Apple season  I've only harvested from one tree so far and I've got 3 sacks to process. Another bucket full of windfalls has been stewed and frozen and I got up an hour early to get the second batch into the dehydrator this morning before work. I can dry about forty apples at a time in there and even that takes an hour to sort out. They're so bruised after that windy weather though that they'll rot in no time if I don't get them sorted quickly. Tomorrow I've got to go and pick the cooking apples. Luckily we're not making cider this year or I'd be getting no sleep at all.
If you can keep your head, while those around you are losing theirs, you may not have grasped the seriousness of the situation.
...does make you wonder about the computing power required for a moon shot... but I'm not starting any conspiracy theory....
In the early 80's I was working on a mainframe for a building society with a set of the multi-platter (80MB? - like above - the protective plastic cover came off when the disk was screwed into the drive.The drives were quite large - 2ft(?) across, 18 inches (?) high - and quite heavy) removable disk packs that fitted in top loading 'washing machine' type disk drives. The disk packs had to be constantly changed to access the various 'files' - but one of the disk drives developed a fault and didn't spin down the disks when the top was opened and also allowed the operator to screw on the protective cover and remove the still spinning discs...just like a gyroscope... Humorous at the time, but just lucky that no one got hurt...
That's the ones. Just as well I was young and fit in those days. Cleaning them was pretty basic too. Just a foam pad on a stick, sprayed with acohol and the disc spun on a jig while we shoved the stick between the platters.
We were also told by one of the maintenance engineers of a drum, which was a much bigger variant on these things, and ran at very high speed, which had snapped its spindle and embedded itself in a wall. Whoever thought computing could be so dangerous :-)
It is not acceptable to park completely blocking someones drive, and dissappear for 20 minutes. I certainly wouldnt do it, but then I wouldnt park across someones drive, nor would any of my relatives or friends. I was going shopping I could have been going to work. If you have someone visiting you, do you not have a responsibility for their behavior. They could have parked outside the neighbours drive, that would have been logical.
Someone has parked over the road from me in an awkward place that stops my neighbours parking in front of their house. The car has been there for four months now without moving. It's taxed and MOTed but who just parks a car randomly like that and just leaves it? Â
If it hasn't been moved for several months and nobody local knows who the owner is, you could try contacting the police on the non-emergency number and explain the situation. It may have been stolen and dumped, or the police may be able to contact the registered keeper to check everything is OK. As long as it has tax, MOT and insurance they are entitled to park it on any public road as long as it doesn't cause an obstruction or hazard. There is no entitlement to park outside your own home unless it's a private road. I know it can be annoying but it isn't breaking any laws.
If /when the tax or insurance expires the authorities can then impound it.
I'm a bit behind here... sorry, had 83 posts to read on this thread...Â
Reverting to grammar / use of English, my uncle, who was a (somewhat eccentric) head teacher, used "I shall drown! No-one will save me!" to illustrate the difference in meaning between "shall" and "will", when teaching in the 1960s. (The swimmer drowns, having effectively forbidden anyone to rescue him.) I suspect these nuances of meaning have largely disappeared, except in legal documents where "shall" still has legal weight, I believe.Â
I was taught that "might" implied present or future possibility, whereas "may" implied permission. "Please may I leave the table?" "It might be sunny tomorrow." "May" is used for present or future events only - so that you should say "might have been" rather than "may have been". I know it shouldn't irritate me when others operate by different rules, but it does...
The word which makes me smile when used with its American rather than its English meaning, is "momentarily". "We shall be landing momentarily at Manchester airport" means to me "for a moment", not "in a moment". Bouncing off the runway and going somewhere more interesting instead, perhaps? Â
Since 2019 I've lived in east Clare, in the west of Ireland.
People who think using "I" instead of "me" is posh annoy I.* * It is perfectly acceptable for people from the south west to use this construction, but only whilst wearing a smock and chewing on a bit of straw.Â
People who think using "I" instead of "me" is posh annoy I.* * It is perfectly acceptable for people from the south west to use this construction, but only whilst wearing a smock and chewing on a bit of straw.Â
I’ll have to tell ‘ee that then. I’ll do it dreckly.Â
Gardening on the wild, windy west side of Dartmoor.Â
Unfortunately,I'm not sufficiently conversant with the vernacular to make a witty riposte so I will let you off. Note the insertion of you or else there might have been farts or fireworks.
Please don't talk about bouncing off runways. Back in 1984 I went to LA on the now defunct Pan Am. We were strapped in and coming down through (unusually for LA) low cloud. The pilot seemed to be surprised to find a runway as we came through the cloud. The plane landed very heavily, bounced , everyone went into crash position, all the oxygen masks fell out, and then we landed again, bursting a tyre in the process. By the time we got through immigration I was a nervous wreck.
Sorry, @fidgetbones. Didn't intend to stir up unfortunate memories... our first landing in Madeira in 1999 was a bit hairy, too, though not as bad as you describe. The runway was short (now extended a bit) and built out over the sea, so if you overshoot you get wet...
Since 2019 I've lived in east Clare, in the west of Ireland.
Please don't talk about bouncing off runways. Back in 1984 I went to LA on the now defunct Pan Am. We were strapped in and coming down through (unusually for LA) low cloud. The pilot seemed to be surprised to find a runway as we came through the cloud. The plane landed very heavily, bounced , everyone went into crash position, all the oxygen masks fell out, and then we landed again, bursting a tyre in the process. By the time we got through immigration I was a nervous wreck.
I was in Toronto airport departures waiting on the return air France flight of AF358 (as in, same plane on turn around), when it crashed. You could see the smoke from the terminal, they turned off all the TVs "to avoid panic", you can imagine how that went.Â
Getting on a plane 2 days later was challenging.
And if anyone has flown out of Cairo, they'll tell you about the massive ditch down the side of the runway filled with burnt out plane wrecks. Delightful.Â
Posts
Reverting to grammar / use of English, my uncle, who was a (somewhat eccentric) head teacher, used "I shall drown! No-one will save me!" to illustrate the difference in meaning between "shall" and "will", when teaching in the 1960s. (The swimmer drowns, having effectively forbidden anyone to rescue him.) I suspect these nuances of meaning have largely disappeared, except in legal documents where "shall" still has legal weight, I believe.Â
I was taught that "might" implied present or future possibility, whereas "may" implied permission. "Please may I leave the table?" "It might be sunny tomorrow." "May" is used for present or future events only - so that you should say "might have been" rather than "may have been". I know it shouldn't irritate me when others operate by different rules, but it does...
The word which makes me smile when used with its American rather than its English meaning, is "momentarily". "We shall be landing momentarily at Manchester airport" means to me "for a moment", not "in a moment". Bouncing off the runway and going somewhere more interesting instead, perhaps?Â
* It is perfectly acceptable for people from the south west to use this construction, but only whilst wearing a smock and chewing on a bit of straw.Â
I’ll do it dreckly.Â
Getting on a plane 2 days later was challenging.
And if anyone has flown out of Cairo, they'll tell you about the massive ditch down the side of the runway filled with burnt out plane wrecks. Delightful.Â