Allen but one of the good ones
LightNews LightNews
banner
uastronomer.mastodon.monoceros.co.za.ap.brid.gy
Allen but one of the good ones
@uastronomer.mastodon.monoceros.co.za.ap.brid.gy
29 followers 12 following 1.8K posts
Urban Astronomer Podcaster
Director at Monoceros Digital Consulting
AWS gun for hire, Linux/Unix consultant
We do managed Mastodon hosting - ask me! […]

🌉 bridged from ⁂ https://mastodon.monoceros.co.za/@uastronomer, follow @ap.brid.gy to interact
Posts Replies Media Videos
uastronomer.mastodon.monoceros.co.za.ap.brid.gy
OH NO CLOUDFLARE NOT AGAIN?!

https://dash.cloudflare.com
Error page when trying to load the cloudflare management console: 500 Internal Server Error
December 5, 2025 at 9:04 AM
uastronomer.mastodon.monoceros.co.za.ap.brid.gy
It's been a while since I last moaned about South African Weather Services who by all accounts are solid meteorologists but absolutely failing in their duty to inform and warn the public. So here's a long-standing gripe I have with their alert system […]

[Original post on mastodon.monoceros.co.za]
SAWS warning matrix. It's a 4 by 4 grid. Vertical axis is labelled Likelihood (high, medium, low or very low), and horizontal axis is labelled Impact (minimal, minor, significant and severe). The four "Minimal impact" squares, and two of the "Minor impact" squares, are coloured green and are not numbered. Numbers 1, 2, 3, 4 and 7 are coloured yellow, and represent medium/minor, high/minor, very low/significant, low/significate, and very low/severe. Numbers 5, 6, 8 and 9 are orange signifying medium/significant, high/significant, low/severe and medium/severe, and number 10 (high/severe) is coloured red. It is confusing, and unintuitive. Without this key, and careful study, the numbers read out to the public are meaningless.
December 2, 2025 at 11:54 AM
uastronomer.mastodon.monoceros.co.za.ap.brid.gy
A giraffe I saw earlier this year
Close-up photo of a giraffe's head. We are behind the animal, which has turned its head partly to the left to create this unusual angle. The angle of the light shows off just how wrinkled and loose its skin is, almost like the face of an old, thin man. Some notable features: The giraffe has very large, flat lips - from this angle, they are almost like a duck's bill. The head itself is bigger than a horses, but more slender and delicate. Giraffes are very large animals though, so by comparison to the rest of its body the head looks small. It has very long, luscious eyelashes that curl gently. The eyes themselves look sleepy, with big thick eyelids that seem permanently half-closed. The horns are short and point straight up. They are not pointed, but shaped like stubby cylinders that actually taper slightly in the middle before thickening into blunt black knobs at the end. The ears are large, and almost tubular. Like many herbivores, they are very mobile, able to swivel around and point in any direction that a noise might have come from. The background is African savannah in mid-winter, but unfocused. It is various shades of green or yellow tinted brown.
November 18, 2025 at 9:09 AM
uastronomer.mastodon.monoceros.co.za.ap.brid.gy
The very best Far Side of all time:
Six panels, showing a man trying to talk to a duck. In the 1st panel, he tries German: "Sprechen sie Deutsch?". In the second panel, he tries Spanish. Then he tries French. Finally, he tries "Quack?". The duck finally responds: "Quack!". Final panel, they are both enjoying a conversation, quacking animatedly at each other.
October 20, 2025 at 11:06 AM
uastronomer.mastodon.monoceros.co.za.ap.brid.gy
October 17, 2025 at 4:24 PM
uastronomer.mastodon.monoceros.co.za.ap.brid.gy
Long articulate rant about the imbalance of power between rich bastards inserting their inconveniences and privacy intrusions and enshittifications into our lives
September 24, 2025 at 6:51 AM
uastronomer.mastodon.monoceros.co.za.ap.brid.gy
Hah! Right on schedule!
Public notice on City of Tshwane letterhead: 12 September 2025 Attention Residents High water consumption in Tshwane! Residents are urged to reduce their water usage. Some reservois in the city show a serious decline In water levels. If residents do not drastically and urgently reduce their water consumption, they run the risk of not having water AT ALL! The following reservoirs are currently under severe strain and residents in these areas Should limit their water usage drastically to avoid water interruptions: (followed by a several page long list of areas in the greater metro area)
September 12, 2025 at 10:22 AM
uastronomer.mastodon.monoceros.co.za.ap.brid.gy
Oh, last night Wife and I left our comfort zones behind and watched Violent Night, what we assumed would be a shlocky by-the-numbers christmas-themed horror flick.

