long. Hence, this is my notice to the world of my possible impending absence temporarily. I know the world is devastated at the thought.
A prescription for new eyeglasses is a marvelous thing. Mine says on the first line "O.D. Sphere -8.25, Cyl. +2.25, Axis 155°" and on the seond line it says "O.S. Sphere -9.25, Cyl. +1.25, Axis 180°". Someone who can interpret this strange language will magically produce a new set of lenses and return them to me in my beloved frames. At that point, I expect that God will be in His heaven and all will be right with the world except if Antifa and the Marxists behind BLM have anything to say about it. Until then, I am, as they used to say in the military, SOL (the clean version of which is simply out of luck).
Your trivia fact for today is downright educational. The O.D. and O.S. in my prescription from the ophthalmologist are easily explained. O.D. is an abbreviation of the Latin phrase ocula dexter (which means right eye) and O.S. is an abbreviation of the Latin phrase ocula sinister (which means left eye).
You're welcome.
I'll be back in a jif. In the meantime, talk amongst yourselves.
Wednesday, July 8, 2020
P as in Predicament, B as in Barbiturate, O as in Ophthalmologist
Somewhere in the back of my mind I think we may have talked about this before, long ago perhaps, but we're going to talk about it again.
Words people use to help others understand how something is spelled. Some people call them "phonetic alphabets" but that is actually a misnomer.
What brought this to the fore was an article I read recently, "It Might Be Time to Update the Old 'Alfa-Bravo-Charlie' Spelling Alphabet".
Read it. You might enjoy it.
What caught my eye was the word "Old" in the title. To my way of thinking, the "Alfa-Bravo-Charlie-(Delta-Echo-Foxtrot)" sequence is the new one, not the old one. I learned it in the U.S. Air Force, where it was called the NATO phonetic alphabet (okay, so it was way back in the sixties). The "old" one to me is the one everybody used before the sixties, during World War II: Able-Baker-Charlie-Dog-Easy-Fox and so forth.
When I say "everybody" I mean people in the United States. Of course, there was the occasional crazy divergence. I once heard comedian Shelley Berman say "N as in Newel Post" in one of his routines (unless it was "K as in Knewel Post" that he said, which would have been funnier).
I like to make up my own, the more obscure the better. You might say "B as in Boyfriend, G as in Girlfriend, M as in Merry Christmas" but I prefer to say "B as in Blitzkrieg, G as in Gargantuan, M as in Multitudinous". And therein lies the key, I think, to making oneself understood over a bad telephone connection. Use less-frequently heard words for your examples and the person on the other end of the connection will be more likely to understand.
Yeah, that's the ticket! (T as in Thermonuclear, H as in Happenstance, E as in Eucalyptus....)
Do tell us in a comment your favorite (British, favourite) ways to spell phonetically.
Words people use to help others understand how something is spelled. Some people call them "phonetic alphabets" but that is actually a misnomer.
What brought this to the fore was an article I read recently, "It Might Be Time to Update the Old 'Alfa-Bravo-Charlie' Spelling Alphabet".
Read it. You might enjoy it.
What caught my eye was the word "Old" in the title. To my way of thinking, the "Alfa-Bravo-Charlie-(Delta-Echo-Foxtrot)" sequence is the new one, not the old one. I learned it in the U.S. Air Force, where it was called the NATO phonetic alphabet (okay, so it was way back in the sixties). The "old" one to me is the one everybody used before the sixties, during World War II: Able-Baker-Charlie-Dog-Easy-Fox and so forth.
When I say "everybody" I mean people in the United States. Of course, there was the occasional crazy divergence. I once heard comedian Shelley Berman say "N as in Newel Post" in one of his routines (unless it was "K as in Knewel Post" that he said, which would have been funnier).
I like to make up my own, the more obscure the better. You might say "B as in Boyfriend, G as in Girlfriend, M as in Merry Christmas" but I prefer to say "B as in Blitzkrieg, G as in Gargantuan, M as in Multitudinous". And therein lies the key, I think, to making oneself understood over a bad telephone connection. Use less-frequently heard words for your examples and the person on the other end of the connection will be more likely to understand.
Yeah, that's the ticket! (T as in Thermonuclear, H as in Happenstance, E as in Eucalyptus....)
Do tell us in a comment your favorite (British, favourite) ways to spell phonetically.
Saturday, July 4, 2020
Fascinating, but useless
I want to make one thing perfectly clear. I am not talking about myself.
No, friends, I'm talking about an article by Nicola Davis in The Guardian entitled "Scientists say most likely number of contactable alien civilisations is 36" which you can read by clicking here.
(Memo to file: I prefer headlines with initial capital letters on important words.)
