Early Risers.

[PhilJ W]

5 minutes ago, BoD said:

‘Talking of Facebook I have recently contacted one or two members thereon. Originally it was in order to see the video of those numpties with the 8x4 baseboard.  I noticed there are quite a few other members of ER also on Facebook and so I may fire out a few more  requests.   
 

This is purely because I would like to think I could still keep in touch with friends here  if anything ever happened to RMweb. Unlikely I know, but on past experience and with recent goings on.........
 

 

There's plenty of railway modelling groups on there as well. Pity that they've deemed fit to make it such a PITA to look up your groups.

[J. S. Bach]

Happy New Year from the Piedmont. It turned out to quite quiet last night, not like being somewhere in the Mekong Delta. Oh well, hopefully this year will be as good as or better than the last one for all here.

[polybear]

55 minutes ago, PhilJ W said:

Also a couple of soft toys that I intend to give to my friends terrier dog and a chihuahua that they are caring for.   I wonder how long the soft toys will last?

 

What did my little furry friends ever do to you?

 

Expect a visit from Uncle Frank....

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[brianusa]

Quiet eve last night.  Terrible telly programmes so off to bed early.  No real noise until close to the witching hour and then only a few muffled bangs.  Even the cat slept through it all at the bottom of our bed so a good start to 2020.  Must get used to writing 2020. 2020..............

       Brian.

[jamie92208]

1 hour ago, Ozexpatriate said:

 

 

.

 

The biggest mistake of course is the calculation of year 1. Even today there is no consistent scholarly agreement as to when it should be (somewhere around 1BC - 6BC, probably 4 BC). Add to that the fact that at the time the numbering was reset to Anno Domini (originally imagined in 525 AD) the mathematical concept of zero was unknown in Europe. Plus there is the complication that the medieval counting of the year began on March 25 (Lady Day / Annunciation) instead of the next January 1. (From a medieval perspective the year we think of as the 2,020th year of our Lord began on March 25 2019*.)

 

 

I have read somewhere that the problem with what year was 1 AD was due to a monk, tasked with the calculation, making a mistake about the number of Roman Emperors.  The year of Jesus's birth is given quite accurately in yhe Gospels relating to an Emperor.  They needed to work forward from there and apparently one Emperor got forgotten.

 

Enough of such things.  I have just sampked the Aberfeldy that Beth gave me for Christmas it's gone down very nicely indeed.

 

Jamie

[New Haven Neil]

28 minutes ago, polybear said:

 

What did my little furry friends ever do to you?

 

Expect a visit from Uncle Frank....

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Donk's in there with you!

 

 

[leopardml2341]

G'night All; back to w@rk tomorrow

[AndyID]

13 minutes ago, jamie92208 said:

I have read somewhere that the problem with what year was 1 AD was due to a monk, tasked with the calculation, making a mistake about the number of Roman Emperors.  The year of Jesus's birth is given quite accurately in yhe Gospels relating to an Emperor.  They needed to work forward from there and apparently one Emperor got forgotten.

 

 

Whether or not it's actually a new decade might be debatable but there is no denying we are now in the 20's.

 

Will "The Charleston" make a big come-back? I'm pretty sure my knees are beyond it if it does.

[monkeysarefun]

21 hours ago, Gwiwer said:

We refused to watch the Sydney fireworks this year. When your country is on fire, sizeable towns are being lost along with lives and countless homes, when your Prime Minister thinks that, in the midst of this it is ok to buggar off and holiday in Hawaii. And when a couple of million people (which would be around 8% of the entire Australian population) petition to cancel firework displays .....

 

The corporate greed and double-standards applied by those responsible in Sydney beggars belief. Cash-cow before the safety of the masses, if you like. And to have to pull firefighters off active bushfires to allow adequate cover around Sydney harbour .....

 

 

 

Several years ago the state government realised that like everything else they'd flogged off to the private sector the Sydney fireworks could be corporatised too.

