Chat

[AvastMH]

Well so much for spending $600 million for an unnecessary election! We ended up where we started.

That's exactly what the BBC had to say about it too. Bad luck!! I wonder who did make some bucks out of it. Presumably the pamphlet printers

[Hanibal94]

Got this via forwarded email, thought it was pretty fun (although the clear-wings are really tough sometimes!)

Hi everyone,
>
> In need of a pause in this busy month? Go on butterfly hunting for a few
> minutes!
>
> As part of a project led by researchers from CEFE (Montpellier, France),
> MNHN (Paris, France), and INRIA (Bordeaux, France) and the University of
> North Carolina (US), *we have developed a citizen science game to better
> understand camouflage* methods and their effectiveness against
> predation: https://findthebutterflyv2.cleverapps.io/
>
> If you have played the previous game "find the butterfly", no problem,
> just let us know by checking the box and play the new game! These are
> two independent games and your help will be precious this time too!
> If you have already played this very game, indicate it, but your
> contribution will not be taken into account. *We need inexperienced
> hunters to increase our sample size. *
>
> Play the role of a hungry predator looking for butterflies camouflaged
> in their environment and click as quickly as possible on the butterfly
> hidden in the image!
> To play, it's easy: take a card of the format of a credit card (so that
> we have an idea of the real size of the images on your screen), your
> favorite computer (the game is not designed to be played on a
> smartphone) and let's go: it will only take you about 10 minutes!
>
>
> Please share this link with your networks, friends, family, and
> colleagues...
>
> We need a lot of responses from all age groups, including children! The
> more players, the more consistent the results!
>
> Have fun and thank you for your contribution!
>

My average time was 4.13 seconds.

[AvastMH]

Boy - that was hard!
Nice science game to play. Thanks Chris. I averaged 8.16 seconds, though it felt a lot longer.

[pommystuart]

First time I got 8.16 average. (Forgot to maximize screen.)
Second time 5.41 at max screen.
I still could not find some of the ones I missed even when the circle showed me.

[Morgan]

This was fun! But my average time was 10.4 secs. My husband and I thought it was more of an eye test than a butterfly test. I will pass it on to younger folk.

[pommystuart]

Absolutely nothing to do with this forum but I found this 19min clip very interesting. We have been down one of the "Silo Trails" in Victoria. The trails have been developed to help dying towns attract visitors.
I hope you can get Australian Iview channel.

https://iview.abc.net.au/show/beautiful ... 108Q005S00

[Randi]

Happy Birthday
Mecordova

[Michael]

Happy Birthday Mecordova

[Hanibal94]

Happy Birthday, Mecordova!

[AvastMH]

A very happy birthday to you Mercordova !!!

I'm ready to serve you up a lovely floral cup of tea to go with Randi's beautiful blossom cake

[mecordova]

THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!! Cheers to another year! Thank you everyone!

[Randi]

ALBERTA RUBBER DUCK MAKES INCREDIBLE 10,000 KM JOURNEY TO RUSSIA

[Michael]

[krwood]

LOG BOOK
Today any bound record kept on a daily basis aboard ship is called a "log." Originally, records were kept on the sailing ships by inscribing information onto shingles cut from logs and hinged so they opened like books. When paper became more readily available, "log books" were manufactured from paper and bound. Shingles were relegated to naval museums -- but the slang term stuck.

Seems fishy to me. https://www.etymonline.com/word/log#etymonline_v_43590 is all I've ever heard.

[Randi]

I have to admit that it seemed a bit unlikely to me too

---

Jamestown wrote at least part of the log on a slate and then copied it to paper at the end of the day - at least most days

January 17, 1862
Hampton Roads

This day's remarks + columns
was accidentally erased from the
log slate before being copied.


They're keeping the rough log on a chalkboard?

https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorag ... 67_116.jpg

October 22, 1862

Another accidental erasure of the log slate before copying it...

https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorag ... 67_063.jpg

[Hanibal94]

Seems fishy to me. https://www.etymonline.com/word/log#etymonline_v_43590 is all I've ever heard.

That's all I've ever heard too. Shingles hinged to open like books sounds very strange.
But then again, what was that old saying about truth and fiction, and their relative strangeness to each other?

[Randi]

I agree with both of you. If it hadn't been posted in Naval History and Heritage Command I would not have posted it at all.


Digging further...

The Sailor's Word-Book, by Admiral W. H. Smyth, 1867 says:
LOG-BOARD. Two boards shutting together like a book, and divided into several columns, in which to record, through the hours of the day and night, the direction of the wind and the course of the ship, with all the material occurrences, together with the latitude by observation. From this table the officers work the ship's way, and compile their journals. The whole being written by the mate of the watch with chalk, is rubbed out every day at noon. Now a slate is more generally used.
LOG-BOOK. Mostly called the log, is a journal into which the log-board is daily transcribed, together with any other circumstance deserving notice. The intermediate divisions or watches are usually signed by the commanding officer. It is also divided into harbour-log and sea-log.

Given the comments in Jamestown's log book (above) about the slate being erased before being copied, we know that this was originally the process.

Perhaps the Naval History and Heritage Command comment is more of a misinterpretation than a total fabrication.

---

December 27 — Valparaiso

6 to 8 pm.
Received the following stores; Engineers Dept, ..., 2 Log slates, 1 Doz Bottles Ink, 2 Doz Pencils, 100 Slate pencils;

[Michael]

I think the latter, using chalk on wood, is the correct interpretation. Bravo!

[AvastMH]

I'm up for that possibility Randi. We know that the logs books were the tidied up version of the data and events of the day. Love the idea of the slate - a few raindrops and that would be a blank slate

[pommystuart]

I wonder how this day would have been entered.
Picture from Australia yesterday in the same story about a tornado at Bathurst. (Not taken by me)



running away