It wasn't.

It was a shlocky by-the-numbers christmas-themed action movie. Generic […]

[Original post on mastodon.monoceros.co.za]
August 29, 2025 at 1:52 PM
uastronomer.mastodon.monoceros.co.za.ap.brid.gy
What happens when you let donkeys and zebras graze together!

(photo from shortly before we moved back to the city)
Three zebra mares, and their full-sized debra offspring. The donkey who sired the debras is not in this shot. The zebras are standard donkey-sized equines, white with black stripes (and a few grey strips on their rumps). The debras look like donkeys with hairier tails. Their coats are a little paler than a donkey's, with very faint striping visible on their flanks and hindquarters. Their legs are white with thin strips. A debra comes from a male donkey and female zebra, while zonkeys are the other way around, apparently.
August 16, 2025 at 11:36 AM
uastronomer.mastodon.monoceros.co.za.ap.brid.gy
Rural life was crap in so many ways, but I miss being able to go for a walk and seeing astonishing little creatures like this one:
Close-up photo of a very large locust or grasshopper on a flower stem. The flower looks faded and dry, and has a dull red colour, with dried seeds visibly poking up out of the centre. The rest of the plant looks like a dying bush, thin green branches with drooping shrunken leaves rolling up along their own long axis. The grasshopper is very large although its long hind legs aren't visible - they might have been lost somewhere, or might be hidden behind a strategically placed leaf. But it has the most astonishing colours. It is primarily green, but every body part, every segment of its exoskeleton, every part of its legs, has a colour gradient from that base green to yellow, red, blue, or black. The head has two large orange eyes, and its face has a complicated swirling pattern of yellow against black. It's antenna are about as long again as the head, quite thick, and black with various thickness orange strips placed seemingly at random. It's forelegs are clutching the underside of the flower, middle legs are grasping the stem, and we have no idea what's going on with the hind legs.
August 16, 2025 at 10:57 AM
uastronomer.mastodon.monoceros.co.za.ap.brid.gy
Been a while since I posted an #astronomy update, but Mars and the Moon will be putting on a nice show this evening. Head out after dark, about 7pm, look in the direction of the sunset, and see for yourself!

The image below was generated for Gauteng province, South Africa.
A simulated view of the Moon and Mars passing near by each other at 6:55pm local time in South Africa. The Moon is a crescent, oriented so that it looks a bit like a shallow bowl on a table. The night-time part of the Moon is faintly visible as a dark circle, illuminated by light reflecting off of the Earth. Above and to the right is the planet Mars, appearing as a small disk coloured a dirty shade of orange-red. In reality it will not show as a disk, but a bright reddish star. The distance between the two is about three times the width of the Moon.
July 28, 2025 at 1:39 PM
uastronomer.mastodon.monoceros.co.za.ap.brid.gy
Oops.. DuckDuckGo broke!
DuckDuckGo page, after I searched for "Test". The results section is a single line reading: Sorry, we ran into an error displaying these results. Click here to try again.
July 16, 2025 at 12:51 PM
uastronomer.mastodon.monoceros.co.za.ap.brid.gy
Holy Moley! The stars were aligned, this is a personal best time!

https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2025-07-11-mini-crossword-11-july-2025/
The "Congratulations" page on the Daily Maverick mini-crossword, showing that I completed it in 17 seconds - a personal best!
July 11, 2025 at 7:28 AM
uastronomer.mastodon.monoceros.co.za.ap.brid.gy
Hahaha, oh no, it was a form letter! He mail-merged that stupid letter to all those countries!

