Thursday, September 30, 2004
All Kinds of Everything
Another cryptic crossword completed! That's 3 this year.
Members of the Family Ness :
BabyNess, CarefulNess, CleverNess, EagerNess, EyewitNess (lame! I don't remember this one), FerociousNess, GrumpyNess, HeavyNess, Her HighNess, LovelyNess, MightyNess, SillyNess, SpeedyNess, SportyNess.
Equinoxes and solstices were discussed recently - loads of Googleworthy pages, so look yourselves. To summarise : the summer solstice is usually 21st June, but doesn't have to be (last time it was not was on 22/06/1975, the day one of my friends was born). The autumn equinox generally occurs on 23rd September (just - 02:19 on average), and in the period from 1900 to 2100 has fallen as early as 22:58 on 21/09 and as late as 05:42 on 24/09 (sorry, no years).
The most likely reason everyone thought it was 21st September is that the equinox is not defined as "the day when daytime and nighttime are of equal length" any more, it's the point when the centre of the sun hits the celestial equator (projection of the Earth's equator onto the sky), which occurs very close to, but not exactly at, the same point in the Earth's orbit. It also fluctuates relative to the calendar because we have a 365-day calendar, but a 365.2425 (ish) day orbit around the sun, and what with leap days monkeying around with things, there's (roughly) a 400-year cycle over which the times repeat themselves.
Calendars are complicated!
I have a feeling I'd promised to put something else here that we discussed in Ha Ha last night, but I can't remember what it was. I was going to keep minutes of everything Iasonas says from now on ("Superman's a silly name - I'd never call my son or daughter that."), but I wasn't paying full attention.
Bertie's back in town this weekend, so we're having another poker night to celebrate. I might need another coin jar after Saturday...
I hate reading books that are part of a series before the series is fully available. Once again, I've done exactly that though with Coalescent by Stephen Baxter. Pretty good book, with a pretty amazing central idea that doesn't get properly revealed till very late on, but now I'm left hanging on for the subsequent books. Hurry up and write!
UPDATED : Snarf! I didn't even have to look it up, it came to me at the same moment as I remembered that I was supposed to remember it!
Members of the Family Ness :
BabyNess, CarefulNess, CleverNess, EagerNess, EyewitNess (lame! I don't remember this one), FerociousNess, GrumpyNess, HeavyNess, Her HighNess, LovelyNess, MightyNess, SillyNess, SpeedyNess, SportyNess.
Equinoxes and solstices were discussed recently - loads of Googleworthy pages, so look yourselves. To summarise : the summer solstice is usually 21st June, but doesn't have to be (last time it was not was on 22/06/1975, the day one of my friends was born). The autumn equinox generally occurs on 23rd September (just - 02:19 on average), and in the period from 1900 to 2100 has fallen as early as 22:58 on 21/09 and as late as 05:42 on 24/09 (sorry, no years).
The most likely reason everyone thought it was 21st September is that the equinox is not defined as "the day when daytime and nighttime are of equal length" any more, it's the point when the centre of the sun hits the celestial equator (projection of the Earth's equator onto the sky), which occurs very close to, but not exactly at, the same point in the Earth's orbit. It also fluctuates relative to the calendar because we have a 365-day calendar, but a 365.2425 (ish) day orbit around the sun, and what with leap days monkeying around with things, there's (roughly) a 400-year cycle over which the times repeat themselves.
Calendars are complicated!
I have a feeling I'd promised to put something else here that we discussed in Ha Ha last night, but I can't remember what it was. I was going to keep minutes of everything Iasonas says from now on ("Superman's a silly name - I'd never call my son or daughter that."), but I wasn't paying full attention.
Bertie's back in town this weekend, so we're having another poker night to celebrate. I might need another coin jar after Saturday...
I hate reading books that are part of a series before the series is fully available. Once again, I've done exactly that though with Coalescent by Stephen Baxter. Pretty good book, with a pretty amazing central idea that doesn't get properly revealed till very late on, but now I'm left hanging on for the subsequent books. Hurry up and write!
UPDATED : Snarf! I didn't even have to look it up, it came to me at the same moment as I remembered that I was supposed to remember it!
posted by Chip : 22:22
2 comments
Comments:
On books: it's pretty irritating when you're reading a series which may never be finished (discworld) and you know there are only two more to go... for now.
But at least with Discworld, they're not really connected plots - there's no single story running through all of them. I'd say (from my very minimal knowledge of such things) that they're more like episodes of a soap opera than "chapters" in some bigger story.
If you're talking series that never end, how about Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time?
Oh, and incidentally, do you remember what I was supposed to be putting on here for you and Lint? I'm sure it wasn't bread recipes...
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If you're talking series that never end, how about Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time?
Oh, and incidentally, do you remember what I was supposed to be putting on here for you and Lint? I'm sure it wasn't bread recipes...
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