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Post by Little Jack Horner on Mar 17, 2022 2:15:34 GMT
I never quite understand how the system on this forum works but, I think this might be my thousandth posting. I think, too, that it is 10 years today since the forum first appeared. I made a note of this some time ago but I have no idea how I found it or whether it is correct. Perhaps somebody else knows?
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Post by Verbivore on Mar 17, 2022 4:34:50 GMT
According to the Members page, this Not-the-APS board was established 23 Apr 2008 at 23:50, which shows that Paul D registered at that time.
I registered 23 hours later, and LJH registered 17 Mar 2012 at 23:33. The latter date is the decade of your registering here, LJH.
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Post by Dave Miller on Mar 17, 2022 8:31:14 GMT
Gosh. Is it really coming up to 14 years since this forum started (in response to restrictions being placed within the original APS board, if I remember correctly)?
Perhaps timings are displayed according to our location, because I see that I registered (originally as “DaveM”) at 2237 on 23 April 2008.
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Post by Little Jack Horner on Mar 18, 2022 16:59:43 GMT
Frequently, when I am talking to somebody on the telephone or calling at a shop and need to identify myself, the person to whom I am speaking will say, “what was the name?“. I would be curious to know why they say “what was the name?” rather than “what is your name?”. Is this a particular British English idiom or does it apply throughout the English-speaking world? I have a slight idea that “what was the name?” feels slightly less aggressive than “what is your name?”. Do people agree?
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Post by Verbivore on Mar 18, 2022 19:48:33 GMT
Frequently, when I am talking to somebody on the telephone or calling at a shop and need to identify myself, the person to whom I am speaking will say, “what was the name?“. I would be curious to know why they say “what was the name?” rather than “what is your name?”. Is this a particular British English idiom or does it apply throughout the English-speaking world? I have a slight idea that “what was the name?” feels slightly less aggressive than “what is your name?”. Do people agree? Perhaps so, LJH. It's common in AU too.
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Post by Dave Miller on Mar 18, 2022 20:20:53 GMT
I think it’s just a polite way of saying “you probably said your name, but I missed it” - and, out of the same politeness, is used even when the speaker knows fine well that the caller didn’t actually give a name.
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Post by Verbivore on Mar 24, 2022 19:38:07 GMT
Laughable – but no doubt some people will be caught. There are too many errors to mark up, but I'm sure you'll see them all. (I rarely receive spam, probably because I have lots of anti-spam / anti-malware utilities on my Macs, but these McAfee alerts are the most persistent. They must contain code that defeats my protection.)
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Post by Verbivore on Mar 24, 2022 20:11:15 GMT
A statement in article about the energy-efficiency ratings system:
Australia's savings are milder because our weather is milder than our friends in the northern hemisphere.
Can weather be milder than friends? Oh for an apostrophe!
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Post by Little Jack Horner on Mar 25, 2022 0:40:28 GMT
Yes, indeed, but as folks on this forum know, I have family in Queensland. I often look at the weather forecast for their locality and still find it strange to see the weather described as “mild” when by my standard it is seriously hot.
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Post by Verbivore on Mar 25, 2022 1:09:52 GMT
Yes, indeed, but as folks on this forum know, I have family in Queensland. I often look at the weather forecast for their locality and still find it strange to see the weather described as “mild” when by my standard it is seriously hot. In this part of the world, LJH, mild weather is anything that's neither flood, cyclone, drought, nor bushfire, and anywhere between 20 and 30 degrees C.
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Post by Verbivore on Mar 28, 2022 10:47:19 GMT
Was this an autocorrect snafu, a voice-dictation screw-up, or just ignorance?
(from a YouTube comment on a video of our recent regional flooding):
“Finally the old historic Tweed River has had a good flush out of its silt and other dead Brie [debris] that has built up over time …”
There was a cow that floated out to sea – and survived! – but dead Brie?
Now, a month from the peak of Lismore's record flood, we're at moderate-to-major flood warnings again. We've had two whole rain-free days since the flood: about six weeks of near-nonstop deluge. It has now exceeded Noah's 40 days and nights. One credible report (ABC News) has stated that the recent flood (centred on Lismore) was 150 km long and 75 km wide. That's a large puddle.
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Post by Verbivore on Mar 28, 2022 22:04:22 GMT
Well, here we are flooding again! It's four weeks today since Australia's largest flood on record overtopped the Lismore flood levee wall – and last night evacuation orders were again issued after a 200 mm (7.8 inches) overnight rainfall. (Lismore is my home town, though I no longer live there.)
I've been telling anyone who'll listen that, at this time of the year, the place is likely to have two floods close together – the last significant example having been 1989 when we had an April Fool's Day flood (rated major: 9.7 metres) followed 25 days later by another dunking (rated moderate: 7.2 metres).
No-one who isn't a long-term local doesn't believe me. Many such people were among those who recently needed rescuing from what the pundits 'warned' was going to be a minor flood.
The Lismore levee wall, constructed in 2005, holds back water – from the CBD only – until it reaches a height of 10.65 metres. The town has had 29 floods rated Major since records began in 1887 (half of which exceeded the height of the levee, whether it was there or was yet to be built), 45 Moderate, and 53 Minor: 127 floods over 135 years. One might hope that people and governments would learn a lesson – but no.
The town was built at the confluence of two streams so that the timber logs could be transported to sea and then to Sydney.
The river has not been used for transport since WWII, so there's no excuse for keeping the town there. Yet politicians, bureaucrats, and other self-interested parties keep insisting the problem can be solved by unimaginative and repeatedly failed schemes.
Time for the town to up stumps and move.
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Post by Little Jack Horner on Mar 29, 2022 3:54:45 GMT
The idea of Ted bree is very entertaining. I have often had major problems in voice recognition software and have learnt to be very careful in reading what I have dictated. Indeed I am just take dated “dead Brie” and it was produced as Ted bree and, then, as Tetbury and I see that I didn’t dictate it but I “take dated” it – Oh dear! (But William Archibald Spooner would have understood).
The floods in Lismore sound to be horrendous. We have had serious floods in the UK from time to time but, I think, nothing like as bad as those. I can only have sympathy for those involved and hope that the disaster will shortly history. It really is difficult to understand why people don’t move away but I suppose that they have spent money on houses and it is difficult. I had a holiday Nicaragua a few years ago and I was astonished at the way in which people chose to live on the slopes of a volcano on an island on Lake Nicaragua, knowing full well that, one day, it will erupt. All around the area there were signs advising on evacuation routes. I was told people found the agricultural advantages of the volcanic soil outweighed the dangers. And of course people continue to live in San Francisco right on the San Andreas fault. And people in Naples live under the threat of eruptions from Vesuvius.
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Post by Verbivore on Mar 29, 2022 21:37:31 GMT
The Guardian knows a clever dog.
At Mullumbimby RSL, Robbie Wood sat in a vinyl bucket chair with her ancient three-legged dog making calls.That was from a report on our continuing floods. Over the past two days/nights we've had more than 600 mm (almost two feet) of rain and the Lismore flood levee is about to overtop again this morning. Last night's downpour made such a racket on the roof that I couldn't sleep (not from flood fear – I'm unlikely to flood on my hilltop – but from the noise).
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