The Gallery: Week 76 – Home

Ever since earliest times, one important feature of a home has been the provision of artificial light.  Indeed, the progressive development of domestic lighting makes a fascinating study, from the firebrand to the light-emitting diode.  In particular, recent advancements in small ‘compact fluorescent’ lamps have enabled the conversion of electrical energy into light without wasting so much as heat, as had already been achieved with larger linear fluorescent lamps.  At the same time, advances in phosphors used in these lamps mean that the colour appearance of the light given out is much pleasanter than that of the so-called ‘white’ fluorescent lighting that has been in common use for many years.

So now, your chosen ‘table lamp’ can give a friendly light, yet be energy efficient too.  Here is a favourite of mine.

It's kind to share!
facebooktwittergoogle_pluspinterest

An Expensive Mistake

This post was prompted by the ‘100 word challenge’ here:
It does not relate to any real life event! 

NEW EURO MELT-DOWN FEAR LEAVES MINT RED-FACED!

At an unnamed European mint, 18-carat white and yellow gold blanks intended for making special commemorative coins have inadvertently been fed into machinery producing 1-Euro coins for general circulation.

The coins were shipped out and issued into the banking system before the mistake was discovered, although shipments are said to be traceable to just three locations.  It is not yet clear whether any banks have released any of the coins.  Experts have stated that if so, they are unlikely to be recovered as the gold they contain is worth over a hundred times their face value.

It's kind to share!
facebooktwittergoogle_pluspinterest

It’s About Time…

What’s the time?

A very everyday sort of question.  But take away one word and it changes from mundane to challenging…

What is time?

The concept of time allows us to put events, from the most minor to the most important, into a sequence.  For example, you might tell me that a parcel arrived before breakfast.  And then, just as it’s useful to have a unit of length, such as a metre, and not just say things like “This piece of string is too short”, we need units of time.  A day is a very traditional unit of time.  This came, over time (see how the word crops up?) to be divided into hours, minutes, and seconds.  In some fields such as electronics, intervals of less than one nanosecond (that’s one thousand-millionth of a second) may be important. (In that time, this computer has dealt with three events!)

Actually, there’s even a snag with defining the second as a fraction of a day.  The length of a day is not strictly constant. I know that often seems true, but here I’m referring just to the physics of it!  Seriously, days vary and are on average getting ever so slightly longer.  So scientists had to come up with a new way of defining the second.  What they settled on is all to do with radiation.  We’ve all seen how sodium in common salt will turn a gas flame bright yellow, and anyone who’s done much plumbing will know how copper turns a flame green.  Well, that’s all to do with the radiation that’s characteristic of an element.  The element Caesium has in its spectrum a particular wavelength of microwave radiation – and all waves, of course, have individual beats (oscillations.)  The second is now defined, would you believe, as the duration of 9,192,631,770 oscillations of this particular radiation from Caesium 133.  You were dying to know that, weren’t you?  There you are, then!

So much for the scientific bit.  how do we all get on in real life?  Well, it’s often said that work expands to fill the time available.  So, is the reverse true?  If we suddenly find that less time is available to complete a task than we first thought, can we still do it anyway?

To answer this, I carried out an experiment.  I didn’t start out with this intention, but what happened was this: I was installing new lighting in a building used for community purposes, and had been advised that this building was not required to be used during August.  Some problems with work being carried out by others led to a delay in the availability of the building for my work to be done, so I chose to work on the bank holiday.  I made good progress, but a lot of work remained to do.  Imagine, then, how I felt when I learned that the building was to be used the following evening!

I’ll just say that everyone involved was very co-operative and understanding, and the lights went on twenty minutes before the event was due to begin!  So the answer is ‘yes – just, but don’t count on it.’  (Not a very scientific way to put it, I know.)

I could regale you with more scientific theory and more hair-raising anecdotes of my working life.  But not now.  There isn’t time.

This post was prompted by the Writing Workshop here:

It's kind to share!
facebooktwittergoogle_pluspinterest

Out of the Mouths of Babes…

The words of little ones surprise us many times
With wisdom far beyond the japes and pranks of nursery rhymes.
For though these little ones seem ‘wet behind the ears’
Out of the mouths of babes come words beyond their years.

Listen to a little one, and in those words you’ll find
A pathway to strict honesty, while still remaining kind.
A trust that calls to you to make your answers fair,
So that, with passing time, that confidence you’ll share.

(Sometimes, of course, their words are not like this
But full of silliness and hate.
That’s mostly at the times they try
Grown-ups to imitate.)

This post was prompted by the ‘100 word challenge’ here.

It's kind to share!
facebooktwittergoogle_pluspinterest

Writing Workshop: Wishes

This will be a very short post.  It is too hard for me to put into words, at present, what I wish for in a personal sense.

But I’ll just say that I’d love truth and falsehood, honesty and lies, humility and arrogance, self-denial and greed, fairness and favouritism, to be shown up in an increasing way for what they are.  Because to deceive is not clever.  To defraud is not smart.  Where things are not what they may seem to many, I long for a day of reckoning.  Wherever and whenever a person or organisation presents an unreal façade to the outside observer, concealing a morass of vice and underhand activity, I wish for it to be torn down.

This post was prompted by the Writing Workshop here.

See the responses here.

It's kind to share!
facebooktwittergoogle_pluspinterest

That Firefly Phil bloke, still knocking out photography and other stuff.