Great quote in 3D Latin at Bee Emm Dot Com

It’s been a while since I’ve included anything from friend-of-the-blog BrianMicklethwait.com. That’s not to say that I’m not a daily visitor to his haunt – I am. But he is him and I are me, and thus it’s only when the paths of our mental scribblings cross that I choose to share his stuff with you. Sometimes that happens three times a week. Sometimes once in three months. I don’t keep count or have a quota to fulfill: when it happens, it happens.

Good news, reader: it’s happening right now with this image of a bit of wall of the 5 star boutique Milestone Hotel in Kensington:

See it there? That’s 3D Latin, that is…

Spero Infestis

it says

Metuo Secundis

Which, according to several (or more) websites, translates as:

I hope in adversity, I fear in prosperity.

or, in more basic terms:

I am hopeful in times of danger; I am fearful when things are going well.

Which seems both a positive outlook, but also a bit pessimistic at the same time. So overall, pretty neutral and perhaps even rather sensible, then?

Given that generally, we live our lives not in a constant state of one extreme or another, but mostly somewhere down the middle, this 3D Latin thing will only kick in occasionally, but when it does, it will surely temper our acute and foolish emotions and restore some sort of natural order to proceedings.

I like it.

Charles the Nickname

It’s June 13th, and if you check the Wikipedia page for today’s date, you’ll see that on this date in 1381, the Peasants’ Revolt led by Wat Tyler culminated in the burning of the Savoy Palace.

Who Tyler? No, Wat Tyler.

But way, way before that happened, it was the birthdate of Charles, the Holy Roman Emperor. “Which Charles?”, you ask, knowing that there were several. Well, today is a birthday for two of them, actually – the unfortunate ones.


Yes, both Charles the Bald and Charles the Fat were born on this day just 16 years apart.
What are the chances?

A quick search of other Wikipedia pages reveals that other Holy Roman Emperors, such as Charles the Handsome, Charles the Devilishly Goodlooking and Charles the OMG Mavis, Int’ee Buff weren’t born on June 13th.
Because they didn’t exist. I made them up.

However, amusingly, reality is almost more ridiculous than whatever was going on in my twisted mind just then.

Firstly, we’re told that Charles the Bald shouldn’t be confused with Charles the Bold. The latter presumably being braver and more hirsute. Charles the Bold was Duke of Burgundy between 1467 and 1477, when he was succeeded by Philip the Good (one of the nicest of the Philips).

Whereas, Charles the Bald was, by all accounts, bald. He had several children, including Judith*, Louis the Stammerer, Lothar the Lame and then – when someone’s imagination ran out – Charles the Child. Charles the Bald was King of West Francia (843–77), King of Italy (875–77) and Holy Roman Emperor (875–77), succeeding his father Louis the Pious and being succeeded by… Charles the Fat.

Annoyingly for Charles the Fat, there’s actually no evidence that he was fat:

The nickname “Charles the Fat” (Latin Carolus Crassus) is not contemporary. It was first used by the Annalista Saxo (the anonymous “Saxon Annalist”) in the twelfth century. There is no contemporary reference to Charles’s physical size, but the nickname has stuck and is the common name in most modern European languages (French Charles le Gros, German Karl der Dicke, Italian Carlo il Grosso).

Unfortunate.

Charles the Fat (sorry) held the offices of King of West Francia and Aquitaine, Emperor of the Romans, King of Italy, King of East Francia and Alemannia during his 48 year life. Busy guy. He had one son, who never amounted to much, probably primarily because his name was Bernard (the Illegitimate). (Oops).

Reading this, and noting the rampant nepotism and huge opulence that were part of the daily lives of these individuals, I can’t help but wish that we had something akin to their use of appropriate descriptions in naming modern day politicians.

Jacob the Corrupt.
Gwede the Boep.
Helen the Repeatedly Foolish.
Julius the Mouth.
Fikile the Clown.
Malusi the Captured.

