Little Eye On The Crazy World Of Foreigners

[spesh]

Ha!  I knew That Spesh would rise to the bait and save me the bother of grappling with the Search SCIENCE

There's SCIENCE!* involved in the forum search engine? 

First I've heard of it... 



* See Magnus Pyke in a certain Thomas Dolby song.

[Kim]

One of those wiffly-waffly SCIENCES like zoology or sociology, rather than one of the formal mathsy ones.  Certainly not linguistics, either.

[spesh]

One of those wiffly-waffly SCIENCES like zoology or sociology, rather than one of the formal mathsy ones.  Certainly not linguistics, either.

I'm inclined to think it's more pseudoSCIENCE!, like astrology or homeopathy. 

[Kim]

One of those wiffly-waffly SCIENCES like zoology or sociology, rather than one of the formal mathsy ones.  Certainly not linguistics, either.

I'm inclined to think it's more pseudoSCIENCE!, like astrology or homeopathy. 

Some of the search results are diluted to homeopathic levels with random nonsense, so you might be onto something...

[Mr Larrington]

Does it stop being SCIENCE when squishy things are introduced into the picture?  Floppy-haired mountaineer and helicopter enthusiast Professor B Cox certainly thinks so

[andrewc]

Somewhere in Egypt there is a very, very embarrassed & soon to be unemployed ships captain.


https://twitter.com/jsrailton/status/1374438210315513864?s=20


https://www.cityam.com/suez-canal-blocked-with-mega-container-ship/

[rogerzilla]

I had a good go at turning a canal boat without the benefit of a winding hole (then wasted a whole afternoon as the next one was 4 locks further on, which is 8 to traverse in total), and almost did the same thing.  It nearly worked - there was only about a foot in it.  A bargepole probably wouldn't do the job in this case.

[spesh]

Somewhere in Egypt there is a very, very embarrassed & soon to be unemployed ships captain.


https://twitter.com/jsrailton/status/1374438210315513864?s=20


https://www.cityam.com/suez-canal-blocked-with-mega-container-ship/

Obligatory Austin Powers 3*-point turn scene: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IGiQOCX9UbM


* For bigly yuge values of 3

[T42]

Left hand down a bit.

[TimC]

Somewhere in Egypt there is a very, very embarrassed & soon to be unemployed ships captain.


https://twitter.com/jsrailton/status/1374438210315513864?s=20


https://www.cityam.com/suez-canal-blocked-with-mega-container-ship/

Nothing to do with the Captain. The Suez Pilot will have been in charge.

[PeteB99]

Pilot's advice, Master's orders.

The ships Master is always responsible.

In this case it sounds like the ship lost motive power and steerage so there wasn't much the bridge crew could do about it. The engine room logs will be looked at closely though.

[rafletcher]

The engine room logs will be looked at closely though.

Wouldnt be surprised if they were upoaded in real time.

[Beardy]

Pilot's advice, Master's orders.

The ships Master is always responsible.

In this case it sounds like the ship lost motive power and steerage so there wasn't much the bridge crew could do about it. The engine room logs will be looked at closely though.

Regardless of engine failure, it’s still the Captain’s can to carry whilst the vessel us underway. I wonder what the salvage rules are in the canal.

[andrewc]

Cynic mode _ How soon before the Americans, Saudis & Israelis blame Iranian saboteurs ?  _ Cynic mode.

[PeteB99]

Why is this ship being called Evergiven when it has mile high lettering on its side spelling out Evergreen?

The company name is Evergreen. The ships name is Ever Given.

Beardy - The ships safety and navigation is the Captains responsibility at all times regardless of whether it's under way or not.

[Tim Hall]

All this reminds me of my The boss a couple of jobs ago. Before entering the hesady world of commerce he'd been in the Andrew Royal Navy.  He tells of one occasion* when aboard HMS Troutbridge they were just exiting the Med via Gibraltar.  A sailing yacht is heading into the Med, crew fighting hard with the wind. A Jolly Jack Tar leans over the rail of Troutbridge and hollers "The canal's closed. You'll have to go round the long way."


* He also tells of the time when Ronnie Biggs was brought aboard his ship whilst docked in Rio.

[Beardy]

Why is this ship being called Evergiven when it has mile high lettering on its side spelling out Evergreen?

The company name is Evergreen. The ships name is Ever Given.

Beardy - The ships safety and navigation is the Captains responsibility at all times regardless of whether it's under way or not.

ah, my bad, I thought that when in port and the captain is ashore, the ranking officer on board took the responsibility. Thank you for the correction.

[TimC]

Pilot's advice, Master's orders.

The ships Master is always responsible.

In this case it sounds like the ship lost motive power and steerage so there wasn't much the bridge crew could do about it. The engine room logs will be looked at closely though.

Ah, ok!

[Mr Larrington]

Seems the same ship clouted a ferry in the Elbe on a windy day in February 2019.  A ship that doesn’t handle well in windy conditions sounds like a bit of a liability.

[LittleWheelsandBig]

All of those container ships have problems in crosswinds. I think that car carriers and livestock transporters might be the only ships with bigger problems. Wind force is something we need to take account of in vessel mooring analyses but it is worse when ships are moving.

Vessel control is surprisingly limited when big ships are moving in narrow and shallow channels. The ship acts something like a piston in a cylinder with water moving at speed around the hull, resulting in counterintuitive effects.

[Mr Larrington]

It probably doesn’t matter.  After all “[the Suez Canal] will never become a large ship's accessible way in any case” according to one BRITISH prophet of the 1850s.  As predictions go, that one is right up there with “groups of guitars are on their way out, Mr Epstein”.

[Beardy]

It probably doesn’t matter.  After all “[the Suez Canal] will never become a large ship's accessible way in any case” according to one BRITISH prophet of the 1850s.  As predictions go, that one is right up there with “groups of guitars are on their way out, Mr Epstein”.

No one is going to have a need for more this time 640k of memory.

[spesh]

The exact quote:

“No one will need more than 637KB of memory for a personal computer. 640KB ought to be enough for anybody.” ~ Bill Gates, 1981

Worth noting that in the same year, William Gibson's short story Johnny Mnemonic* was published, in which the titular character was being pursued by bad guys for the hundreds of megabytes stored in his head. Which, given how much can be stuffed into a USB stick these days, seems laughably quaint now.

In the grand scheme of things, that Gates quote isn't too embarrassing compared with some of the classic predictions that pre-dated it...

“Where a calculator on the ENIAC is equipped with 18,000 vacuum tubes and weighs 30 tons, computers of the future may have only 1,000 vacuum tubes and perhaps weigh one and a half tons.” ~ Popular Mechanics, 1949

“The world potential market for copying machines is 5,000 at most.” ~ quoth IBM to the eventual founders of Xerox in 1959

“There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in his home.” ~ Ken Olsen, founder of Digital Equipment Corp, 1977.

Source: https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/worst-tech-predictions-of-the-past-100-years-c18654211375/


* There's a film based on the story, you say? Nope, that's just a mass hallucination. Joking apart, I can't help thinking that said cinematic turkey is one of the reasons why a film adaptation of Neuromancer has never made it out of development hell.

[PeteB99]

The British can be just as good as foreigners at the foot in mouth game

"The Americans have need of the telephone, but we do not. We have plenty of messenger boys."

Sir William Preece, chief engineer of the British Post Office, 1876

[Jaded]

"I truly believe that one day there will be a telephone in every town in America."