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April 16

Historical cloud coverage data

I'm starting to make my travel plans to view the April 8, 2024 solar eclipse. Obviously a major consideration is the possibility of cloud cover, which could interfere with viewing the eclipse. So I'd like to see data on cloud conditions at various possible sites on the eclipse path around April 8 in previous years. I've tried looking on the ncie.noaa.gov web site, but if the data is available there I haven't been able to find it. Does anyone know of a way to get this type of data? CodeTalker (talk) 20:26, 16 April 2022 (UTC)

No to your specific question about the NOAA site, CodeTalker, but you can get the information from the American Astronomical Society's dedicated solar eclipse website here – it covers both the 2024 total eclipse and the 2023 annular eclipse whose totality paths cross the USA.

If you look at the website's first drop-down menu "Eclipse America" you'll see there's an item "April 2024 Solar Eclipse". Click on that and you'll be taken to a section which includes a 'heat map' showing the median cloud amounts for April.

Good luck for the event! I travelled from the UK to northern France to see the 1999 total eclipse; despite the broken thin cloud at the observing site, it was still a wonderful experience. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.197.101.71 (talk) 07:56, 17 April 2022 (UTC)

Annularity is a word. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 18:54, 17 April 2022 (UTC)

Yes, it is. Your point? {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.197.101.71 (talk) 21:53, 17 April 2022 (UTC)

So next year will have a path of annularity. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 01:36, 18 April 2022 (UTC)

Technically true, but I didn't want to complicate the sentence unnecessarily with a detail that is doubtless obvious to the OP, and one might counter-argue that within that path, the Moon's limb is totally inside the Sun's :-). {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.197.101.71 (talk) 03:53, 18 April 2022 (UTC)

Some information here. Alansplodge (talk) 07:45, 17 April 2022 (UTC)

The website Weather Underground has historical weather information from thousands of weather stations around the world. For example, [here is the information from a weather station near me, from April 18, 2018. --Jayron32 16:44, 18 April 2022 (UTC)

Thanks to all for your help. The heat map referred to by 90.197.101.71 looks particularly useful. CodeTalker (talk) 04:41, 19 April 2022 (UTC)

April 19

Triple insomnia

Apologies if this isn't an appropriate forum. Just shut me down.

I've never had any trouble going to sleep (just ask any of the hundreds of people I've slept with). But for the last 20 years or so, I have the issue of often waking up way too early - anywhere from 1 am to 5 am. Sometimes I go back to sleep, but mostly not. So I tend to get up after 15 minutes, and go and do something useful like editing Wikipedia.

I have a bedside clock, which is why I know the exact time I wake up. For the past 5 years or so, I've noticed the time is often 1:11, 2:22, 3:33 or 4:44. These instances probably account for at least half the times I wake up early.

I doubt there's any reference about this phenomenon, and it doesn't bother me, but I am increasingly curious about it. Does anyone have any insight about it? -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 22:12, 19 April 2022 (UTC)

My guess would be confirmation bias or frequency illusion, or some similar cognitive bias. Basically you don't remember the times it isn't one of those times. But it's just a guess. --Trovatore (talk) 22:26, 19 April 2022 (UTC)

Also salience bias. --Trovatore (talk) 23:18, 19 April 2022 (UTC)

What would happen if you covered up the clock, or turned it round? I'm suggesting that maybe you read and process the time even while asleep. Here's a random paper on pubmed, Standing sentinel during human sleep: Continued evaluation of environmental stimuli in the absence of consciousness, which I quickly searched for to back up this outrageous supposition. Doesn't really explain why you'd wake up when all three digits are the same, but maybe it disturbs you because it's been on your mind. There's also Biphasic_and_polyphasic_sleep#Biphasic sleep to suggest that waking up for a while in the night is a natural thing to do.  Card Zero  (talk) 23:08, 19 April 2022 (UTC)

Coincidentally I read in a recent issue of Fortean Times of someone else who regularly woke up at 1:11, 2:22, 3:33 or 4:44, so you are not alone (unless that was you). Unfortunately I don't keep back copies so I can't provide a reference. Shantavira|^{feed me} 08:23, 20 April 2022 (UTC),

Another sufferer here in Yoga Digest - apparently it means that "you are in alignment and the universe is letting you know that". Alansplodge (talk) 17:35, 20 April 2022 (UTC)

No, it was not I, Shantavira. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 21:02, 20 April 2022 (UTC)

