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Minor Strangeness (IHTM)

Last night, I tried to access this forum via my mobile phone. Got an error message, so tried again, making every effort not to be ham-fisted with typing of my password. Error again! Actually read the error mesage this time: "Your IP address has been banned". Charming... anyway, I turned the wi-fi connection back on (don't know why it was off), and was able to fool the system into letting me log on.

So, I have no idea why my phone's IP address has been banned from the forum - pretty much every other website I've tried recently (nothing dodgy!) has worked fine. Maybe it's just the universe's way of telling me I'm spending too much time here, and maybe I should take the hint, at least for a while?

Now I think about it, something similar happened with my old phone, shortly before I changed it. Not this website, but another one, gave me the message that my IP address had been reported - basically, a big "ha, Ha, you're in trouble now". I heard nothing more, needless to say. Anyone else had anything similar?
 
"Your IP address has been banned"

I've been using Pay Pal on my iPad to pay my council tax for a very long time. At the beginning of December, my transaction was refused. After querying it with my bank, they said it was because my IP address was flagged up as being in Germany (where my iPad has never even visited). I know it's almost impossible for IOS devices to be hit by a virus and, in any case, my AV app gives my iPad a clean bill of health. I'm going to do a factory reset just to be safe though. So it would appear that IP addresses can take on a weird and mischievous life of their own occasionally!
 
Peripart said:
Last night, I tried to access this forum via my mobile phone. Got an error message, so tried again, making every effort not to be ham-fisted with typing of my password. Error again! Actually read the error mesage this time: "Your IP address has been banned". Charming... anyway, I turned the wi-fi connection back on (don't know why it was off), and was able to fool the system into letting me log on.

So, I have no idea why my phone's IP address has been banned from the forum - pretty much every other website I've tried recently (nothing dodgy!) has worked fine. Maybe it's just the universe's way of telling me I'm spending too much time here, and maybe I should take the hint, at least for a while?

Now I think about it, something similar happened with my old phone, shortly before I changed it. Not this website, but another one, gave me the message that my IP address had been reported - basically, a big "ha, Ha, you're in trouble now". I heard nothing more, needless to say. Anyone else had anything similar?
Click to expand...

I couldn't access here from my phone when I was in Oxford t'other week. Gazzed a mod on another one and was told that it's because, I dunno, by the time I had a reply I was plastered on several types of wine so while it made sense at the time I can't remember any details.
 
blessmycottonsocks said:
After querying it with my bank, they said it was because my IP address was flagged up as being in Germany (where my iPad has never even visited).
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My email account gets hysterical whenever I log into it from anywhere, even my normal computer. Once I logged in from my mobile phone and it bombarded me with emails telling me that I had to change my password as someone had just logged in from Johannesburg!
 
Peripart said:
Last night, I tried to access this forum via my mobile phone. Got an error message, so tried again, making every effort not to be ham-fisted with typing of my password. Error again! Actually read the error mesage this time: "Your IP address has been banned". Charming... anyway, I turned the wi-fi connection back on (don't know why it was off), and was able to fool the system into letting me log on.

So, I have no idea why my phone's IP address has been banned from the forum - pretty much every other website I've tried recently (nothing dodgy!) has worked fine. Maybe it's just the universe's way of telling me I'm spending too much time here, and maybe I should take the hint, at least for a while?

Now I think about it, something similar happened with my old phone, shortly before I changed it. Not this website, but another one, gave me the message that my IP address had been reported - basically, a big "ha, Ha, you're in trouble now". I heard nothing more, needless to say. Anyone else had anything similar?
Click to expand...
This happened to me a few years back with the Slashdot website. I've never posted anything there, so I couldn't understand it. I emailed Slashdot with a complaint, but never received a reply. After a day or two, I was able to get back in with no problems. It's possible they'd banned someone in the same area as me, and they did a block ban of all IP addresses in this area.
 
Not an it happened to me but certainly a minor strangeness.

This time last year I started a thread drawing attention to an extraordinarily un-remarked upon coincidence I found via a small footnote in a Wikipedia entry. The fact that the mother of Frank Sinatra and the son of Dean Martin died exactly 10 years apart in completely unrelated plane crashes on the same mountain.

Well here's a thematically linked little coincidence stemming from the great celebrity cull of 2016.

In January Natalie Cole, the daughter of Nat King Cole and professional singer in her own right (she died on New Years Eve, her death being reported on 1 January and therefore she was possibly the first of the year's roll call of start spangled morbidity)

In March came the death of Frank Sinatra jr, son of..well..Frank Sinatra and professional singer in his own right.

Unnoticed in the UK because he wasn't known here, in August the youngest son of Dean Martin, again a professional singer in his own right also died.

