Saturday
- back in Lancaster, still a bit under the weather. I did start moving
data over to the new laptop, and installing various programs on it.
This was somewhat slow, due to the fact that it wanted to install quite
literally hundreds of megabytes of patches and updates, the largest
being Service Pace 2 for Vista. But things are proceeding.
I fiddled around a bit with the moon prediction idea of the other day.
In general it seems that most modern GPS units will give you a bearing
to a point, so if one knows the latitude and longitude of a point one
can find the bearing to it. For Anacapa's arch rock one could just
travel up and down the California coast nearby, until the bearing is
correct. The bearing is generally given to the nearest degree, which is
a bit rough for a half degree wide target - the moon.
The Google search brought up some HTML code, for the "bing"
application. This appears to be some sort of Google-Earthish thing, but
the code works. Cutting and pasting the original into an HTML file on
the desktop, and browsing to that gave this:
Am example of bing, set in England, Zero Longitude.
The source code was self explanatory-
Set the center of the map
Set the start point
Set a bearing and a distance.
So I modified it, changing the start to be Arch Rock's coordinates, and
the end to be 45 degrees and 20 kilometers, which ends up being on the
beach, just south of the Port Hueneme inlet. Another 'end' at 43
degrees bearing puts one smack dab in the inlet itself.
Note that the bearing to Anacapa would be the reciprocal of the bearing in the script, i.e. one would look southwest at 180+45=125 degrees.
Friday
- worked almost a full day, then headed back to Lancaster, not feeling at all well, again.
Chip.
Thursday 5 November
2009
Thursday
- another long day. But we got a lot done - and by 'we' I mean I was
paid to watch others work. Well, so it goes. Age and experience and
education hath it's privilege's I suppose.
I
livened things up by performing basic arithmetic errors for an
audience, always a perennial favorite with people who have to work with
me.
It occurred to me the other day that it would be neat to get
a picture of the moon setting behind Arch Rock at the east end of
Anacapa Island.
An artists' conception of the New Moon setting behind Arch Rock.
If
one had an accurate knowledge of the time and place of moon set, perhaps
the Nautical Almanac - and an accurate knowledge of ones current
position along the coast, say a Thales MobileMapper CE - then it might
be possible.
A boat would probably not allow a long enough exposure, say 1/10th or 1/20th second. Though maybe on a calm evening.
Wednesday 4
November
2009
Wednesday
- a long day, and I got home late. But the construction management portion should be over soon.
Book #67 was Thomas Perry's Silence, borrowed from a friend. It was OK, much in the same line as several earlier books.
I mentioned Galactic Derelict
by Andre Norton the other day, and that the Port Hueneme library
carries it, so I thought to pick it up there. But on visiting the
Camarillo library (it's closer) to pick up The Little World of Don Camillo I
discovered that I'd reversed the locations, and that the Norton book
should be present. At first I couldn't find it, but then noticed that
their paperback copy of The Time Traders was too fat! Sure enough, it
was a Baen omnibus with both novels in a single cover. I haven't
finished it yet.
The cover art of this edition of The Time Traders,
of an attractive Asiatic woman with furs and a high tech "blaster"
doesn't appear to have much to do with the contents, so far.
Tuesday 3 November 2009
Tuesday
- in early afternoon the fog rolled it. Nice - we haven't seen it for a
while down here.
I ran across a neat YouTube video of the Ares-1X flight over at NasaWatch. They say that there was no contact between the stages - but it sure seems like it in the video.
Monday 2 November 2009
Monday
- back at work. It was nice to get up an hour late, but still be at work on time...
Sunday 1 November_2009
Sunday
- I think I mentioned seeing a snake in a channel the other day. Below
is a picture of it - from a distance. It hissed and struck at me,
though I was several feet away, so it might have been a rattler.
Overall length was perhaps just over a foot. Looking at a page with pictures
of th six venomous snakes in California I don't see
any that clearly match. Perhaps it was some sort of mock-poisonous
creature?
