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Minor Strangeness (IHTM)

I believe this may explain the zigzagging.
Sternschwanken caused by the eye's own physical limitation? Entirely possible.

Although I remain puzzled as to how (when considering how complex and multicyclic the celestial gyrepath of the Earth is within our universe, and similarly-so for the relative appositions of the other stars in our galaxy) it is the case that we don't perceive much more strange perambulations / deviations amongst our visible stars.

Presumably the reason is because of the vast distances, cancelling-out any movement? So a "star" is really an averaged splash of light, perhaps billions of light-years across? My astronomy knowledge is very poor (a terrible admission, I know)
 
Our apartment buildnig is suffering from Unexplained bangs.

We have a FB group for residents and more and more are reporting super loud bangs in the bulding. They can happen during the day or night. They seem local so one apartment hears something so loudly but their neighbours do not. For example, one happened last week and a persons cats jumped up and ran for cover they were so scared by the noise. They said that it seemed to come from all around them. But no-one else heard that one.

I experienced one a few weeks ago in the dead of night. It was a massive bang and I was awake and up out of bed instantly. (We had a window smashed a few years ago and I immediately thought of that). I ran through and checked on the kids but they were asleep. I checked the whole apartment and nothing was amiss.

My explanation was that huge chunks of snow from the roof are falling and hitting the metal window sills on their way down. But others have heard that noise too and say these bangs are different. It may be that changes in temperature are causing something to expand and/or contract on the roof but the noises aparently come from the walls.

Which leaves a question about structural integrity I suppose. The building is 7 years old and structurally sound, built on pillars anchored to the bedrock. It may be shifting or settling. Who knows? But for the time being, we have a mystery.
 
Our apartment buildnig is suffering from Unexplained bangs.

We have a FB group for residents and more and more are reporting super loud bangs in the bulding. They can happen during the day or night. They seem local so one apartment hears something so loudly but their neighbours do not. For example, one happened last week and a persons cats jumped up and ran for cover they were so scared by the noise. They said that it seemed to come from all around them. But no-one else heard that one.

I experienced one a few weeks ago in the dead of night. It was a massive bang and I was awake and up out of bed instantly. (We had a window smashed a few years ago and I immediately thought of that). I ran through and checked on the kids but they were asleep. I checked the whole apartment and nothing was amiss.

My explanation was that huge chunks of snow from the roof are falling and hitting the metal window sills on their way down. But others have heard that noise too and say these bangs are different. It may be that changes in temperature are causing something to expand and/or contract on the roof but the noises aparently come from the walls.

Which leaves a question about structural integrity I suppose. The building is 7 years old and structurally sound, built on pillars anchored to the bedrock. It may be shifting or settling. Who knows? But for the time being, we have a mystery.
Any visual signs of structural problems? May be worth checking it out.
 
My oddity is that no matter where I'm at, I often have people who stop me to ask for directions, and surprisingly I can usually tell them. I thought it was just in my mind until I was discussing it with a friend and she agreed.
A great-grandfather on my dad's side apparently took pride in being the opposite. He'd moved up from Leicester to a small town just outside Leeds, and lived there happily for decades. But any time anyone asked him for directions, he would demur and apologise, remarking in his defence that he was a stranger there himself. The culmination of this habit was him being asked for directions to Thornhill Street, to which unwittingly ambitious request he gave his stock reply. Once the vignette had played out, he was accosted by another passer-by, this time a local who knew him, so could say to him "You daft bugger, that's your street!".
 
Speaking of stars, I've noticed a very bright couple hanging low in the southeast for about a week just before dawn (I'm in England) and I'd guess that the brightest one is Venus and the slighter fainter one to its right is Mercury?
You can get an app for that! I've got the Star Gazer app and it's wonderful.
 
Teapot synchronicity!

A friend sent me a random photo of a teapot belonging to a friend she was visiting today. No reason. Just random teapot photo.

But it turned out to be the same teapot I used for my peppermint tea whilst having lunch at the Edwardian Tearooms in the Birmingham museum and art gallery today. I recognised it because I had admired the teapot and thought how I'd like to own one.
 
