Chat

[Randi]

I remember that

[Hanibal94]

Indeed, it is always risky to let people who use the Internet decide such things.
Some more good ones I found include:

* Greenpeace does a whale-naming contest, the winner is "Mr. Splashy Pants" - and they accepted it!
* Walmart sponsors a Pitbull concert at the store with the most votes - which ends up being the one in Kodiak, Alaska. And Pitbull did actually go there and do the concert!
* An online poll asked where Justin Bieber should do his next concert tour. It had to be shut down after North Korea took a huge lead.
* Canadian couple asks what they should name their newborn daughter, the winner is "Cthulhu All-Spark" (which they fortunately did not use)
* Papa John's and Chegg did an online contest where Taylor Swift would perform a free concert at the school that received the most votes on Facebook. The Horace Mann School for the Deaf won by a lot (Couldn't find out if Taylor Swift really did go there, though)

[Randi]

[AvastMH]

[AvastMH]

A very happy 200th birthday to HM Coastguard!

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/keep ... k-birthday

Claire Hughes, Director of HM Coastguard said:
'When you look at how we started and where we are now, it’s easy to celebrate the innovation and development that can be seen throughout the service. And yet, we are far more proud of the people, the volunteers and the staff who throughout two centuries have continued to strive to keep people safe at the coast and out at sea. We always have and always will respond to those in distress.
While this milestone is an opportunity for us to look back with pride on what we’ve achieved, we have always looked to the future, and I’m proud that we continue to look for ways in which to improve and save lives. I’m proud of the commitment, the dedication and selfless sacrifice and I’m proud of how the service has developed and continues to do so'

I couldn't find a suitable cake but I did find this fabulously dated advert from Brit TV (shown on ITV and the Beeb) telling us more about calling the Coastguard. It is of its age...
https://www.youtube.com/embed/I6x236Q82_A

[Randi]

Happy Birthday
to
Her Majesty's Coast Guard!

I couldn't find a cake either

[AvastMH]

We just don't seem to celebrate things quite as you do across The Pond. What a shame for us

[pommystuart]

This is a Twitter article with video from space of the Tonga Volcano exploding. Worth a look just to see how powerful it was.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1482362563807621121

[AvastMH]

I looked through a lot of that information. It is breath-taking. The immensity of it, the way it travelled around the world by air and water, and the images are astounding.

[AvastMH]

BTW for anyone able to see the moon tonight it is the first full moon of January which makes it a Wolf Moon

[Hanibal94]

A while back, I mentioned how someone had used a neural network to generate images based on the lyrics of "The Wellerman".
I just found out they did this for a few more shanties - including one with mondegreen lyrics!

https://www.aiweirdness.com/the-terror-of-the-sea/

[Michael]

[AvastMH]

Brilliant! Barrett's Privateers is one of my favourites so it was great to see the different versions. The mondegreen version was a howler

[AvastMH]

From a colleague at work today (Environmental Change Institute, Univ of Oxford):

'Hi. Heading towards our 31st birthday next month, our glorious founder (Prof Andrew Goudie) thought that some of you might like to see this report. A bit scary ..about wet bulb, heat deaths, global. It happens to be by his daughter Alice.
https://www.emu-analytics.com/blog/post ... -analytics '

So I was wondering if anyone recalls transcribing particularly excessive wet bulb temperatures at any time?

[Michael]

Lots and lots, but most of them were suspicious. Here are the five highest wet-bulb temperatures from Ashuelot, 1866.

1866-07-27 14 89
1866-07-27 15 89
1866-07-27 11 90
1866-07-27 12 90
1866-07-27 13 90

With a temperature of 90F, a Wet-bulb of 90F, the Heat Index is 126. I could give you lots more like these, but ...

[AvastMH]

Thanks Michael Looking at the Lat and Long they are stewing off the coast of Africa, a bit south of the Cape Verde Islands. I don't do hot sweaty weather. Even the water is hot. If those numbers are right, as you say

[AvastMH]

Happy Burns Night to all of our Scottish crew

[pommystuart]

Lots and lots, but most of them were suspicious. Here are the five highest wet-bulb temperatures from Ashuelot, 1866.

1866-07-27 14 89
1866-07-27 15 89
1866-07-27 11 90
1866-07-27 12 90
1866-07-27 13 90

With a temperature of 90F, a Wet-bulb of 90F, the Heat Index is 126. I could give you lots more like these, but ...

From memory I only did TWYS

Maybe the wet bulb ran out of water?

[Michael]

Here are the highest wet-bulbs recorded for each ship when the wet-bulb temperature was 90 F or above.

Ashuelot 1866-07-27 13 90
Ashuelot 1867-08-14 14 96
Atalanta 1945-09-16 14 92
Burton_Island 1947-09-22 12 97
Burton_Island 1949-11-19 12 98
Burton_Island 1953-11-25 15 98
Helena 1931-08-25 13 90
McCulloch 1939-10-11 10 99
Panay 1931-06-27 17 95
Storis 1948-07-29 16 110
Storis 1951-07-12 16 96

It's a puzzle for the boffins to sort out.

[pommystuart]

Happy Burns Night to all of our Scottish crew

No wonder the haggis look sad, they know what is going to happen to them on Burns night, (they will get burn(t)).