Astronomy

The moon was full and bright to the east when we went to bed last night (Sunday) and even brighter and fuller when I woke, quite early in the morning, to the southwest. This last snapped above.

I hadn't thought that it was behind a cloud, but then I was probably not very awake. In any event, the telephone struggled with the bright lights.

While Microsoft brought me this rather better image from the Independent - and the news that the big day is tomorrow. Perhaps I will do better then.

However, it is not clear whether Microsoft brought me the real thing, as it were, or some suitable image from a library.

Tuesday morning

This one from early morning the next day, Tuesday, from an awkward angle in the study. With the telephone seeming to be much more sensitive to the presence of cloud than the eye.

But at least the moon was more or less a disc this time round, as is demonstrated by the zoom above.

A day which had also been marked by an evening accident involving Calvados. The fairly new HP Envy keyboard has now turned itself off and I have had to resort to a keyboard which I had luckily hung onto and which I could bring down from the roof. Plugged in and worked without any bother at all.

While, after a lecture about not mixing computers, food and drink, BH got some bubble wrap from somewhere to steady it. So back in business - until, that is, when I want to take it on holiday, when having a separate keyboard will be a nuisance. Gemini was quite helpful about what was going on here, but rather pessimistic about the chances of my getting the keyboard to spring back into life. Talk of my needing professional help - after which it may turn out that there has been terminal electrical damage.

I think I turned off accidental damage on our household insurance and I dare say it would not have covered computers anyway.

Maybe I shall be visiting Tier One some time soon. But see reference 2 below.

PS 1: in the margins, I learned how to create shapes in Microsoft's Snipping Tool. It took a while, but it will reduce the need to export snaps to Powerpoint to fiddle with them there. So a useful feature, one which does not get in the way when you are not using it.

PS 2: an image which I think I have used before. Finding it is left as an exercise for the reader. Said to be an enterprising innkeeper of Normandy of old.

PS 3: I associate now to a tale from a government computer room of old, from the days when discs came in platters, about the size of a large cake. Some readers may remember them. This particular disc drive - probably about the size of a washing machine now - had gone wrong and was French. As was the engineer who came to fix it, bending over its opened innards with a fag on. Controlled atmosphere not having been invented.

References

Reference 1: https://tier1online.com/.

Reference 2: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/10/errand.html. Purchase of the Envy, just about a year ago. Would they have another one?

Reference 3: https://www.calvados-pere-magloire.com/en/. The source of the offending Calvados. Much worse than water in the present context.