So most of the decent viewing areas  - which are public owned lands such as he opera house forecourt, bits of the Botanic gardens, the Quay and so on are blocked  off to the public prior to new years eve and either used by the governments corporate mates as private viewing areas or have been leased to 'events'  companies who then charge the public a heap of cash to stand on their own land with a plastic glass  of warm  cheap champagne and  paper plate of limp salad and queue 2 hours for the only toilet. The plebs have to fight over what is left..

 

Its impossible to convey the enormity of the fires and their impact here, Not just to the poor people who have had to either rush from their homes with just what they can carry, or fight a wall of flame 50 metres high with a garden hose, but on every day life. I honestly cannot remember when I last saw the sun as anything more than a faint orange glow. It would definitely be before early December. The air is always smoke filled to some degree and the morning routine now includes a check of the air quality website to see at what levels the smog is. Today for instance the PM2.5 level is 183, which is only 5 times the recommended safe level  so thats not too bad in this new alien world that is happening here at the moment. It can be over 1000, Canberra had 3000 a couple of days ago. Any meaningful outside work is to be avoided in this air so the Sydney summer this year means siting inside all day.

 

But it doesn't even feel like summer. Even the hottest days with temperatures in the high 30's look like miserable winters days as the smoke amongst the trees and lying in the valleys looks like fog. So your mind is thinking it must be about 15 degrees like a crisp winters day until you open the door to go outside and its 41 or something. There is never a normal sunny day, its impossible to tell if there are clouds above the smoke, just sometimes the orange tinge on everything seems a bit brighter so that means its probably sunny somewhere above the pollution.

 

The next job in the morning is to check the 'fires near me' website to see how the fire that spreads from northeast of here down to the west then curls in to the southeast is going. Its a crescent shaped bastard that has burnt out about 250,000 hectares and is still going.  Every direction the wind blows sends it towards some poor bu99er. We here dread northwesterlies sending it back this way, feel relieved  then a little guilty when the forecast shows westerlies or southerlies because that means someone else will cop it.

At the very least some road will probably be closed  either due to the fire or from the RFS backburning if the conditions aren't too bad meaning you need to replan your trip.

 

This fire comes so fast and embers blown by the winds set light to bush in its path up to 20km away so suddenly fire that was a reasonable distance away, to be watched cautiously is suddenly all around you. Then its too late to leave. You get an SMS from the Rural Fire service saying this and to 'seek shelter from the flames'.

The Thursday before Christmas my brother who lives 3 towns away got the notification that fire was approaching his town and to leave right then.  The trip to the safe town - 10 minutes usually - took almost 2 hours due to evacuees, thick smoke, confusion, emergency vehicles.. Lucky the fire didn't reach the town.

 

The radio interviewed a woman so relieved that the fire had got to her street but her house was saved. Listenning to the radio 2 days later when weather conditions had deteriorated yet again reports came that that town had been burned out again so I guess she lost her house that time. These fires dont just pass through, they charge this way then that way and reburn everything all over again, And they cant be put out. They create their own weather - heat rises up into the skies creating thunderstorms that send dry lightning strikes causing yet more fires.

 

We've had 2 years of drought - I've had less than a third of average rainfall this year and everything is completely dry. Falling dam levels means that watering lawns and gardens is banned adding to the dryness and the fires intensity as it travels. Towns that have a fraction of their water supply left are using it to fight fires. Ash is polluting what is still lying in catchments and dams. They reckon half a billion animals have gone. Didn't even know we had that many to start with. Cows are eating grass covered in ash and fallout, will that affect the milk? 

 

We really do need some rain.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited January 1, 2020 by monkeysarefun

[Barry O]

Goodnight all!

[Andrew P]

19 minutes ago, monkeysarefun said:

 

Several years ago the state government realised that like everything else they'd flogged off to the private sector the Sydney fireworks could be corporatised too.

So most of the decent viewing areas  - which are public owned lands such as he opera house forecourt, bits of the Botanic gardens, the Quay and so on are blocked  off to the public prior to new years eve and either used by the governments corporate mates as private viewing areas or have been leased to 'events'  companies who then charge the public a heap of cash to stand on their own land with a plastic glass  of warm  cheap champagne and  paper plate of limp salad and queue 2 hours for the only toilet. The plebs have to fight over what is left..

