| Holly2003 17.07.2012 14:41 |
Live link here: http://www.abbeyroad.com/crossing/ Watch tourists recreate the famous Beatles Abbey Road album cover (even though it isn't the same one The Beatles used! It was moved down the road a bit for reasons unknown.) You can also play the Abbey Road Game -- guess how long it takes an irate motorist or white van man to get angry at a tourist. This works best between 7am and 7pm GMT. |
| waunakonor 17.07.2012 17:06 |
This is kind of awesome |
| The Real Wizard 17.07.2012 21:24 |
Indeed ! |
| GratefulFan 17.07.2012 21:44 |
That is really neat. I peeked at it earlier. Right now I'm fascinated by those road lines, which look to me to be related to state sanctioned drunk driving. I'm also fascinated by the flashing lamp posts. What's up with that? Anyway it's very, very quiet right now. Psssst. All the Europeans are sleeping! Let's get them! What should we do? I'm up for dipping the UK's hand in warm water and painting Ireland's toenails pink. |
| YourValentine 18.07.2012 02:00 |
I admit that my husband walked across that road barefoot when we first were in London and I took photos in 1997 but I do not remember the walk was so close to the crossing. Drivers in fact were quite angry about us tourists but we did not care that much. After all, we did not stop in the middle of the road or something like that. It gives me a funny feeling that I can watch unsuspecting people walk in the streets of London live on the net. Creepy. |
| emrabt 18.07.2012 05:03 |
Right now I'm fascinated by those road lines, which look to me to be related to state sanctioned drunk driving. I'm also fascinated by the flashing lamp posts. What's up with that? =================== It a zebra crossing, The flashing lights are warnings that you are approaching a zebra crossing, they never stop flashing, even in the day time. The Zig zag lines are indicators that you can not park or over take and to drive slowly (they are used outside school entrances and things) as pedestrians have the right of way. The broken white line means to slow down and Stop if someone is about to cross. This is to give people right of way in that area becuase they like to stand in middle of the road taking photos. |
| Holly2003 18.07.2012 08:40 |
White van man is going a bit crazy right now. In fact, I'm stunned no one has been seriously hurt at this crossing, mainly due to insane drivers. |
| GratefulFan 18.07.2012 13:00 |
emrabt wrote: It a zebra crossing, The flashing lights are warnings that you are approaching a zebra crossing, they never stop flashing, even in the day time.lol Thanks for the explanation on the lines. We tried lines in Canada but it just confused the moose and gave the beavers something to congregate around. Sigh. We get by. It's a bit surprising how fast those cars are coming on approach when it appears they just have to abruptly slow if a pedestrian happens to be there. Distracted for one second and you could be in big trouble. I guess they're used to it and prepared for it in a way that watching on the cam doesn't quite put across. |
| ParisNair 18.07.2012 14:23 |
It says right now 8:22 pm, but its light as day. What's the deal with that? |
| GratefulFan 18.07.2012 14:39 |
Ha. That's interesting ParisNair. I forget exactly where you are in India, but London is more than 32 degrees farther north than Mumbai. The farther you get from the equator the greater the seasonal discrepancy in the length of daylight vs. the length of darkness. At the equator light and darkness is about 12 hours each regardless of the season, but in the summer time places like London have much longer hours of daylight, with the longest day coming at the summer solstice on or about June 21. On this day where I live it's still light until nearly 10:00 at night. Conversely, the days of longest darkness are in the winter, with the shortest day of the year coming on or about December 21 when it will be dark before 5:00 pm. inu-liger in Edmonton probably sees daylight until 11 pm, or more, at the peak of the summer. It also makes twilight much longer, relative to sunsets that happen very fast at or near the equator. |
| The Real Wizard 18.07.2012 16:25 |
^ the first Queenzone astronomy lesson not taught by Brian May. Bravo ! |
| GratefulFan 18.07.2012 22:50 |
I was oddly happy to type that up. :) Most of us live and travel in fairly narrow bands of space, and schooling aside most of the real practical knowledge is local. We know intimately the norms for the places in which we spend the majority of our lives, and have some vague sense that the poles spend six months in constant darkness and the other six in constant sunlight, but I think we rarely stop to think about how and why that happens what goes on in between. I remember just such a moment that Paris Nair had here when somebody told me, well into adulthood, that the sunsets were really fast at the equator. "What's up with that?" :) I find it really cool to see the shifts as the lines of latitude move northward. It gives an awesome sense lost in the micro that we are indeed on a large ball spinning in the sky, and that our place on that ball drives some of the rhythms of our lives, which are different from the rhythms of other lives. Can you imagine, Bob, an approaching spring without that first joyous noting that it's 5 o'clock and it's not dark? Or imagine shutting an early winter evening out and withdrawing to the warmth and comfort of your home without shutting out the night too? If you live in Ecuador, like Julian Assange ;), you know none of that. You only know, maybe, a wet season and a dry season. Anyway, I realize I'm babbling but I just think it's something really cool to contemplate. A few examples follow from equatorial Ecuador through Mumbai, London, Iqaluit and Resolute Bay, the northernmost inhabited point in Canada where the sun is currently shining 24 hours a day. People who are interested in clicking will note both the ever lengthening days and the greater change in time of sunrise and sunset day over day as you move north. From less than a second change from one day to the next at the equator to more than five minutes at the more northerly latitudes as those areas move between ever increasing annual extremes of light and dark as you move northward. Of course the same is currently going on in the southern hemisphere but in reverse. It's winter there, the south pole is in darkness and their days shorten as the lines of latitude move south. Equatorial Ecuador: link Mumbai, India: link London, England: link Iqaluit, Canada: link Resolute Bay, Canada: link |
| emrabt 19.07.2012 06:30 |
It's a bit surprising how fast those cars are coming on approach when it appears they just have to abruptly slow if a pedestrian happens to be there. Distracted for one second and you could be in big trouble. I guess they're used to it and prepared for it in a way that watching on the cam doesn't quite put across. =============================== No it's really like that, It’s the same in the westend, You can tell the tourists from the people who live there, those who live there just have no care about stepping in the road and walking across, the tourists are far more cautious. |
| ParisNair 21.07.2012 12:30 |
GratefulFan wrote: Ha. That's interesting ParisNair. I forget exactly where you are in India, but London is more than 32 degrees farther north than Mumbai. The farther you get from the equator the greater the seasonal discrepancy in the length of daylight vs. the length of darkness. At the equator light and darkness is about 12 hours each regardless of the season, but in the summer time places like London have much longer hours of daylight, with the longest day coming at the summer solstice on or about June 21. On this day where I live it's still light until nearly 10:00 at night. Conversely, the days of longest darkness are in the winter, with the shortest day of the year coming on or about December 21 when it will be dark before 5:00 pm. inu-liger in Edmonton probably sees daylight until 11 pm, or more, at the peak of the summer. It also makes twilight much longer, relative to sunsets that happen very fast at or near the equator.Ah thanks for that reply :-) Now I recall reading somewhere/someone telling me that at the poles it can be constant day for months, and then night fo the next few months (or somethig like that). I do live in Mumbai, and out here, the duration of day and night does not vary much through out the year... |
| ParisNair 21.07.2012 12:31 |
And we don't have day-light saving time here :) |