Nice People Thread No. 14, all Nice and Proper

SingleSue

Parents evening for youngest tonight...what fun we had going through blizzard like conditions in a raging gale over the blooming Orwell Bridge, there might have been a few naughty words escaping from my lips.

He's doing well, at the start he was predicted Merit Merit Merit (he is doing a BTEC worth 3 A levels) and he is currently working at and achieving Distinction* Distinction* Distinction* thus proving the wonderful computer programme completely wrong. When he first saw what he was predicted he was absolutely gutted and even a little upset (OK, a lot upset, complete meltdown upset and angry but that is by the by), I told him to ignore it and prove it wrong.

Tonight, his tutor told him the same thing. He said it sometimes throws up odd results or predicts high results for those who could never ever get them, or low results well below the actual ability of the student.

Youngest likes proving people wrong, we were told he would never be able to do GCSEs, let alone A level equivalent BTEC.

Generali

Hope your back gets better michaels. It's a beggur, the back. Mine's been behaving itself recently.

GDB2222

Generali wrote: »

They did mine but they are easy if you break it down.

Date: Fri Jan 15, 5:54 AM (not hard this one!)
Time visible: 2 min (the ISS is visible for 2 minutes)
Max Height: 88° (Imagine the sky is like a big pudding bowl above you. 0° would be at the horizon and 90° directly above your head)
Appears: 76° above WNW (the ISS will appear in the middle of the night sky. WNW is pretty much directly left of you if you face north. 76° means it is almost above you, 76/90ths of the way round the pudding bowl)
Disappears: 30° above E (the ISS will disappear 2/3rds of the way down the pudding bowl to your right as you face north)

Still don't understand. Why doesn't it appear on the horizon and disappear on the horizon? Why is it only visible for two minutes? I could understand two minutes if it was low down in the sky, but you say 88°.

I assume that NASA is not taking into account local weather conditions and buildings?

GDB2222

We have been shopping for England. Mr T has our favourite coffee on fairly cheaply at the moment, so we cleared out the shelves when we went to the store and also ordered 50 jars online, although they only delivered 35. Also, washing tablets are half price, so ordered 40 boxes, which they actually did deliver.

I went for bagless delivery, so he left the stuff in crates in our hall, and they will come and collect the crates today. How can that be greener than a few carrier bags?

Generali

GDB2222 wrote: »

Still don't understand. Why doesn't it appear on the horizon and disappear on the horizon? Why is it only visible for two minutes? I could understand two minutes if it was low down in the sky, but you say 88°.

I assume that NASA is not taking into account local weather conditions and buildings?

It's because the ISS has to be in the sun while you're in the shade. It sometimes appears half way up the sky as that is when the light hits it.

Generali

GDB2222 wrote: »

We have been shopping for England. Mr T has our favourite coffee on fairly cheaply at the moment, so we cleared out the shelves when we went to the store and also ordered 50 jars online, although they only delivered 35. Also, washing tablets are half price, so ordered 40 boxes, which they actually did deliver.

I went for bagless delivery, so he left the stuff in crates in our hall, and they will come and collect the crates today. How can that be greener than a few carrier bags?

Because the crates won't end up making the massive plastic island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean bigger...? The longer I work in the area of kinda sustainable investing and stuff the more I realise that things are more complex than I could have possibly imagined and that it isn't as simple as saying things like carbon = bad or rubbish = bad or recycling = good.

Recycling is just a drop in the ocean.

michaels

I do 6 £10 boxes of washing powder online shop sometimes (£10 down from £19 and then use a 25% of your shop of £60 or more coupon) - must last a year and is a pain to store.

You don' use washing powder? I wondered what that whiff was...

michaels

Generali wrote: »

Recycling is just a drop in the ocean.

Or alternatively a plastic bag not in the ocean?

Generali

michaels wrote: »

Or alternatively a plastic bag not in the ocean?

Most plastic put in for recycling isn't recycled.

michaels

Generali wrote: »

Most plastic put in for recycling isn't recycled.

Can't you burn it though, generating a bit of energy and a whole bunch of micro-particles spread around the world on the prevailing winds?

Once the world reaches the WallE point of being one giant garbage and humanity dies out site I reckon leave it a few hundred million years of geological processes and our tips will be oil reserves, our nuclear waste will be uranium deposits, our cities will be seams of iron ore etc ready for the newly evolved 'sapiens' to exploit in a very Gaia / cyclical way.