The float has lodged on the frame and was thus not able to fall low enough to turn the pump
off. I'll have to tidy the whole thing out and test it, once we have more water. At any
rate enough water had gathered in the sump overnight that I could pump it out, apparently
showing that the pump has not been (seriously) damaged.
The state government has imposed stricter rules for non-compliance with COVID-19
restrictions. If you're positive and don't abide by the self-quarantine requirements, you
can be fined $1,652. And if you're caught a second time, you can be fined $4,957. This is
what alerted the news media, who report it typically as “about $3,500”, politely omitting
their reference to US currency or to the second time. To quote the New York Times:
Nearly everyone traveling for a job deemed essential must carry a signed work permit. And
after a campaign to check in on people with Covid-19 found that one in four was not at
home, a fine equivalent to about $3,500 was established for future violators. Some of the
new rules have led to widespread confusion, with unclear guidance for everything from
dog-walking to seeing romantic partners.
Good! It should be higher. In fact, it can be. Those are on-the-spot fines (you do
have that much cash on you, right?). The $1,652 can be extended to $10,000 in court for
repeat offenders, and the $4,957 can be extended to $20,000 for repeat offenders (isn't that
what the $4,957 is for)? Still not enough considering the damage it can do; $50,000
wouldn't be too high.
But why these strange sums for the on-the-spot fines? They're in penalty units, of (currently) $165.22, so the first one is 10 units, and the second
one is 30 units. Does that make sense? I can't decide, but at least I have an explanation.
This one was mainly of interest because of all the litter left behind. But it would seem
that two cars came along too fast, and to avoid collision they left the road and collided
with vegetation instead.
Only: if that's what happened, they left to the right. Why? We drive on the left round
here.
The US Americans have a mania for measuring foodstuffs by the volume of some not clearly
defined household device that wasn't designed for this purpose, notably spoons and cups.
I've ranted about this at length. There
are three basic issues:
Measuring by volume, even in controlled circumstances, is not very accurate; the best
you can hope for is 1%, and 3% is more likely. By contrast, most 1 kg scales (say 500 g
average weight) are precise to about 100 mg, 0.02%.
Measuring solids by volume is difficult because granularity can change the density of
the product.
Using substitute measures like spoons and cups introduces the largest error yet: even in
the USA, home of such things, “cup” can refer to 6 different volumes between 84 ml
(“small” cup on coffee machines) to 240 ml.
All these were done with naturally heaped teaspoons. Interestingly, and contrary to my
expectations, the kind of salt didn't make a big difference to the weight: it's within
experimental error (table salt was the heaviest from spoon 1, the lightest from spoon 2).
I also tried as level as possible a spoon (spoon 1) of table salt and got 5.35 g.
In the past I have tried to measure the volume of teaspoon 2 (level) and come up with a
volume of about 3.5 ml. In the USA, a "teaspoon" is defined as 4.93 ml (customary) or 5 ml
(legal, § 101.9 paragraph (b)(5)(viii)), in other countries only 5 ml, all larger than
any teaspoon I have measured.
The difference between definitely too little salt and definitely too much salt is probably
about 30%. Here we have a difference of 300%. That's a perfect way to ruin a dish. And
why?
We're still not home with correct preparation of steak and kidney pie. Last time I baked at the bottom of the
oven for 20 minutes, followed by 5 minutes with the top element. The main issue there was
to cook the dough under the filling, but I hadn't wanted to cook in two different ways.
Today I tried a different tack: cook the dough underneath by itself before filling, this
time for 5 minutes at 180° in the “coffee machine” “air fryer”:
OK? Somehow the browning seemed too uneven. But we're getting there.
This page contains (roughly) yesterday's and today's entries. I have
a horror of reverse chronological documents, so
all my diary entries are chronological. This page normally contains the last two days,
but if I fall behind it may contain more. You can find older entries in
the archive. Note that I often update a diary entry
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