An odd one. For the last four days I've been strung out with feeling ill - interrupted sleep and a bit of an ASC creeping in at the edges. Felt well enough earlier today to go to the local supermarket to pick up a few bits and pieces. Waiting in the queue behind an elderly woman in her seventies and sensing she was a bit nervous about something. then I had the complete conviction that if store secuirty stopped her on the way out, there'd be stuff about her person she wasn't declaring for payment at the till. This puzzled me: I had no idea why i was so sure of this except for the fact she did look nervous and out of sorts. She did have groceries in her basket, but they were everyday essentials, bread, milk, et c. I wondered what might be hidden inside her coat, and again I wondered why I was thinking this: there was no way of proving it and I asked if from my point of view this mattered a damn or made a difference - it certainly didn't effect me one way or the other, so totally irrelevant. Yet I "knew" the old lady had been shoplifting. Totally odd. nothing i could do about it and I asked if there was anything I should do; it was between her, ASDA, and her conscience. Did what i hope was the best thing, just observed, and let her get on with it.
 
Maybe there is something happening that was affecting both of you on an unconscious level. Some subsonic Tectonic plate shifting or something. If you're in the Northern hemisphere, February isn't the best month for feeling at the peak of your form. :glum:
Unless you actually saw her tuck something in her pocket or bag, leaving her alone was most appropriate IMHO -- imagine if you'd alerted someone that she was stealing, and . . . she was really innocent!
 
Altered State of Consciousness. It's a neat term for something hard to describe, when everything goes off kilter and while the world around you is what it always was, it's as if you're disposed to see it from a different angle. Or something. And no - getting involved would have been stupid. Still baffled as to why the certainty was so strong and there was nothing to reeasonably do with it - I certainly had no great moral feelings about it, it wasn't for me to judge or act...
 
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Only slightly odd, but here goes.

Today I walked into my usual cafe. just in front of me as I entered was a woman who part turned and said 'Hello INT21'.

(actually she used my proper name)

But I didn't recognise her. I said hello: nodding as one does.

Anyway, she went out of the building and I asked the counter staff 'Who was that ?'.

'You should know' said the girl behind the counter, 'she is related to you. Her name is Karen, No, Carol'.

And then I realised who it was. A relation from my wife's side who I only met once at a funeral two years ago.
She came back in and I apologised for not recognising her. We exchange a few bits of news and she left.

What I find strange is how the girl behind the counter knew I was related. She isn't related and we only ever exchange a few of the usual courtesies when I go in there. Why does everyone appear to know more about me than I do ?


INT21.

NEVER underestimate what is known about people by those who work behind the till. I work in a little local Co Op and the things customers tell me (and the detail in which they tell it) tend to stay with me. I could tell you which of my customers are related, who used to go out with who, who beat who up in primary school etc etc. Other customers wouldn't know they'd been discussed by the person two people before them in the queue, but I'd practically know their life history!

Also, when you go up to a till to be served, don't flip your wallet open. Several customers do and I now know their blood group, their addresses, any serious illness they might be being treated for and where, how many children/grandchildren they have, their NI number...etc etc. Lots of them also write their PIN down and keep the slip in the transparent front of their wallet. I am of good intent, but can read very quickly and there will be others like me who are not so well inclined...
 
Yet I "knew" the old lady had been shoplifting. Totally odd. nothing i could do about it and I asked if there was anything I should do; it was between her, ASDA, and her conscience. Did what i hope was the best thing, just observed, and let her get on with it.

You didn't know though, you could only suspect. Even a police officer or store detective couldn't act on such weak evidence as her looking a bit nervous at the till!
 
NEVER underestimate what is known about people by those who work behind the till. I work in a little local Co Op and the things customers tell me (and the detail in which they tell it) tend to stay with me. I could tell you which of my customers are related, who used to go out with who, who beat who up in primary school etc etc. Other customers wouldn't know they'd been discussed by the person two people before them in the queue, but I'd practically know their life history!

Also, when you go up to a till to be served, don't flip your wallet open. Several customers do and I now know their blood group, their addresses, any serious illness they might be being treated for and where, how many children/grandchildren they have, their NI number...etc etc. Lots of them also write their PIN down and keep the slip in the transparent front of their wallet. I am of good intent, but can read very quickly and there will be others like me who are not so well inclined...

