Comments on The Greenwich Phantom: Sundials (2)

Thanks, All. I'm not sure anyone's going to set th...

2008-11-11T15:09:00.000Z

Thanks, All. I'm not sure anyone's going to set their watches by a moondial. Much more accurate would be a glow-in-the-dark Time ball to be dropped from Greenwich Observatory at 1.00am every night.

I think I shall start to campaign for one...

It was Bournemouth Council, Dazza, and for an amus...

2008-11-11T14:09:00.000Z

It was Bournemouth Council, Dazza, and for an amusing selection of spluttering pc gone mad stories follow this link:

http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=council+bans+latin&meta=

It's not actually a ban, it's a set of guidelines. Or "ethnic cleansing" if you follow the Daily Mail's view, which they managed to write down despite the screaming in their heads....

It is, indeed, a moondial. Unlike a sundial, whic...

2008-11-11T12:12:00.000Z

It is, indeed, a moondial. Unlike a sundial, which can tell the time all month given enough sunshine, a moondial can only "work" at full moon and a couple of days each side of same, at which point the lunar rays are strong enough to cast a shadow (street lamps permitting). The shadow points to the sign of the zodiac the moon is passing through (which is an anomaly in itself because birth signs are generally calculated by which sign the sun is moving through). Its also a little daft because the earth has a fixed orbit around the sun, which means that the moon doesnt have a fixed orbit in relation (altghough it does of course have a fixed orbit in relation to the earth). So its accuracy is somewhat negligible - you couldnt accurately state the lunar month as being "half past Gemini" or suchlike. It has probably only been installed to balance the sundial in a visual sense on the building.

Glad I was so close......It's sad to know that bef...

2008-11-11T11:30:00.000Z

Glad I was so close......
It's sad to know that before too long Latin will be an academic language only. In the last couple of weeks I heard that a 'Local Council' (can't remember which one it was.) had banned the use of Latin phrases in their communications. No more 'via' or 'vice versa' etc. (oops, isn't 'etc' latin?)
I know that time marches on and all that but aren't we missing/losing something here?

It's from the bible...a time to every purpose unde...

2008-11-11T11:22:00.000Z

It's from the bible...

a time to every purpose under the heaven

To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven" (Omnia tempus habent, et suis spatiis transeunt universa sub caelo, Eccles. iii, I to be exact

Don't you just love the Internet? You simply copy ...

2008-11-11T10:41:00.000Z

Don't you just love the Internet? You simply copy the text and, hay presto it translates it into something...... Of course it might not make any more sense than the original but at least it translates it into something.
I give you this example....I entered the text from the pic and got this back....
"and suis to stoll I cross entire up to, under celibate"....can anyone translate this to more understandable English? LOL