So the children of all three iconic crooners, each of them themselves entertainers and each known primarily for their tribute acts to their famous parent, all passed within months of each other.

Which is certainly a thing.
 
gattino said:
Which is certainly a thing.
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I find your observation genuinely-unsettling, mainly because it is difficult to avoid the fundamental validity of your conclusions, but also due to the lack of media buzz regarding this so far.

Well done: and thank-you for having helped empirically-validate that the world truly is an odder place than we merely perceive it to be.
 
Sign spotted in a car park, east side of Glasgow:
"Minimum Stay 1hr"

Appeared to be a real, metal, sign.

I must try and find it again, but this time take a picture. Though to so do, may officially have to take me over an hour.
 
Peripart said:
Last night, I tried to access this forum via my mobile phone. Got an error message, so tried again, making every effort not to be ham-fisted with typing of my password. Error again! Actually read the error mesage this time: "Your IP address has been banned"... Anyone else had anything similar?
Click to expand...
I've experienced the same error message intermittently when visiting the forum over the last two weeks.
 
Ermintrude said:
Sign spotted in a car park, east side of Glasgow:
"Minimum Stay 1hr"

Appeared to be a real, metal, sign.

I must try and find it again, but this time take a picture. Though to so do, may officially have to take me over an hour.
Click to expand...


I once saw "Babies and dogs must be carried" at the foot of an escalator.
Took me ages to grab one of each before I could lawfully ascend.
 
blessmycottonsocks said:
I once saw "Babies and dogs must be carried" at the foot of an escalator.
Took me ages to grab one of each before I could lawfully ascend.
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IMG_5652.GIF


I had something odd. As I was dozing off (I know it's strange area) I felt like someone tapped me hard on the head. I felt it and heard it, it was weird. Probably just limbo weirdness.
 
MorningAngel said:
I had something odd. As I was dozing off (I know it's strange area) I felt like someone tapped me hard on the head. I felt it and heard it, it was weird. Probably just limbo weirdness.
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You really must stop falling asleep while limbo dancing.
 
Around 12.30 last night, in anticipation of never finding an unhailed black cab I rang my usual private hire company, A1. I said can you send a cab to the front of the Empire theatre, which I happened to be near. It's an empty stretch of street at that time with no bars nearby, so there was no prospect of me or the cabby missing each other. I was the only person standing there. I stood there on the kerb for 10 minutes or so and finally sure enough the tell tale ring of my phone from an unfamiliar number to alert me the cab was arriving. Within 2, 3 seconds a car signals it's indicator and pulls up in front of me. I give the unseen driver a thumbs up and move towards the rear door..... only to realise there's someone in the back seat , I stop short and glance at the rear door to check its the right cab company. The sign stuck to the door says Uber! I've never used Uber and as I say there's someone sitting there. Clearly a coincidence. My cab must be a few seconds behind. So slightly embarrassed I raise my hands in a "oops, my mistake!" gesture and move to the rear of the car and wait. No further cab ever turns up, and the "Uber" with the man in the back just sits there for a minute or so, waiting, before it pulls away without anyone getting out. Suggesting it had indeed been for me. W the actual F was that all about?

Its now morning and I'm trying to to rationalise it. The phone ringing just before it pulls up, the waiting before giving up and driving away, the absence of any subsequent call or cab all say this was in fact my cab. Perhaps the car's owner/s was moonlighting for two companies and he forgot the Uber sign was still stuck on the door. But that leaves the mystery of me seeing someone sitting in the back seat. ..

I didn't see their face but I'd have said there was a gym fit fella about 30 in a white t shirt sitting there. So did I imagine or hallucinate it? Was it a reflection or a dummy? Or....nah. I ain't afraid of no ghosts.
 
I carried on walking till I found a vacant black cab heading back into the city centre.
 
gattino said:
Around 12.30 last night, in anticipation of never finding an unhailed black cab I rang my usual private hire company, A1. I said can you send a cab to the front of the Empire theatre, which I happened to be near. It's an empty stretch of street at that time with no bars nearby, so there was no prospect of me or the cabby missing each other. I was the only person standing there. I stood there on the kerb for 10 minutes or so and finally sure enough the tell tale ring of my phone from an unfamiliar number to alert me the cab was arriving. Within 2, 3 seconds a car signals it's indicator and pulls up in front of me. I give the unseen driver a thumbs up and move towards the rear door..... only to realise there's someone in the back seat , I stop short and glance at the rear door to check its the right cab company. The sign stuck to the door says Uber! I've never used Uber and as I say there's someone sitting there. Clearly a coincidence. My cab must be a few seconds behind. So slightly embarrassed I raise my hands in a "oops, my mistake!" gesture and move to the rear of the car and wait. No further cab ever turns up, and the "Uber" with the man in the back just sits there for a minute or so, waiting, before it pulls away without anyone getting out. Suggesting it had indeed been for me. W the actual F was that all about?