#trump #tariff #funny #laughingstock
Donald Trump's stupid letter that he sent to lots of countries yesterday, with only the names and amounts changed. The text is too long to include as alt-text, but it alternates between fawning, threatening, and bone-headed rambling, regretfully informing the recipient that they've tried for years to be fair but their country has closed markets and it's so unfair, waah, so the USA is imposing a tariff and any retaliatory response will be just added to the existing tarif. It ends with a positive statement that invites further negotiation, and the following: "You will never be disappointed with The United States of America. Thank you for your attention to this matter!" and his trademark cartoonishly huge signature.
July 8, 2025 at 6:39 AM
uastronomer.mastodon.monoceros.co.za.ap.brid.gy
Folks, I'm officially a peasant.

https://www.idrlabs.com/food-choice/test.php
July 1, 2025 at 7:43 AM
uastronomer.mastodon.monoceros.co.za.ap.brid.gy
Okay it's late and I don't feel like writing alt-text for 45 of the ones I picked as album-worthy, so here's just two for now:
A young male cheetah, stretching just like a house cat. It's rump is high, it's shoulders low, front paws on a log, all four legs straight, head up and mouth open in a wide yawn, fangs on display. It is wearing a tracking collar. A young martial eagle, perched on top of a thorn tree. It's body is facing us, and it's looking to its left so we can see the hook of its beak and the feathery tufts that look a bit like swept back ears. Because it is still so young, it has light colouring, with a white underside. It's also a bit plump and fluffy, almost like an owl.
June 24, 2025 at 8:25 PM
uastronomer.mastodon.monoceros.co.za.ap.brid.gy
Of the 1000 photos, at least half are desperate, blurred attempts to get one single decent shot of a swift on the wing.

Holy hell those things move fast. Standing on a rock on top of a mountain spinning around trying to keep the damn things in frame […]

[Original post on mastodon.monoceros.co.za]
A bird, probably a common swift, with dark colouring and a white belly, banking in flight against a powder blue sky. It is facing almost directly towards from us, so there's not much to see: the wings are just a straight line and the body is an oval, showing the white underside. The face and head are lost against the body's silhouette, with just a hint of the beak catching the morning sunlight. A bird, probably a common swift, with dark colouring and a white belly, banking in flight against a distant landscape, greyed by the the morning haze. The bird is far from us, turning hard enough that it is almost completely on its side, presenting it's top side to us. It is between us and the Sun so we just see its silhouette, but the tapered body and sharply curved shape of the wings are clear. A bird, probably a common swift, with mostly dark colouring except for a grey belly flying level against a powder blue sky. It is above us and heading towards us, about to fly overhead and disappear behind us. Two other similar birds are visible, much higher and blurred from the speed at which I had to swing the camera to keep the main bird in frame. A bird, probably a common swift, with mostly dark colouring except for a grey belly and white throat flying level against a powder blue sky. It is above us and heading right, catching just enough sunlight to reveal its face and colouring.
June 24, 2025 at 7:53 PM
uastronomer.mastodon.monoceros.co.za.ap.brid.gy
Just remembered the time I saw an american Truck youtuber (real trucks, horse and trailer, 18 wheels, not the smaller things people drive as personal vehicles) answering a question about the difference between these two styles of Tractor (the front […]