 

Its impossible to convey the enormity of the fires and their impact here, Not just to the poor people who have had to either rush from their homes with just what they can carry, or fight a wall of flame 50 metres high with a garden hose, but on every day life. I honestly cannot remember when I last saw the sun as anything more than a faint orange glow. It would definitely be before early December. The air is always smoke filled to some degree and the morning routine now includes a check of the air quality website to see at what levels the smog is. Today for instance the PM2.5 level is 183, which is only 5 times the recommended safe level  so thats not too bad in this new alien world that is happening here at the moment. It can be over 1000, Canberra had 3000 a couple of days ago. Any meaningful outside work is to be avoided in this air so the Sydney summer this year means siting inside all day.

 

But it doesn't even feel like summer. Even the hottest days with temperatures in the high 30's look like miserable winters days as the smoke amongst the trees and lying in the valleys looks like fog. So your mind is thinking it must be about 15 degrees like a crisp winters day until you open the door to go outside and its 41 or something. There is never a normal sunny day, its impossible to tell if there are clouds above the smoke, just sometimes the orange tinge on everything seems a bit brighter so that means its probably sunny somewhere above the pollution.

 

The next job in the morning is to check the 'fires near me' website to see how the fire that spreads from northeast of here down to the west then curls in to the southeast is going. Its a crescent shaped bastard that has burnt out about 250,000 hectares and is still going.  Every direction the wind blows sends it towards some poor bu99er. We here dread northwesterlies sending it back this way, feel relieved  then a little guilty when the forecast shows westerlies or southerlies because that means someone else will cop it.

At the very least some road will probably be closed  either due to the fire or from the RFS backburning if the conditions aren't too bad meaning you need to replan your trip.

 

This fire comes so fast and embers blown by the winds set light to bush in its path up to 20km away so suddenly fire that was a reasonable distance away, to be watched cautiously is suddenly all around you. Then its too late to leave. You get an SMS from the Rural Fire service saying this and to 'seek shelter from the flames'.

The Thursday before Christmas my brother who lives 3 towns away got the notification that fire was approaching his town and to leave right then.  The trip to the safe town - 10 minutes usually - took almost 2 hours due to evacuees, thick smoke, confusion, emergency vehicles.. Lucky the fire didn't reach the town.

 

The radio interviewed a woman so relieved that the fire had got to her street but her house was saved. Listenning to the radio 2 days later when weather conditions had deteriorated yet again reports came that that town had been burned out again so I guess she lost her house that time. These fires dont just pass through, they charge this way then that way and reburn everything all over again, And they cant be put out. They create their own weather - heat rises up into the skies creating thunderstorms that send dry lightning strikes causing yet more fires.

 

We've had 2 years of drought - I've had less than a third of average rainfall this year and everything is completely dry. Falling dam levels means that watering lawns and gardens is banned adding to the dryness and the fires intensity as it travels. Towns that have a fraction of their water supply left are using it to fight fires. Ash is polluting what is still lying in catchments and dams. They reckon half a billion animals have gone. Didn't even know we had that many to start with. Cows are eating grass covered in ash and fallout, will that affect the milk? 

 

We really do need some rain.

 

 

 

 

 

A simple Friendly / Supportive just doesn't see adequate under these circumstances. 

[JohnDMJ]

48 minutes ago, AndyID said:

 

Whether or not it's actually a new decade might be debatable but there is no denying we are now in the 20's.

 

Will "The Charleston" make a big come-back? I'm pretty sure my knees are beyond it if it does.

 

IMHO, 2020 is the first year of the new decade. Its completion will be marked when we increment to 2021.

[tigerburnie]

G'night all

[AndyID]

4 minutes ago, JohnDMJ said:

 

IMHO, 2020 is the first year of the new decade. Its completion will be marked when we increment to 2021.

 

That's OK if you believe the first decade only lasted nine years and ended in 9 AD.