Its now morning and I'm trying to to rationalise it. The phone ringing just before it pulls up, the waiting before giving up and driving away, the absence of any subsequent call or cab all say this was in fact my cab. Perhaps the car's owner/s was moonlighting for two companies and he forgot the Uber sign was still stuck on the door. But that leaves the mystery of me seeing someone sitting in the back seat. ..

I didn't see their face but I'd have said there was a gym fit fella about 30 in a white t shirt sitting there. So did I imagine or hallucinate it? Was it a reflection or a dummy? Or....nah. I ain't afraid of no ghosts.
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It's possible that the Uber taxi driver was either working for both A1 and Uber, or it was a taxi driver who had intercepted the A1 radio call and he was trying to steal their fare.
This happened to me once. I phoned for a taxi (specifically a black cab), and a few minutes later a scruffy old car (Nissan Bluebird) turned up, driven by a young Asian man. I asked him if he was with the taxi cab company and I mentioned that I'd asked for a black cab, but he was kinda vague with his answers. Once in the car and under way, I came to the realisation that this guy was just some bum who'd intercepted the radio call and was pinching a fare. His car was literally falling apart and it all seemed fishy. No cards, no usual Indian ornaments and air fresheners...it all raised my suspicions.
 
Just under an hour ago, I came back from the shops with assorted stuff to bring back to my family in France, like mini beer barrel, marmite, because they don't know it, or Horseradish sauce my mum really like. I was in the spare room and put my handbag on the bed, having only my coat on and then, was arranging the purchases with the rest of the presents and stuff to take with u,. when I heard something small hitting the cupboard doors in front of me. Twice. Bewildered, I wondered what it was. It was not coming from my handbag or the large plastic one I put the stuff we brought in, as it was on the floor. Not from my coat pockets either or from the cupboard above, all closed. Looking closer, I found two big pine nuts on the floor. They are identical to some I picked up in France, near a beach, sometimes at the end of September. I haven't seen them since, except today. My first reaction was to find a rational explanation, but couldn't. As an experiment, I throw the nuts as if there was someone just behind me doing it and not too hard. They landed exactly and they did earlier.
That bedroom was my husband's mum and dad's. She died young and had a strong personality. (I posted something about weird stuff happening in the house around this time of year, a while back.) I keep my mind opened, both in rational and irrational way, that's safer!
 
I had some minor strangeness myself last night.
I had driven for 2 hours in the fog to get home last night, and I arrived home at 10 pm.
I turned off the car and switched off everything, and then switched on the internal light so I could see better as I leaned forward to put the satnav cable away.
At that point, a bright splash of green light flashed across the part of the dashboard above the glove compartment, as bright as a laser. It wasn't a laser (i.e. not a laser pointer), but rather like a torch of laser intensity, with a strong green colour. I looked around and saw nothing, and then saw the flash again.
I got out of the car to see if somebody was outside fooling about with a torch, but saw nobody at all. Then I thought 'is it one of the Christmas lights on another house?' - and I looked around to see if there was anything like that. No green lights in my immediate vicinity at all. Nothing inside the car that would have done that.
It's a complete mystery to me.
 
gattino said:
Around 12.30 last night, in anticipation of never finding an unhailed black cab I rang my usual private hire company, A1. I said can you send a cab to the front of the Empire theatre, which I happened to be near. It's an empty stretch of street at that time with no bars nearby, so there was no prospect of me or the cabby missing each other. I was the only person standing there. I stood there on the kerb for 10 minutes or so and finally sure enough the tell tale ring of my phone from an unfamiliar number to alert me the cab was arriving. Within 2, 3 seconds a car signals it's indicator and pulls up in front of me. I give the unseen driver a thumbs up and move towards the rear door..... only to realise there's someone in the back seat , I stop short and glance at the rear door to check its the right cab company. The sign stuck to the door says Uber! I've never used Uber and as I say there's someone sitting there. Clearly a coincidence. My cab must be a few seconds behind. So slightly embarrassed I raise my hands in a "oops, my mistake!" gesture and move to the rear of the car and wait. No further cab ever turns up, and the "Uber" with the man in the back just sits there for a minute or so, waiting, before it pulls away without anyone getting out. Suggesting it had indeed been for me. W the actual F was that all about?

Its now morning and I'm trying to to rationalise it. The phone ringing just before it pulls up, the waiting before giving up and driving away, the absence of any subsequent call or cab all say this was in fact my cab. Perhaps the car's owner/s was moonlighting for two companies and he forgot the Uber sign was still stuck on the door. But that leaves the mystery of me seeing someone sitting in the back seat. ..