 

married firstly with Ethelwulf of Wessex, secondly with Ethelbald of Wessex (her stepson), and thirdly with Baldwin I of Flanders. Gosh.

Vlogging like Casey

OK. Before you begin to panic, don’t. I’m not about to start vlogging.

But we’re lucky enough to be living in an age where there are innumerate ways to communicate, be creative, and express and share your thoughts and feelings with others. It doesn’t mean that you have to have to use all of them. Indeed, some might argue that there’s far too much of this sort of thing going on, and they might be right, but then there’s always been far too much of a lot of stuff and far too little of other stuff going on all the time. That’s how life has always worked: it’s only the stuff that changes.

Casey Neistat is one product of this relatively new-found creative era. And, love him or hate him (or have some other, entirely more reasonable, entirely more moderate viewpoint of him), he’s done very well out of it. And this week, Casey Neistat shared some of his tips on vlogging, in his vlog How To Vlog Like Casey Neistat by Casey Neistat. 

Now, as I said, I don’t want to start a vlog. You people deserve so much more than you’re already getting from 6000 Miles… , let alone having to see my ugly mug on your computer screen each day. I wouldn’t do that to you. But, I would like to do more video-y stuff as an aside to the blog. Stuff like timelapses and drone shots. That sort of thing. So what does Casey say about that? (at 8:15)

Here’s something very important.
No-one gives a sh*t about your stupid timelapses and your stupid drone shots. That’s something I have to remind myself on a daily basis.

Ah. Right.

But thankfully, he’s talking about timelapses and drone shots as part of a vlog. And I’m not – as I may have mentioned – going to vlog.

Quite a lot of the information he shares might seem a bit redundant given that proviso, but there are certainly interesting snippets to take away which have a broader application. Using the best hardware you can in any given situation, avoiding shaky camerawork, the three-act narrative, and – as much as is possible – creating your own unique product; whether that’s from scratch or by building upon things you’ve learned from others doing the same sort of thing. A couple of those tips work really well for blogging as well.

Another fantastic thing about this information age is the accessibility to successful individuals for the ordinary person-on-the-web. There’s loads of great expert advice here (obviously, most especially for would-be or up-and-coming vloggers), and it’s free and easy to get at. The opportunities to educate and enrich yourself are all there. I might find someone who’s good at blogging and see what they have to say. Or… write. Whatever.

It’s not just Casey’s advice that I’m taking. I’m looking at videos and tutorials from photography and Mavic experts. I’m trying to be better at the things I am trying to do, and the internet makes that a whole lot easier than it used to be. The only issue now is finding the time between watching the videos and tutorials to actually put any of the new-found knowledge into practice.

What is Sea Foam?

And so, the GREAT STORM OF JUNE 2017© has passed over Cape Town. Schools were damaged, trees were toppled, roads were flooded, homes were lost, people were killed. Anyone lamenting the decision to close the schools here yesterday should maybe have taken a quick drive around and seen the devastation.

But I digress. Often.

On a lighter (no pun intended) note, there were also myriad photo opportunities, including some (or more) of spume – the technical name for that foam that covered everything in Sea Point and everywhere else.

But what is this stuff? Why is it there? Can I make my own sea foam? Is it dangerous? Can you eat it?
Never fear. We’re here to answer your questions.

It’s called spume, as I mentioned above. From the Latin spuma – “to froth or foam”.
And it’s there because chemicals within the seawater – usually naturally occurring chemicals such as salts, proteins, lipids and dead algae – act as surfactants. (Just like chemicals that you’ll find in your shampoo and shower gel.) Surfactants are chemicals which lower the surface tension of water, allowing for easy formation of tiny bubbles, especially when that water is agitated. And repeatedly flinging millions of tonnes of seawater from heights of around 10 metres directly onto rocks can certainly be considered agitation. And thus, billions of tiny bubbles are created with every wave hitting the shore.
When they adhere to one another, these tiny bubbles form spume, which is then thrown around by the waves and blown around by the wind until all our local roads are covered.