You're wasted there. Wasted.
 
You didn't know though, you could only suspect. Even a police officer or store detective couldn't act on such weak evidence as her looking a bit nervous at the till!

That was probably the ASC talking: aware I could have been blurring the distinction between suspicion and "knowing", and in any case, not my business. Odd feeling, though.
 
Teapot synchronicity!

A friend sent me a random photo of a teapot belonging to a friend she was visiting today. No reason. Just random teapot photo.

But it turned out to be the same teapot I used for my peppermint tea whilst having lunch at the Edwardian Tearooms in the Birmingham museum and art gallery today. I recognised it because I had admired the teapot and thought how I'd like to own one.
That gallery has one of my favourite ever paintings in it.
 
You morbid bugger.

That's one of many Victorian art works inspired by poetry; in this case Tennyson's In Memoriam, about the death of his close friend Arthur Hallam. (As I'm sure you know.)

Why do you like that painting so much?

Morbid bugger! :salute:

Because of the raw emotion and utter despair it projects. It's one of the most powerful paintings I've ever seen in the flesh, as it were. It actually made me stop dead in my tracks to look up at it.
 
Morbid bugger! :salute:

Because of the raw emotion and utter despair it projects. It's one of the most powerful paintings I've ever seen in the flesh, as it were. It actually made me stop dead in my tracks to look up at it.

The older woman is very knowing. She's been there too and knows it doesn't get better.
 
The light is somehow encouraging in that picture. I don't know why, but there's just something in the quality of it...
 
NEVER underestimate what is known about people by those who work behind the till. I work in a little local Co Op and the things customers tell me (and the detail in which they tell it) tend to stay with me. I could tell you which of my customers are related, who used to go out with who, who beat who up in primary school etc etc. Other customers wouldn't know they'd been discussed by the person two people before them in the queue, but I'd practically know their life history!

so... relating this to my own post about the out-of-the-blue intuition in ASDA that the old lady in front of me in the queue might not have been as nice-little-old-lady as she looked. I know the staff of the local middling-sized ASDA fairly well: I can bet they know more about me than I think! Older ladies, forties and fifties, very, very, shrewd. Thinking back to the intuition the old lady might have been doing some freelance shopping.... the till lady is one i know well, very forgiving, very motherly, very clued up on her customers. Now i'm just betting that "Martha" behind the till would have been even more aware than I was that an old lady who looks like she barely had a handful of loose change to rub together might deserve a break now and again. Knowing "Martha", I'm inclined to wonder if she was fully aware this old lady might slip something inside her coat now and again, and provided she wasn't blatant about it, didn't take the piss by doing it under the direct observation of staff, and didn't do it too often, then she, "Martha" on the till, might choose not to notice... sense of natural justice and all that. Although I've known "Martha" to have absolutely no mercy on the occassion a classic "chav" customer, a thoroughly unpleasant lady who nobody who has met her can find many kind words for, really was blatantly nicking high-end stuff and then denying it. (You know all the stereotypes that can get flung at a benefit claimant living on a council estate? Unfortunately every so often you run into people who are their walking embodiment. There is just enough truth in the prejudice, sometimes. Alas. This family have moved on, or been moved on, since, thank goodness). Fight in the store with manager and security guard, police called, nick made...
 
Knowing "Martha", I'm inclined to wonder if she was fully aware this old lady might slip something inside her coat now and again, and provided she wasn't blatant about it, didn't take the piss by doing it under the direct observation of staff, and didn't do it too often, then she, "Martha" on the till, might choose not to notice...

Because it’s not like the firm would identify the losses, then pass them on to you and me in price rises, is it? Or simply go bust?

Theft is theft. There is no Magic Money Tree.

maximus otter
 
Because it’s not like the firm would identify the losses, then pass them on to you and me in price rises, is it? Or simply go bust?

Theft is theft. There is no Magic Money Tree.

maximus otter
Most supermarkets operate a bonus scheme that even covers shop floor staff and 'shrinkage' (the stock for which there is no account), is part of it. Nick from Tesco and you're nicking from the regular shelf-stackers and till operators.
 
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