I didn't see their face but I'd have said there was a gym fit fella about 30 in a white t shirt sitting there. So did I imagine or hallucinate it? Was it a reflection or a dummy? Or....nah. I ain't afraid of no ghosts.
Click to expand...

This has happened to me on a couple of occasions with our notoriously poor local cab firm. I've been about to get into a cab and found out it wasn't for me, waited and nothing shows. I phone up the firm, they tell me the guy is on his way and they send another cab as they've f*cked up my cab.

I know this as I know a guy that worked for them and he told me half the drivers couldn't speak English and didn't know their way around and would constantly get lost and turn up at the wrong place. Coupled with a senile dispatcher I'm amazed the company still operates.

The even more likely explanation is that they didn't have enough cabs in the area, but didn't want to lose your sale so indeed hoped you would cab share. They hoped you'd be desperate enough to jump in. After all it's not uncommon to share a cab on friday night if a cab is "going your way" and you split the fare.

The fact it was a different company? Slightly different but essentially still no available cabs, dispatcher sends a mate there from another firm to pick you up. The driver can't be arsed to engage with you but needs to show Uber that's he's made the stop.
 
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Mythopoeika said:
It's possible that the Uber taxi driver was either working for both A1 and Uber, or it was a taxi driver who had intercepted the A1 radio call and he was trying to steal their fare.
This happened to me once. I phoned for a taxi (specifically a black cab), and a few minutes later a scruffy old car (Nissan Bluebird) turned up, driven by a young Asian man. I asked him if he was with the taxi cab company and I mentioned that I'd asked for a black cab, but he was kinda vague with his answers. Once in the car and under way, I came to the realisation that this guy was just some bum who'd intercepted the radio call and was pinching a fare. His car was literally falling apart and it all seemed fishy. No cards, no usual Indian ornaments and air fresheners...it all raised my suspicions.
Click to expand...


I have a story that goes one step further. I'm waiting at the taxi rank, I'm in my work's uniform, car pulls up, I get in. Notice he's got no meter or CB. I say "you're no taxi", he says "you work at so and so's and you'll be late for work, my niece works there and you guys start at 07:00". He's right I ask him how much, he names a price, (a little lower than a cab fare) and I accept. I got to work on time.
 
I just took a candle holder out of the freezer a few minutes ago, (putting it in the freezer makes it much easier to remove the old wax) and as i tapped it on the kitchen worktop a had a strange buzzing feeling from it though my hand. It was almost like a very mild electric shock. I put it down and the tried it again but there was no odd feeling the second time. I use this method to remove old candle wax from my holders all the time and I've never had that experience before. What was it?
 
If the candle-holder is made from crystalline quartz, it will generate a voltage when subjected to a mechanical impact, due to the well-known piezo-electric effect* (this is used in gas flame spark igniters, which have no batteries, but a physical striker). So a high-tension voltage with negligible current is possible.

Also: a quartzoid substance may have a Curie Point, at which it's physical state of matter (at an ionic bond level) changes, and becomes more paramagnetically generative or conductive at lower temperatures (this is almost sheer conjecture, unlike my observation about the piezo-electric effect, but is not impossible).

Or put in a more simplistic way....at a temperature of -20degC, a crystal object becomed more crystalline, and as it heats-up to +20degC it reverts to being a thixotropic semi-solid, thus potentially losing it's electrogenerative characteristics.

You may genuinely have discovered an interesting undocumented effect. Please repeat the process, and report back (and if it was just a jarred nerve in your hand, I say bad luck, twice over!!)

(* this is the transductive opposite of the way in which different cuts of quartz crystal will resonate/oscillate when subjected to voltages. Please note that all of the above is real science, and nothing to do with purported supranatural effects associated with crystals)
 
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Its a ceramic holder. I've put a new candle into it just so I can repeat the process. And don't worry, I'll report back if it happens again :D:D
 
cherrybomb said:
Its a ceramic holder
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Ceramics can display reduced (but measureable) piezo-electric properties.

Resonators made for computing and telecommunications purposes (as filters/oscillators/transducers) can utilise either ceramics or crystals. Ceramics tend to be less efficient, but broader spectrum (eg when used in microphones/detectors). Under those circumstances, the crystal or ceramic elements are tiny, and the voltages produced (or induced) are tiny.

But gross blocks will produce sparks of electricity, especially in dry/cold atmospheres. Coal, salt and other lattice solids can also produce measurable voltages, and may be implicated as auto-ignition sources in underground fires.
 
Ermintrude said:
Resonators made for computing and telecommunications purposes (as filters/oscillators/transducers) can utilise either ceramics or crystals.
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Gosh. Reminds me on the good old days when one built one's own oscillator around a crystal using 40106's and capacitors. Buying modules is much easier now, although not always cheaper.
 
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