If you want to see this phenomenon from the warm comfort of your home, you can make your own sea foam in a jam jar. Fill it about 90% full of water (it’s ok, there’s loads to go around after this week), put the lid on and give it a good agitate (shake it). You make bubbles by the forcing air into the water, but then they quickly disappear as the surface tension kicks in and tells the water how it should be behaving.
Now add a teeny tiny drop of dishwashing liquid (full of surfactants) and maybe a drop of egg white (protein) or some of your wife’s Huge Muscle™ Supplement, and maybe a tiny blob of margarine (lipids). You don’t need much of any of these extra ingredients. Pop the lid back on (always a good idea) and give it another shake. This time, the bubbles stay put when you stop shaking. Bingo – sea foam.

Is spume safe? Yes, generally. But there are exceptions.
Those surfactants can also come from non-natural sources: sewage outlets, oil slicks, pollution and other places, like red tide algal blooms. A good sign of this is the presence of foam even when there is little agitation, or foam which is brown, black, red or thick (like a chocolate mousse). These foams are best avoided.

You shouldn’t eat spume. Don’t eat spume. Tell your kids not to eat spume.

6000 miles… Informing, Educating, Entertaining. And now craving a Milk Stout.

STATS: June and the shortest day – Cape Town

We’re into June (cue comments of “where does the time go?” etc.) and Cape Town (last time I checked) is located deep (about 33 degrees deep) in the Southern Hemisphere.
The relevance of those temporal and geographical observations is that June contains our shortest day. And this year, much the same as every other year, June 21st has won through once again. [polite applause]

Note: I’m writing this on the morning of June 1st, but as I don’t know when you’ll read it, some of the tenses might be a bit off. What a tense situation (lol, geddit?) that may would have will been!

Today, June 1st, in Cape Town the sun rose at 0743, will reach its meridian at 1244, and set at 1745, giving a daylength of 10 hours, 02 minutes and 08 seconds.
Today is 52 seconds shorter than yesterday. I know you’ll notice/have noticed.

On June 21st, in Cape Town, the sun will rise at 0751, reach its meridian at 1248 (33 degrees (who knew?) above the horizon), and set at 1744, giving a daylength of 9 hours, 53 minutes and 32 seconds.
That’s more than a second shorter than June 20th was and a whole 2 seconds shorter than June 22nd will be.

BUT…

The days only get longer because the sun sets later. The sunrise continues to be at 0751 until June 24th and then gets even later (0752) until 5th July. However, this delay is offset by the later sunset to the extent that by July 8th, we’re back to a daylength of over 10 hours.

On June 21st, the sun will be 152.034 million kilometres from Cape Town, and while than might seem quite a long way away, we’re going to drift even further away until (again, obviously) the 5th July when we will be 152.092 million kilometres away. That might not sound like a big difference, but that’s an extra 580,000 km, meaning that the sunlight will take an extra 1.935 seconds to reach us on July 5th as it does/did/will have did on June 21st. I know you’ll notice/have noticed/have will did taked note.

For comparison, Cape Town’s longest day is December 21st.
On December 21st, in Cape Town, the sun will rise at 0531 (2 hours and 20 minutes earlier than June 21st), reach its meridian at 1244 (80 degrees above the horizon), and set at 1957 (2 hours and 23 minutes later than June 21st), giving a daylength of 14 hours, 25 minutes and 05 seconds (4 hours, 32 minutes and 27 seconds longer than June 21st.)

As for Cape Town’s latest sunset this year: you missed it (or maybe you didn’t, but it’s gone already) it was 2001 on January 6th. The sun that day was “just” 147.101 million kilometres away. Light from the sun took 16.648 fewer seconds to reach us on January 6th than it will on July 5th. And light goes fast, hey?