I've been away for a few days, attending my son's graduation and found a burn mark on the papers on my desk when I returned. I have a paperweight in the form of a transparent glass globe, which I had left holding down some papers because I had the window open in the hot weather before I left.

The glass globe had evidently focused the afternoon sun onto the paper and burnt it. It had gone through 3 sheets. I'm damned lucky it didn't set the whole room on fire.

Definite learning point there.

Not a good idea.
What keeps the globe from rolling and your papers getting scattered all over ?
You came close to a disastrous paper mess.

Sarcasm; not too good so I thought I'd explain.

A message from God? You've been quite involved in religious topics lately. Think about it. To positive effect in the eyes of the Lord no doubt. 😉

Congratulations on your kid's graduation, btw. A proud day for any father.

52 minutes ago, exchemist said:

I've been away for a few days, attending my son's graduation and found a burn mark on the papers on my desk when I returned. I have a paperweight in the form of a transparent glass globe, which I had left holding down some papers because I had the window open in the hot weather before I left.

The glass globe had evidently focused the afternoon sun onto the paper and burnt it. It had gone through 3 sheets. I'm damned lucky it didn't set the whole room on fire.

Definite learning point there.

During the winter of discontent in around 1970(the 3 day week ,was it?) I left my room when the electricity went ,leaving the 3 bar electric fire on (but off).

When I returned, maybe 8 or 9 hours later the electricity had returned and my room had gone up in smoke.

I was advised that when the power returns after such an outage it can come back stronger and my foam chair was so close that it caught fire.

I had several fires before and since (well in the past now) so lessons may not have been drawn in my case.

Edited July 5Jul 5 by geordief

Apparently, the focus doesn't need to be great to make it dangerous.

1 hour ago, MigL said:

Not a good idea.
What keeps the globe from rolling and your papers getting scattered all over ?
You came close to a disastrous paper mess.

Sarcasm; not too good so I thought I'd explain.

Globe has a flat bottom.

But clearly a lousy idea for a paperweight.

1 hour ago, joigus said:

A message from God? You've been quite involved in religious topics lately. Think about it. To positive effect in the eyes of the Lord no doubt. 😉

Congratulations on your kid's graduation, btw. A proud day for any father.

Haha, I prefer the science explanation. But maybe it's a signal that I need to be more careful. Now that I'm getting old and forgetful, I need to be aware of such things.

Regarding my son's graduation, thanks. I was slightly surprised to find that my son's MA hood and gown at St. Andrew's were identical to the one I had at Oxford. I had imagined all these universities would have their own designs. Also the Bachelor one e.g. BSc for the science grads is almost the same too - white rabbit fur lining, though they have a magenta strip that we didn't have.

However the PhD gown at St. A is something else: sky blue. Quite striking. (The Oxford D Phil one is blue and red: my friend from uni days, now married to my then girlfriend, looks like an exotic parrot at gaudies.) I chatted to an evangelical vicar and his charming wife from Preston (whom I had sat next to at the ceremony and chatted up). He had been awarded a PhD for a study of the 12 minor prophets of the Old Testament - most of whom I had never heard of, apart from Micah. She had come dressed in sky blue as well. They made a striking couple.

I was quite sad to take the train back to London. He's been happy there and very much at home. Now it is all uncertainty and rootlessness again for him. The jobs market in the UK is pretty bad now for graduates, not helped by bloody AI.

52 minutes ago, exchemist said:

not helped by bloody AI.

Oh, I'm absolutely convinced it's got the potential to be for us what the asteroid was for the dinosaurs.

Some furry scuttling things will take over.

It's time to keep a low profile perhaps, find a cozy niche of some kind.

24 minutes ago, joigus said:

Oh, I'm absolutely convinced it's got the potential to be for us what the asteroid was for the dinosaurs.

Some furry scuttling things will take over.

It's time to keep a low profile perhaps, find a cozy niche of some kind.

Yeah he's taking a year off, starting with a job in Italy, to try to get fluent in Italian, to add to his French and English. He's got an EU passport so maybe he can find something in the EU later on. To prepare, he's working his way through The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy in Italian, which his girlfriend got for him. Vogone prostetnico Jeltz.

