what I have learned today.

[Pingu]

What an IDP is (prompted by  Mr Larrington) and that we don't need one for next month.

[Mr Larrington]

Today I are learning that novelist and great ponce Martin Amis wrote a book entitled “Invasion of the Space Invaders: An Addict's Guide to Battle Tactics, Big Scores and the Best Machines”, not as an attempt to win some kind of literary prize for “Most Pretentious Title” but as, well, a guide to Space Invaders.  With a foreword by Steven Spielberg.

[Snakehips]

I have discovered that there is a golf tournament (with much associated hoo-hah) called LIV, which has nothing to do with a female specific bicycle brand of the same name. The golf LIV relating to the Roman numerals for 54 which is something to do with the number of holes played (or public executions carried out during the tournament, or something else).

Also I discovered that there is a thing called a Presta Schrader rim hole grommet which allows the use of a tube with a Presta valve on a rim with a Schrader sized hole.  According to one source, these are 'often' supplied with Presta equipped tubes. How come I've never even seen one?

[Tim Hall]

Also I discovered that there is a thing called a Presta Schrader rim hole grommet which allows the use of a tube with a Presta valve on a rim with a Schrader sized hole.  According to one source, these are 'often' supplied with Presta equipped tubes. How come I've never even seen one?

I have two. One make of Presta tubes (Specialized maybe) features valve lock rings with an ridge on them that locates into the Schrader sized hole too.

[Cudzoziemiec]

They come as standard with Continental tubes (which I like purely for their yellow valve caps; yellow is fast, so my valves overtake my rims, or something).

[Legs]

They come as standard with Continental tubes (which I like purely for their yellow valve caps; yellow is fast, so my valves overtake my rims, or something).

When it's at the top of the wheel, the valve cap is going nearly twice as fast as your bike! 

[Snakehips]

They come as standard with Continental tubes

OMG , so they do!

[Mr Larrington]

Grommets, eh?  Aren't they, like, people who really enjoy their food?

["No. No they are not." - Ed.

[T42]

Yesterday: that my favourite pizzeria for lunch on a favourite 150-200k bummel is closed at lunchtime on Saturdays.

[Auntie Helen]

That all German addresses must have a house number and it must be visibly displayed. You could be fined if it can’t be seen from the road.

[Mr Larrington]

Miss von Brandenburg's parents' (numbered) front door faces out onto a footpath and I don’t recall seeing a number next to their back door.

[Auntie Helen]

I just checked with my GerMan and he said “yes, from the road” but I only found this when searching:

‘Die wichtigste Vorschrift zur Hausnummer steht im Baugesetzbuch. § 26 trifft hier eine unmissverständliche Regelung: "Der Eigentümer hat sein Grundstück mit der von der Gemeinde festgesetzten Nummer zu versehen."’ (The most important regulation on house numbers is in the Building Code. § Section 26 contains an unambiguous regulation: "The owner must provide his property with the number determined by the municipality.)

The Municipality then adds its own extra rules.

[Basil]

A new (to me) verb learned whilst chatting with the local painter and decorator last night.
To carcher.
Seems someone was carchering the building he'll be working on later in the week.  I had no idea and had to have it explained.
A bit like using the verb 'to hoover', it describes what you are doing, but not necessarily using that particular brand.

[spesh]

A new (to me) verb learned whilst chatting with the local painter and decorator last night.
To carcher.
Seems someone was carchering the building he'll be working on later in the week.  I had no idea and had to have it explained.
A bit like using the verb 'to hoover', it describes what you are doing, but not necessarily using that particular brand.

TIL that Kärcher (which is what I think is meant above) started off making industrial immersion heaters for use in smelting before switching to making pressure washers.

[T42]

A new (to me) verb learned whilst chatting with the local painter and decorator last night.
To carcher.
Seems someone was carchering the building he'll be working on later in the week.  I had no idea and had to have it explained.
A bit like using the verb 'to hoover', it describes what you are doing, but not necessarily using that particular brand.

TIL that Kärcher (which is what I think is meant above) started off making industrial immersion heaters for use in smelting before switching to making pressure washers.

Best-known brand of pressure-washers in France, and invariably mispronounced.  Sarko once said that he'd like to clean out the banlieue with one.

Coincidentally, the gadget I used on our windows today was also by them, a vacuum squeegee that sucked up the water as you squeeged it off the window. Bloody brilliant.

[rafletcher]

What Donk- and Swampbuggy- and Crown Vic-on-nitrous- racing are. In Florida, natch.

[Mr Larrington]

Today I are learning that a “chodbin” is also a container for the storage of chod rigs, which has something to do with carp fishing.  It is thus important not to get the two meanings confused.

[The Family Cyclist]

That I am a riparian owner

This is because for those who don't know, which I didn't till I had a discussion with a neighbour recently, I have a brook running through the end of my garden

[ElyDave]

Lease the fishing rights

[The Family Cyclist]

Lease the fishing rights

We used to get minnows which were a PITA as would be watering the garden and a fish would fall put onto the soil and need returning to the water

[T42]

There is a snail farm in the next village but one from ours, about 3 km away.

[ElyDave]

at least you'll have time to pack if they go rogue and escape 

[MattH]

There is an algorithm which determines whether a given set of sections provides a basis (up to torsion) for the Mordell–Weil group of an elliptic surface E → S, where S is isomorphic to the projective line.

It's called the Cox-Zucker machine.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cox%E2%80%93Zucker_machine

[spesh]

There are tiny mites which live in our facial skin pores - and they may be about to go extinct.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/newsbeat-61894186
 

[orienteer]

The logical conclusion from that is we should all be kissing more often to improve their chances of survival.