One year ago today: February 25, 2015, near mug shots.
Five years ago today: February 25, 2011, Canada medical NOT free.
Nine years ago today: February 25, 2007, only the French versions . . .
Random years ago today: February 25, 2014, programming & statistics.
MORNING
Now I have the flu. So first thing, let’s calculate the GHA (Greenwich Hour Angle) of the sun when I got up this morning at 06h 54m 45s. That would be 280° 25.3’. Where is that, remembering that GHA is always west for Greenwich the full 360°, so no allowance for east or west. The declination is 09° 07.2’ S, meaning your latitude is contrary. This is the single spot, or GP, of the sun on the Earth if this was in the year 2014, since that is the most recent Nautical Almanac I can find.
A bustling community on the north shore of a bay, with extensive farm fields in the valleys to the north and east. From a fishing village in 1942 to 138 times that size today, it appears Chimbote may be the city primarily responsible for the fishing out of the anchovy stocks. The city harbors ¾ of the fleet that overfished the Humbolt to the point of extinction. I like that word, "bustling".
Here is a satellite of a little eatery on the east side, name’s “La Cochabambino”. Depending on slang, I take that to mean either “The Baby’s Car” or “The Baby’s Kitchen”. It sounds more Italian. It’s east on Los Angeles, and Cochabambino, here is your 15 milliseconds of fame. No on-line menu, but I think they have live music, here is a video that translates to “Cochabambino with Gray Skies”. I’m guess, the guy talks to fast with an accent.
Titan, the moon.
NOON
First things first. I got my act over to the new Harbor Freight on H’wood and had a time of it, spent all my pocket money. There's something not right about a man who can just walk in and out of Harbor Freight. Even when he should be home resting. I’m bound for staying in the rest of the because while this flu is not that bad, I look and sound like I’m about to drop. A peculiar strain, just sniffles and sneezes, but food I can taste just fine. What can I get to on my list of sick day to-dos, so I never have a boring day? I say track down why I got that navigation error this morning. That sounds like fun. Ready?
I miscalculated the position of the Sun. Now that I’ve done it a while, I’ll talk about it, but it is not necessary to learn celestial navigation to make this computation. It’s probably a good idea to have some overall knowledge, but just you watch, I’ll explain it in a far easier fashion than the experts. Finding out where you are by celestial navigation is about finding three corners of a triangle. Once trained to do that, you can figure out how close you are to one of those corners.
And I was looking for the position of the Sun. You need only the time in Greenwich and a book called the Nautical Almanac. The Almanac contains lists of the Sun’s position for every hour of the year, but note that is full (integer) hours only, you’ve heard me refer to the Almanac as the bus schedule of the Sun. There is another smaller table in the back of the book where you add the offset for the minutes and seconds of your actual time.
The error was procedural. Navigation involves modular (base 60) arithmetic, so it is customary to use a worksheet. I have a habit of “rounding down” my estimates, so that when the correction is due, it is added rather than subtracted. It is easy to lose track of where you are. I had mentioned I was using the Almanac from 2014, It is customary to take more than one of each reading, so I have a second time at 07:04:12, I’ll take a break now to see where things are with that.
And don’t think there is a shortcut using on-line latitude and longitude sites. I’ve repeatedly warned you that the people who write those things are borderline retards. iTouchMap requires you to convert your cardinal directions into positive or negative, and even that is reverse to logic of east-west. Or the complete bozos who wrote findlatitudeandlongitude Quick, find the “degree” symbol on your keyboard. Because it won’t accept ASCII equivalents. Complete mental defectives, those boys.
NIGHT
Here we go, that is more reasonable, location-wise. The Sun was a few hundred miles east of Two Boats Village. That’s on the island of Ascension, near St. Helena. With a population of 120, it has a snack bar with live entertainment, although what that means on an island in the middle of the Atlantic remains an open question. Described as “residential in nature”, it is supposed to be at the center of this picture, taken from a nearby mountain.
There are no hotels, but anybody who can afford a hotel on an island owned by the English has more money and a stronger back than I do. The weather today is 0 centigrade, too chilly for me, with a 40% chance of a thunderstorm tonight. And people actually live there? The island is also known for Nearby Earthquakes says that web page. Which also contains several hotlinks to the entire bible.
There is even a TravelPod slide show that says Two Boats Village, but I dunno. It seems more like a set of photos from meh-looking people who think you want to watch them playing golf and riding bicycles. You decide. But having live entertainment put them ahead of anything in Hollywood, Florida. Except the strip joints, so they say. That's one thing I can say about Julie, this gal I met out west. She'll never have to worry about catching her daughters working in a strip joint. That's for sure.
Last Laugh
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