The article is interesting, but not enlightening. It will introduce you to the Drake equation and the Astrobiological Copernican Principle and include paragraphs like the following:
"Under the strictest set of assumptions – where, as on Earth, life forms between 4.5bn and 5.5bn years after star formation – there are likely between four and 211 civilisations in the Milky Way today capable of communicating with others, with 36 the most likely figure."
Somewhere between four and 211. That really narrows it down. 36 the "most likely".
Really?
And the paragraph after that one states that "our civilisation would need to survive at least another 6,120 years for two-way communication."
Who came up with that figure?
It's balderdash, True "pie in the sky". A wild guess couched in a scienific cloak. As I said at the beginning, it's fascinating, but useless.
We are supposed to bow and genuflect in front of such erudition and knowledge.
If a scientist says it, it must be true.
One must be careful, though. I'm sure many scoffed at the idea of sailing west to reach the east when everybody knew that the earth was flat.
You may disagree with me in the comments. I don't mind.
So far in the month of July I have produced a post every day. I may be turning into Yorkshire Pudding.
Talk about your alien civilisation.
(P.S. - Oops, I was wrong. This is the fourth day in July but my third post. I probably have no business speaking ill of scientists when I can't even count.)
No, friends, I'm talking about an article by Nicola Davis in The Guardian entitled "Scientists say most likely number of contactable alien civilisations is 36" which you can read by clicking here.
(Memo to file: I prefer headlines with initial capital letters on important words.)
The article is interesting, but not enlightening. It will introduce you to the Drake equation and the Astrobiological Copernican Principle and include paragraphs like the following:
"Under the strictest set of assumptions – where, as on Earth, life forms between 4.5bn and 5.5bn years after star formation – there are likely between four and 211 civilisations in the Milky Way today capable of communicating with others, with 36 the most likely figure."
Somewhere between four and 211. That really narrows it down. 36 the "most likely".
Really?
And the paragraph after that one states that "our civilisation would need to survive at least another 6,120 years for two-way communication."
Who came up with that figure?
It's balderdash, True "pie in the sky". A wild guess couched in a scienific cloak. As I said at the beginning, it's fascinating, but useless.
We are supposed to bow and genuflect in front of such erudition and knowledge.
If a scientist says it, it must be true.
One must be careful, though. I'm sure many scoffed at the idea of sailing west to reach the east when everybody knew that the earth was flat.
You may disagree with me in the comments. I don't mind.
So far in the month of July I have produced a post every day. I may be turning into Yorkshire Pudding.
Talk about your alien civilisation.
(P.S. - Oops, I was wrong. This is the fourth day in July but my third post. I probably have no business speaking ill of scientists when I can't even count.)
Thursday, July 2, 2020
"the most memorable Epocha, in the History of America"
Today is July the twoth second.
One of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, John Adams of Massachusetts, who later became our first Vice-President under Washington and then our second President, wrote to his wife Abigail, "The Second Day of July 1776, will be the most memorable Epocha, in the History of America".
He missed it by two days. Independence Day is actually celebrated on July 4, the date that the wording of the Declaration of Independence was approved.
Here it is in full. I encourage you to enlarge it (if you can -- you may have to use a magnifying glass) and read it in its entirety in the old-fashioned cursive script of the time. Even "our Brittish brethren" (a phrase used in the Declaration) and Canadian and Australian friends. It is an exercise worth doing at least once in your life.
It is much out of fashion in today's cancel culture. All the more reason.
One of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, John Adams of Massachusetts, who later became our first Vice-President under Washington and then our second President, wrote to his wife Abigail, "The Second Day of July 1776, will be the most memorable Epocha, in the History of America".
He missed it by two days. Independence Day is actually celebrated on July 4, the date that the wording of the Declaration of Independence was approved.
Here it is in full. I encourage you to enlarge it (if you can -- you may have to use a magnifying glass) and read it in its entirety in the old-fashioned cursive script of the time. Even "our Brittish brethren" (a phrase used in the Declaration) and Canadian and Australian friends. It is an exercise worth doing at least once in your life.
It is much out of fashion in today's cancel culture. All the more reason.
Wednesday, July 1, 2020
Welcome to 2020.5
July the oneth first. The first day of the second half of the year.
And it's Canada Day to boot.
Congratulations to Red and his compatriots, all 35,585,953 of you.
That is all.
P.S. - Is it still okay to sing "the thistle, shamrock, rose entwine the maple leaf forever"?
Inquiring minds want to know.
And it's Canada Day to boot.
Congratulations to Red and his compatriots, all 35,585,953 of you.
That is all.
P.S. - Is it still okay to sing "the thistle, shamrock, rose entwine the maple leaf forever"?
Inquiring minds want to know.
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