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    Audit monkeys

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      Strangely, during a search for "Francis Paul Thomson", a gentleman who never produced a biography of Alan Blumlein despite collecting material for some 20 or more years, I came across a reference to the 1954 version of "1984".

      https://docplayer.net/65668411-July-...crophones.html

      Search on "Francis" gets you more or less to the right place.

      So the golden rule is this. If you are calculating anything from a tape speed, start from in/s even if the machine speed is quoted in centimetres.

      You will then only come unstuck if the designer has worked from a metric translation of the original post -war imperial standard (or the original pre -war standard, which is highly unlikely).

      After the Southampton conference I rushed back to London, for what could well be the last ever screening of the original BBC TV version of This was televised twice in 1954 and caused an uproar.

      In those days there was no videotape. The two broadcasts were truly live but one of them was filmed, by the then -traditional system of pointing a film camera at a high quality TV screen.

      The film recording still exists and although it cannot be televised, it can be shown on special occasions for instance at the National Film Theatre.

      But not any more.

      An American gentleman whose name I prefer to forget, bought the rights from George Orwell's widow four days before she died.

      He is now making a modern film version and has the right and intention to stop all future screenings of the BBC original.

      Such is life in the film business! What has all this got to do with metric and imperial measurements?

      Well, in the wonderful BBC version of 1984 the most prophetic of all sequences has actor Wilfred Brambell going into a bar and asking for a pint of beer.

      "Can't have it," says the barman, "it's a litre or half litre or nothing."

      That's one of the few areas in which the Great British Public has held out against metrication.

      You can still buy a pint of beer in Britain.

      The other area is in tape. Nothing can stop studio engineers talking in 'hits'.

      And as the historical record shows, they are in fact right to do so.
      I think "hits" should be ips, but there you go.
      When the fun stops, STOP.

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        GAMMON steak, eggs, chips and peas for dinner <inspired by an earlier thread>
        Oh, and HP sauce.
        very nice too.
        stuffed now

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          This evening's entertainment was "To Catch a Thief" with Cary Grant and Grace Kelly, directed by A. Hitchcock.

          It was very good and much more enjoyable than yesterday's offering of MI III.

          https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0048728/

          And yet another Sunbeam Alpine convertible, this time sans Arnie.

          http://www.pbs.org/opb/historydetect...ace-kelly-car/

          Tea, on the other hand, was M&S breaded haddock, cooked to almost a turn tonight.

          It was very nice.

          As I was finishing the last mouthful, there came a knock upon the door, and it turned out to be the new neighbours, who seemed disappointed that the builders still hadn't done anything this week, last week, or the 5 previous weeks.

          I had nothing to offer them but cups of tea and coffee, and a chair to sit on.

          And, what do you know? my stewed apple & custard was stone cold by the time they'd buggered off again.
          Last edited by DoctorStrangelove; 11 September 2018, 21:33.
          When the fun stops, STOP.

          Comment


            Ribs and chips for tea

            It's busy out; the England football team have been playing at the place just over the river, for some reason.

            And I've wasted loads of time mucking about with GeoDjango. I got it set up to use a separate database and created models to access the OpenStreetMap data, which was fine. The next step was to define a bounding box and get points lying within it.

            And could I get it to work? Could I heck as like

            I knew the OSM data was stored in the SRI that Google Maps uses; a spherical Mercator projection measuring in metres from somewhere or other. And I wanted to define my bounding box in "standard" latitude and longitude, also known as WSG84. So I created a rectangular polygon, and used a function to transform it to the correct SRI; but no matter what, PostGIS insisted every single point was to the left of the box. I ended up with a box that went the full -180 to 180 and -90 to 90, but still everything was to the left of it

            Finally, I switched to getting the database to transform the points to WSG84, and suddenly it all worked

            That'll do for now; I'll optimise it as and when I have to

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              Tonight's telly has been the most recent two episodes of Bodyguard, followed by the penultimate episode of the most excellent Fargo S2.

              Not often I'm up to date with a TV series and have to wait for the next episode

              Goodnight all

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                17.8 in here, 15.1 min in the laundry room, currently 15.6.

                Winter is on its way.

                Brrrrr.

                <hiatus>

                Dark.

                Dreary.

                Damp.

                No current precipitation.

                Bus on time.

                Another day at the new slough of despond.

                Ho hum.

                I neglected to add to the above that "To Catch A Thief" was in glorious Color(tm) and "VistaVision"
                Last edited by DoctorStrangelove; 12 September 2018, 06:58.
                When the fun stops, STOP.

                Comment


                  Morning all

                  Raining overnight, so a damp dog walk earlier. Didn't go to my favourite mushroom patches as the mushrooms will be slimy this morning and need to dry out a bit, but still got a few just walking along another path.
                  …Maybe we ain’t that young anymore

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                    The cost of MI III stunts:

                    https://www.torrancememorial.org/New...one_Wrong.aspx

                    9 weeks in a coma.
                    When the fun stops, STOP.

                    Comment


                      Originally posted by DoctorStrangelove View Post
                      As I was finishing the last mouthful, there came a knock upon the door, and it turned out to be the new neighbours, who seemed disappointed that the builders still hadn't done anything this week, last week, or the 5 previous weeks.
                      I feel their pain. I have a shower tray installed, and tiled walls but no waste installed, ergo no floor ergo no floor tiles ergo no bog or sink Original planned installation date you ask? 23rd July. Utter chunts.

                      Plasterer was round last night to collect his money for doing the ceilings months ago. He's in the same boat waiting for joiner and plumber so that cheers me up a little bit. What's even betterer was the compliments paid on the walls i've plastered with the offer of work should I find myself at a loose end anytime. Not that i'd be quick enough to make anything of it but still.. <preen>

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