If you've slept with that many people, you probably need to sort your chakras out, mate. Or better still get a 24-hour bedside clock. Martinevans123 (talk) 18:11, 20 April 2022 (UTC)

Good point - if Jack could get a clock that displays in hexadecimal, he would presumably wake up at 1:17 (0x 1:11), 2:34 (0x 2:22) and 3:51 (0x 3:33).  Card Zero  (talk) 20:35, 20 April 2022 (UTC)

Of just take a lie in. Martinevans123 (talk) 21:24, 20 April 2022 (UTC)

Get a dial clock with actual hands, and see if you start waking at five to one, ten to two, quarter to three, (symmetry) or perhaps ten to four, five to five, and six o'clock (hands lined up). Get in touch with a sleep laboratory, and you could have a long career as a sleep guinea pig ahead of you (if you can persuade your many partners to join you). -- Verbarson  ^talk_edits 09:03, 21 April 2022 (UTC)

April 22

Swedish book covers

I was looking at the article for The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and noticed the image in the infobox. I immediately thought that it was strange to use a magazine cover for the infobox of a book. I thought that maybe we were using a magazine cover where they were discussing the book or where it had been released as a serial or some such. Then I read the caption and such, and saw that it's the actual cover of the book. The next two books in the series are the same way. To my American eyes, it seems like a magazine cover. See Good Housekeeping for example. Even mass market paperbacks like those sold in our grocery stores in the States generally only have maybe one quote from a critic on the cover. And besides the title and author, that's about all the text you'll see on the cover.

So, long story short... Do books in Sweden normally have so much text on the cover?

Thanks, †dismas†|^(talk) 15:56, 22 April 2022 (UTC)

Spot checking various books at Category:Swedish novels confirms that, no, Swedish books do not normally look like those of the Millenium series. It appears that the publisher made a deliberate design choice when creating the articles to look like magazine covers; it was probably done for aesthetic reasons; since all of the books in the series (including those written after Larson's death) use the same design aesthetic, it appears to be something done for the series to provide it some cohesion and easy identifiability. --Jayron32 16:41, 22 April 2022 (UTC)

The articles The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and Millennium (novel series) note that the character Mikael Blomkvist is a journalist and co-owner of a magazine titled Millennium within the story. This is an autobiographical element since Stieg Larsson was a founder and editor of magazines such as Expo (magazine). The cover of the book has been designed as if it were an issue of the fictional magazine Millennium. --Amble (talk) 18:38, 22 April 2022 (UTC)

Gandhi (slang name)

What does it mean when someone calls you Gandhi or talks about him? For instance... In the film Hook, the grown-up Peter Pan said "Gandhi ate more than this" when he did not see food without his imagnation. In Mrs Doubtfire, when voice-actor Daniel Hillard protested cartoon smoking, his boss said if he wanted a pay cheque, he should stick to the script. If he wanted to play Gandhi, he should do it on somebody else's time. And he quit when he said in Gandhi's voice "Then I've got to do what I've got to do". In a MASH episode, Hawkeye asked if Radar was Mahatma Gandhi when he refused to go home after the death of his uncle. And in East is East, The obedient son Maneer was nicknamed Gandhi. 86.131.21.36 (talk) 19:24, 22 April 2022 (UTC)

In all but your last example, they're referring to the actual, one and only Gandhi. In the last, it's a nickname. So, no slang. However, Urban Dictionary lists a dubious slang meaning. Clarityfiend (talk) 21:04, 22 April 2022 (UTC)

"The one and only Gandhi"? For a long time, the person who would spring to mind at the mention of the word Gandhi was Indira Gandhi. Then her son Rajiv Gandhi. His widow Sonia Gandhi is still a significant person in Indian politics. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 22:01, 22 April 2022 (UTC)

If a know-it-all makes a smart alecky remark, they may then find themselves addressed as "Professor Einstein".^[1] And just like someone can be called "a little Hitler" (and a group of people a "bunch of Hitlers"^[2]), someone may be referred to as "a Gandhi". Depending on the mindset of the speaker, this may be appreciative or derogatory. While informal, I wouldn't qualify such uses as slang.  --Lambiam 09:37, 23 April 2022 (UTC)

So it means they refer to his non-violent actions, fight for civil rights and freedom and him being on hunger strikes? 86.131.21.36 (talk) 18:06, 23 April 2022 (UTC)