Folks,

Are you concerned about which day of the week your birthday falls every year. Do you hate Leap Years? Are you forced to run to the computer to determine when Sadie Hawkin's Day comes around every year? Worry not.

According to Scientific American they may be revising the Gregorian calendar. No doubt the Pope is rolling over in his grave with laughter. Personally I am amazed that they were sophisticated enough to be able to account for the drift caused by the year not being a perfect 365 days by varying the number of days in the months setting 28 days for February and adding a Leap Year every 4 years. Unfortunately because 365 is not evenly divisible by 7 days the same dates (like Christmas Day)do fall on different days each year. Yes I'm sure you noticed that already but fear not.

Under the Hanke-Henry Permanent Calendar (named after Henry and Steve Hanke, a Johns Hopkins economist who also advocates calendar overhaul), every date falls on the same day of the week — forever.

The calendar follows a pattern of two 30-day months followed by one 31-day month. That means the old rhyme, "30 days hath September, April, June and November," would need to be revised to "30 days hath September, June, March and December."

To account for extra time, Hanke and Henry drop leap years and instead create a "leap week" at the end of December every five or six years. This extra week, dubbed "Xtr", would adjust for seasonal drift while keeping the 7-day cycle on track.

"The new calendar can be fairly often off as much as three days on the seasons, but looking out, could you tell?" Henry said.

Since retiring I still use the clock regularly but I do not keep a calendar on me or within sight anymore. There is a popup conveniently placed in a corner on my desktop. Think about it; no doubt there is quite a lot of time and treasure spent on updating the calendar and everything that relies on one every year. Then just think of how much it would cost to substitute a new calendar altogether much less get the world to accept it.

Console sim games tend toward the arcade, and at least a few of them are
decent enough to admit this. Probably the least arcadish is the Il-2
spin off "Birds of Prey", about which i can say that they have spent a
lot of effort getting the small terrain of southeast Kent very well
detailed, though they then decided to allow the player to only view it
through a viewport which magically desaturates the image, tints it
with a sea green wash, and darkens the edges, so as to represent that you
are looking back into the unimaginably distant, ancient and prehistoric
past, which no one now alive could have ever viewed, or at least no one
who matters. I can't tell you much else about it.

The tinting irritates me as much as the sepia toning of images of
B&W photos from the early sixties. So sepia process was superseded
in the 1940s; 40s, 60s whatever. It's like, way ancient, man.

Folks,

PV1:

I too have noticed that desaturated, tinted, shaded effect. It comes off rather dark and a bit like an old news reel at times. Of course all I've seen of "Birds of Prey" has been videos on You Tube. I thought perhaps that had something to do with it at first until I realized all the videos were the same. I guess it's a bit like using gauze or various filters over a movie camera to create a "mood". Obviously if this was the case the mood it created for you was not likely the one they meant it to be.

Maybe sepia was an attempt to inject color into what had been for a long time basically a black and white medium. They even tried it in the movies. Before color TV came along someone sold acetate sheets the size of the average picture tube. The acetate was blue at the top for the sky, pinkish in the middle for skin tone and green at the bottom for grass. The ludicrous idea was to affix the acetate to your TV screen by way of static electricity and watch B&W programs through it. For all but the visually impaired it must have been a dismal failure.

Gents,

That makes it eleven years today.

Whenever I type about RoF pilots they get the chop. It happened today but I re-flew the mission because I am not sure if it was a descending Pfalz which got him or 'Archie'. I settled for the latter because the kite exploded with no sign of machine-gun smoke trails. I always re-fly high-level 'Archie' prangs because of the modelled over-accurate fire. Any low level stuff and it's all over.

Such re-flies must be de rigour if you are after an high score. The top players with hundreds of victories (up to a thousand!) must have been shot down by 'Archie' scores of times in balloon attack and cruising over enemy lines. It's unavoidable unless you tick the eternal life box - and who wants to do that? You nearly always get winged or shot down in a DFW attack but there is a special mod for reducing the gunner's uncanny effectiveness.

Someone is right up there with me in the tables but he only has eight victories. This is because he is flying with everything ticked blank - the very difficult purist way. There is a built-in handicap which increases, the easier you make the game. Perhaps I will try that next but I won't expect to live long.

Agree totally with PV1. I've seen the graphics like the Birds of Prey example describeb as a urine filter.

Gents, make your own associations!

Folks,

Dux:

It is not clear to me are you playing online? The other night over Duxford I saw a 109 explode from a direct hit by flack. I once saw that happen to my wingman. At least I think he was hit by friendly fire (no, not mine). I have never seen any plane damaged by barrage balloons or their cables, have you?

MG:

Thanks for the photo. That is one fine Fiat. You can be proud of that beauty and it should be quite a chick magnet as well. When I eventually get the SAAB 900 Turbo on the road I'll send you another snap.

We are expecting the coldest weather we've had since February of 2010. It won't be what C51 or PV1 call cold perhaps but it will be cold enough for southerners. We expect temps down around 20 F./ -6 C with a lower wind chill. After doing a bit of winterizing I went for a nice long walk this morning. Along the path I happened to spy and pick up a small branch fallen from a nearby sweetgum tree.

I have long been fascinated with fractals. A fractal has been defined as a rough or fragmented geometric shape that can be split into parts, each of the separate parts is approximately a reduced-size copy of the others. Way back when computers were still operated by steam I used to fiddle around making fractals using Basic programs I'd written. Gutter basic really for I was never a good Basic programmer.

What struck me today when I picked up that little branch was the evidence (well known to science) of fractals in nature. The branch was no less than a smaller copy of the whole tree from which it had fallen. You can see that phenomenon in many other natural things.

Folks,

Dux:

Indeed congratulations are in order. Salute! I was checking over the January HWH calendar yesterday and I noticed that the anniversary of your first HWH post was coming up today. Do trot down those 3,000 crumbling steps to the wine cellar and pick out a bottle of Château Thames Embankment (Vin. this afternoon). LeRoy will charge it to your mess account.

I believe you will be enjoying another even more auspicious occasion this coming Saturday? Keep an eye peeled for the red flag to pop up on your frosty mailbox by Friday.

Folks,

Dux:

Someone call Pierrot, Miss Marple and Sherlock Holmes, Mike Hammer, and Sam Spade too if you like. I can just see it now listed number 1 on the New York Time's Best Seller list: "Murder on the Queen's Estate".

Somewhat like an Agatha Christie mystery but far more serious, an unidentified body was found on the Queen's Sandringham estate on New Year's Day. The police are treating it as a case of murder. The inquiry is ongoing.

Can you account for your whereabouts on or about New Year's Day Dux? Actually the body had been there for quite some time. As a castle owner yourself and member in high standing in British aristocracy you would know that the estate is huge and that a large forested area is always open to the public free of charge.

Hmmmmm. Has anyone seen Camilla lately?

Chaps,

JRT,

You can only play Pilot Career online in RoF. Apparently, you can fly through cables but this is what happens if you go for the basket, which remained intact. At least, the basketeer had the presence of mind to salute the superior officer who was plunging to his doom..

I have written off several kites colliding with balloons.

JRT,

British police are lightning quick at assessing any crime scene.

A bloke recently shot himself after killing three family members early on New Years Day.

"We are treating this as a murder enquiry" said police spokesman.