[monkeysarefun]

21 hours ago, Gwiwer said:

when your Prime Minister thinks that, in the midst of this it is ok to buggar off and holiday in Hawaii.

 

 The Federal government recently  paid $190,000 (of taxpayers money) to "empathy consultants"

 

We should demand our money back..

[brianusa]

We can only read in horror the story from MAF.  Sure we sympathise as we sit and read miles away and our area is not without its tragedies but not on the scale of these infernos.  You wonder if there will be any people, animals or places left after they pass; not much for sure if any of our recent conflagrations are anything to go by.  Pray for rain maybe but sadly the time isn't right no matter what the climate change may have brought.  The sad part is will there be any changes made to combat this perennial problem for Australia.

      Brian.

[monkeysarefun]

6 minutes ago, brianusa said:

We can only read in horror the story from MAF.  Sure we sympathise as we sit and read miles away and our area is not without its tragedies but not on the scale of these infernos.  You wonder if there will be any people, animals or places left after they pass; not much for sure if any of our recent conflagrations are anything to go by.  Pray for rain maybe but sadly the time isn't right no matter what the climate change may have brought.  The sad part is will there be any changes made to combat this perennial problem for Australia.

      Brian.

 

It's the drought, its the drought" is the government response whenever  climate change is brought up when asked about these fires , as though the drought is somehow a separate entity unrelated to climate.  Well between 2000 and 2011 we had the millennial drought - so intense that it was described as a 1 in 1000 year drought. Less than 7 years later this drought started, shaping up to be just as bad. Is this our future, to have 1 in 1000 year droughts every couple of years? And if so when does the government admit that it is not a drought any more, but in fact how things are going to be from now on?  But they won't because for them climate change isn't happenning, no matter how many times we have "hottest day ever, longest heatwave ever" records broken.

 

The scary thought is that this MAY be the new normal. Maybe it won't rain like it used to. Sydney is down to around 40% water, scheduled to run dry in 18 months if the drought doesn't shift.

We may become the first city that cannot be lived in due to a changing climate.

 

There is footage of some of our government ministers unaware of a boom mike, having a laugh at the concerns of Pacific island nations about rising sea levels. How ironic if in fact Australia became the first nation of climate refugees...

 

A chopper dangling a water bucket attached just flew over. Just helping control a back burn at Oakdale, according to a quick check of the RFS website. There is no relaxing at the moment..

[JohnDMJ]

Well, that's it over at this end of the year; Christmas and New Year have been successfully (5.2 return on my 15 day Swiss pass!) spent in Switzerland and both ChrisF and I depart homeward tomorrow morning! Whilst ChrisF is 'going with the herd' and spending tomorrow night in Köln before returning home on Friday, I shall be bidding them farewell at Zürich in an attempt to be in my own bed tomorrow evening (subject to SNCF / RATP in France! - wish me luck, PLEASE!)

 

Whatever passes for reality and / or normality looms!

 

Let's see what happens in 2020; I might be re-posting this next year, having done it all again!

Edited January 1, 2020 by JohnDMJ

[BSW01]

Good evening everyone 

 

Well that’s the first day of 2020 over and it's back to some sort of normality tomorrow, as Sheila will be returning to her Zumba classes after the festive break, it may come as a shock to the system. 

 

Goodnight all 

[laurenceb]

Night awl

[PhilJ W]

Goodnight all.

[The Stationmaster]

G'night all.

[pH]

A couple of weeks ago, I posted this picture of an unusually high tide in Burrard Inlet:

 

 

and said that maybe I should post a picture of the area at low tide for comparison. Well, here's a pretty low tide today:

 

 

The area beyond the boardwalk is a salt marsh - an increasingly rare habitat around here.

Edited January 2, 2020 by pH

[BR60103]

14 hours ago, tigerburnie said:

I think the problem is more local to rmweb……………………………..

Isn't that the Internet?

 

[AndyID]

5 minutes ago, BR60103 said:

Isn't that the Internet?

 

 

The Internet provides the communication between your computer/tablet/phone and the RMweb computer. It looks like the RMweb computer is having some problems.