Solar eclipse

[Brian Ellis]

We were just to one side of totality, but it still went bloody dark, with birds starting to roost. Excellent views of the sliver of remaining sun. See http://www.cypenv.org/weather/wx2.htm for how it affected the weather (visible only over next 11 hours - after that see 24/48/72 h graphs). Temp dropped ~7°C, wind and humidity increased. As I write this (1451) the temp is increasing again and light is back to normal. The max was ~1355, I estimate.

[KvHagedorn]

Wow.. a solar eclipse is an interesting experience. I remember when we had a partial here at midday back in the 80s.. the tree by our driveway filtered the light in such a way that hundreds of tiny eclipsed discs were projected onto the concrete. It was pretty bizarre.

Doubt it would have been visible here today, even if it was not raining.

btw, I found a huge map of Cyprus if anyone wants to see where Brian is.

http://www.kaem.ru/files/maps/cyprus-map-m.jpg

Look for Mosfiloti in the general area halfway between Nicosia and Lanarka.

[KvHagedorn]

Holy crap! A bit farther down the page I found an even more mega-colossal version of this map.

http://www.kaem.ru/files/maps/cyprus-map-l.jpg

[Brian Ellis]

OK, here us an extract from said map showing where I live, where the red dot is. The whole of the rough rectangle formed by the roads is a series of hills climbing to ~600 m, comprising government forest land: our back garden backs onto this, with a gate to give us access.

Places of note:
South of us: Stavrovouni (Mountain of the Cross) monastery: strict monastery on top of an ~700 m hill http://kypros.org/Sxetikos/Monastiri...rovouniE-1.htm

Top of map: Idalion: important archeological site ~1250 BC, many tombs including royal ones. http://www.asor.org/pubs/basor/308abstracts.html

Kornos: Village SW of us: manufacture of terra cotta pottery from ancient times: still make enormous pots there.

Pyrga: S of us: has Crusader chapel 11-12th c. dedicated to St Catherine and built by the royal house of the Lusignans. http://www.pyrga.org/english/history.shtm

Psevdas: E.of us. No interest except that the name means "Liar" (why, I don't know), hence the English prefix, pseudo.

Etc.

[az]

KvH: Download Opera and look at the largest version of the map and middle-click once to enter free-scrolling mode. Very impressive (only works smoothly at 100% magnification, unfortunately)

[Nowhere]

Not on machine from the sig

[az]

Not enough RAM, I guess

But really, scrolling in this way in Opera feels like flying over an image or a page, it's soooo smooth. I know no other application that comes close to this (maybe FF does now, I just have no need to try it).

[KvHagedorn]

I'll check it out.. my Opera version is a bit old.. this feature is on the free edition?

[gt40]

It's all free now isn't it?

[Nowhere]

There is only free edition now.

[KvHagedorn]

Just did it. Very cool. WTF do you mean, not on machine from the sig??

I'll have you know it worked really well.. very smooth and fast.

[KvHagedorn]

FYI, memory usage went from ~230mb to ~410mb when free scrolling that pic, and cpu usage was not much higher at all, according to task manager, after an initial jump to 36%.

[az]

Opera reserves all the memory it can find, but makes it available when other apps need it.

[Brian Ellis]

Just for the anecdote, if you look on the map extract I posted below, you will see the next village to the East, Psevdas, or the village of liars, (~1,000 inhabitants) was mentioned this week in the local newspapers and even on the BBC news last night. Someone there has giant lemons on a tree, one weighing 2.5 kg and many > 1 kg. This was announced a day or two ago and has nothing to do with the date.

I have some fairly big ones this year, but nothing like that. My biggest fruit this year is a pomelo at about 1850 g (it had birdshit on it and I weighed it after washing it, so it may have absorbed a little water).