3 hours ago, exchemist said:

To prepare, he's working his way through The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy in Italian, which his girlfriend got for him. Vogone prostetnico Jeltz.

Can't help but wonder how one would translate Vogon poetry into another language.

Imagine being the translator and confronting this bit of verse...

Oh freddled gruntbuggly,

Thy micturations are to me, (with big yawning)

As plurdled gabbleblotchits,

On a lurgid bee,

That mordiously hath blurted out,

Its earted jurtles, grumbling

Into a rancid festering confectious organ squealer.

Congratulations to your son, btw. And may I recommend the excellent features of the humble brick, as paperweight?

This is crazy! I never thought a glass paperweight could catch fire. You're lucky you didn't make it worse.

But it certainly reminded me of this. Thanks so much for your post, it's very useful!

When we were kids, one of my uncle's wooden porch caught on fire from the afternoon sun shining through a glass gallon jug full of water. Fortunately, it was put out before leaving anything worse than some charred wood and paint behind.

Edited July 6Jul 6 by npts2020
clarify

4 hours ago, exchemist said:

starting with a job in Italy

Are you kidding?
Nobody works in Italy.

I must have missed it, and Congrats to him and you.
What program did he graduate from ?

1 hour ago, TheVat said:

Can't help but wonder how one would translate Vogon poetry into another language.

Imagine being the translator and confronting this bit of verse...

I tried three times to get this: "Ode a un piccolo pezzo di stucco verde che ho trovato sotto l'ascella una mattina di mezza estate", before realizing it's not Vogon. It's from one of the Azgoths of Kria, the second worst poetry in the galaxy. "Putty" is the tough bit, seems to be an English thing. Italians call it mastic or stucco.

4 hours ago, Olivia Chen said:

This is crazy! I never thought a glass paperweight could catch fire. You're lucky you didn't make it worse.

But it certainly reminded me of this. Thanks so much for your post, it's very useful!

That response makes no sense. Are you a human being or a bot?

3 hours ago, MigL said:

Are you kidding?
Nobody works in Italy.

I must have missed it, and Congrats to him and you.
What program did he graduate from ?

They work in the north. It’s south of Rome where things get iffy.

He will be between Genoa and Milan. The job is a thing called Workaway, whereby you do temporary work in exchange for board and lodging and get some free time to experience the place. He has a GCSE in Italian and is fluent in French so getting fluent in Italian in a couple of months should be feasible. His Scottish girlfriend will have a job in Madrid teaching English as a 2nd language and there is talk of him moving on there to pick up Spanish as well. We’ll see. His mother spoke French, English, Dutch, Spanish and Portuguese, so maybe he has inherited her linguistic aptitude. He certainly does not get it from me.

His degree is in Ancient History and Archaeology. Dissertation on the cultural significance, trading and manufacture of (so-called) Egyptian faïence in the Eastern Mediterranean, before the Bronze Age Collapse. Quite interesting actually.

15 hours ago, exchemist said:

I've been away for a few days, attending my son's graduation and found a burn mark on the papers on my desk when I returned. I have a paperweight in the form of a transparent glass globe, which I had left holding down some papers because I had the window open in the hot weather before I left.

The glass globe had evidently focused the afternoon sun onto the paper and burnt it. It had gone through 3 sheets. I'm damned lucky it didn't set the whole room on fire.

Definite learning point there.

MythBusters did an episode in which something like this was tested:

MythBusters Episode 217: Household Disasters

Premier Date: July 17, 2014

...

A dog bowl can focus the sun’s rays at a small enough point to start a fire due to it being very hot.

CONFIRMED

The Build Team sets up a table on a wooden deck outside on a sunny day, made to look like a picnic, and put out highly flammable objects to improve their chances. This includes dried flowers, decaying wood, and paper. They set two types of dog bowls, metal and glass, in various sizes to focus the sun’s rays. Due to high humidity and wind, they use a theatrical light to warm up the set, replicating ideal conditions of the summer. The temperature of the set was 105 °F (41 °C), with 12% humidity. After two minutes, the glass bowls started a fire on the set, confirming the myth under ideal conditions.

(This segment was not shown in the U.S. broadcast.)

...

There was also the 20 Fenchurch Street skyscraper in London, nicknamed "The Walkie-Talkie", which during its construction, due to its concave reflective surfaces, focused sunlight onto the street below, causing damage to parked vehicles.

