Putting things right

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Remember this post about a kak afternoon at the races?

None of the horses that we wanted to win, won.
And that was quite annoying.
At first, it was just a bit annoying, but then, as the sequence continued, it got more and more annoying.

Well, let the record show that not every afternoon at the races is kak.

Because we turned out today in the cold, wet, windy weather and with limited expectations, and then this happened:

Not my pics*: I was just there for moral support (and to win a bit of cash).

And we had a lot of stuff to get done, so with the obligatory interviews and a quick glass of bubbly out of the way, we left with happy hearts and slightly fuller wallets.

This was a good lunchtime at the races.

* edge patrol on that second one!!!!

How good is this?

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And by “good”, I obviously mean [checks notes] 6.92 out of 10.

Words are subjective, and that’s why scientists like objective things like numbers and data. Those make for a great (7.76/10) way of describing things in a way that everyone can understand and relate to.

But there is definitely some agreement when it comes to adjectives describing the goodity or the baditude of things. Look at this:

Here’s a list of adjectives which people have scored indicating just how “good” they feel the word is. And there are some lovely bell curves there: the best one being “average”, which at 5.09/10 is pretty much spot on for what you might think, but then the good stuff outweighs the bad ones on here, so it doesn’t quite work.

“Perfect” clearly isn’t perfect at all. As an absolute, we really should be seeing 10s across the board like Com?neci in Montreal, but some weirdo seems to have said that it’s only 4/10 and that goes to show just how unreliable words – and people – can be. So next time someone tells you that you are perfect, just remember that they could mean somewhere between “mediocre” and “below average”.

Ouch.

All in all though, there’s not a lot to argue with here. Generally, I’d say it’s OK (which I was happy to see was above “average”), and I can go on using my adjectives and superlatives safe in the knowledge that most people will just about understand exactly what I mean.

Unexpected weather

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It’s wintery today. The frogs are going mad out there.
The rain arrived early this morning, surprising absolutely no-one who had been keeping an eye on the developing forecast over the weekend.

I was shocked.

Shocked because I thought everything was arriving tomorrow and I was going to do today’s post about it. And indeed, there are plenty of warnings out for “disruptive rain”:

…but just not for today.

But the rain tomorrow is coming and it does look suitably biblical. Probably at least one inch or 25mm, which the dams (59.1%) and the gardens certainly need, but which is going to make for a(nother) rather unpleasant day.

And so it turns out that all the prep I had in mind to get ready for the rain tomorrow now has to be done in the rain today. Bugger.

And so much for that blog post forewarning you all of the nastiness.

Not much point in doing that now, is there?

Amber Arrows

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Incredible levels of dullness in this video, all about Amber Arrows – the less good aerobatic display team – in Blackburn, Lancashire.

It might be the dullest video I’ve ever put on here. And there have been some great contenders.

Where else would you get to hear such gems as:

We were still using 300 mil arrow aspects instead of the now standard 200 mil. Therefore, if you wanted to retrofit such an aspect, you had to replace the whole signalhead. Now you don’t need to do that.

It’s also amazingly niche Geoguessr meta, which I will almost certainly never use.

Do we have Amber Arrows in South Africa? Amazingly, I have never noticed.
Is that a bit worrying?

EDIT: Yes, we do.

We don’t have an amber between red and green, I do know that. Oh, and no-one obeys any amber light (or any other “aspect”) anyway, so maybe it’s not really important.

After and before

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Spotted this advert on the socials earlier. I don’t need my pool renewed,  nor am I an Ad Wizard, so I didn’t really pay that much attention, but…

… doesn’t Western convention mean that those two images should be there other way around to make the product and process in question seem worth spending your hard-earned money on?

This looks like a huge own goal. But at least it’s got some water in once it’s finished.