Comments

Take a chill pill — 15 Comments

  1. what if you were the perfect human being with no disorders??

    I reckon 'They' would say im suffering from DDD – Disorder Deficiency Disorder !

  2. I don't know about any syndromes or disorders but I do know that this time of year sucks!  I can't wait for spring.

  3. Dark bah miserable humbug – but: The good news is that earliest sunset is on the 13th (at 52 North anyway), after which it gets lighter in the evenings. The bad news is that the mornings keep getting darker till the end of the month. Between the two lie "The Dark Days of Winter" (see aa.usno.navy.mil/faq/docs/rs_solstices.php).
    I've overcome the SAD bit with the aid of a f******g great 250W SON lamp on a stick, coupled to a time-switch. SON lamps come on gradually, from a tiny flicker to an amazing orange-white brightness, over about 10 mins or so. Its so king bright that you can't look at it without grinning. It's like my very own sunrise (or slow nuclear explosion maybe) in the corner of the room.
    So now you know ! What stuff one can learn off the inter-webs, eh?
    PS: have you tried rubbing lard on the syndromes?

    • Welcome, Gareth!  That is a phenomenon that confuses me.  How can it get lighter in the evenings while still getting darker in the mornings?  Is there a strange axial tilt that wobbles every night or is the Earth not round?  Logically it doesn't quite add up, but then who am I to argue?  Leastwise, I couldn't give a shite about dark mornings because I'm always asleep but brighter evenings do cheer me up.

      Are those lamps any good for indoor propagation of certain herbal plants?  Might be worth an investment….

      "have you tried rubbing lard on the syndromes?" – Isn't there a law against that?

  4. Thanks for the welcome 🙂

    The Equation of Time is what you need for for all your axial-tilt-wobbliness and adding up – see http://www.sundials.co.uk/equation.htm for useful and interesting stuff. IMHO timezones were a poor invention. Much better when Bristol could get up 20 mins after London, and somewhere like Baltimore or Dingle I guess whenever they chose 🙂 Sadly all done away with by railway and boat timetables.  Anyway have a look at  http://www.shadowspro.com for a free programme to create your own local time sundial.

    I couldn't comment *cough* on lights, but I think it's what get's used for lettuce under glass.

    And I think that a mixture of brimstone and treacle is still allowed under the EU ALOS-14  Directive (Anti Lard On Syndromes Directive 2014)

    gareth

    • Damnit!  You've sent me off on a long path of study now…. 

      I have a sundial in the garden.  It's a lovely job with a carved granite pillar and plinth, firmly embedded in the ground.  Unfortunately trees have grown up in the intervening fifty years and the damn thing is in permanent shade now.  I downloaded that programme [and had fun making it work in Linux!] so might make myself a new one, if I can work out the maths.

      Growing lettuce is fine.  What did you think I meant?

  5. My village in France is bisected by the Greenwich Meridian.   During the winter a group of us have had a series of 'workshops' to produce a Sundial to put outside the Mairie.   It's about 50m west of the meridian if Marie -Magdalena (the sexy voiced lady who lives in my GPS box) is correct.

    A local sculptor is preparing a stone column to support it.

    • I have a great fondness for sundials.  I don't know why.  Maybe it's their apparent simplicity?

      Send a photo!

  6. I seem to be suffering from GFOS (Getting F***ing Older Syndrome) but that's beside the point. It goes along with all these other syndromes of mine:

    LAS (Lacka Ambition Syndrome)

    LHS (Lacka Hearing Syndrome)

    GNES (Got No Energy Syndrome)

    FWIWGTDS (Forgetting What I Was Going To Do Syndrome)

    FWIWGTSS (Forgetting What I Was Going To Say Syndrome)

    IASTS (I Ache Something Terrible Syndrome)

    And last but not least…

    MPSTBGSS (My Pecker Seems To Be Getting Shorter Syndrome)

    Okay, the above is not nearly as deep and clever as all the previous comments but I'd already thought of the idea after I read the first paragraph of your post.

    Also, if I had my way about it, I'd buy a nice plot somewhere along the Rose Line and build a house in such a way that the First Prime Meridian went right down the middle of it.  Now, what that has to do with anything is beyond me. I just thought I'd write it down here to see how it looked. You see, I also suffer from this:

    SOTDSS (Straying Off The Damn Subject Syndrome)

    • Most of the above are familiar, but not all.

      Did you ever consider the idea of permanently mooring a ship on the Prime at the Equator?  No more seasons and no problems with telling the time.  If you call the ship Zulu, you can get an extra kick out of it!

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