6 hours ago, exchemist said:

His degree is in Ancient History and Archaeology. Dissertation on the cultural significance, trading and manufacture of (so-called) Egyptian faïence in the Eastern Mediterranean, before the Bronze Age Collapse. Quite interesting actually.

Ahh, nice.
I find ancient Mediterranean and Middle Eastern history interesting also.
And he didn't want to follow in dad's footsteps, which to be honest I find very boring also, after working with chemicals for 38 years.
( although it has provided me with a good living )

1 hour ago, MigL said:

Ahh, nice.
I find ancient Mediterranean and Middle Eastern history interesting also.
And he didn't want to follow in dad's footsteps, which to be honest I find very boring also, after working with chemicals for 38 years.
( although it has provided me with a good living )

No he reverted to the interests of his grandfather and great grandfather, history. But I suspect part of it was wanting to plough his own furrow and thereby escape the shadow of his STEM parents.

4 hours ago, KJW said:

MythBusters did an episode in which something like this was tested:

MythBusters Episode 217: Household Disasters

Premier Date: July 17, 2014

...

A dog bowl can focus the sun’s rays at a small enough point to start a fire due to it being very hot.

CONFIRMED

The Build Team sets up a table on a wooden deck outside on a sunny day, made to look like a picnic, and put out highly flammable objects to improve their chances. This includes dried flowers, decaying wood, and paper. They set two types of dog bowls, metal and glass, in various sizes to focus the sun’s rays. Due to high humidity and wind, they use a theatrical light to warm up the set, replicating ideal conditions of the summer. The temperature of the set was 105 °F (41 °C), with 12% humidity. After two minutes, the glass bowls started a fire on the set, confirming the myth under ideal conditions.

(This segment was not shown in the U.S. broadcast.)

...

There was also the 20 Fenchurch Street skyscraper in London, nicknamed "The Walkie-Talkie", which during its construction, due to its concave reflective surfaces, focused sunlight onto the street below, causing damage to parked vehicles.

Haha I remember that one. Somebody's Jag got melted - at least some panels and mirrors. I think they had to fit some kind of shading on the windows to stop it. It wasn't just because it was under construction; it was a problem intrinsic to the design.

16 hours ago, Phi for All said:

I tried three times to get this: "Ode a un piccolo pezzo di stucco verde che ho trovato sotto l'ascella una mattina di mezza estate", before realizing it's not Vogon. It's from one of the Azgoths of Kria, the second worst poetry in the galaxy. "Putty" is the tough bit, seems to be an English thing. Italians call it mastic or stucco.

That's the uniquely disturbing work of Grunthos the Flatulent if I'm not mistaken. We are all mere putty in his hands (or whatever those appendages are). Putty that wishes fervently to die soon.

Putty che desidera ardentemente morire presto!

5 hours ago, exchemist said:

Haha I remember that one. Somebody's Jag got melted - at least some panels and mirrors. I think they had to fit some kind of shading on the windows to stop it. It wasn't just because it was under construction; it was a problem intrinsic to the design.

As an amateur architect, I remember following this story - I think they called the building the Walkie-talkie. That was when I learned of the famous Carbuncle Cup, which it won that year. The term "fryscraper" was also coined. I should really start a thread on architectural abominations.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbuncle_Cup

Edited July 6Jul 6 by TheVat

1 hour ago, TheVat said:

That's the uniquely disturbing work of Grunthos the Flatulent if I'm not mistaken. We are all mere putty in his hands (or whatever those appendages are). Putty that wishes fervently to die soon.

Putty che desidera ardentemente morire presto!

As an amateur architect, I remember following this story - I think they called the building the Walkie-talkie. That was when I learned of the famous Carbuncle Cup, which it won that year. The term "fryscraper" was also coined. I should really start a thread on architectural abominations.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbuncle_Cup

Yes "carbuncle" would be a reference to Prince Charles, as he then was, commenting on the extension to the National Gallery which he described as "a monstrous carbuncle on the face of a well-loved friend" or something. Fryscraper is new to me however.

Another screw up in London was the hotel at the top of the Shard at London Bridge. People quickly discovered that the angles of the glass produced reflections that allowed them to see into one anothers' bedrooms.😁