[Original post on mastodon.monoceros.co.za]
A modern Volvo truck, or 'tractort ('Semi', in america). The engine sits on top of the front wheels, and the driver's cab is above the engine. This makes a very compact layout which puts the driver right at the front. They probably have a better view of the road in front of their wheels than most car drivers, making it easy for them to navigate busy roads or loading yards without a spotter standing outside. American style truck (what they call the tractor part of a semi-trailer rig). Bright orange paint job and loads of chrome. It's shaped a bit like a car - an enormous box in front with the engine, a huge chrome grill, a huge solid chrome front bumper practically dragging on the road, tall chrome chimneys extending almost doubling the height of the truck, and what looks like a porta-loo between the cab and the bit where the trailer hooks on. Although the cab is about as big as my car, it has a narrow slitty windscreen, and is so far behind the huge engine bay that I doubt the driver can see anything on the road closer than a hundred meters. This thing looks like it could tow a small european nation, and is about as big as the trailer it's supposed to haul.
June 15, 2025 at 9:46 AM
uastronomer.mastodon.monoceros.co.za.ap.brid.gy
@GrahamDowns @jmopp Jeyes Fluid ingredients:
Carbolic Acid Coefficient 4 to 6 Black Coal-Tar
Official product photo of Jeyes Fluid, a strong-smelling disinfectant cleaning liquid, used on floors, toilets, etc. The container is painted blue, with a mostly yellow logo ("Jeyes Fluid the strong one"). There is a red house behind the 'J' in the product name.
June 5, 2025 at 10:53 AM
uastronomer.mastodon.monoceros.co.za.ap.brid.gy
Yes. This has made me
May 14, 2025 at 10:47 AM
uastronomer.mastodon.monoceros.co.za.ap.brid.gy
You sometimes see artwork like this, and it's supposed to represent some sort of uber alpha super male and all I see is a poor man who was in a terrible motorcycle accident and this alien-looking fizzog is the best the surgeons could do when putting him back together.
weird stylized male beauty ideal for incels. Picture skeletor but add a square snowplow chin, collagen-inflated lips, and a half-sized nose. Beautifully coiffed hair that needs lots of time and product. He has a pair of bulging muscles on his throat for some reason, either side of where his adam's apple should be.
May 12, 2025 at 8:32 AM
uastronomer.mastodon.monoceros.co.za.ap.brid.gy
Ridiculous minimalist sunset
Sunset. Various trees, including some palm trees and dead tree trunks overgrown with vines, are silhouetted in the foreground and middleground. Behind them all, a washed out datk dusty blue sky with a few long narrow fluffy clouds running in shallow diagonals across the image, dark in the twilight. Behind them, and low on the horizon, a few more clouds catch the last rays of the sun, in dazzling bright shades of orange and yellow.
April 22, 2025 at 3:57 PM
uastronomer.mastodon.monoceros.co.za.ap.brid.gy
Hands up, who thinks Harrismith's mountain is at least as stunning as Cape Town's?
Aerial view of the town of Harrismith in the Free State province of South Africa. In the background, the 'Platberg' mountain (literal translation: flat mountain). The mountain is a 9 kilometers long, 2.4km high mesa, with steep cliff-like sides and a vast flat plateau for a peak. It's similar in shape to Cape Town's famous, but much smaller, Table Mountain.
April 12, 2025 at 10:50 AM
uastronomer.mastodon.monoceros.co.za.ap.brid.gy
I don't drink a lot of red wine, but when I do, I hope it's as good as this:
A bottle of Blue Owl pinotage
March 28, 2025 at 7:02 PM
uastronomer.mastodon.monoceros.co.za.ap.brid.gy
Oh no, another loadshedding warning

#eskom
POWER ALERT 1 Eskom warns of high risk of loadshedding due to six generation units taken offline over the past twelve hours. Monday, 24 March 2025: Eskom has issued an urgent alert regarding a high risk of loadshedding at short notice this evening due to several generation unit breakdowns. Over the past 12 hours, six generation units have been taken offline, placing severe strain on the power system and requiring the use of emergency reserves. If an additional 800MW is lost, Eskom will be compelled to implement Stage 2 loadshedding at short notice. Efforts are underway to return seven generation units to service between the evening peak and Tuesday evening. Our teams are closely monitoring the situationm and further updates will be provided at 22:00 or earlier if necessary. Ends.
March 24, 2025 at 5:03 PM